A Personal Hypothesis of Our Future
The past 25 years of human evolution is something that completely blows me away! I’ll try to keep this brief but I’ll probably end up posting more than I should on the subject. Last week, I visited a woman who was in her 60s and wasn’t a “technology person” but she knew what Twitter was and still read newspapers. Her view of technology was actually more advanced than most but the generation gap meant we were both coming from different places and the conversation was very rich.
After explaining my findings behind the philosophy of Twitter and human interactions / dynamics in the past 10 years, she was very interested and then the old question of, “where is this going?” came up. I honestly said that I didn’t know because in 2005, I never would have predicted Twitter or YouTube but I did show her something that was intriguing. The latest Yelp application for iPhone has a basic and sometimes quirky implementation of Augmented Reality where, using the phone’s GPS, Camera and compass, it shows nearby restaurants on the iPhone’s screen as you turn in a circle and look around. Basically, the iPhone camera shows you what’s around but then you can see little rectangles of restaurants.
Augmented Reality caused her to say, “wow” but I think this has a long way to go before it’s truly useful to the masses. Even Twitter & Facebook may be “mainstream” according to us but it’s not. Google is mainstream, Microsoft Windows is mainstream. I consider mainstream a product or company that a majority of people in modern developed countries know about and use. So by that definition, Twitter has a long way to go and so does Augmented Reality.
I remember watching The Matrix in 1999 and thinking how likely it would be that 100 years in the future machines would wage war against humans and take over the world. How naive I was and how fast we’ve progressed. Back then, watching that movie I could wrap my head around a robot take over. I think my grandparents in 1950 probably couldn’t but a 20 something in 1999 could see it happening which means there’s a universal understanding that the capabilities of robots and technology is improving at a fast pace and 100 years wouldn’t be Sci-Fi but instead would be considered reality.
Of course, in 10 years The Matrix reality could still happen but we’re certainly not 10% of the way there to machines taking over the world as I would have assumed 10 years ago when I first saw the matrix. In fact, robotics haven’t taken the kind of strides that I expected after seeing movies such as Minority Report, iRobot or The Matrix. Billions are still poured in to robotics development but it’s certainly no less important than green technologies and sustainable energy sources.
Actually, The Matrix concept is higher and more prevalent in my mind than ever but robots / machines aren’t my fear. It’s us who I fear and it’s more likely than a drone enslaving humans for mere energy.
That’s right, my fear is us and our pursuit of comfort. Machines may be our eventual answer to having everything done for us but this other “thing” might happen first and it was very apparent more when I saw the movie Wall-E in July of 2008 as humans escaped the planet’s crappy conditions and lived in a resort for hundreds of years not having to lift a finger as machines took care of them. Again, my guess for the future is much worse than what was portrayed in Wall-E and much more likely.
Technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality and virtual worlds are improving every single day. Humans are more and more being put in front of keyboards to complete tasks day in and day out and these tasks & lifestyle choices we make are hindering our human interaction skills. There are more introverted people in the world today and more people suffer from depression and anxiety and I blame technology for this. There are more technology related accidents while driving, operating machinery or simply crossing the street and not hearing a bus coming. Technology has simplified our lives but it’s also made our lives increasingly less “rich” and more manufactured. I was honest when I told my new friend last week that I would rather have lived in 1960 than 2009 and I admit it. Our choices on technology and lifestyle have affected our health as well and people are less healthy than they were even 10 years ago which also causes health care costs to rise. Kids are suffering from diabetes and adults in their 30s are being diagnosed with heart disease.
Our answer to every one of life’s problems is technology. “Technological advancements in the way of….” is all I hear when there’s a problem that needs to be fixed. There’s a new pill, new machine, new system, new process, new way of doing everything that costs millions in research and only causes more problems for us as time goes on. The solution? Forget the technology and put ourselves back in the 80s. Go outside, work out, do some manual labor and put down the iPhone. I’m guilty of this too but the economic, social, health and life issues that plague our entire world will only get worse if we continue on this path.
Of course, human beings have a track record of throwing technology at every problem and I know exactly what our solution to this one will be.
The world sucks! Escape and live a care free life!\
That’s right. Soon there will be The Matrix for everyone. It will begin with progressive tech-centric companies like Google & Microsoft or perhaps the government. A person will be approached one day by their boss and given a proposition.
“I see you’re more stressed at work lately and judging by your social network posts & blog, the co-workers here really bother you. How about this…You come to work and we plug you in to a machine and you get to fall asleep for 12 hours and get twice as much work done and at the end of the day you wake up relaxed, stress free and without ongoing repetitive injuries like eye strain, carpal tunnel or signs of stress. To top it all off, we’ll give you an extra 25K a year to enroll in this program.”
Naturally, most software engineers and employees that don’t have to deal with people all day would love to opt in to this. How awesome would it be to work all day with just your mind and sustain no stress, repetitive injuries and leave work with more money in your pocket and without being tired from a full day of work! I know a few people that would sign up. This is only the beginning.
Soon, our grandparents will begin to die and we don’t want them to. Our selfishness for keeping our family alive for as long as possible will have us plugging them on on their death bed so they can live a happy life FOREVER and they never have to die despite their body fading away years ago. Then the whole family can plug in any time they want to see grandma, hug her, hear her stories and share things that they are doing.
Eventually, real technology jobs will cease to exist and more people will be hired knowing that all they do is show up and plug in. Eventually (and it may take 100 years) we have a world of people that are plugged in for over 50% of their lives, working, buying goods and living out their fantasies. This is the future.
Machines will not be the ones that turned on the Matrix and enslaved all humans to use for energy. Humans will do it. The infrastructure, I/O, computational power, advantages and concepts are all existing right now and most of them are patented. The only missing piece of the puzzle is software but if you think about how far we’ve come in the past decade, I think that software won’t be the problem.
Will there be resistance? Sure there will, give it 50-100 years and “jacking in” will become a common thing. Like I said, it will start with high stress repetitive jobs and eventually become the way students travel thousands of miles (virtually) to attend college classes at the best of schools or a way to visit family without ever leaving your home. Virtual, completely seamless realistic worlds that people use to connect with one another will become the norm.
Suddenly, one day we’ll all be jacked in, the planet will grow dark and the world will become one big server farm full billions of human bodes that are just lying in a pool of organic matter as we carry out our lives in virtual reality but to us, it’s reality and each new generation will know less and less about the real world.
This is our future and yes I’m scared as hell.
