Where Are We Living With This Technology Today?
In the new millennium that has made science fiction dreams of yesteryears come true, aptly placing ourselves in this complex DNA meets data matrix is impossible. Except, not quite; since we live in a world full of possibilities that shuns the word ‘impossible’ as some gibberish tech illiterates would say.
So where are we with this technology today? When we think of technology, the spectrum of possibilities is, to say the least, broad. Technology today ranges from the peripherals like computers, mobiles, the internet, cars and planes, something we can touch, feel, hear and see, to technology that we can somehow believe exist like satellites and super computers to technology that we can vaguely fathom like cloud computing, driverless cars and mainstream robots to something that is unimaginable, something that is probably being developed behind high security doors at Google or Tesla or an idea inside the head of a fifth grader in school currently cribbing over homework. The possibilities of tech evolution today are endless.
While prepping for this essay, I contacted a friend who studies a course that wonderfully amalgamates electronics and computer science and she led me into the world of Artificial Intelligence and specifically to Sophia, a humanoid robot programmed to learn based off of human intelligence and emotion, developed by Hanson Robotics, whose CEO thinks of himself as a modern day renaissance man. Sophia, is not only a current citizen of Saudi Arabia but also is the most advanced creature the AI world has ever seen, upping, by millions of algorithmic folds, the game Siri or Alexa ever played. The world of Sophia, realistically virtual and so virtually realistic, has changed the entire perception of technology, chartering into territories no one ever dared to charter before. She is treading on a tightrope that will soon blur, if not bridge, the gap between Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence, an intelligence that is equal to that of humans.
This is where we are living with technology today. This also inadvertently reminds me of some important advice Mr. Weasley from Harry Potter had- “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”
However, one person with his brain seemingly in the right place and claiming to shape our future is tech billionaire, Elon Musk, whose companies, Space X and Tesla are already pioneers of future technology. It is almost impossible to talk technology today without talking Musk, what with his highly ambitious, slightly insane for 2018, projects that range from colonizing Mars to turbocharging our brains, no it’s not limited to our devices anymore, while traveling 700mph underground!
While Musk’s plans are ingenious and are stretching the possibilities of what human minds can do combined with the power of technology, on the other side of the planet, just a video call away, really, thanks to technology, is Yuval Noah Harari, a man delving into the depths of what it is to be human. A man who sold thousands of copies by putting into comprehendible words the history of mankind with his book Sapiens and sold thousands more by exploring the future with its sequel Homo Dues, literally translating to ‘Human God’. Harari looks into dataism or data religion that argues humanity has reached the end and is now time for a new entity to take our place. An entity based on electric algorithms that will eventually decipher and outperform biochemical algorithms, leaving us wondering if we are all just organisms with algorithms for processing data.
This is where we are living with technology. In a frayed world hanging loosely on the last remaining threads of emotions, consciousness and true human connection, something that has helped us survive and self-title ourselves as the supreme of all living organisms. Technology today is not just to Google things wherever we are, to not just manufacture goods or services to satiate our wants, needs and desires, to not just make our life easier but technology to imagine, to create, to think of a future where technology does not just change its meaning due its advancements but will alter the façade of the world we are living in, probably making being human a thing of the past.
We are living with Neptune on our fingertips owing to virtual and augmented reality, living with our friends at the other end of a phone call, living with automobiles that transport us, but we as humans desire bigger things, we want larger than life- we want Neptune under our feet, just a simulation will not do, we want our friend to appear, preferably out of thin air, at the click of our finger and teleport whenever we wish.
Maybe we are already living in an advanced civilization’s video game as Musk believes likely, maybe we already are cyborgs, maybe we are a form of demon Frankenstein conjured, maybe we are stuck in Westworld, maybe we still have time before our crown jewel on top of our body is overthrown, or maybe, just maybe, we are only humans, living with technology and standing on the verge of omnipotence, but teetering on the edge of a void of meaninglessness.