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We have the technology. We can make it better, stronger, faster…
You’ve likely heard this, before. [If you ever watched the Six-Million Dollar Man, you know it.]
There is quite a buzz about technology, lately, as if we’ve kicked into some sort of industrial revolution, again. Talk of AI and 3-D printing is all the rage. But, there is discontent among the buzz. And, that’s got me thinking….
We’re putting quite a lot of time and money (and other resources, I’m sure) into this fabricating technology when we are lacking in areas that better serve the planet and our own species.
At least, I’m seeing less improvement in the world from the latest technology and too much novelty.
I see countless videos and other displays of toys and kits (toys to assemble) made with 3-D printing.
We don’t need another robotic pet that’s just a bit smarter than the last one we foolishly purchased for the grandkid. We don’t need an elaborate printer to make jointed dragons in every color of the rainbow just to drape them on boxes of wasn’t-that-cool-last-week. And, we don’t need computers or androids to pose as humans unless we’re rich and desperate for a realistic sex partner.
Isn’t that what this is all about? Someone must be trying to simulate a partner, and all other people who participate in the production line get to play around with less-than-ideal machinery to produce all sorts of unnecessary stuff that just piles up in landfills like all the stuff we thought we could recycle infinitely.
Well, there’s also that eerie possibility that someone wants to preserve the capacity of their brain in some computerized form, as if the thing will update itself infinitely and never become obsolete. That’s a scary thought outside the range I’d prefer to think. ‘Way too many creepy stories about that sort of thing.
It makes sense…in a really crappy way. The concept of marriage has become skewed and highly flawed. No one seems to maintain one unless they’re just that damn lucky with love to find the one in however many are on the planet…or they just are die-hard workers who will put up with anything and go down trying.
Yet, the rest of it, the handing down machinery to tinker with excessive novelty…that’s dumb and wasteful.
But, that’s the going trend. Isn’t it? What you see going around as something relatively inexpensive to make and play with for a minute…is just a mask, a street market for what’s really getting focus in a more elite environment.
So, we risk adding to the planet’s garbage heaps to offset expenses seemingly required to achieve some singular goal for an elite group or individual.
Couldn’t we be using this same level, this same quality of technology in a more productive way all could appreciate?
Surely, but then the elite wouldn’t be so elite…would they? I mean…what makes some more special than others if they don’t leave some trash for the human trash to collect?
Once upon a time, a calculator was considered cheating in math class. And, “cliff notes” were the way countless students got through writing countless term papers and book reports. It’s cheating.
Now, they’re putting out “bots” that can write a poem and other documents for you just by giving them a suggestion. Morning talk-show hosts applaud the technology for writing up grocery lists and such for them…as if they actually go grocery shopping. I bet they have someone do that for them, too. So, they’re just shifting from a real person being hired and paid to do something…to speaking with a “drone” service for the same task.
You know why teachers shunned calculators? Because they want us to use our brains, not hand over functions to a machine. Using your brain doesn’t kill you. But, not using your brain will surely leave you dumb, useless and helpless. When you don’t use your brain, you become careless and short-sighted. You do less, and less probably matters to you.
In a strange way, thinking less DOES push us back to being completely witless bodies of flesh and bone who wouldn’t have the sense to listen to a god when they tell us to stay away from a particular apple tree. But, are we really working our way back to Eden?…just to make the same dumb mistake because we no longer know better?
Couldn’t we use this drive for AI to create intelligent simulations, rather than machines that think for you and take over your life?
I think of all the video games I’ve played over the decades…yes, decades. And, no matter how much a game boasts its graphics and AI, there never seems to be enough real environment and interaction. The latest Pokémon games are amazing to me, being able to run through a nature-ish setting with “wild” creatures roaming about the land. But, even those games seem odd and disappointing when you close enough to the creatures. And, interactive (human) characters are too often limited to a line or two of dialogue and some annoying, repetitive body motion.
Yet…they offer inspiration.
I see games like the old Final Fight series in which background characters are not just blobs or GIF-worthy animations but figures that respond to sound, proximity (approaching them) and/or touch. And, you can move around them to see them from other angles. I see these games taking place in buildings once designated for such lousy games as paintball and laser tag. Imagine going through multiple rooms and interacting with both helpful assistant-type characters and potential opponents you then choose to fight or flee. [What I don’t see is the admission fees and maintenance for such productions…and I’d rather not think much about that. Yet, someone has to do the thinking and maintenance, right? I don’t think I want to hand those tasks to the machines themselves and expect what is considered human decency to prevail.]
I see museums in which, instead of finding lifeless statues and bodies treated like horror-movie victims in (sick) displays, we encounter life-size holographic simulations of animals, including humans, in simulated nature settings. We get to walk among elephants in Africa and tigers in Java, and they don’t just repeat the same three steps or make a sound every five seconds. We can hang out with some native tribe in their village/camp and sit around a campfire or share in a tribal dance.
I wouldn’t mind seeing doctors like the one on Star Trek Voyager…even if he could be a bit annoying, at times. I wouldn’t want a hologram as a “primary doctor,” simply because I don’t think I could fully trust such a thing to handle every task and still make me feel comfortable as a human being; but an assistant might be helpful to the primary. But, even a technological wonder like that (or Data) would lack something.
There’s also a little factor/detail so many seem to miss. While humans seem quite capable of producing anything they can imagine, we don’t seem to produce what we imagine in the time we imagine it. So, what we get, instead, in the time we are alive, is a sad, disappointing substitute. Wouldn’t you agree? So many of us get grand visions. And, there will be others who latch onto the visionaries and prod them to produce those visions. But, it seems to take several foolish attempts before one person’s great invention comes close to being as good as it can get. And, by then, the original thinker–without confirming they were the first to think of it–is dead.
That sends me back to thinking about those Pokémon video games. When you play a Pokémon game, you may be told you can befriend the creatures as pets, but you will have to force some of those pets to fight other creatures if you want to progress through the game. [I’ve been trying really hard not to fight in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.] I certainly don’t enjoy pitting my pets against other beings in battle for the sake of progress. But, that’s the nature of those games.
What if, in our effort to design something good for all, we pitch something misguided and corrupting which saps the relationships we want/should create with the other beings in our world (our universe)? How many mistakes must we make before we learn?
Sadly, I don’t think we’re learning much of anything. And, the more we think we can hand that task over to a machine, a machine WE have to first build, we’re just speeding up the excavation of our own graves and threatening countless other lives in the process.
Writingbolt's Creation 