The Glamour Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Computer for One Child (OLPC)

Feb 9, 2020

In her new book, The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Computer, One Child, Morgan G. Ames, assistant associate professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information into One Laptop per Child ) explores the rise and fall of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. In this book, Ames examines the utopian vision that drove the project and its failures in understanding the role of technology in education.

Formative period of OLPC

In the mid-2000s, OLPC projects were still very popular in Silicon Valley. The OLPC project was started in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab. Laptops, changing the lives of children in developing countries.

After talking to a friend who was interested in joining the group, Ames became intrigued by the project and began digging into some of its core assumptions. Ames explained, "It has since evolved into an important piece of history and then an ethnographic investigation of how the promise of OLPC is being fulfilled in children."

Ames began working on the OLPC program in 2007, shortly after graduating with a master's degree in information management and systems from the UC Berkeley School of Information, while she was doing her Ph.D. at Stanford University. She also earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from Berkeley and is excited to be back on campus as a faculty member: "I feel like, in many ways, this is my intellectual home."

By the spring of 2008, Ames began interviewing people involved in the project. However, around the same time, the project's co-founder Negroponte announced that he wanted to ditch the open-source software they planned to use on computers in favor of Windows. "This is a huge betrayal of everyone working on open source software for this project," Ames said. "So people were quitting — it was a disaster." As a result, many former employees simply didn't want to be associated with the project anymore, declining or not responding to her interview requests.

That's when she realized she could get more information elsewhere. “I actually found that their public discussions on mailing lists, online and elsewhere capture their thoughts on the project and the evolution of their thoughts on the project better than my interviews,” Ames said. After following the online posts, she set out to piece together a story about the use of laptops in the world. She then spent 3 years and 7 months in Paraguay, witnessing the use of XO laptops, talking to project leaders there, and spending time with those who received them.

How XO captivated Silicon Valley

While conducting research, Ames was drawn to the XO laptop's appeal to the tech industry. She observed how the laptop itself, rather than the people who inspired it, embodied the ambitious ideas behind the OLPC project. "I started thinking about how the laptop started to have its own authority in these circles: it was even mentioned that it was meant to represent a special joyful, technically deep experience that they wanted more kids to have a computer for," Ai said. James commented.

To better understand different forms of authority, she delved into sociological theory and applied Max Weber's concept of charismatic authority to the XO laptop. Ames relates this to the observation of scientific and technological research that machines themselves can have agency , transcending the intentions of their designers, to give meaning and action to the world. She also observes how the social sciences discuss authority, which is not a natural phenomenon but arises from a series of social choices and technological constraints that already exist.

"Glamour is ultimately conservative -- it may promise quick and painless improvements in our lives, but it's attractive because it just amplifies existing values and ideologies," Ames said.

According to Ames, the OLPC project's charismatic machines "promote a vision of a world where children in developing countries around the world will have the opportunity to have the same experiences these adults remember using computers". Working with early computers, understanding the ins and outs of machines and beginning to encode memories, is tied to the development of the XO laptop; Ames calls this homage to childhood experiences "nostalgic design ." In practice, this means that underpowered laptops lack features like graphics cards and large memory storage units that are increasingly important in a media-rich online world.

The mid-2000s saw hundreds of discussions on the Internet comparing XO laptops to Commodores, Amigas, and Apple IIs. These early computing systems were used decades ago by OLPC developers and many others. "Nostalgic design" proved to be a critical mistake, ignoring the needs and desires of children receiving laptops. "They wanted a computer that could take advantage of a rich media network, and the XO couldn't do that," Ames said.

Between Paraguayan children and aging machines

This disconnect between the developers of the OLPC project and the children from developing countries prevented them from achieving the utopian goals that once powered the project. In 2010, Ames found in Paraguay that more than half of children who received XO laptops were not interested in using them. The machine is 10 years behind and frustrating to use, and most people would rather go out and spend time with friends and family. About 15% of the machines were broken. Most of the rest want to use their laptops to surf the web, watch movies, listen to music and play simple games.

Still, there are some kids who have shown potential with the XO laptop. Ames highlights the distinction between consuming and productive behaviors, something that researchers in education often focus on, in part because OLPC programs specifically focus on children who exhibit more productive behaviors. While searching for kids who fit these criteria, she found a few: some who blog about photos, some who learn some basic repair skills, and some who join code clubs and are interested in Scratch.

"In 2010," she said, "there were about 4,000 kids with laptops, and maybe 40 kids were doing something like that." By 2013, almost no kids were using laptops.

Furthermore, Ames found that these children were successful not only because they were "naturally" interested, but mainly because of external reasons, mainly family reasons. She stressed that this is nothing new - educational research has shown that family and mentoring, as part of the social factors in the learning process, are critical to a child's educational success. Furthermore, the impact of this interest ended up being relatively small. "I think this project has enriched their lives in various ways, but I don't think it has changed their lives," Ames said.

The future of technology-driven education reform

Looking at the OLPC project in the context of the wider tech world, Ames found some similarities. "After OLPC, many technology development projects have become more humble," Ames commented, noting the more realistic goals of some recent technology projects. But more often, she encounters a "smartest person in the room" mentality, common in the tech world, that leans toward short-term "distractions" and Not effective education reform.

Reflecting on the current state of technology-driven educational reform programs, Ames noted, "people still tend to be hyper-utopian, totally disconnected from schools, totally disconnected from the actual experience of students and teachers." To counter the situation, she advises "not just Involve the locals, but really revolve around them and their needs, experiences and complexities.” By thinking about the social aspects of education and reflecting on the actual experiences of teachers and students, Ames believes future projects will achieve greater success.

"People are the source of education," Ames said. "Learning is social."

Compiled from: Morgan Ames' The Charisma Machine: A Deep Dive into One Laptop per Child