Brave New World?

I’ve been watching Mad Men for the last while. Feels like a few months now. I’m on Season 6.  So far all the episodes I’ve watched have been set in the 60s. Because it is about advertising professionals and advertising campaigns, the audience gets an informative exposure to products available in those years.  Takes me back.  And what I see is that we live pretty much the same now as we did 50 years ago.  Compare airplanes now to the ones then. OK, we now have better entertainment and beds upfront on long flights. But as Peter Thiel noted, “We wanted flying cars. Instead, we got 140 characters.”

The point is that we do not have major inventions any longer. The one hundred fifty years ending 1975 was a century and a half of industrial advancement. The microwave oven was the last thing I remember being developed in that period.  And what since? The internet. And Yes, that’s a biggie.  But it is one thing.  You millennials reading this can follow your friends’ activities on Facebook, and you can cam like your parents thought would one day happen in a Star Trek generation, but the airplane in which you fly and the car your drive is mainly your grandfather’s technology.

I think that will soon change.  Years ago I heard someone talk about what happens when you add sugar to a glass of warm water. Stir it in and then add more and keep stirring each new addition into the water. The sugar keeps dissolving and the water remains relatively clear until that one final bit is added, and then suddenly the whole thing becomes opaque. He was using this as an analogy to how things happen behind the scenes in this world…plans are made…schemes are hatched. Then when we least expect it, a fait accompli is unveiled.

There are big developments being incubated behind the scenes. As an example, the expectation of many experts in robotics is that robots will take over maybe even more than half the jobs of modern economies in the next couple of decades.  I think maybe even sooner.  We are not just talking about manufacturing jobs, but service jobs also: accounting, management, law, medicine, engineering. And if there are robots who can design and build robots?  Hmmm….we will be crossing frontiers.  Some are even now pondering humans marrying robots.  Seriously. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html?autoPlay=true&clipIds=&mediaIds=849233475659&contentarea=radio&subsection1=radio1&subsection2=entertainment&subsection3=day_6&contenttype=audio&title=2017/01/06/1.3921088-episode-319-becoming-kevin-oleary-saving-shaker-music-google-renewables-marrying-robots-and-more&contentid=1.3921088

(In follow-up, see

https://gordon-feil-practical-living.blogspot.ca/2017/01/will-machine-ever-think.html.)