The future brings with it many challenges and many opportunities. Technology innovation and information creation and dissemination have been identified as two of the seven revolutionary trends impacting the world. This course will explore the role of information and computing technologies such as computers, the Internet, Facebook, Wikipedia, text messaging and ipods in transforming the future using the work of the Global Strategy Institute (Seven Revolutions) to envision the world of 2025.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Speed of Innovation
The predictions are that change will continue to happen quickly - there will be more innovations in the next 25 years than there ever have been - What does this speed of change mean? How will it impact us? How quickly will we notice it?
If technology is going to advance as fast as it is rumored to do, how will that really help in the long run. From last class, we discussed that one of the major problems facing the ever growing world population is the availability of water. Unless someone out there devises a cost-effective and quick and easy way to make salt water drinkible, all this technology will be useless to the majority of the population.
Besides that, in the countries where the population is growing the fastest, like India, China and Africa, a majority of their population is still rural. Are they going to have access to the newest innovations and technologies that become available in the next couple of decades? Who knows. It seems to me that this talk of a supercomputer is mainly to help those in the developed countries, in major cities. Unless there is some major innovation that can magically solve all the world's problems, how are the new technologies going to help?
I know it is hard to put aside the issues of population and resources when looking at technology, but I am really excited about the future. We are living in such an amazing time and I love all of this new tech. I am sure there are people out there use tech. to help solve some of the problems we have been talking about, but think about all of the cool new tech. that we will be seeing and using. I love seeing and playing with all the cool new "toys" and gadgets that are out there. Maybe I am excited because I am Pre-Med and there are expected to be some major advances within the feild of medicine. I can't wait to see what will happen by the time I get done with medical school. Also, I know in some ways this is a scary time to bring kids into this world at this time, but at the same time, think about how lucky they are. I am sure we have said, "Man, I wish we had that when we were kid; we didn't have that when we were kids." Just imagine what they will get to experience in terms of tech. while they are growing up. I know we can't forget about the 7 Revolutions, but think about how much tech. as improved our lives to this point and raise that to some exponential number.
Technology is advancing with leaps and bounds. We have come a long way since the first presentation of the spoken word (homosapiens), the printed word, the telegraph, the telephone, ARPAnet and then to the first computation device invented.
The extraordinary advancements in technology impact our society both positively and negatively. Positively because it helps to discovery and inventions in medicine, transportation, science, engineering, and communication of incomparable magnitude and proportions. Negatively because this same technology sometimes works against us such is the case of people loosing their jobs because businesses have more efficiently, faster and less costly machineries to do the job for without mankind. Countries are creating nuclear weapons to kill each other. These are only a few examples of what technology is doing to our society. Maybe the future will be more promising, maybe someone will find a solution for the water and population problem our society are going through.
It has been a week and I still can’t get over the fact that China has more “honors” students then the U.S. has students. No wonder there are so many innovations and new ideas over there. Granted the government has a huge role in what goes on in their country, but it cannot be denied that if the U.S. had that many highly intelligent people working together we would be making huge strides as well.
I also cannot get over how anyone could truly believe that the speed of innovation follows a linear path. While there may not be a definite equation to represent the exponential rate, it is easy to see if you just take a step back and look at the whole picture. I think that this skyrocketing rate in change means that we really have no idea what the world will be like in 25 years, a quarter of a century from now. However, I’m sure that when we get there it will not seem all that drastic. I find myself trying to find an example from the past, but the even now the changes from 1980 until now do not seem so staggering. I think that to get a real idea of changes we have to compare the changes from a time period we are a bit more removed from, such as 1925 to 1950. Even then we may be able to fully appreciate the changes because we were not there to experience it.
I agree with Angelo. Man does have a track record of creating unintended problems. Like on the recent The Time Machine movie when mankind had developed a way to live on the moon but inadvertently caused the moon to break apart and fall to the Earth, forcing the civilization as we know it to start over again. Of course that is a completely fictional example, but is it far off from the atmospheric problems cause by CFC’s? Think of all the luxuries and comforts that came with this innovation, yet the potentially devastating effects that lie ahead. Even if the scientists had discovered the problems the CFC’s would cause, could they have foreseen how quickly their number of uses would have increased or even the volume that the whole world would be using them at?
I believe there is an old Chinese parable that we were reading about in my world civilizations class. The story was told of how an average peasant man foretold of some plan to overtake the emperor and warned the emporer of this attack. The emperor was grateful in what the peasant had shared with him and promised to give him anything he wished for in return. The man merely asked for a grain of rice per day, and each day he increases the rice by doubling it. It is this same concept of exponential growth. The story ends with the emperor losing all of his stock piles of rice and eventually killing the peasant, but that's not the point, the point it that at early stages of this exponential growth, we don't see the changes as fast or severe. We don’t think of it as a huge deal, to increase the grain of rice by 2 each day. But as it continously grows and becomes faster, and we see the effects taking a much bigger dent into our rice storage.
There's no doubt that newer, faster, more reliable technology will make our world an easier, more comfortable place to live. But at what expense are we making some lives easier? Are these changes for the benefit of everyone, or just a select few? I ask the same question as Kmullin, will this benefit developed countries, or just major cities?
Technological development has been proven to be beneficial to us in more ways than one. We can all say that it has made our lives much easier. However, there are two sides to this term called “technology.” Technology has saved the lives of many, but at the same time it can be said to cause us harm.
In terms of benefit, we can all attest to this. Technology has made it possible for doctors to diagnose and treat individuals in a matter of second. The internet has made it possible for us to communicate over long distances and also access information easily thus eliminating the hassle of going to the library. Lastly is the development of the calculator. To many this might mean nothing, but to others, including myself, it’s a big deal. I was doing some Finance assignment today with a four function calculator and I was so frustrated because it was taking me for ever to do it. My scientific calculator ran out of batteries and so I was faced with the dilemma of using a four function calculator to do some very long calculations. Luckily a friend of mine was on the phone doing the assignment with me and so I could just let her do all my calculations. The whole point of this example is to show how difficult it would have been for me to do these calculations without any calculator at all. It would have probably taken up most of my day. I can therefore say that technology has played a huge part in our advancement and as is predicted, will continue to play a very important role in the lives of many individuals.
On the opposite side, it can be said that “technology” may cause us harm. With all these inventions and innovations to come, some individuals may be left jobless. Technology has made it possible for a machine to perform a task that would take a lot of man power to perform. Therefore companies will spend the money to buy this machine as in the long run it will cost them less to buy the machine than to pay individuals to perform the task.
The question is are “we willing to sacrifice the livelihood of some individuals to show how brilliant man kind is, or try to make life easier and at the same tine hoping that we do not wipe out the face of the earth?” There is no easy answer to this question. It’s like saying should I kill one man to save a hundred men; some win and some loose. Therefore all we can do is be careful and hope that we do not develop something that will end up and take our lives.
I found it very interesting to talk about the time line of inventions and what not. We truly are living in exponential times and it only makes it harder to try and come up with what the world could be like in 2025 because at the rate we are going, really anything is possible!! That makes it very exciting to be living in our times because we are start trying to make out wildest dreams actually a reality!
While all of this is exciting, it can also be on the scary side. There is something going on in Switzerland that is very frightening to me. They are trying to do an experiment to basically see if the world could have been created with a "big bang." The scary part is that if something of a large magnitude happens, then the world could turn into a black hole. Very scary! Some physicists say that there is a very small chance that this could happen, but others strongly disagree and have been trying to stop the experiment. This makes me question...when does science and technology go too far?? To me this experiment definitely goes too far because it puts the entire world at risk of exploding into oblivion! freaky!! So, with technology I feel as though I have mixed feelings about some of our extreme advances and what we could learn from them.
I love technology and cannot imagine a world without it. We have come a long way from the early inventions and have improved many of them, in addition to adding entirely new ones. The speed of innovation is exciting to me - and I know there are some people that are afraid of change, afraid to move forward, and afraid of what is to come. I do see many of the points of needing to find solutions for many of our problems - growing population, declining resources, etc - but I am an optimist and only see the positive things that will come with the increasing technology.
With that said, we should all focus on what WE can do to help with the problems we face and help spread the word - not wait for someone else...
In reference to the Chinese having more honor students than the US, the Chinese have a different culture and family structure. It is expected of them to achieve very high honors in education - a way of "saving face" and achieving respect from their society. The schools are very different - and they do not waste many hours focusing on standardized testing. My hope is that we will see a huge change in our school systems with the upcoming presidential election and the end of all the standardized testing. Our children need to learn the basics and focus on real-life issues, not how to take a CRCT test!
I agree with a lot of you in the fact that it's hard for us to notice such 'drastic' changes in technology. It's almost as if our generation expects it. We expect bigger and better and faster things. We've never really known much difference. It is so exciting for me to think of all the changes that are going to occur in our lifetime! I cannot even imagine what all will happen, much less what will happen in our children's/grandchildren's lifetimes! I am a Nursing major so, like Ramon, I get super excited about all of the medical advances that will be possible with this exponential change of technology. My husband is a computer engineer, so he always is telling me about a lot of the new changes & it just amazes me. He also told me about Moore's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law) and since he first introduced the idea in 1965 it has been true. What an intelligent man to notice something like that in the 60s!
Again, there is the issue of what will happen to the developing countries. I believe that with more advances we will be able to help these third world countries even more. Just like the program of sending laptops to third world children. No, it's not much when we consider what we have, but at least it's a start.
I would like to say that it is not hard for me to believe that China has more Honor students than US has students.
As adults in the US we push ourselves to work, work work. When we have children we want them to just have fun and be kids. We do not push them because most of us feel that they will work enough when they get older.
I have already found what I want to do my paper on. I was watching NatGeo and it had a technology that was like a personal biological system reader in the back of someone's hand. It was like a screen that gave you all your biological readouts. It was called a dermal sensor. I am not premed but this has a lot of implications for Drs and opens a whole new door for computer technicians, they might be like computer doctors for humans.
If you could wake up and be shown or even throughout the day be shown if something was wrong with your body. The implications of that, WOW. We of course would still need drs but now their job becomes so much easier, no more misdiagnosis?!?!? No more expensive testing only people with insurance can afford. Do we get insurance on our dermal computer in case we have to go see a computer dr for a malfunction? Is this something that is mas produced like a computer chip because after all it is so small that it is injected under the skin like a microchip in a dog.
This is just one idea about a technology and how it moves us forward. This is something that is hard for me to imagine, but I am sure with the progression of technology it is just around the corner. If you can imagine it, it can be done.
While it is true that technology is growing at a rapid pace and is making everyone's day to day lives easier, it is a double edged sword. Just remember how technology turned out in the movies, I am Legend, Irobot, Wall-e ect. there needs to be a delicate balance. people dont need to be replaced by machines. This just further goes to prove that law, cant remember the name but it is the law that the number of transistors on a square inch of chip double every 18 months. the innovation i have seen (as with the rest of us, but i have payed attention)is that law. my 1st computer was a computer that ran DOS. i dont even remember the specs but it was slow. the next computer was a windows 98 pentium 3 800mhz 128 mb of ram with a 16 mb nVidia video card. that computer lasted 8 years. i got a new computer about 6 years into that old one (a laptop) with a pentium 4 2ghz, 256 ram, and an ATI 7600 pro (32mb of onboard memory) the next comp i got 2 years later was a replacement desktop, it had a pentium 4 HT 3ghz 512mb ram and an ATI 9600pro, the next (and current) computer is a Intel Duo 2 core E6600 2.4ghz (not over clocked) 2 gigs ram, nVidea 8800GTS 640mb (64 nm architecture not the newer 42nm)
When I think about the speed of technological change in the last twenty years compared to the last 100, it makes me wonder just what the next twenty will hold. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine the actual impact of exponential growth in technology and how that translates into what I will see happen in my lifetime. Interestingly enough, the reading assigned for class actually discussed the limitations humans have in this type of foresight. This leads me to an interesting question. At what point will the technological advances begin taking place at such a high rate of change that humans are actually unable to keep up with it? It is quite unlikely that such a moment would represent a sort of "terminal velocity", but rather it seems machines would simply pick up where we could not. Unless, at that very moment, we were to intervene in some way, machines (or processors/robots - whatever you'd like to call them) would in a sense be progressing and learning at speed at which no human could comprehend. Meaning they would be learning by themselves, independently of humans, and in a way humans were physically incapable of understanding. It seems to me, that once this point is passed, there would be no turning back, we would in a sense become spectators in our own world. That is of course if the machines chose to let us know what they were doing. Yes, I said "chose", become it seems clear to me that there would be no other simple way to describe it. Maybe this sounds a bit far fetched, but, to me, it seems the only probable progression. But hey, whatever happens, make sure you've got a front row seat 'cause it oughtta be really cool.
14 comments:
If technology is going to advance as fast as it is rumored to do, how will that really help in the long run. From last class, we discussed that one of the major problems facing the ever growing world population is the availability of water. Unless someone out there devises a cost-effective and quick and easy way to make salt water drinkible, all this technology will be useless to the majority of the population.
Besides that, in the countries where the population is growing the fastest, like India, China and Africa, a majority of their population is still rural. Are they going to have access to the newest innovations and technologies that become available in the next couple of decades? Who knows. It seems to me that this talk of a supercomputer is mainly to help those in the developed countries, in major cities. Unless there is some major innovation that can magically solve all the world's problems, how are the new technologies going to help?
I know it is hard to put aside the issues of population and resources when looking at technology, but I am really excited about the future. We are living in such an amazing time and I love all of this new tech. I am sure there are people out there use tech. to help solve some of the problems we have been talking about, but think about all of the cool new tech. that we will be seeing and using. I love seeing and playing with all the cool new "toys" and gadgets that are out there.
Maybe I am excited because I am Pre-Med and there are expected to be some major advances within the feild of medicine. I can't wait to see what will happen by the time I get done with medical school.
Also, I know in some ways this is a scary time to bring kids into this world at this time, but at the same time, think about how lucky they are. I am sure we have said, "Man, I wish we had that when we were kid; we didn't have that when we were kids." Just imagine what they will get to experience in terms of tech. while they are growing up.
I know we can't forget about the 7 Revolutions, but think about how much tech. as improved our lives to this point and raise that to some exponential number.
Technology is advancing with leaps and bounds. We have come a long way since the first presentation of the spoken word (homosapiens), the printed word, the telegraph, the telephone, ARPAnet and then to the first computation device invented.
The extraordinary advancements in technology impact our society both positively and negatively. Positively because it helps to discovery and inventions in medicine, transportation, science, engineering, and communication of incomparable magnitude and proportions. Negatively because this same technology sometimes works against us such is the case of people loosing their jobs because businesses have more efficiently, faster and less costly machineries to do the job for without mankind. Countries are creating nuclear weapons to kill each other. These are only a few examples of what technology is doing to our society. Maybe the future will be more promising, maybe someone will find a solution for the water and population problem our society are going through.
It has been a week and I still can’t get over the fact that China has more “honors” students then the U.S. has students. No wonder there are so many innovations and new ideas over there. Granted the government has a huge role in what goes on in their country, but it cannot be denied that if the U.S. had that many highly intelligent people working together we would be making huge strides as well.
I also cannot get over how anyone could truly believe that the speed of innovation follows a linear path. While there may not be a definite equation to represent the exponential rate, it is easy to see if you just take a step back and look at the whole picture. I think that this skyrocketing rate in change means that we really have no idea what the world will be like in 25 years, a quarter of a century from now. However, I’m sure that when we get there it will not seem all that drastic. I find myself trying to find an example from the past, but the even now the changes from 1980 until now do not seem so staggering. I think that to get a real idea of changes we have to compare the changes from a time period we are a bit more removed from, such as 1925 to 1950. Even then we may be able to fully appreciate the changes because we were not there to experience it.
I agree with Angelo. Man does have a track record of creating unintended problems. Like on the recent The Time Machine movie when mankind had developed a way to live on the moon but inadvertently caused the moon to break apart and fall to the Earth, forcing the civilization as we know it to start over again. Of course that is a completely fictional example, but is it far off from the atmospheric problems cause by CFC’s? Think of all the luxuries and comforts that came with this innovation, yet the potentially devastating effects that lie ahead. Even if the scientists had discovered the problems the CFC’s would cause, could they have foreseen how quickly their number of uses would have increased or even the volume that the whole world would be using them at?
I believe there is an old Chinese parable that we were reading about in my world civilizations class. The story was told of how an average peasant man foretold of some plan to overtake the emperor and warned the emporer of this attack. The emperor was grateful in what the peasant had shared with him and promised to give him anything he wished for in return. The man merely asked for a grain of rice per day, and each day he increases the rice by doubling it. It is this same concept of exponential growth. The story ends with the emperor losing all of his stock piles of rice and eventually killing the peasant, but that's not the point, the point it that at early stages of this exponential growth, we don't see the changes as fast or severe. We don’t think of it as a huge deal, to increase the grain of rice by 2 each day. But as it continously grows and becomes faster, and we see the effects taking a much bigger dent into our rice storage.
There's no doubt that newer, faster, more reliable technology will make our world an easier, more comfortable place to live. But at what expense are we making some lives easier? Are these changes for the benefit of everyone, or just a select few? I ask the same question as Kmullin, will this benefit developed countries, or just major cities?
Technological development has been proven to be beneficial to us in more ways than one. We can all say that it has made our lives much easier. However, there are two sides to this term called “technology.” Technology has saved the lives of many, but at the same time it can be said to cause us harm.
In terms of benefit, we can all attest to this. Technology has made it possible for doctors to diagnose and treat individuals in a matter of second. The internet has made it possible for us to communicate over long distances and also access information easily thus eliminating the hassle of going to the library. Lastly is the development of the calculator. To many this might mean nothing, but to others, including myself, it’s a big deal. I was doing some Finance assignment today with a four function calculator and I was so frustrated because it was taking me for ever to do it. My scientific calculator ran out of batteries and so I was faced with the dilemma of using a four function calculator to do some very long calculations. Luckily a friend of mine was on the phone doing the assignment with me and so I could just let her do all my calculations. The whole point of this example is to show how difficult it would have been for me to do these calculations without any calculator at all. It would have probably taken up most of my day. I can therefore say that technology has played a huge part in our advancement and as is predicted, will continue to play a very important role in the lives of many individuals.
On the opposite side, it can be said that “technology” may cause us harm. With all these inventions and innovations to come, some individuals may be left jobless. Technology has made it possible for a machine to perform a task that would take a lot of man power to perform. Therefore companies will spend the money to buy this machine as in the long run it will cost them less to buy the machine than to pay individuals to perform the task.
The question is are “we willing to sacrifice the livelihood of some individuals to show how brilliant man kind is, or try to make life easier and at the same tine hoping that we do not wipe out the face of the earth?” There is no easy answer to this question. It’s like saying should I kill one man to save a hundred men; some win and some loose. Therefore all we can do is be careful and hope that we do not develop something that will end up and take our lives.
I found it very interesting to talk about the time line of inventions and what not. We truly are living in exponential times and it only makes it harder to try and come up with what the world could be like in 2025 because at the rate we are going, really anything is possible!! That makes it very exciting to be living in our times because we are start trying to make out wildest dreams actually a reality!
While all of this is exciting, it can also be on the scary side. There is something going on in Switzerland that is very frightening to me. They are trying to do an experiment to basically see if the world could have been created with a "big bang." The scary part is that if something of a large magnitude happens, then the world could turn into a black hole. Very scary! Some physicists say that there is a very small chance that this could happen, but others strongly disagree and have been trying to stop the experiment. This makes me question...when does science and technology go too far?? To me this experiment definitely goes too far because it puts the entire world at risk of exploding into oblivion! freaky!! So, with technology I feel as though I have mixed feelings about some of our extreme advances and what we could learn from them.
I love technology and cannot imagine a world without it. We have come a long way from the early inventions and have improved many of them, in addition to adding entirely new ones. The speed of innovation is exciting to me - and I know there are some people that are afraid of change, afraid to move forward, and afraid of what is to come. I do see many of the points of needing to find solutions for many of our problems - growing population, declining resources, etc - but I am an optimist and only see the positive things that will come with the increasing technology.
With that said, we should all focus on what WE can do to help with the problems we face and help spread the word - not wait for someone else...
In reference to the Chinese having more honor students than the US, the Chinese have a different culture and family structure. It is expected of them to achieve very high honors in education - a way of "saving face" and achieving respect from their society. The schools are very different - and they do not waste many hours focusing on standardized testing. My hope is that we will see a huge change in our school systems with the upcoming presidential election and the end of all the standardized testing. Our children need to learn the basics and focus on real-life issues, not how to take a CRCT test!
I agree with a lot of you in the fact that it's hard for us to notice such 'drastic' changes in technology. It's almost as if our generation expects it. We expect bigger and better and faster things. We've never really known much difference. It is so exciting for me to think of all the changes that are going to occur in our lifetime! I cannot even imagine what all will happen, much less what will happen in our children's/grandchildren's lifetimes! I am a Nursing major so, like Ramon, I get super excited about all of the medical advances that will be possible with this exponential change of technology. My husband is a computer engineer, so he always is telling me about a lot of the new changes & it just amazes me. He also told me about Moore's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law) and since he first introduced the idea in 1965 it has been true. What an intelligent man to notice something like that in the 60s!
Again, there is the issue of what will happen to the developing countries. I believe that with more advances we will be able to help these third world countries even more. Just like the program of sending laptops to third world children. No, it's not much when we consider what we have, but at least it's a start.
I would like to say that it is not hard for me to believe that China has more Honor students than US has students.
As adults in the US we push ourselves to work, work work. When we have children we want them to just have fun and be kids. We do not push them because most of us feel that they will work enough when they get older.
I have already found what I want to do my paper on. I was watching NatGeo and it had a technology that was like a personal biological system reader in the back of someone's hand. It was like a screen that gave you all your biological readouts. It was called a dermal sensor. I am not premed but this has a lot of implications for Drs and opens a whole new door for computer technicians, they might be like computer doctors for humans.
If you could wake up and be shown or even throughout the day be shown if something was wrong with your body. The implications of that, WOW. We of course would still need drs but now their job becomes so much easier, no more misdiagnosis?!?!? No more expensive testing only people with insurance can afford. Do we get insurance on our dermal computer in case we have to go see a computer dr for a malfunction? Is this something that is mas produced like a computer chip because after all it is so small that it is injected under the skin like a microchip in a dog.
This is just one idea about a technology and how it moves us forward. This is something that is hard for me to imagine, but I am sure with the progression of technology it is just around the corner. If you can imagine it, it can be done.
While it is true that technology is growing at a rapid pace and is making everyone's day to day lives easier, it is a double edged sword. Just remember how technology turned out in the movies, I am Legend, Irobot, Wall-e ect. there needs to be a delicate balance. people dont need to be replaced by machines.
This just further goes to prove that law, cant remember the name but it is the law that the number of transistors on a square inch of chip double every 18 months.
the innovation i have seen (as with the rest of us, but i have payed attention)is that law. my 1st computer was a computer that ran DOS. i dont even remember the specs but it was slow. the next computer was a windows 98 pentium 3 800mhz 128 mb of ram with a 16 mb nVidia video card. that computer lasted 8 years. i got a new computer about 6 years into that old one (a laptop) with a pentium 4 2ghz, 256 ram, and an ATI 7600 pro (32mb of onboard memory) the next comp i got 2 years later was a replacement desktop, it had a pentium 4 HT 3ghz 512mb ram and an ATI 9600pro, the next (and current) computer is a Intel Duo 2 core E6600 2.4ghz (not over clocked) 2 gigs ram, nVidea 8800GTS 640mb (64 nm architecture not the newer 42nm)
When I think about the speed of technological change in the last twenty years compared to the last 100, it makes me wonder just what the next twenty will hold. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine the actual impact of exponential growth in technology and how that translates into what I will see happen in my lifetime. Interestingly enough, the reading assigned for class actually discussed the limitations humans have in this type of foresight. This leads me to an interesting question. At what point will the technological advances begin taking place at such a high rate of change that humans are actually unable to keep up with it? It is quite unlikely that such a moment would represent a sort of "terminal velocity", but rather it seems machines would simply pick up where we could not. Unless, at that very moment, we were to intervene in some way, machines (or processors/robots - whatever you'd like to call them) would in a sense be progressing and learning at speed at which no human could comprehend. Meaning they would be learning by themselves, independently of humans, and in a way humans were physically incapable of understanding. It seems to me, that once this point is passed, there would be no turning back, we would in a sense become spectators in our own world. That is of course if the machines chose to let us know what they were doing. Yes, I said "chose", become it seems clear to me that there would be no other simple way to describe it.
Maybe this sounds a bit far fetched, but, to me, it seems the only probable progression. But hey, whatever happens, make sure you've got a front row seat 'cause it oughtta be really cool.
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