Our main topic of discussion for this week’s lesson was on ‘Emerging and Future Technologies’. Like what Professor Shahi said, we could talk about anything and everything under the sun. From implanting ‘robots’ in our own body to having potential transparent phones in the near future, I would say the scope of this week’s lesson was rather broad, yet comprehensive.
Once again, I would like to elucidate the videos we watched during class on Tuesday. Videos really do make the lesson more interesting! One of the videos that Professor Shahi played in class is called ‘Al Robotics: Perfect Woman’.
Although the video lasted only 1 minute and 39 seconds, there are many implications with regards to this invention. The Japanese scientist believes in creating the ‘perfect woman’ who every man can dream of. She will not be different to a normal woman, in terms of physical appearance and abilities. Moreover, she is one who will work well, do the housework properly and not have any sort of attitude problems. Since there are many single men out there every year, inventing the ‘perfect woman’ would solve social problems caused by the surplus in males today. However, I beg to differ.
First, having such ‘perfect women’ in our society would give these robots identity problems. Will the society treat these robots as humans because they are after all women who are mates for the real men or will the society continue to treat these robots as just tools for human beings? Second, the real women out there may feel threatened by the existence of such ‘perfect women’. If more and more men accept having such robots as their wives, it would be detrimental for the society because the number of unmarried women will increase. Furthermore, how do we ensure the continuity of mankind if lesser women start families? Even if these ‘perfect women’ can do childbearing, will there be no negative side effects to the ‘babies’ born? Clearly, I do not see the future of this project because the consequences are simply overwhelming.
Moving on…
The next video that Professor Shahi played was on ‘Augmented Reality’. This video is so amazing. I am definitely looking forward to the day when we can just use our smartphones and ‘scan’ items and restaurants to find out more about their properties. As it is now, we can already use our smartphones to Google or use any sort of application that can provide details about a particular object. For instance, the application ‘ Hungry-Go-Where’ serves to bring information on location, price and previous customers’ reviews about a particular eatery. This, coupled with the article I read in reading 3 (on the website) on transparent phones, will certainly change consumer habits to an even further extent. When there are both aesthetic and extra values added to a cellphone, I am quite sure more people will purchase smart phones!
In general, I would rate Tuesday’s lesson 8/10. It was insightful and it was definitely an enjoyable lesson as we could talk about anything under the sun. However, I do wish to discuss more in detail about the implications and impacts some of these inventions will cause instead of just addressing the abilities of these items. (My apologies for having a shorter post this week compared to the previous weeks. More assignments and projects have been piling up... I sure am trying to get the hang of this workload!)I am looking forward to our next lesson J
Everyone, good luck for your upcoming presentations/projects/more tests! See you all next week!
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