Weblog van Spruit
Goal in life: Create order, think lateral.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Actor frustration
The Internet, wiki's, web 2.0, web 3.0, PDA's, ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), pervasive computing, artificial intelligence. Just some buzz words that have to do with outsourcing our brain work. Just like in the industrial revolution, when we were getting machines to do our physical work for us, we are now getting computers to do our thinking for us; on a massive scale.
But what will be the consequences of that to our lives? Because we all stopped to do a lot of physical work most of us are now in some office. We do not move enough and we are getting fat. People also feel depressed more (relation not proven). So one could question whether the industrial revolution made us a happier people.
Imagine when you have computers to do all the thinking for you. They will tell you when to go where for appointments. When to go shopping and for what. When to turn left or right wile driving your car. If you are driving your self at all!
Basically a computer can manage your life for you. Only thing is, it sometimes needs you to perform an action in the real world that it cannot do itself.
Is that where we are heading? The computer living our live for us and us serving the computer as an actor in the real world? It makes a nice plot for a science fiction novel, but it seems a very frustrating way of life to me!
Of course it is not like that now, but sometimes I already get the itches when my computer informs me that there is an update to its software and it needs me to press OK, when my car wants me to take it to the garage to check its airbag, when the office paperclip has a suggestion for me...
It makes me feel not in control and maybe a little useless. Of course it is all meant to make life easier. And it often does, as long as it does not break down, but the downside of this technology push is often not mentioned. It must be comparable to how John Henry felt when he decided to race against a steam drill. He won, but died afterwards. So resisting technological progress is probably a bad idea.
There are, however, modest acts of resistance, comparable to the Luddites movement during the industrial revolution. For example, the boys from www.willitblend.com grinded down an iPhone in a blender and offered it for sale on ebay! (sold for $901)
Compliments! We will not let computers rule our life!Labels: actor frustration
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