Session 9 (18/10) Reflections

Brief Overview

This week’s focus was on emerging and future technologies. Some interesting technologies that were mentioned include claytronics, plastic electronics, augmented reality, robotics and wireless transmission of electricity. These various technologies can change our world in many ways and their development and adoption will lead to debates on their social, ethical, economic, and political implications.

Interesting Ideas/Observations

The assigned readings were very useful in broadening my knowledge and keeping me abreast of up-and-coming technologies. It is interesting to note that certain technologies such as nanotechnology and robotics tend to appear across all the readings, signifying a possible consensus on what would be the more revolutionary and perhaps controversial technologies of tomorrow.

As noted in Reading 4, these technologies all hold tremendous promise in improving our quality of life although the rate of development from one technology to another will vastly differ. Some technological developments may be stalled due to political reasons or because they threaten to undermine the profits of influential institutions and industries. Debates on the social, economic and political implications of these new technologies have already arisen and will continue to be raised (e.g. the debate on use of nuclear energy).

In particular, ethical debates are bound to occur in areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Reading 2 provides an account of the potential environmental and social risks of robotics and AI. As the class discussion on Qing Yun’s presentation on falling in love with virtual people demonstrates, there are already many divergent views on the possible implications of such technologies (e.g. what roles would robots have in society, whether robots and humans can get married). From the discussion, it is clear that the media’s role in terms of science fiction movies and books, can heavily influence thoughts about the future.

Two interesting points were raised in class. The first is that supply can sometimes create demand as exemplified by the iPhone. People may not know that they need these technologies until they experience it. Emerging technologies can therefore create new markets and industries which did not exist previously. The second point is that a confluence of 4 “Smarts”-smart people, smart ideas, smart money and smart alliances and partnerships- will lead to the growth and drive emerging technologies.

Key Takeaway Points

• Imagination plays a key role in the development of emerging technologies
• Debates on the social, ethical, economic and political implications of these new technologies have already arisen and will continue to be raised
• Some of these technologies have the potential to change how we view ourselves as human beings and the way society works (e.g. artificial intelligence)

Issues for Further Discussion

Having seen the advances in gaming technologies where whole new worlds are created with their own landscapes, economies and societies, augmented reality does not seem too far off in the future. The potential for people to become addicted to augmented reality and other possible abuses of such technology would be interesting to discuss.

Rating

7/10