There is no doubt that technology has accelerated in advancement over the last decade, but will it continue to do so for the future? Will us humans still be living on this Earth as the ones who make the call, or will we have created a machine that will overtake us and soon make us their aid?
A decade ago the first machine-powered airplane and air conditioners were invented. In the mid-1900s the computer and its software was invented. It was only 11 years ago that Apple came out with their first touchscreen iphone, a cellular device that is now capable of being unlocked by face-recognition. In today’s society machine technology is advancing at an accelerated rate. How fast is the technology going to progress, and to what extent?
There are many controversial ideas of the creation of a robot, something that is capable of human actions and perhaps human thoughts, except better. It was foreshadowed in many classical movies that the 21st century would have robots and flying cars. Perhaps in the beginning of this century many would have laughed at that remark, thinking it to be impossible. However, now we have cars that are capable of driving themselves and robotic tests being conducted, the foreshadowed future is still in sight.
There are now what people call “smart houses.” These are houses where modern technology has taken over. The lights and many electronic appliances can be controlled by someone on their smart phone who may not even be in the same city as their home. There are home security systems that are supposed to protect those living inside from any harmful intruders on the outside. Smart houses even have thermostats that can be controlled by smartphones while the owner may not even be physically inside the house. I agree that technology is prospering right now, with all of these wonderful and brilliant gadgets to control our lives. But, what happens if these systems start to fail, what happens when our phones die and we need to unlock our house or access something crucial? Many members of the elderly community consider those who are young adults right now to be “millennials.” One characteristic associated with this stereotype is that we are people who are obsessed with technology and can’t live with out it; but are they wrong?
The children’s movie Smart House is a good representation of what could possibly happen if technology were to malfunction on us. Inventors want to create machines that can learn to think for themselves, but what happens when they do so and rebel against us? In this movie a family wins a computerized house that is decked-out in technology, it even has a robotic system stimulating a woman of the house taking care of everything. However, everything goes terribly wrong when this house starts to disagree with the decisions being made by the humans inhabiting the house, and does not allow them to do certain things. The machine that once was created by humans to think for itself and do what they tell it to do, is now controlling the humans and thinking too much for a non-living object. When this house started malfunctioning, the family could not control nor do anything because everything that they had in the house was computerized and therefore controlled by the robotic system. This is a similar situation to what could happen in today’s society if we become too dependent on our electronic devices. If our phones die, we can not communicate with anyone and are unable to navigate. Many people living in today’s society could not travel places if they did not have a GPS because our generation grew up with smartphones that navigated for us. Our houses that have security systems to protect us could become hacked and potentially put us in more danger by the possibility of being locked in with an intruder. The biggest predicament with electronic devices controlled by internet and cell-phone towers is the fact that anyone who is smart enough is able to hack anything you own and take any of your information. This is a very dangerous situation that could lead to people having their identities stolen, being stalked by the hacker, or even having their house hacked and completely malfunction.
A T.V. show called Grey’s Anatomy had a recent episode where someone had hacked the hospital and no one could access any patient records, the blood supply, or even any medicine to give to patients. Most hospitals are switching to storing all their files on the web and are locking their doors with codes that are controlled by a security system. If someone was intelligent enough to gain access to all of these things, the hospital would be in major trouble and could be without access to patients files and medicine, creating possible life-or-death situations for certain doctors and patients.
These sources of media portray possibilities of potential situations that could put us humans in harms way, something that could be inevitable if we continue to rely so deeply on technology like we are today. Our generation needs to take a step back, and try to focus on bettering out lives without the need for such advanced technology. The amount of trust that we give non-living inanimate objects in our lives is frightening, and could ruin us in the end. There will always be someone out there who will feel the need to hack into a system and try to ruin the lives of others. The best way to prevent this is not by initiating stronger fire walls, but to stop entrusting so much in our electronically devices and be more conscious of what kind of information we have on objects that can be invaded by strangers.