Back to the Future

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was 2001: A Space Odyssey. My sister Carol took me to it when I was six years old. She wasn’t sure I’d like it, but I really loved it—except for a bit of primitive violence in the opening scene that was too intense for my young eyes (and stomach). In particular, the future technology depicted in the film fired my imagination. People in 2001 casually used video telephone calling and iPad-like tablet computers. And who could forget the talking, intelligent—but ultimately sinister—computer named HAL 9000? In 1968, when the movie came out, these were indeed just technological fantasies. Spurred on by that movie, throughout my childhood and adolescence I had a keen interest in reading science fiction and predictions about future technology. As a pre-teen, I was fascinated with my father’s copy of the best-selling book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, which was published in 1970.

Over fifty years have passed since those early childhood days. For better or worse, our world is filled with the stuff of yesteryear’s science fiction. If time travel to today from 1968 were possible (spoiler alert: not quite yet), a cinematic camera crew simply filming day-to-day life in an advanced country like the U.S. or Japan would have the elements for an epic sci-fi blockbuster.  In my lifetime, technology has advanced at a staggering pace. The period from 1969-2000 is sometimes called the Third Industrial Revolution, encompassing the use of ever-more sophisticated electronics and computers to automate processes, as well as the rise of the internet. We are currently in the mind-boggling Fourth Industrial Revolution, where a mature internet has evolved to include “the internet of things” and artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing.

Sophisticated technology used to be quite expensive and out of the reach of many people. Today, due to technological advances, just about everyone can afford a compact smartphone that contains many amazing capabilities—including video calls—that could not be obtained at any price in 1968. Personal computers have come way down in price, and the internet, providing access to almost unlimited stores of information, is free for all to use. Our friends living 50 or 60 years ago would be in complete awe of what we take for granted.

Interestingly, in 1970 Alvin Toffler foreshadowed the rise of the internet and AI. Here’s a bit of what Toffler said about a computer concept called OLIVER (On-line Interactive Vicarious Expediter and Responder): “As computerized information systems ramify, (OLIVER) would tap into a worldwide pool of data stored in libraries, corporate files, hospitals, retail stores, banks, government agencies, and universities. OLIVER would thus become a kind of universal question-answerer…. It is theoretically possible to construct an OLIVER that would analyze the content of its owner’s words, scrutinize his choices, deduce his value system, update its own program to reflect changes in his values and ultimately handle larger and larger decisions for him…. Meetings could take place among groups of OLIVERs representing their respective owners, without the owners themselves being present.”

I would have been flabbergasted if, as a youngster, I’d been clued in about the technological advances I would witness in my lifetime. I’ve truly lived a science fiction kind of life. But all the technology hasn’t resulted in a utopia. Advances in AI make deepfakes more believable all the time. My Facebook feed is increasingly cluttered with AI generated videos and pictures, making it harder to distinguish between fact and fiction—especially judging by the comments people leave. The connected nature of the internet adds to the seeming cloudiness of truth. Cybercrime is a constant threat. Sometimes I wonder if it will all come crashing down, as in the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

How about you? Are you optimistic that our technological advances eventually will be self-correcting and propel society to greater heights? Or do you have an uneasy feeling that technology has raced ahead of what mankind is capable of handling? Is the best yet to come? Or have we peaked?