I'm excited that Bill Gates is visiting Waterloo again on what promises to be his farewell tour in his Microsoft persona. Details are sparse, but the topic of his presentation is said to be "technology and society." I haven't always been a fan of everything that Microsoft has done (those who know me well might guffaw at my gift for understatement) but I'm pleased to see Gates turn more of his attention to broader issues in technology. Though I think the odds are slim that I'll find a way into the small hall for a talk geared to students (and wisely so -- these are the bright kids who hold the future in their hands), the possibilities, given the topic, excite me.
I've been a part of many discussions recently which have all come to the more or less the same conclusion. We've become a society that is expert at designing and deploying technology--gigantic screens, virtual reality, dirt cheap information processing, light speed communication of huge amounts of image and sound data. We know how to do it in a big way, but we're still trying to figure out what to do with it. We have the toys. Now we need the content.
Plenty of money has been made by those with the know-how to use computer technology, but I see a future where our main concern will not be to find a way to grow economies and make lots of bucks. We'll be busy trying to find a way to turn what our super-intelligence has wrought into a viable future for the species and the planet. This will entail some hard thinking about exactly what we are as a species, what forms our minds take, and how we can tap into our biologies with new technologies to make the world a place again.
I've written here before about how technology might be used to help our minds connect fragmented spaces, to help us see how we're connected to the wider effects of our actions, and I'm hoping that what Gates will have to say will light some similar sparks in a room full of very smart 20-something students.
What we need out of technology is a new set of tools for rethinking ourselves as an integral part of a planet we need to protect, rather than as some kind of boxed-off Wunderkind outlier set apart from the rest of the cosmos. I think the kind of information technology that Gates has helped to build can do exactly that. The way is now being led by creative new media artists like David Rokeby and Scott Snibbe, but what could lie ahead is an environment populated by permanent interactive architecture that responds to our actions, thoughts, and moods by reminding us of where we fit in the bigger picture.
I may not be able to get my body into the room for Gates' talk, but thanks again to technology, I'll be sure to get my head into his space.
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