Blogger Notes

This video showed the possible future in plastics being malleable for gadgets to be folded. Interesting concept, which could revolutionize our storage spaces for technology.

 We then talked about certain drivers for the development of such technologies. Things like knowledge of our society as well as how mass media has paved the way for such developments were brought up for discussion.

This was an example of artificial intelligence that was created to satify the wants of men. The resemblance life-like qualities are actually quite freaky and scary, truth to be told.  She may be “perfect”, but I don’t think anything will ever replace a real person.

This video is a good introduction for people who are still not exposed to the wonders of augmented reality, where information can be obtained just through a image capture of a place, item or location.

Another video that gives a brief introduction of how nanotechnology works, and highlights the potential of such technology, despite its ages in the technological field.

Another interesting look on emerging technologies, this time on how electricity is transmitted wirelessly.  Though this will help improve the face of the Earth aesthetically, I wonder if this idea is going to be accepted within the society. This is due to the lack of safety tests that have been done on it, in terms of harming us through unseen radiation.

This last video shows the future of cars, through electrical powering over the conventional fossil fuels. I really am thankful for these revolutions and breakthroughs, as I personally believe that transportation in general is one of the major pollutants on our environment, yet many of us can’t do without it in our daily lives. Electricity will solve our problems of dwindling natural resources, as they can be generated through many ways that does not involve our finite resources.

Moving on to the first presentation, it introduced an emerging technology called the sixth sense.

It was fascinating how we were able to combine many aspects of technology from other gadgets all into one. It’s like having the entire realm of technology and information, literally at your fingertips. Though it looks like a very popular idea, I wonder if people would be used to pointing randomly in the air. Would society accept that? The more disturbing thing is how your personal information will display immediately (at the end of the video). Are we ready for such a stage where information of ourselves is readily released?

The second presentation was on virtual reality. The discussion was again brought back to when we talked about Microsoft’s Project Natal, where it brings possible degradation of our social skills, while providing a companion for those who are alone. What was interesting was this virtual concert that was shared…

It really made me wonder if virtual reality can be a good thing. Piracy is already ruining the music industries for artistes, would such virtual ‘artistes’ make things worse? Really don’t understand how the crowd is enjoying such concerts though, as it just doesn’t feel the same from a real person singing from the soul.

The third presentation was on spaced based solar power, which was launching satellites into space to obtain a steady amount of solar power supply to be transmitted back to Earth. Another idea that can help make the face of Earth aesthetically nicer, but as some students brought up, are we then polluting outer space then? Not sure if such solutions would turn out to be financially friendly, guess we’ll just have to wait and see

The fourth presentation showcased 3D printers. It was interesting to see how this technology has already existed for almost a decade, but yet its presence is still not felt. However I think with the rapid developments, this will help bring down prices very very soon, and who knows how fast we will come to the stage where we will all be able to own one at home. The possibilities of printing is endless!

The last presentation talked about singularity and how the evolution of self-aware AI may affect us all. The presentation seemed to be directed towards people who are creating these technologies and how it may not seen as a benefit to society.

Albert Einstein’s take on how imagination is more important than knowledge stirred a little dilemma in me. I used to believe that this was true, but over the years, I became a more pessimistic and pragmatic on life. Perhaps that is what the government’s education system has done to all of us. How can realistic imaginations be made without a proper basis of knowledge? Without the know-hows of how things work on Earth, would ridiculous imaginations be useful?

Also, I personally feel that the emerging technologies, despite its benefits to the society, seems to be infringing more and more into our private lives (like SixthSense). It also seems to help us in so many ways, that I feel that we are getting more and more lazy due to our dependence and reliance on such gadgets. Will this lead to an increase in obesity rates in developed countries?

Despite the wonderful benefits these emerging technology can bring to us, I believe it is still important to separate the needs and wants of technology usages. It cannot be denied that most technology will help speed up certain processes. However, over dependency can cause technology to turn around and bite us back.

That being said, we shouldn’t hamper our boundaries of imagination to help further develop the potential of technology. I think it is all about having a balance, which is not an easy to achieve as a whole.

I felt that more could have been discussed on the issue of AI. The discussion based on the last presentation seemed to be very baised, and there was not a clear discussion on the very definition of AI. Instead, the whole discussion seemed  to base on the fact that AI is a self-learning evolutionary technology, without giving the credit to the programmers behind it.

The discussion was biased in the sense that the idea of consciousness seemed to be defined clearly by the prof without further opinions, when this was actually a grey issue between science and religion. Respect should be duly given to both believers of science and god, instead of a biased stand of consciousness evolving from a scientific point of view.

Furthermore, due to such unclear consensus of definitions, the presentation seem to indirectly target IT professionals as the culprit of self-aware AI, which may be the cause of degradation of society in the future. No one seemed to understand that the AI will always be as smart as the programmer behind it, and that the self-awareness function comes from a learning process from  data collected from the PAST, rather than a real time analysis of the situation.

This week’s lesson was interesting as there were many videos that introduced us into the new technologies that I believe many in the class have yet to seen. However, the class ended kind of sour for me and some of my friends as we were a little offended on how there is a biased stand on the topic of consciousness, and how the issue of self-aware AI seem to be indirectly blamed on the IT professionals, being the creators of such technology.

Rating: 6/10