We've all been promised the future's going to be amazing. Everything will be made of glass, recognising each swipe of the finger to suit our every desire, responding to our clear, confident voice commands with the amicable chirp of the ideal robo-butler. The technology will constantly be suggesting things for you to do, or watch, or buy based some hidden data set it's got on your previous history and preferences. Google Glass is typical example. Everybody will be beautiful, living in impossibly tidy, modern houses, living perfect, problem-free lives. It's really kind of nauseating.
As explained so deftly by Scott Smith, the frustrating thing about these shiny promises is that it's isn't real life at all. It's isn't now, and it won't be in the future. What's missing is variation, human error, all of the little things that go wrong in any given person's day to day, no matter how advanced the technology. It's missing the moment when your cell phone loses signal and you have to go and stick your hand out the window to get a single bar. It's missing the time when your smart refrigerator doesn't recognise the suspicious casserole your neighbour brought round and starts alerting the whole dinner party that your vegetables have rotten. There aren't even any finger prints on any of these beautiful shiny surfaces. The tensions and accidents that constantly crop up in normal human activity, in such massive volume and variety across cultures and demographics, are nonexistent in this seamless world made of glass and holograms.
As explained so deftly by Scott Smith, the frustrating thing about these shiny promises is that it's isn't real life at all. It's isn't now, and it won't be in the future. What's missing is variation, human error, all of the little things that go wrong in any given person's day to day, no matter how advanced the technology. It's missing the moment when your cell phone loses signal and you have to go and stick your hand out the window to get a single bar. It's missing the time when your smart refrigerator doesn't recognise the suspicious casserole your neighbour brought round and starts alerting the whole dinner party that your vegetables have rotten. There aren't even any finger prints on any of these beautiful shiny surfaces. The tensions and accidents that constantly crop up in normal human activity, in such massive volume and variety across cultures and demographics, are nonexistent in this seamless world made of glass and holograms.
The problem with no tension is that it leaves no room for growth. By eliminating the choice for us to make our own decisions, it erodes our ability to think critically. When everything is recommended to us by previous history and sets of numbers, its only creating self-affirming behaviour. "Personalised" doesn't necessarily mean "right," because it doesn't expose us to anything drastically new or different. All it's doing is conditioning us to think what we've always thought, do what we've always done, channeling us all into one, society-approved river of mindless complacency.
Corporations and governments are raving at us about smart cities connected to smart devices making smart decisions for us. The irony is that with all of this technology doing smart things for us, we as individuals are becoming more stupid. We are losing our ability to think analytically and make decisions for ourselves without probing and suggestion from a data driven robot. It's the filter bubble permeating our offline lives – if it could be called that anymore. We are being told how the future is going to be, rather than having the option to sculpt it for ourselves.
So what does this mean for the emergence of biotechnology and personalised medicine? Will we think more or less critically about what we put into our bodies, or will we just assume the iDoctor knows best? I've been seeing a lot of projects that talk about the possibilities of personal genetic awareness for tailored drugs and custom lifestyle routines for optimum health. But surely the full ramifications of every individual treatment for every individual person aren't yet known. The medical suggestions are based on DNA strands and the numbers that make up your lifestyle – but they don't account for your emotions, your relationships, and the mistakes you're likely to make. It doesn't mediate between how these suggestions are supposed to make you feel and how you actually feel.
I'm feeling vey cynical and jaded today. I too have fallen for these glossy futures and eagerly jumped onto the perfect future train multiple times. I've been hypnotised by the homogeneously flat, colourful icons and soft melodious beeps emitting out of my wonderful companion, The Screen, without realising that I'm actually being sedated.
