Over the past several weeks I have agreed that technology is a good thing for society in whole.
Technology has made life easier in most aspects, for instance it is easier to communicate with friends and family. However, I am starting to see that our humanity may come under attack as we push for more technology. It is possible at some point in the far future that technology will be ruling humanity rather than humanity ruling the technology. I have felt that the creation of the personal computer, operating systems and applications mentioned in "Triumph of the Nerds" ideas was a great thing for the world.The new technology truly helped businesses increase their productivity and make life easier for the home user.
The creation of the Internet that we learned about in the "Nerds 2. 0. 1" videos has taken business and personal computing to a new level. It has helped information flow easily across the world and helped keep family and friend in touch.
Books such as "The Machine Stops" and "The Time Machine" may become prophecy about how technology will become the master as the humans become the slaves. Gaming, social media and online purchasing has started moving people into sees and less direct human contact.The more people purchase goods like groceries, clothes, furniture and electronics online, the more lack of face to face contact with others will cause humanity to lose part of themselves. It is possible that a major loss of humanity will be the ability to care about other humans. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? " also shows us the possibility of robots being so well made that they can imitate humans. I did not think that science was even close to creating a robot or artificial intelligence unit that could imitate humans today.
In my research for the literature project and further research for the course in general, I have found more evidence that companies are trying to find ways to create robots and artificial intelligence systems to take over military and mundane tasks. We have had robots that are used in the creation of products for years. The government has projects to create drones to do search and rescue missions after earthquake and hurricanes. More advanced robots will one day take the place of soldiers on the battlefield. A new robot has been sent to the International Space Station to be a companion and help with tasks on the Space Station.
The newer robots are becoming more like humans in their ability to look like and have facial expressions that mimic human babies. The newer baby robots use optics to identify the facial expression of the person in front of them and then mimics the expression. At a recent conference, companies showed medical surrogates that are becoming more human looking and acting. These medical surrogates teach first responders and military personnel how to handle injuries. They are starting to be equipped with voice modules to add the realism of moaning, screaming and other vocal actions that a first responder may hear during a rescue.
The material that is being used on the medical surrogates is also becoming more realistic than anything I have seen at these conferences. The technological advances are helping people and society, but we need to stay vigilant. The artificial intelligence software systems have become even more accurate in portraying human behavior. The systems are integrating output from many visual, auditory and touch sensors to trigger actions that the robots perform. The military soldier robots use touch sensors to identify that they are walking on an uneven surface and will move left or right to get back to even round.
In the not to distance future I can see robots using auditory and visual sensors to listen for certain words and phrases that will signal the software complete simple tasks, change the robots expressions, or make a decision to proceed with or abort a mission. Technology is a great thing and will help humanity do great things in the future as technology has done in the past. But we need to make sure that the following generations do not let technology take over their lives. Society needs to be concerned and stay vigilant to prevent humans from losing their humanity through he use of technology.
The potential lack of human emotions could prove that robots could become so much like humans that it will take tests like the Voice-Kampala test in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? " to determine human from robot. I do not see anything happening in the next five or ten years, but it could come to pass in the next thirty or so years. We need to make sure future generations do not let technology creep into every aspect of their lives and become so dependent on technology that the same type of end come as it did in "The Machine Stops" story.
