The Impact of Technology on Society
The Origins of Man to Present Day
Dr. David Gibbs
Department of Computing and New Media Technologies
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI 54481
David.Gibbs@uwsp.edu
Dr. David Gibbs
Fulbright Fellow 2008
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Wisconsin, USA
Dr. David Gibbs
Department of Computing and New Media Technologies
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI 54481
David.Gibbs@uwsp.edu
Wisconsin, USA
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Stevens Point, Wisconsin
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Wisconsin Facts
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Population: 5,648,124 (2007) (20th)
Land Area: 65,503 sq mi. (23rd)
Statehood: 1848
First explored: 1634 (French, Jean Nicolet)
Main industries
– Agriculture (milk, cheese, peas, potatoes, beans)
– Industry (paper, machinery, autos)
– Service (insurance, medical, higher education)
• Over 14,000 lakes
The Impact of Technology on
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University of Wisconsin
Stevens Point
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Established 1894
Enrollment 8600 combined grad/undergrad
Comprehensive programs
Largest major fields of study
– Education
– Natural Resources
– Biology
– Computing
The Impact of Technology on
Society
University of Wisconsin System
26 Campuses
2 Doctoral Institutions
11 Comprehensive
13 Two Year Universities
approximately 160,000
students
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Wisconsin Technical College
System
16 Districts
Blackhawk
Chippewa Valley
Fox Valley
Gateway
Lakeshore
Madison Area
Mid-State
Milwaukee Area
Moraine Park
Nicolet Area
Northcentral
Northeast Wisconsin
Southwest Wisconsin
Waukesha County
Western
Wisconsin Indianhead
The Impact of Technology on
Society
About Dr. Gibbs
• Raised on a farm in rural Wisconsin
• Undergraduate degree in Mathematics,
Physical Sciences
• Master’s Degree in Computer Science
• Ph.D. In Educational Technology
• Teaching Experience
• 2 years secondary school
• 27 years university
My Family
Impact of Technology
• Interaction of humans and their
tools/technologies
• Origins to present
• Present to 2047
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Influences
• Neil Postman
– Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993)
• Ray Kurzweil
– The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
(2005)
• Life in America (1955 – 2008)
– convenience, immediate gratification, pleasure seeking,
the disappearance of childhood, stay young at all costs,
quarterly stock earnings reports, maxim of efficiency
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Neil Postman
• 1931-2003
• NYU Professor of
Communications,
media theorist, and
cultural critic
• 18 books,
200+ articles
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Author: Neil Postman
Published in 1993
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Postman’s Writings
• Television and the Teaching of English (1961).
• Linguistics: A Revolution in Teaching with Charles Weingartner
(Dell Publishing, 1966).
• Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969) with Charles
Weingartner.
• Teaching as a Conserving Activity (1979).
• The Disappearance of Childhood (1982).
• Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of
Show Business (1985).
• Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language,
Technology and Education (1988).
• Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992).
• The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (1995).
• Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can
Improve Our Future (1999).
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
“Technopoly”
– Postman coined the term – in part because no
term existed
“Culture”
– Patterns of human activity and the symbolic
structures that give such activity significance.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
“Legend of Thamus”
from Plato’s Phaedrus (a dialog between
Socrates and Phaedrus)
King Thamus entertaining Theuth, the inventor
of numbers, calculation, geometry,
astronomy, and writing.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Theuth, to Thamus
Theuth, the inventor, to the King, on his
invention of writing:
“Here is an accomplishment, my lord the king, which
will improve both the wisdom and the memory of
the Egyptians. I have discovered a sure receipt for
memory and wisdom.”
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Thamus, to Theuth
King Thamus, on Theuth’s writing:
“Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of
an art is not the best judge of the good or harm
which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in
this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of
fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite
the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire
it will cease to exercise their memory and become
forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to
their remembrance by external signs instead of by
their own internal resources.”
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What will be the impact of writing?
King Thamus, on Theuth’s writing continued:
“What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection,
not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will
have the reputation for it without the reality: they
will receive a quantity of information without proper
instruction, and in consequence be thought very
knowledgeable when they are for the most part
quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the
conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will
be a burden to society.”
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What are the lessons
of Theuth & Thamos?
• Cultures negotiate with technology;
technology "giveth" and technology "taketh
away.“
• It is a mistake to suppose that any
technological innovation has a one-sided
effect. Every technology is both a burden and
a blessing at once.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What are the lessons
of Theuth & Thamos?
• Technologies create new definitions of old
terms, and this process takes place without
our being fully conscious of it. (‘memory’,
‘wisdom’)
• There will always be "winners" and "losers" as
the result of a new technology.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What are the lessons
of Theuth & Thamos?
• Technologies create “experts,” those with
mastery.
• Those who have control over the workings of
a particular technology accumulate power.
• There will always be "winners" and "losers" as
the result of a new technology.
• At the start of a technological journey, you
can't simply conspire to be a winner.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What are the lessons
of Theuth & Thamos?
• New technologies compete with old ones - for
time, for attention, for money, for prestige,
but mostly for dominance of their world-view.
• Technological change is neither additive nor
subtractive. It is ecological.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Legend of Thamus
• Thamus was right – but only half-right, as was
Theuth
• Writing is not just a burden – it is both – and
at the same time – a burden and a blessing.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Social Aspects of Technology Course
• First written assignment
– entitled “Benefits and Harms of Technology”
– “technology” as broadly defined in the
assignment
– 6 technologies
• 3 positive, or beneficial
• 3 negative, or harmful
– Oral presentation and defense of those
technologies in class
• Examples: cell phones, television, i-pods, nuclear
power
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Technology is non-neutral
ALL technologies bring blessings and burdens.
CHALLENGE: find a technology that is either ALL
good or ALL bad.
REALIZATION: you can’t choose to use a
technology only for good (or bad)
MYTH: “It all depends upon how you use it…”
The Impact of Technology on
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With apologies to Clint Eastwood
Regarding Technology,
NOT the Good and Bad,
BUT…
The Good AND Bad, and
the potentially Ugly*
* The really ugly technologies will be presented in part II: The Impact of Technology on Society: Present
Day to 2047 and Beyond.
Technopoly:
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
A Taxonomy of Culture:
a timeline describing the intersection of
Tools/Technology and Culture
1. Tool-Using: rocks, fire, to 1770s
2. Technocracy: 1770s to 1910
3. Technopoly: 1910 to “present” (i.e. 1993)
The Impact of Technology on
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The Taxonomy: stage 1
• A Tool-Using Culture (rocks, fire, to 1770s)
Tools either
– solved the immediate problems of physical life,
such as
• water power, windmills, plow
– served the symbolic world of art, religion, politics
• cathedrals, castles
The Impact of Technology on
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The Taxonomy: stage 2
• Technocracy (1770s to early 1900s)
– A society loosely controlled by social custom and
religious tradition
– Tools moving Europe from a tool-using culture to
technocracy:
• Clock
• Printing press
• Telescope
– Origins of the “scientific method”
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The Taxonomy: stage 2, cont’d
• Technocracy
– Began in late 1700s
• 1765 James Watt, steam engine
• 1776, as defined by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations
• Roughly corresponds to the Industrial Revolution
– Communications “Revolution” began
• Books (now affordable/available), telegraph,
typewriter, transatlantic cable, photography
– Life began to “speed up”
The Impact of Technology on
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The Taxonomy: stage 3
• Technopoly (early 1900s – “present” i.e. 1993)
– The submission of all forms of cultural life to the
sovereignty of technique and technology.
– Began in early 1900s. When?
• Henry Ford’s “model T” (Huxley: 632 AF) ?
• 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial ?
• 1910 Frederick Taylor, Scientific Management –
EFFICIENCY maxims applied to the Interstate Commerce
Commission hearings between the Railroad and Labor
force
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Society
The Principles of Scientific
Management
by Frederick Taylor
1. the goal of human labor and thought is efficiency
2. technical calculation is superior to human
judgment
3. human judgment cannot be trusted (plagued by
laxity, ambiguity, unnecessary complexity)
The Impact of Technology on
Society
The Principles of Scientific
Management
by Frederick Taylor
4. subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking
5. what cannot be measured either does not exist or
is of no value
6. the affairs of citizens are best guided and
conducted by experts
The Impact of Technology on
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Why did Technopoly prosper in America?
• The American “character.”
• The genius and audacity of American
capitalists (to say nothing for the resources
available which they might exploit).
– Morse, Bell, Edison, Rockefeller, Astor, Ford,
Carnegie
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Why did Technopoly prosper in America?
(cont’d)
• The success of twentieth century technology
in providing convenience, comfort, speed,
hygiene and abundance.
– "To every Old World belief, habit or tradition
there was and still is a technological alternative:
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to prayer, the alternative is penicillin
to family roots, the alternative is mobility
to reading, the alternative is television
to restraint, immediate gratification
to sin, psychotherapy”
The Impact of Technology on
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Definition of Technopoly
A Technopoly is a society that believes that "the
primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and
thought is efficiency, that technical calculation is in
all respects superior to human judgment ... and that
the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted
by experts." (p. 43)
In 1993, Technopoly existed primarily in America.
Where does it exist today?
The Impact of Technology on
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Taxonomic Stages of the Interaction of
Culture and Technology
To summarize:
• Tool-using
Technology is integrated into the culture
• Technocracy
Technology attacks the culture
• Technopoly
Technology becomes the culture and efficiency is
the paramount goal
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Provocations
“We make our tools and forever after they
shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan
“The medium is the message.” – McLuhan
“Men have become the tools of their tools.” –
Henry David Thoreau
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Truisms
(Wordnet: “an obvious truth”)
1. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a
nail.
2. To a man with a pencil, everything looks like a list.
3. To a man with a camera, everything looks like an
image.
4. To a man with a computer, everything looks like
data.
5. To a man with a grade sheet, everything looks like a
number.
6. To a man with the scientific method, everything is
solvable by science or engineering.
The Impact of Technology on
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An Observation
Each technological “advance” increases the efficiency
of its predecessor. (That’s why it’s accepted as an
advance.)
NOTE that the scientific method is itself an
improvement in efficiency over its predecessor(s).
NOTE that natural selection takes place between
competing technologies.
The Impact of Technology on
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Gibbsian Truism
• Technology serves to distance* people.
– Warfare: fists, rocks, spears, arrows, guns,
cannons, chemical warfare, airborne
bombs, missiles, biological agents. NOW:
air drones, robots as proxy battlefield
soldiers, ABMs fired from the other side of
the world.
*although distance here is used in the literal sense of physical proximity,
technology also serves to distance people in the socio-emotional realm as
well.
Gibbsian Truism
• Technology serves to distance* people, 2nd
example.
– Communications between humans:
gestures, spoken language, smoke signals,
glyphs, cursive writing, printing press,
telegraphy, radio, telephone, television.
NOW: Internet (email, blogs, text
messages), chats, virtual worlds (2nd Life).
SOON: total VR immersion
*although distance here is used in the literal sense of physical proximity,
technology also serves to distance people in the socio-emotional realm as
well.
Gibbsian Truism
• What technology makes easy to do, we tend
to do.
(A corollary of a law of human nature known
as the “path of least resistance.”)
The Impact of Technology on
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Creation of “Because-You-Can”
TAKE the truism:
What technology makes easy we tend to do
ADD:
Capitalist zeal, replete with marketing
AND YOU GET:
“Because You Can” Technologies (BYC)
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What is a (BYC)? “Because-You-Can”
When the only possible answer to the question…
“Why would they create that?”
is…
“Because you can!”
you have identified a BYC.
The Impact of Technology on
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BYC Examples
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Screaming monkey phone call
Gene bank your pet – only $1500
No tears onions
Segway
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What typifies Technopoly?
These phenomena typify Technopoly…
• Information overload
• “Scientism”
• creation of “expertise”
and a result…
• the “disappearance of childhood”
The Impact of Technology on
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The Information Revolution…
leads to Information Overload
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Printing press; Gutenberg 1450
Telegraph; Morse, 1844 (U.S.)
Photograph; Herschel and Daguerre, 1840s
Broadcasting; radio – 1920s, TV – 1950s
Personal computer; 1980s
Internet, WWW; 1990s
>> volume, speed, cost*, multiple formats
The Impact of Technology on
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“sipping from a fire hose…”
• What techniques do you use to manage
information and info tools?
– mandatory ‘quiet’ periods? (devices turned off?)
– Take a day off, e.g. Sunday?
The Impact of Technology on
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towards “Scientism”
• Technopoly values efficiency, information,
predictability, and reliability.
• The scientific method was developed via the
discovery of natural law, i.e. "nature's laws".
• The combination of the two applied to social
or human situations is "Scientism."
What is problematic about this?
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Scientism
Social scientists believe that the study of human
behavior, when conducted according to the
rigorous principles established by the physical
and biological sciences, will produce objective
facts, testable theories, and profound
understandings of the human condition.
Examples
The Impact of Technology on
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The Disappearance of Childhood
“Childhood” was socially constructed, as a result
of the printing press…
• In the middle ages humans became “adults” at
6 or 7 (when they could speak)
• Starting with the reformation & literacy*
– Books > reading & writing > schools & curriculum
> school “children”
– A new “class” of human, with special status and
protections from all things “adult.”
*READING is an incredibly demanding cognitive act; try teaching a street-smart illiterate adult to read.
The Disappearance of Childhood,
cont’d.
“Childhood” is disappearing, as a result of mass
media – primarily television*
• TV is non-linguistic; primarily de-coding
images (turn off the volume some time)
• Requires no skills and develops no skills
• Unrestricted access, liberal doses of all things,
including those thought of as “adult”
Erases the dividing line between children and
adults
*does all this apply to the Internet as well?
Observations in support of
“The Disappearance of Childhood”
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•
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Apparel
Sports & recreation
Emphasis on youth culture (for ‘adults’)
Emphasis on being older (for ‘youth’)
Social statistics of adult behaviors of children
The Impact of Technology on
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Regarding the graphical predominance
of modern mass media
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TV, movies: “text is dead”
The early Internet: “text is not dead”
txt msgs: “o ys it is”
The more recent Internet: “If it’s not dead,
it’s co-existing.”
• Speaking computers (in monotone): “Yes,
text is dead.”
The Impact of Technology on
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Technology and Malta
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Education
Health Care
Government
Information Access
Commerce
The Impact of Technology on
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Technology and Education
in Malta
• Times of Malta – February 15, 2008
– Talking point: Great Teachers
The Impact of Technology on
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Technology and Health Care
in Malta
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Technology and Government
in Malta
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Technology and Commerce
in Malta
The Impact of Technology on
Society
RFID Chips
Radio-frequency-identification
Components
– Chip (with unique ID#)
– Antenna
– Reader
The Impact of Technology on
Society
RFID chips
(syn: tags, transponders)
• Passive Tags
– No internal power source
– Activated by a “reader”
• Active Tags
– Contain a battery, thus larger
– Used in electronic toll
gathering (right), parking lots
The Impact of Technology on
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Parking Lot with RFID
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What’s on the chip?
• EPC – electronic product code
• EPC and RFID
• 96 bit code; i.e. 296, or 7.92 x 1028 unique ids
How BIG a number is 1028?
The Impact of Technology on
Society
ASIDE: How BIG a number is 1028?
Innumeracy* is rampant in America…
• Estimation is a forgotten skill
• Understanding probabilities nonexistent
• Excessive exposure to big (or small) numbers
results in numbness, apathy
– David Beckham contract with LA Galaxy
• £130m
– U.S. population:
• just over 300 million
– U.S. national budget, proposed, Feb. 4, 2008:
• $3.1 trillion, or $3.1 x 1012
* A term meant to convey a person's inability to make sense of the numbers that run their lives
More big numbers
• U.S. National Debt:
– Over $9 trillion and increasing $1.5bn per day
• Number of days a human lives (on average):
– 28,105 (77 years X 365 days)
The Impact of Technology on
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How BIG a number is 1028?
• There are 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand on earth
(according to Howard C. McAllister, University
of Hawaii)
http://www.hawaii.edu/suremath/jsand.html
• How many things can be tagged with 1028
unique ids?
– Everything? Clearly, some folks think so
– The Internet of “Things”
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Early applications of RFID
• automatic highway toll collection
• supply-chain management (for large retailers)
• pharmaceuticals (for the prevention of
counterfeiting; $46bn annual losses)
• e-health (for patient monitoring)
The Impact of Technology on
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RFID anywhere, everywhere
More recent applications
• sports and leisure (ski passes)
• tracking cattle (carcasses)
• personal security (tagging children at
schools)
• access to bars like the Baja Beach Club
in Barcelona
• military ID (dog-tags, etc.)
• login to your computer! (at right)
The Impact of Technology on
Society
RFID in public &
private sectors
• RFID in E-government:
– drivers’ licenses
– passports (immediately “hacked” in the U.K., where 3m
were issued)
– currency
• RFID readers are now being embedded in mobile phones:
– Nokia, released RFID-enabled phones for businesses with
workforces in the field in mid-2004
– launched consumer handsets in 2006.
The Impact of Technology on
Society
RFID tracking
valuable “assets”
• Pets: www.homeagain.com
• Livestock: www.digitalangel.com
• Vehicles: www.saco.co.za
• Ore: (ore?): www.saco.co.za
• Asset Tracking: www.saco.co.za
• Man Tracking: www.saco.co.za
The Impact of Technology on
Society
RFID and humans
• Kevin Warwick, University of Reading
professor and self-proclaimed first
“cyborg”
• Chip planting for fun (opening doors);
oops – also for profit
• Chipping as a serious business
– Senior citizens
– Infants
The Impact of Technology on
Society
The movement needs “leaders”
• Tommy Thompson, former Bush
cabinet member (former
Wisconsin governor), member of
the board of Applied Digital to “get
chipped” (July 2005)
• No he won’t (December 2005)
• Legislation passed by his former
state (June 2006)
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Retail Purchases?
1. Put items in your cart
2. Walk out!
(provided you have an RFID yourself –
embedded or otherwise)
“And he causeth all, both small and great,
rich and poor, free and bond, to receive
a mark in their right hand, or in their
foreheads.
And that no man might buy or sell, save he
that had the mark, or the name of the
beast, or the number of his name.”
Rev 13: 16-17
The Impact of Technology on
Society
RFID
• Good
– Market-supply management
– Simplifies some pressures (toll booths, secure
passage, queues in checkout lines)
• Bad
– Big-brother, done to ourselves by ourselves
(what technology makes easy to do we tend to do)
• Ugly?
– What uses haven’t we even thought of?
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Summary of the Age of Technopoly
• Taxonomy
– Tool-using (integrate)
– Technocracy (attack)
– Technopoly (become)
• Efficiency is paramount
• Scientific method is a belief system
• Subordination of human thought to expert
and machine decisions
The Impact of Technology on
Society
Discussion Questions
Let us accept Postman's taxonomy, if only for the sake
of this question, in which cultures have moved from
tool-users to technocracy to Technopoly.
What do you see as the next phase?
What elements of Technopoly will be strengthened?
Weakened?
What will be a defining characteristic of the next
phase?
The Impact of Technology on
Society
What to do, what to do?
• Reverse the truisms – in your own life
– Stop “distancing” people – (HOW??)
– Don’t always do what technology makes easy to
do – (DIFFICULT!!)
• Remember the “human”; what do you value? In
daily life? In others?
• Remember the “sacred”; there’s a reason those
belief systems have been around for millennia
The Impact of Technology on
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Next Presentation: March 5
The Impact of Technology on Society:
Present Day to 2047 and Beyond
2047? Why 2047?
The projected date of the “Singularity.”
“… a future period during which the pace of
technological change will be so rapid, its
impact so deep, that human life will be
irreversibly transformed.”
The Impact of Technology on
Society
To the Singularity
Three technologies in succession, Genetics (G),
Nanotechnology (N), and Robotics (R), forming
the GNR revolution will pave the path to the
Singularity.
• “The Singularity will represent the culmination
of the merger of our biological thinking and
existence with our technology, resulting in a
world that is still human but that transcends
our biological roots.”
The Impact of Technology on
Society
To the Singularity, cont’d.
“The Singularity will allow us to transcend the
limitations of our biological bodies and brains.
We will gain power over our fates. Our
mortality will be in our own hands. We will be
able to live as long as we want (a subtly
different statement from saying we will live
forever).”
The Impact of Technology on
Society