Fred Renard is a washed up failure sitting at a bar one night. He sees an old man, Pidott, selling odds and ends to people in the small bar. While he watches the old man shuffle around to the three or four other people in the room, Renard notices something strange about this salesman: Pidott somehow knows exactly what people really need—at least, that's the claim about his reputation.
In this episode of The Twilight Zone, the salesman starts talking to a woman, letting her browse through his briefcase of what, to me, looks like the junk drawer in my kitchen. He stops her and peers into her eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then says, "I know what you need." He gives her a bottle of all-purpose spot remover (how sexist of him, I think as I watch). He does the same ritual with a man at the counter who's downtrodden because an injury has forced him out of his professional baseball career. The item this man needed? Bus tickets to Scranton, Pennsylvania.
A call comes out of nowhere for the injured ex-baseball player (truly out of nowhere, since the call is coming from inside the bar at the payphone...). He hangs up and announces to the tiny group of people at the bar that he was offered a coaching job in, whaddaya know: Scranton, Pennsylvania. After a momentary celebration he's back down in the dumps because his shoddy suit would surely go against his new prospective job—luckily that lady has a spot remover and she quickly maneuvers to help clean up his clothes. I guess that's how straight people met each other in the '50s, because it's subtly implied that these two must be destined for a relationship with each other—why else would the salesman have orchestrated all of this?
Renard has been watching all of this play out and you can see the wheels turning as he realizes the salesman's talent is real. He catches up with the old man and demands to get what he really needs. Pidott obliges and gives him a pair of scissors. Disappointed and miffed, Renard puts the scissors in his coat pocket, fixes his scarf and goes home. He steps into the elevator to get up to his apartment when suddenly the scarf begins choking him as it got caught in the elevator door. Renard avoids this "Final Destination" style death by pulling out the scissors and cutting the scarf off of his throat.
Up to this point, I was unconvinced of the salesman's promise of knowing what you need. The whole bus ticket/spot remover thing sure seemed to prioritize the baseball-man's "needs" after all (I know that's my feminism talking and that the lady probably had no options available to her outside of the dude), but the scissors saving Renard's life—now that's connecting the dots better for me. So we have a salesman who can discern needs and provide the solution through random items, and we have Renard, who's a schemer and someone who will take the shorter, sooner method to get what he wants. Naturally, Renard goes back and demands that Pidott help him some more.
I think this is where we start to see this episode turn into a fable that we can use to examine our relationship with technology and especially the promises wrapping around technology. To some degree, we all pursue rewards or results using the path of least resistance, so when we discover a prediction machine that sure seems to work reliably in getting us what we want—or need—then how could we not be tempted to extract all of the use from this machine as possible?
Pidott breaks his policy of one need per customer and gives Renard a leaky pen, which drops a single blot of ink onto a newspaper with the line-up of horses for the next day's horse race. Because Renard is already primed to assume that Pidott will be providing something he needs, Renard places a good bet on the horse. This is exactly what people start to do with AI from what I can tell. We test it a little and as we see results that appear to be legitimate or correct, we start to trust it.
Story Power
What's even more concerning about this Twilight Zone episode is the story that sets up Pidott's ability. As far as we know, he just got lucky with the bus tickets and everything else has been people's creativity in finding a meaning and a use for the trinket they were given. There were always other solutions to every situation we've seen so far—even the scarf in the elevator (just turn your body next time, Renard, if you stay stiff, you're the one keeping the tension...). When the ink blot falls on a horse's name, it is the story of Pidott knowing what you need that causes Renard to decide that must mean he should bet on that horse. Luck happens to strike again and the horse brings Renard $240 (probably something like $3,000 in today's money). This only serves to reinforce Renard's assumption that the story that he has in his mind is true.
To be clear, the Twilight Zone never suggests that the power to perceive needs isn't real and instead further insists that the salesman's gift is real and accurate. Either way, the conclusion to the story takes a tragic turn when Renard, in his greed, comes at Pidott insisting that he help him again (the lucky, leaky pen is totally dry after the one horse "prediction"). Pidott objects, saying that what Renard needs is something he can't supply, namely serenity, peace of mind, humor, and the ability to laugh at oneself. Renard ignores the old man's ramblings and instead fixates on the briefcase as Pidott steals a glance at it. Convinced that the salesman accidentally gave up the item he needs, Renard takes a pair of shoes that are too small and slippery from the case.
Pidott packs up and crosses the street, puddles splashing all over the road with the night-time rain. Renard is busy smashing his feet into the small shoes, muttering about how he must have to put the shoes on and walk somewhere, then the need will be revealed—that's how it works! The cramped feet make him angry and he abandons his plan to figure out the meaning behind the shoes and starts to pursue Pidott, only to slip on a puddle and get hit by a car.
Upon Renard's death, Pidott monologues to the camera about how the shoes weren't what Renard needed, but what Pidott needed, since he saw a vision of Renard killing the old man eventually. I still only see self-fulfilling prophecies as a result of the story around the power. Similarly with technology, we have powerful stories that surround dangerous machines and systems. Stories told by salesmen are often particularly potent, they're gonna be good at their job after all, so of course it seems like clarity when their software or their AI product will solve your problems—even be exactly what you need.
Cyborg
Protecting human agency is a huge concern for me as I've been exploring humanity's interaction with technology. Technology can interrupt our agency, whether because we offload it to the tech or because it slowly it eats away like acid. Usually the slower loss of agency comes through systemic design, which I still define as technology: racism, classism, nationalism, etc. What's interesting to me is that these kinds of technologies (a.k.a. applications of knowledge) always come wrapped in a story, just like Pidott's ability. That story is often what perpetuates oppression and the loss of agency, because stories are powerful to us.
Consider racism as we understand it today (as having to do with skin color). This is a part of the story that lingers unexamined.
Turning the concept of "race" into a question of skin color beings with medieval Europeans, and in large part precisely to rationalize and authorize European imperialism and the enslavement of non-European peoples through the notion that European "races" and the resulting cultures were superior and therefore had a right to be in charge. —The Bible Says So, Dan McClellan, page 65
Race was a construct, made with intent to accomplish the agenda of Christian Europeans at the time. Now, I'm not saying racism doesn't exist because race is just made up—it absolutely exists because we keep telling ourselves stories that belittle, exclude, disadvantage, deprioritize, and harm people of color, even (sometimes) unintentionally.
The problem with stories, especially when they become intertwined with mystical or religious beliefs is that they become precious to us and can further encourage us to protect oppression and loss of agency—even when it harms ourselves!
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which since 1973 had secured federal protection of legal access to abortion prior to twenty weeks. When Roe v. Wade was first decided, evangelical leaders around the nation condoned or even endorsed the ruling, but that would change before the 1970s were over. Jerry Falwell, Paul Weyrich, and others would spend the next several years traveling around the country and ginning up outrage among evangelicals about the practice of abortion. Scholars have unearthed documentation that seems to indicate the purpose of their campaign was at least initially to galvanize a movement of right-wing religious folks that would be become politically powerful and would help them put pressure on the government to stop it from forcing evangelical universities to admit Black students.
A big part of this campaign was making the case that a Bible-believing Christian couldn't possibly tolerate the practice of abortion. —The Bible Says So, page 91
When we don't know or recognize the story, it's easy to be convinced that things have just always been a certain way. Technology can be used overtly, with intention, to create circumstances that we, the unknowing participants, will find ways to support by connecting the dots that we are given.
What You Need, may not be about digital technology, but it is about the oldest technology we have: story. We humans want to see meaning, we want to connect the dots, but so many times the stories and the dots we are given are barely sufficient to stand on their own. It is easy to be persuaded by beautiful stories and convincing rhetoric, and when we're convinced, we'll start looking for ways to further confirm our conclusion, just like Renard did. To move through the world this way puts us and others in peril.