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The Exclusive Discussion Thread: Personal Technology's Past, Present, & Future


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Three questions about the past, present, and future of Personal Technology:

 

  1. In the 90s, did you think personal technology would have gotten this far or did you think personal technology would have been farther along by 2015?
     
  2. Right now, What's your opinion on today's personal technology? 
     
  3. We have smartphone and apps that basically can control your car, lights, Air conditioning/Heat, garage door, Television, vacuums, alarms, etc. What does the future have in store for personal technology in your opinion?

 

 

 

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I think its left us kinda lazy, personal technology has made a lot of things convienent sure, but the issue is how much has technology improved our lives? I think we have a bunch of ways of entertaining ourselves but as far as technology advancing us further, it could be better I think....  I mean look at how we can video game and shit, but wheres the improvement in say something that just makes life better? Where's the car that drives itself at a reasonable price? Wheres the car that gets like 70 miles an electric charge without being over 70 grand to purchase? Shit aint where it needs to be :filenails:

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I think its left us kinda lazy, personal technology has made a lot of things convienent sure, but the issue is how much has technology improved our lives? I think we have a bunch of ways of entertaining ourselves but as far as technology advancing us further, it could be better I think....  I mean look at how we can video game and shit, but wheres the improvement in say something that just makes life better? Where's the car that drives itself at a reasonable price? Wheres the car that gets like 70 miles an electric charge without being over 70 grand to purchase? Shit aint where it needs to be :filenails:

 

The Ford Focus (electric) is 99 MPG and starts at $30,000... And that's only one of em 

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It feels like its happened really fast in the last 15 years tbh

 

I've come to realize that my problem isn't with technology, but the people using it. Whilst it is great, we continue to allow ourselves to be slaves to it - overreliant, not able to do for ourselves. Yes i'm talking about smartphones, Tablets and any other you wire you choose to plug into yourself. it makes everything "a bit more convenient", but does it really make you happy??? I mean, i honestly thought that was the most important thing. Yet we continue to evolve, hoping these temporary distractions make us "happy".

 

It made me laugh the other day when a guy in the coffee shop asked if they took Contactless, as if it was a prequisite to buying it :lol:

The human race is clearly "evolving" into cyborgs as the lines between reality and virtuality continue to blur.

 

But maybe thats a good thing??? Discuss :coffee:

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It feels like its happened really fast in the last 15 years tbh

 

I've come to realize that my problem isn't with technology, but the people using it. Whilst it is great, we continue to allow ourselves to be slaves to it - overreliant, not able to do for ourselves. Yes i'm talking about smartphones, Tablets and any other you wire you choose to plug into yourself. it makes everything "a bit more convenient", but does it really make you happy??? I mean, i honestly thought that was the most important thing. Yet we continue to evolve, hoping these temporary distractions make us "happy".

 

It made me laugh the other day when a guy in the coffee shop asked if they took Contactless, as if it was a prequisite to buying it :lol:

The human race is clearly "evolving" into cyborgs as the lines between reality and virtuality continue to blur.

 

But maybe thats a good thing??? Discuss :coffee:

Im hoping for my own personal operating system like the movie Her, but Him instead -_-

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1. I was a kid in the 90s so didn't really care. It was all being introduced as I was growing up so it became the norm tbh. I got to experience life without all the great techoology we have today and I've got to exerience life with them. I feel sorry for the kids today who don't know what a cassette tape, VHS and even a CD are because they don't get to experience that warm fuzzy nostalgia thing that my generation and older get to. I was amazed by the new stuff coming out at the time. I don't even remember using the Internet until 1999 so when i first used it I was in complete awe. It's hilarious how we all used the lowest speed dial up and were amazed. Now we have the fastest available speed and start cussing and getting pissed the moment it starts going to dial up speed due to some error. I'll be honest though - I never thought about where technology would go. I never thought about smartphones or electric cars or broadband or anything like that. With some things I have been resistant to change but I do love the new technologies we have today.

 

2. We have too much. I love it but it can be overwhelming at times. I dislike how reliant on my contactless card I am. I dislike how reliant on my phone I am. I dislike how much I need the internet. I miss going to libraries and waiting to see my friends. Now everything is instant and it's really fucked up peoples patience abilities and attention spans as Effie said. I can now see if someone read my messages or not and get pissed when they take ages to reply lol (which I'm guilty of myself). But it's all convenient. My phone has everything. I have store cards stored on there, a clock, calculator, apps that do all sorts of things including apps where I can buy clothes straight from it rather than going in store. Hell I can even do my banking on my phone. I can see where my relatives are usign location services. That is very convenient but I can see people getting lazier because of it. Going into the store has a whole different immersion experience to it. I guess I'm on the fence tbh. I use it but I like the old way at the same time. I even bought a Kindle and it's much better than physical books taking up my bedroom space...yet I miss flipping pages haha. 

 

3. I wonder if we will ever get to a point where all we have to do in our lives is sit in a chair and have the chair be able to do things for us like in Wall-E. Or have robots that do things for us in iRobot. The movies make these things up but they are potential possibilities. I mean right now the US Army has been making an 'Iron Man' type robot to fight in wars. If successful does that mean we won't lose loved ones in wars any more because these 'robots' will do the fighting for us? Speaking of war look how far we've come along with technology? Civilised countries are no longer fighting with words and sticks...it's all atom and nuclear now. How dangerous is that? Sometimes I think we get ahead of ourselves and that it could all come crashing down. One day we'll have a blackout and most of the young generation won't be able to cope because they lack the basic skills that technology can't provide.. 

 

I have more to say but wrote all that in a rush so there might be some holes lol

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2. We have too much. I love it but it can be overwhelming at times. I dislike how reliant on my contactless card I am. I dislike how reliant on my phone I am. I dislike how much I need the internet. I miss going to libraries and waiting to see my friends. Now everything is instant and it's really fucked up peoples patience abilities and attention spans as Effie said. I can now see if someone read my messages or not and get pissed when they take ages to reply lol (which I'm guilty of myself). But it's all convenient. My phone has everything. I have store cards stored on there, a clock, calculator, apps that do all sorts of things including apps where I can buy clothes straight from it rather than going in store. Hell I can even do my banking on my phone. I can see where my relatives are usign location services. That is very convenient but I can see people getting lazier because of it. Going into the store has a whole different immersion experience to it. I guess I'm on the fence tbh. I use it but I like the old way at the same time. I even bought a Kindle and it's much better than physical books taking up my bedroom space...yet I miss flipping pages haha.

3. I wonder if we will ever get to a point where all we have to do in our lives is sit in a chair and have the chair be able to do things for us like in Wall-E. Or have robots that do things for us in iRobot. The movies make these things up but they are potential possibilities. I mean right now the US Army has been making an 'Iron Man' type robot to fight in wars. If successful does that mean we won't lose loved ones in wars any more because these 'robots' will do the fighting for us? Speaking of war look how far we've come along with technology? Civilised countries are no longer fighting with words and sticks...it's all atom and nuclear now. How dangerous is that? Sometimes I think we get ahead of ourselves and that it could all come crashing down. One day we'll have a blackout and most of the young generation won't be able to cope because they lack the basic skills that technology can't provide..

I have more to say but wrote all that in a rush so there might be some holes lol

There are holes :shifty:

Lol turn off your read receipts for iMessage.. It can be quite an annoyance and make others feel that way. I dislike when people have them on. Makes me feel anxious lol

I wanted to focus on personal technology (leaving out medical and war technology)

Nukes and atom bombs have been around 50+ years... I don't think that's new or futuristic technology. Civilized countries haven't fought a war with sticks and stones for hundreds of years. Not a fair analysis on where this world is going with technology

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There are holes :shifty:

Lol turn off your read receipts for iMessage.. It can be quite an annoyance and make others feel that way. I dislike when people have them on. Makes me feel anxious lol

I wanted to focus on personal technology (leaving out medical and war technology)

Nukes and atom bombs have been around 50+ years... I don't think that's new or futuristic technology. Civilized countries haven't fought a war with sticks and stones for hundreds of years. Not a fair analysis on where this world is going with technology

 

I'd just woken up [like this] :shifty:

 

How do I do that? >_<

 

They're using 'better' bombs with more precisions than they did in WW1/WW2/The Cold War etc. Better technology on ships/planes etc. But you wanted personal not war/medical so ehh lol. I wonder if we'll ever get to a Wall-E chair stage

 

walle-e-humans-in-the-spaceship.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence.

He told the BBC:"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."

His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI.

But others are less gloomy about AI's prospects.

The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel to speak.

Machine learning experts from the British company Swiftkey were also involved in its creation. Their technology, already employed as a smartphone keyboard app, learns how the professor thinks and suggests the words he might want to use next.

Prof Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans.

_79449274_0c614739-5e9b-4b52-83b3-d04482Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 and its murderous computer HAL encapsulate many people's fears of how AI could pose a threat to human life

"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said.

_79449278_dc2b0926-8187-4812-8c4a-354b3aCleverbot is software that is designed to chat like a human would

"Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."

But others are less pessimistic.

"I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realised," said Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot.

Cleverbot's software learns from its past conversations, and has gained high scores in the Turing test, fooling a high proportion of people into believing they are talking to a human.

Rise of the robots

Mr Carpenter says we are a long way from having the computing power or developing the algorithms needed to achieve full artificial intelligence, but believes it will come in the next few decades.

"We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can't know if we'll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it," he says.

But he is betting that AI is going to be a positive force.

Prof Hawking is not alone in fearing for the future.

In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs.

_79442022_a0de6fec-7e79-47f9-8f62-29d29cElon Musk, chief executive of rocket-maker Space X, also fears artificial intelligence

In the longer term, the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned that AI is "our biggest existential threat".

Robotic voice

In his BBC interview, Prof Hawking also talks of the benefits and dangers of the internet.

He quotes the director of GCHQ's warning about the net becoming the command centre for terrorists: "More must be done by the internet companies to counter the threat, but the difficulty is to do this without sacrificing freedom and privacy."

He has, however, been an enthusiastic early adopter of all kinds of communication technologies and is looking forward to being able to write much faster with his new system.

_79449280_2235a469-088b-4162-9026-3ba124Prof Hawking is using new software to speak, but has opted to keep the same voice

But one aspect of his own tech - his computer generated voice - has not changed in the latest update.

Prof Hawking concedes that it's slightly robotic, but insists he didn't want a more natural voice.

"It has become my trademark, and I wouldn't change it for a more natural voice with a British accent," he said.

"I'm told that children who need a computer voice, want one like mine."

 
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