iTHINK - Issue 5

In dit nummer

You snap your fingers and your favourite music fills the living room. You sit at the dining table, and Cherry, your humanoid (robot) domestic helper, chirps, “Please enjoy your meal, champ!” as ‘she’ serves your food. You say, “Start work” and your dining table transforms into a touchscreen. Your aunt walks in, saying, “Your uncle and I have just informed our gynaecologist that we want our baby to have brown eyes like me, but be athletic like your uncle.” You smile, and yawn, and your dining chair instantly becomes a massage chair, giving you a deep and point-focused massage as you close your eyes in bliss.

What a life, you say? This could be the future we may be looking at, in 30 to 40 years (or even earlier). From the commercialisation of the Internet some 18 years ago, to smart mobile phones and social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Ask.fm to the most recent Google Glass, technology has transmuted the lives of humans. Andnew technologies are constantly being invented, even as you read this, challenging the human boundaries. In fact, the scientific technology for creating domesticated humanoids and the medical technology to pre-select the characteristics of an unborn baby have already been developed. What remains, really, is the commercialisation of these technologies.
Therein lies the controversy. Each new technology that is introduced can be both beneficial and detrimental to us, at the same time. With social networks, come not only ease of communication but also cyber-bullying. Super-intelligent robots in our homes, schools and work places provide us with great comfort and efficiency, but creativity and the ‘human touch’ could be in great danger of becoming extinct in the human race, not to mention the domination of sloth.
Selecting the kind of baby we want may seem rather progressive and fascinating, but would that be an act of playing God?

Enjoy the journey, and go back to the future with this issue.