It’s easy to forget how much things have changed over the last 30 years, since the turn of the century. Today, in 2032, we take the animated world around us for granted. But in the pre-technological world of 2002, people would often go for minutes, or even hours, without interacting with their technology. In fact, frightening as it is for us to imagine now, people would actually sleep for up to eight hours without any technology monitoring their health, safety, or welfare. The closest they came to technological safeguards were unreliable, battery-operated smoke detectors, and primitive “burglar alarms” (a burglar was a human being that physically broke into your home with the intention of theft, or violence, or both). Oh, and they usually had a physical clock with an audible alarm to wake them up the morning at a fixed time, regardless of where they were in their sleep cycle, or what their daily schedule was.
Today, of course, we take for granted the wide range of subtle and pervasive safeguards that surround us. We never notice the floating “smart dust” that pervades our houses, measuring temperature to optimize heating and cooling, seeking out problems with the walls, roof, and windows, checking the flow of broadcast and hardwired electricity that powers our homes, ensuring that the plumbing is working properly, checking for intruders, and making sure the dog isn’t getting sick somewhere, all coordinated by the home’s central computer, under the direction of our own wearable computers.
But if the technology of the home of 30 years ago seems primitive, we would be horrified to have to go back to the wearable technology of that era – because there was none. A minority of people, almost all of whom were business people, carried pocket-sized handheld computers of trivial capabilities, and used them mostly as address books and scheduling devices (although the individuals themselves actually did all the scheduling – the handhelds merely recorded what the user input.) A contemporary individual would be shocked trying to function without her implanted computer, and especially the animating software, your computer butler or companion. These computer avatars have become our alter egos in cyberspace, regular companions, guardians, advisors, and nurses in constant attendance, watching over our physical and mental safety, managing our resources and time, scheduling our appointments, acting as our purchasing agents, and screening unwanted intrusions from advertisers and privacy offenders. Our nanobots – the machines that float through our bloodstream, powered by the glycerin supplied by the body itself, just as a natural born cell is – monitor our health in every detail, and report any abnormalities to our wearable computers, 24 hours a day, especially while we sleep. We are constantly connected by the always-on interplay with the world-wide information network, the lineal descendent of the Internet, and so our avatars can call for help whenever and wherever necessary, as well as accessing and screening all the information owned by humanity.
Moreover, our computer avatars interact with the animated world around us, without intruding on our awareness, to smooth our paths, and make life easier for us. If we choose to take public transit, the relevant bus stop will tell our avatars how long it will be before the next bus arrives, before we ever move to put on our outdoor attire. As we pass a shop, the store’s computer will tell our avatars what they have in stock that would interest us, based on our known purchasing preferences, and what kinds of discounts we would get if we were to buy right now. If a car on a superhighway several miles in front of us has emergency that will clog traffic, the car will alert the Net, which will immediately inform all the traffic moving in that direction of the impending problem, and offer alternative routing, as well as sophisticated estimates of the delays of each alternative, updated second-by-second. If we’ve misplaced the book we were reading, and it’s not where our avatar remembers it to be because someone moved it, our home’s smart dust will tell us where it is. All of this seems natural and normal to us, for we take today’s animated world around us for granted.
Perhaps one of the best ways to illustrate the differences between then and now is to talk about how you would get access to cash if you wanted it. Then, if you were out of cash and wanted to buy something that required cash, you would go to the closest ATM, step up, find the right piece of identification (typically a small plastic card with a delicate magnetic strip on one side), and push it into a slot. The bank computer to which the ATM was connected would read the magnetic strip (if it hadn’t been scrambled magnetically or damaged physically), then ask you to type in a “PIN” or “Personal Identification Number.” This was a primitive password composed of a four digit number that you were supposed to be able to remember, and was typically your birth date or phone number, or something else easily guessed. Not only was this ridiculously weak security, but you stood a good chance of being physically assaulted and robbed as you walked away with your cash.
Today, of course, cash is not often used, and purchases are made by having our avatars transfer funds electronically directly from our drawing accounts to the accounts of the merchant, even for minor purchases. However, if we do want cash, we just walk up to the ATM, pick up the cash, and walk away. Below the surface of this transaction, of course, we will have told our avatar how much cash we want (or rather, our avatar will have advised us how much to take), the avatar will have communicated this to the ATM and provided your public key encryption string for authentication. Then, as you walked up to the ATM, the machine would have used biometrics to check your face, height, the shape of your ears, the size of your eye sockets, and so on, verifying that that you are, in fact, you, and that your identity matches the authentication your avatar provided. The ATM then checks the physical security of the area (which is does continuously anyway), and warns you and the police if there are any apparent security threats before issuing the cash to you. All of this happens without our having to pay any attention to it, so that it looks like we just walk up and receive cash. In fact, though, the transaction is substantially more secure and dramatically easier than a comparable transaction 30 years ago.
Of course, we also pay a price for these advances. It has become easier and easier for us to isolate ourselves from each other. Our newscasts and entertainments are screened and organized uniquely for us, so that we experience only what we are interested in. This has cut us off from having a common culture with our neighbours, with the result that it is becoming more and more difficult for nations to reach a political consensus on major issues. The official marriage rate has dropped, as have the number of common-law marriages and the birth rate, as people have became more self-centered and less tolerant of others. Global villages of special interest groups have become self-reinforcing, so that hate groups are flourishing, and smaller and smaller minorities are wallowing in real or perceived slights, identifying themselves as victims of society, and demanding special treatment and benefits. Physical crime has become rare, with all the electronic safeguards around us, but electronic crime, especially avatar identity theft, is rampant as all identification is now electronic, and can be counterfeited electronically.
Yet despite these and related problems, I seriously doubt that any but a few alternative-lifestylers would wish to return to the primitive conditions of the 2000’s. Life was just too dangerous then. We would as soon live without a cure for the common cold, or have our teeth ground away with a metal drill because of caries caused by an unchecked infection.
by futurist Richard Worzel
© Copyright, IF Research, January 10th, 2002.
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