Just testing out a tv and Amazon tv, I watched this Ray Kurzweil TED talk video. I have seen this man's name off and on for years. From the little I know, he likes to point to inventions and new practices and extrapolate from them into the future.
When I ask myself what I have gotten from computers and electronics, the answers pop up:
Word-processing instead of stamping paper with ink in a typewriter
Rapid complex calculation on a spreadsheet
Rapid search and replace in a long written document
Immediate error-free alphabetization in a simple database or spreadsheet
Accurate selection of sub-sets from a list or database, as in all the members who do not live in town
All of those services were actually performed by me in my home on my own machine in 1987, about three decades ago.
About 1992, I began to use email. I still use it many times a day. In a meeting, a forward-looking man asked the other day if email was old-fashioned. To some extent, maybe it is. Rather depends on what one means by "email" and by "old-fashioned." It is well-known today that many people, especially those under age 30, prefer texting to email. It is not hard to see why. Texting requires short messages and the actual question or comment we want to make may be quite brief, as with headlines.
Email, texting, Skype/Google Hangouts and other forms of communication have indeed given us forms and speeds of communication unknown until the last few years. Google Search, Bing, Duckduckgo and other search engines have made it possible to learn about nearly any subject, get a picture of nearly anything or any place just about instantly.
I hear and read about the internet of things, where my car, my pantry, checkbook and my phone will communicate with each other, eventually to my benefit, I guess. But what I want is a terrific app or a chain of them in my phone or tablet that helps me all the time. I guess it will need to know my location on its own, my needs, desires and the questions puzzling me: Do we need bananas? Are we low on milk? Does my car need servicing? How important is the servicing? Is it really needed? In the future, I would prefer to ask Siri (Apple's voice) or Cortana (Microsoft's Siri) or "Hey, Google (Google couldn't afford a girl assistant??) what I want to know. I would prefer not having to input lots of data and information. I would prefer that Georgia or Tom already know the relevant information. I want to be able to ask if sending Bobby a book is a good idea, all things considered. I want to be able to get a graded answer, like 'the probability that it is a good idea is 77%". I want to be able to see the computer's 5 top pros and 5 top cons, especially when I have my doubts about its advice.
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