I've been having multiple problems with my iphone... is it just me? Just in the middle of submitting my assignment, my iphone crashes. In the midst of calling an uber to an important interview, it dies. As I pull out my phone to take a video of my baby brother’s first steps, no storage. Despite the defective product, I click dismiss and move on with a shrug. Do you notice yourself in the same predicament?
We dish out thousands for faulty products we use every SINGLE day, and we're seemingly complacent about an "advancement" that happens to be a trivial replicate of an antiquated product. However, I want to be clear. I am not disregarding our first technological revolution in the 19th century, one that gave way to a multitude of essential computer advances.
Nevertheless, advancements are needed. Imagine yourself in your EECS class, groaning as you attempt to diagnose the 100th error message...ARGH! You may think that the challenge of it all is a paragon of technological advancement, however I’d like to disagree. Programming still remains to be a daunting task, making it inaccessible to many, as it seems we are trying to imitate a computer's thinking process rather than the other way around.
But have no fear, another technological revolution is inching towards us... actually it's already happening. What can we expect?
David Hillel Gelernter, inventor of programming language Linda and professor of computer science at Yale University, gives us an insight into his vision of the future in his piece "The Second Coming- A Manifesto", written in 2000. In this piece, Gelernter takes a walk through several different inventions and critiques our current technologies. As for the future and what we can expect, Gelernter mentions that "Today's operating systems connect users to computers. [Future] Operating systems will connect cyberbodies to computers...Users won't deal with operating systems any more, and won't care about them.” Gelernter also alludes to 3D printing and amazingly enough, foreshadows cloud computing.
In the beginning of this technological revolution, machines will start to slowly mirror the human mind, while still capitalizing on the strengths of a computer (speed, efficiency, breadth). Data will be collected each millisecond and will be able to predict outcomes almost instantaneously. Machines will be omnipresent. And if any of this seems familiar to you, it is because the revolution has begun.
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post! I liked the tone of the post. I thought it grabbed the reader's attention more because of it. A suggestion I would make is to talk more about Gelernter earlier in your post. I realize that you want to take some time introducing the example. I feel like you just kind of mention what Gelernter says. So I would also suggest that you go deeper into it and try to incorporate it more with your analysis and example.
From what I understood, the beginning of your post talks about how poor some technologies can be, while the end concludes by discussing how great technology can be. This was a little confusing to me, and I feel like there was some connection missing. I liked the way your post was written though. It was well written while also being in an appropriate blog post style.
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