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| Image Source : Gerd Leonhard |
Nicolas Negroponte, in his 1995
famous bestseller Being Digital [1], commented – “Computing is not about computers any
more. It is about living”. The Internet was in its infancy then and
predicting the future of technology and its impact on society was nothing short
of putting one’s head on the chopping block. Remarkably however, many
predictions made by Negroponte in his book came true with one of the most
famous of those predictions getting dubbed as the Negroponte Switch.
We are experiencing an
unparalleled time in human history where digital technologies have become all
pervasive and ubiquitous. Barring some hard core skeptics, most people would
readily agree that there is hardly any sphere of life today that is not
directly or indirectly digitally mediated. We are now at the cusp of an
exciting era that is promising a new wave of information interchange which till
a few years ago, was science fiction. One of the most exciting of these
developments pushing the frontiers of our connected digital world is the
emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is not a distant dream but a fast moving
reality as private enterprises see significant
opportunities in its emergence and growth.
While the evolution of the
digital world has been nothing short of being transformative, it has not been
without significant concerns on safety, health, privacy, censorship, free speech
and unemployment. Author Daniel Levitin discusses some of these issues in this article . With the evolution of information technology and it’s all
pervasive infusion in our lives, new addictions are taking root and impacting
human behaviour. The city of Antwerp in Belgium for example, has created a special lane on the road for Smartphone users who are addicted to
texting while walking. Recently, studies conducted at the University of
California Los Angeles and other schools have flagged many health concerns emanating out of constant consumption of digital
technology.
With technology opening new
possibilities, there are also deep concerns over individual privacy and
liberty. Civil society organizations around the world have questioned privacy
implications of supposedly benign and beneficial solutions created through
digital networks.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a US based non-profit organization that is
actively engaged in advocacy and action against electronic surveillance and
citizen rights to digital privacy and free speech. In India, similar concerns
have been raised time and again on privacy issues related to Aadhar. Recently (May,2018), Mozilla, the maker of the open source browser
Firefox in a blog
post argued that exposure of Aadhar data might put Indians at significant privacy
risk. Issues pertaining to maintaining sanctity of the Aadhar enrollment process, its impact on the Aadhar database and ultimately on people have been widely reported in the media (23rd July 2018). There is also considerable
speculation around the world that artificial intelligence will be replacing humans in many skill areas.
So what’s the future of computing? Honestly
it’s pretty hard to speculate what the world is going to be like in a few years
from now given the rapid advancements in new and exciting technologies. What’s still
more hard to predict however is how human beings will respond to the new wave
of digital technologies that is about to hit us in the next few years. Colin Angel,
founder of iRobot puts it rather optimistically when he says: “It's going to
be interesting to see how society deals with artificial intelligence, but it
will definitely be cool.”
What say reader?
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[1] Interested readers can access a few pages of this book by clicking on Look Inside at Amazon and also read selected excerpts from a book summary posted on the Stanford University website.
[2] A 2014 TED talk by Nicoloas Negorponte titled A 30 Year History of the future can be viewed here if you are interested. You can also view an awesome 1984 Ted Talk by Negroponte that predicted what will happen to computing in a few years.
[1] Interested readers can access a few pages of this book by clicking on Look Inside at Amazon and also read selected excerpts from a book summary posted on the Stanford University website.
[2] A 2014 TED talk by Nicoloas Negorponte titled A 30 Year History of the future can be viewed here if you are interested. You can also view an awesome 1984 Ted Talk by Negroponte that predicted what will happen to computing in a few years.
