This is Steve Mann in 1981 wearing his computer and living as a cyborg. Hmmm? In Star Trek…yes you had to know I’d invoke those sacred words. In that movie and television series computers were ubiquitous. A person could stand in the middle of the floor and simply ask a question and it would be answered. Not only are the computers everywhere, and frequently invisible. Often sentient by Rehingold’s definition, they have the ability to ,”…sense, receive, store and transmit information.’ Of course science fiction, would do them an disservice if it didn’t give them license to reason. Excluding the occasional Klingon, planet- eating asteroid, and leaps into hyperspace there are parallel themes explored in Rehigold’s Chapter 4 of Smart Mobs The Era of Sentient Things.
My computer is a toaster, an appliance. Yours? As sophisticated as it is, it compels me to sit in front of it to find much use for it. My Blackberry has telephone and computing function, is does not restrict me to one place and is networked to as many sources as my laptop. When Scott Fisher’s (p.84) world tells me the sky is blue, will I deny myself the opportunity to think of it as azure or the color of a robins egg or link it to some personal experience even in a subtle way?
When information is everywhere will we still have the drive to discover it? In a conversation I might argue with you over such things, but in a mediated view of the world will I be less inclined to dialogue?
The push to drive technology to its maximum is a very human thing and when the outcome is beneficial, we cheer. But is there an unintended consequence lurking in the evolution to invisible computing, seamless computing ubiquitous computing? When television was brand new people would gather at store fronts to watch the phenomenon. Fifty years later there are screens and cameras everywhere including the elevator and the supermarket check out. I think sometimes we expect the world to be experienced through some form of media. Will computing that is everywhere enhance our experience of the world or will it dull our ability to sense the new? Our culture has been so accustomed to television, computing, etc. that we seek to control the world by, framing it and adjusting it to our comfort level. -end rant here-
Rheingold leads us through the implications of several theoretical and some real developments in computing that when put into play will yield a change for world culture. To each I will pose a question.
Information in Places
What benefit do you see in Scott Fisher’s tree? p84
Smart Rooms
Would modern cars qualify as “smart rooms”? Some can sense the weight difference between a child and an adult, respond automatically to cooling and heating needs, sense rain, and respond to voice command for radio and telephone. p89
Digital Cities
How will politics change to create “smart cities” where in computers are by design (building codes) employed in a network for safety and security of citizens? p99
Tangible Bits
What happens to wealth and poverty when computers can create Sutherland’s chair? P91
Wearable Computers
Taken to its logical extreme, Ismail Haritaogul’s wearable computing could translate spoken languages in near real time through wireless connections. What implications might a “universal translator” have on international politics? p93-94
With the devices we have in our hands currently , I’d say our sense of identity is altered, knowing that somewhere on the other side of the planet we can easily be known through a link or picture or blog on the Internet. Along with the power to know and be known comes the challenge to privacy and its potential for abuse. For those of us who are consumers rather than developers of technology, though usage does drive development, the power to restrain technology’s abuse is a continuing issue. I agree with Rheingold when he says the power to find the benefit of technology lies beyond the power to compute. It is linked to “…trust and willingness to risk the sucker’s payoff.” Here we are as students unadorned swapping ideas through an exchange of zeros and ones in the safety of our classroom for a larger good, a chance to discover, be corrected, perhaps validated or maybe to find Reinhold’s “sucker’s payoff”
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Chapter 4: The Era of Sentient Things by Ralph Patterson
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6 comments:
RE the rant (which I love and appreciate):When television was brand new people would gather at store fronts to watch the phenomenon. Fifty years later there are screens and cameras everywhere including the elevator and the supermarket check out. I think sometimes we expect the world to be experienced through some form of media. Will computing that is everywhere enhance our experience of the world or will it dull our ability to sense the new? Our culture has been so accustomed to television, computing, etc. that we seek to control the world by, framing it and adjusting it to our comfort level.
We as humans, I believe, are fascinated by technology and "gloss" - we cannot help it really. As Aldus Huxley pointed out we are attracted to shiny things because it reminds us of were we came from. On the other hand we also desire and even require an equal amount of interaction with others in real settings devoid of our ability to control the situation. We crave the spontaneity and surprise of live performance even more than the possession of a recording of the same performance. Really successful bands often make the bulk of their income through concerts rather than recordings. Broadway is not dead even though we cannot change the channel, and Shakespeare continues to be more than a little popular across the complete spectrum of live performance as well as media.
Information that is readily available to us through computer interface, I think makes us quest after even more information than we might have ever considered seeking in the past. We are curious creatures in a curious tribe of beings. It is within our genetic makeup and evolutionary process that we are compulsive info-addicts. We shall never become sated no matter how much we can attain... We want more.
Great post! I think you touched on a really good point in your rant about personal experience... personal experience is our link to the world. Dialogue will always be important becuase the personal experience is what makes it meaningful. So what if there is information EVERYWHERE it doesn't mean anything until we attach it to something.
On your question, "What benefit do you see in Scott Fisher's tree?" - I see experiental learning. No longer confined to a book or even a stationary CPU a person learns and sees the world simultaneously.
There is already a need for smart cars that answer voice commands and parallel park for us... so we're bound to find a reason for the "smart rooms".
The political change I had a hard time thinking on...obviously our environment will be different and our social needs will be different. There are new kinds of control to consider for these mediated environments... more kinds of validation and more issues with identity. In many ways there will be more identity because of the kinds of information exposure but in other ways there will be less identity to nature.
for the most part the hype around something like "smart rooms" or "smart cities" reminds me of the futurist hype of the 50's and 60's when people thought that styrofoam construction was the way of the future. There are some things i think micro-computers (sensors, for example) are good for - on airplanes, for example, to sense changes in pressure, windspeed, etc. but when computers start taking over activities and processes that were formerly performed by the human brain, i start to get worried. The brain is a muscle, and if you don't exercise it, it becomes weak. i find it's bad enough that with my cell phone i don't know as many phone numbers by heart, let alone the thought of not being able to read a map! I personally think things like GPS systems in cars and automatic translation make people less sharp - less critical - less intelligent, and more reliant on technology to perform activities that usually rely on some sort of acquired knowledge and intuition.
I especially don't like the idea of automatic translation - learning a second (or third or fourth) language is not only about communication - it opens up ways of perception and expression that can only be perceived and acquired through the process of language learning. On the other hand, I do often use online forums like leo which i find invaluable to translation and language help, and which is also a learning tool - but exactly because it is not a computerized service, but interaction between people moderated and facilitated by computing.
From: Ralph Patterson aka curious
xozoome: Do you think we are at risk for giving away part of ourselves as technology evloves towards a more organic experience? Invisible, umbiquitous computing?
laracm: Experiential learning is the basis for my contention that too much information in everyplace denies us an experience. However, my model for formal learning just stepped out of brick and mortar with this class. It works, but still I view computing as a portal to somewhere more so than a companion to an experience. Does that make sense?
olga: Intuition was a key word for me in your response to the post. Have you considered what computers could do that would mimic intuition and how could it serve anyone?
Thank you all for responding!
Re: "Do you think we are at risk for giving away part of ourselves as technology evolves towards a more organic experience? Invisible, ubiquitous computing?"
My answer is not at all. I am more of a mind in believing that as this tech evolves that we will evolve as well. It may well be that the
"organic experience" itself will assist us to make more use of the brains that we have. Currently when most of us need a piece of information we turn to the web, find what we need and incorporate it into whatever we needed it for in the first place. Only twenty-five years ago the same task would have involved a trip to the local library. If the information happened to be specialized it might not have been available locally and would have to be obtained from a larger more distant location. The process of fact finding that we now take for granted as taking minutes could have well taken a couple of weeks. From my point of view our ability to pull disparate bits of information into a single place and connect the dots has evolved. Our organic brains have, in turn, matched that evolution to work at a greater capacity and organization. The technology does not organize itself. It does not know what to look for. We are driving this vehicle.gcp
Raplh --- what you're saying totally makes sense. But can't you be in two places at once? Maybe I'm just getting used to the mediated world but because I've grown up doing 100 things at once. My attention may be shorter but I can take in more at one time.
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