"How can we, limited by our current brain's capacity for 10^16 to 10^19 calculations per second, even begin to imagine what our future civilization in 2099 - with brains capable of 10^60 calculations per second - will be capable of thinking and doing?"The brains in the future that are referred to here are computers. Wolf responds:
"One thing we can imagine is that our capacities for good and for destruction will also be exponentially increased. If we are to prepare for such a future, our ability to make profound choices just be honed with a rigor rarely practiced by learners in past generations. If the species is to progress in the fullest sense, such preparations require singular capacities for attention and decision making that incorporate a desire for the common good."I completely agree with Wolf here. This is like a large scale version of Spiderman's "With great power comes great responsibility". I hope that humanity can make moral progress forwards. With a sense of common good and technology to assist us, we can do great things.
I am highly interested in this topic because if I ever have the privilege of designing a piece of technology, I want it to have positive impact and not be abused. While mankind always has the choice to misuse something which is good, I sometimes wonder: Is it possible to design something which by its very nature encourages the user to use it properly, or use it for good?
What a beautiful way to end Part 1 and begin Part 2. Thank you Edward!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! I found that part of the book very interesting also.
ReplyDeleteThe final question you relayed to us hits directly on what Carr says in The Shallows
ReplyDelete"...when we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning. It's possible to think deeply while surfing the Net, just as it's possible to think shallowly while reading a book, but that's not the type of thinking the technology encourages and rewards."
I believe this single quote answers our question of what is cool and what is not cool. Carr outlines that whatever behavior the technology "encourages and rewards" determines its ultimate measure of cool. So for Edward and Hans's presentation of DDR today, we could infer that DDR and its examples of use in the world encourages people to be active and dance (usually in front of a crowd); therefore, it IS cool.
Unfortunately, other presentations may not have been so clear cut, but I think it is important to ask ourself the question, "What does this technology encourage and reward?" , before we decide whether it is cool or not.
I (and wikipedia lol) think Spiderman was paraphrasing Voltaire (Voltaire. Jean, Adrien. Beuchot, Quentin and Miger, Pierre, Auguste. "Œuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48". Lefèvre, 1832): "the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility." :)
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