Demystifying Black Boxes: Design, Power and Technological Concern Stephen Petrina & Richard Helem That’s how it is with people. No one cares how it works as long as it works. — Counsillor Hamann to Neo in The Matrix Reloaded “I learned that some people are evil sadists who don’t show the contents of black boxes to people even when they beg,” concluded a grade 8 boy after being confronted with an activity on design, power, and technological concern. A girl from the group said she “learned that black boxes are mysterious” and another said the black box was “like magic.” A second boy noted, “everything in the box is a secret.” This particular black box was designed by a team of preservice teachers to demonstrate power differentials between designers, engineers, programmers, and technicians on one side of the box and everyday users on the other. Despite abilities to fact check in this era of doublespeak and equivocation in politics, science, and technology, much of decision-making in everyday life is black boxed. In the mid 2000s, web 2.0 applications streamlined user-friendliness but obscured design and development through affordances such as style-sheets and templates. More and more seem to have less and less access to the inner workings of politics and technology. The less access we have to how things work the more apathetic we become about things not working, creating a regressive cycle of apathy, indifference, or powerlessness. Should the internal workings of the products of design, engineering, science, and technology be kept invisible? How about the processes? Why be concerned or care about the inner workings or workings of black boxes as long as they work? Why concern ourselves with details? Aren’t technological generalities good enough? Why can’t we be indifferent? If a black box is a Pandora’s box or can or worms, why not just leave it to experts? Who cares how things work? Who cares about the story?