IST 1100 Module 13

I have thoroughly enjoyed this class, it has been informative and enlightening. I never thought I would be a blogger, and honestly never even knew how to go about being one, it is nice to be stretched and accomplish something you wouldn’t normally do otherwise.

I enjoyed the reading “The World Is Flat” I learned a lot about the mechanics of business operations and why so much business is sent over seas. It was interesting to hear his outlook and the ever evolving and ever flattening world 10 years ago before smartphones became such a staple of life. So much of what he said was true, but I wonder how he would have reacted to be able to see 10 years into the future when everyone carries a mini computer around in their pocket with access to the world's collective knowledge at any given moment, that is truly a world flattener.

I definitely enjoyed reading about companies like Amazon and eBay and his take on them ten years ago. I enjoyed learning about their origins and how the technology that was available at that time contributed to their growth. It was fascinating to hear what he had to say about them then with what we know about them now and how much things have continued to evolve.

This class has really given me a new appreciation for the technological advances we have seen in this world and for how they simplify our lives. I guess you could argue that they don’t always make our lives more simple but they give us abilities to do things we

could never do otherwise. Thomas Friedman always stressed how the world was flattened out due to several technological things that have happened over the past few decades. I always felt it was more of a shrinking than a flattening but I guess that’s all in the way you look at things. I find it absolutely amazing that I can visit China and send a picture to all of my friends from a device I have on me all of the time. 200 years ago it took people 6 months to get from London to Salt Lake City. Now we can be there in hours and send media in seconds. It is an amazing time we live in, I feel like the technology has made the world so small and has connected in ways we never could have before.

I really don’t have any suggestions for improvements for the class. I thought it was great and very educational. I would maybe say that I thought the book felt a little dated. Although the information is relevant, the author regularly talked about events in the present tense that were very old. He talked about iPods as this new and amazing thing where iPods now are almost non existent, Apple doesn’t even do regular updates on them anymore. iPhones were never mentioned and neither was Android. The only smartphones he mentioned were Blackberries and Palm Pilots. Both of which are more or less relics. Other than the book being dated I thought the class was great, I enjoyed being a “blogger” for a semester. I enjoyed telling people I had to go post to my blog as opposed to do an assignment, it made me feel cool for some reason.

I enjoyed “A Logic Named Joe” it is pretty cool that it was written so long ago and so accurately depicted the future and our ability to talk to our phones and our computers and ask direct questions. I found the part where the husband ask hows to kill his wife especially interesting because I watch crime reality shows and so often questions like that are asked to the computer and later found by investigators.

All in all I have enjoyed the class and I will suggest it to other students!

IST 1100 Module 12

I wasn’t familiar with the acronym GNR. I have of course heard of its three components: genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics, but I was not aware of their specific ties. There have been large strides made in each of these areas over the past several decades. Artificial intelligence, automation, biotechnology, and genetic manipulation and understanding has all seen large strides made. This specific article was written 15 years ago so we have had a chance to see how things have developed since then. To summarize the author’s feelings about GNR and its potentially negative effect on the future, Joy discusses some of his colleagues opinions and predictions about the future, many of which he thought only existed in science fiction. Joy’s colleagues Ray and John had both been on a panel discussing robotics and certain human elements that they thought with time would begin to merge. The ideas they put forth were startling to Joy. They painted a picture of a future society ran by machines, machines that could think for themselves and do anything a human could do better and more efficiently. The machines would become so advanced that no human effort would be needed or wanted. 

 There were two schools of thought, one was where there were a few “Elites,” people who controlled the robots and they worked for them. In this scenario the non elites would either be treated almost like cattle, basically having little purpose, or they would be exterminated, seeing that their existence was superfluous. The second scenario put the computers in charge, they had become so intelligent that decisions necessary to keep the complex system running would be so difficult to solve that only the computers could do it.  This is the basis of many science fiction films, to see the rise of machines and the oppression of the human race at the hands of artificial intelligence, but is it realistic? 

 Another element of the talk that Joy had with his colleagues that made him uncomfortable was the idea of nanotechnology and robotics being used to make humans nearly immortal. Being able to replace worn out biological aspects of human beings with artificial ones. I presume that what you believe is really what would dictate one's feelings on the subject. Perhaps Joy felt that tampering with life in such a manner is unethical or not intended by a higher power. If one's beliefs are more along the lines of survival of the fittest and darwinism, using mechanics to extend one's life is only another form of evolution. We evolved to the intelligent state we are in, used that intelligence to invent ways to improve our lifespan, and integrated those things with our own physical bodies. Sounds like we just moved evolution along a little bit. 

 So now for my thoughts, what do I think about these predictions? And are they realistic or justified? My feeling is no, this dystopian scenario is not something I ever see being a reality. Computers can get faster and more capable every day, but that jump to one being self aware and making decisions on its own is one I am confidant will never happen. The question was posed: “What should we do?” I don’t feel it’s something that we even need to worry about. Life is unique and I believe by design, intelligence and awareness are, in my opinion, not created. Matter can be manipulated and formed but the core component that makes us human, intelligent humans, is something that cannot be artificial. I admit that I could be wrong, maybe one day we will see robots like c3po on star wars. An artificially intelligent robot that can respond like a human being to questions asked and even feel and think for itself. But until that day I will hold to what I think our future holds and that is faster better more powerful computers but not humanoids like the terminator.

IST 1100 Module 11

This was a fun assignment to do because The Matrix just happens to be one of my favorite movies! The premise behind the Matrix is pretty ridiculous but I love it anyway. The computer related part of The Matrix isn’t ridiculous but more why the Matrix was created. So the movie takes place sometime in the future where a war has broken out and humans have become enslaved to machines. The machines have rounded up all but a few humans and have put them in incubator type cocoons they have created. The Cocoons are stacked in large towers where their combined heat and electromechanical energy is used to power the machines and their cities, they are basically used like batteries. The machines created an artificial world that all of these bodies are connected into, it makes them feel like they are still living in the world before the war and that everything is ok. Thomas Anderson, also known as Neo is a computer hacker that is contacted by another hacker named Morpheus in The Matrix who wants to show Neo the real world. The only world that Neo knows is the fabricated computer The Matrix, the real world is the one where humans are enslaved and used as batteries. Morpheus shows Neo that because the Matrix isn’t real it can be manipulated. Neo is able to move faster, be stronger and bend and reshape matter within the computer world.

Ok so that is the basic plot of the Matrix, the dumb party is why the machines would ever create the Matrix in the first place, they could have just sedated the humans, plus humans aren't good batteries. But as far as all of the computer stuff and the Matrix itself it is really cool. So the Matrix is this big interactive virtual world. The characters in the movie like Neo and Morpheus can plug into the Matrix or unplug, so they can come and go as they please. There are programs built to hunt down people like this and kill them. If you die in the Matrix, you die in real life, your mind believes you are dead so it shuts down. The question I was asked to answer is if the way computers are used in the Matrix are realistic or ridiculous. Of course technology like this does not exist, but I wouldn’t call it ridiculous. Technology is always evolving and it could be that one day virtual reality will be so good that we could be sedated and plugged into a completely fabricated world. We would be able to feel and think and experience things in that world like it was real. I don’t know if we'll ever get to this point but it seems more viable now than it did ten years ago, that’s for sure. In the Matrix, the world was all connected into one big network, that concept is definitely true, it is just like the internet. We are so connected now it’s almost scary, luckily there are a lot of security protocols that keep us safe.

In the Matrix the characters were able to plug into the matrix and have information uploaded to them, this way they could learn how to fly a military helicopter in just seconds, or learn a martial arts style just by the information by uploaded to their brain. This is a very cool concept for the movie but definitely not something that is based in reality.

We were also asked to address any social or cultural issues raised by the film. That is a difficult question to answer. One thing I would say is that the movie is a bit violent, it features a lot of gunfights and killing of law enforcement. The only thing is that in the movie, the people were just computer programs, but it may have had a negative effect on some younger people that saw that as glamorizing violence and because it was in a virtual world, perhaps it desensitized younger people to it. I feel like this would be a very small group though. The other thing that maybe I might say is if technology does advance enough, lines between virtual worlds and reality may blur. There is already issues in the world with people being sucked into games and virtual environments to the point where it consumes their lives.