(This is Part 7 of a series. Go back to Part 6.)
2. Rise of a new intelligent species
My, this certainly is the time for technology. Our era is often called the Information Age, but perhaps we should call it the Technology Age, because technology is sprouting all around us like flowers in a field.
For instance, take that common miracle of technology, the cellphone. It's becoming an all-purpose gadget. Now it often includes—in addition to the phone—a camera, photo display, email, text messaging, a music player and even video. However in the future, so I'm told, it will also be our wallet, our key, our GPS locator and a projector.
The technology is coming along rapidly to make our cellphones our wallets. Systems used already by a couple million people in Japan and the U.S. allow a consumer at a supermarket, dress shop or cinema to wave the cellphone near a terminal to charge the item or items. Same thing, of course, with opening the front door, the car, the hotel door. All this, of course, will become ubiquitous.
The step after that, it seems, is called biometrics, which measures parts of the human body to establish identification. So instead of waving our cellphone at the terminal in the shop, we'll just wave our finger or palm at it instead. We'll wave our finger or palm at the front door, at our computer, at the ATM and the office. Much greater security. All right: so far, so good.
But it always amazes me when experts talk about the coming wonders of technology without talking about the potential downsides to it. After all, when nuclear technology was discovered it led to both peaceful nuclear energy and the nuclear bomb. No advance in technology is cost-free, and sometimes our latest whiz-bang is very costly indeed.
As just one example, when we're waving our finger or palm everywhere to enter or buy or whatever—won't that be convenient?—we'll also be leaving a perfect trail behind us of where we are and what we're doing.
And that same GPS locator that proves so handy is helping us find our way around will also prove to be a perfect way of keeping track of our location. One issue that I feel deserves more attention is the potential for the Surveillance Society. No, scratch the word "potential." It is a virtual certainty that we'll be under more or less constant surveillance in the not-so-distant future.
It's already happening. Notice those cameras at the intersections? Vast databases now keep track of—and sift through—our purchases, our travels, our likes, our dislikes. This is only going to intensify. We'll be tracked everywhere. That seems like more of a downside than an upside to me. In the hands of a police state or an autocratic elite it could create the most severe regimentation/oppression ever conceived.
I'm with Bill Joy, the author of an influential article in 2000 called "Why the future doesn't need us," in which he takes pains to ponder some of the potential pitfalls of this future that we're rushing madly into. He points out, for instance, that GNR (genetics, nanotechnology, robotics) technology could easily get out of control in various ways or be used by states or groups to create untold destruction.
Where I disagree with the estimable Mr. Joy is in his suggestion that we can somehow "relinquish" these technologies. I don't believe we can or will. We're a very curious species, and oftimes we develop something simply because it's there and we can. Why are we developing artificial intelligence? Because we think it may benefit us, yes. But even more important, because we think we can do it and we want to do it. It's a challenge and we humans love a challenge.
Even if the development of some technology, say nanotechnology, were mostly banned, there would be holes in the swiss cheese somewhere—rogue countries or rogue labs somewhere in the world that would keep on developing it. Realizing that, everywhere else would and will have to keep on developing it too or face being left behind. Technology is like an escalator that you can't get off.
Another suggestion put forth by some is that we can somehow develop a "shield" to protect us from these technologies. The best commentary on that is probably Arthur C. Clarke's, who pointed out that advanced technology necessary to develop such a "shield" would in itself lead to dangers potentially far more lethal that what it was protecting against.
No, we're going to develop these technologies, we're going to use them, and then we'll have to face the consequences of using them.
Anyway, in the midst of this technology mania that we're in, with its new gee-whiz items coming out every week, it's worth remembering that a new intelligent life form is arising here on planet earth—and that that development is going to have the most profound repercussions.
(This is the end of Part 7. Go to Part 8.)
—jim sloman, for 1.1.07
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