Excerpt

Walt Disney World’s Carousel of Progress is one of its most popular attractions. The magic is inescapable; the allure of imagination and wonder fills the mind and captivates the soul. Tomorrow – what will it bring? Will Disney’s vision of an optimistic future fused with unimaginably fantastical new innovations in science and technology come to pass? Or does the future hold a darker secret, a world in which technology is used to surreptitiously track and control entire populations?

The 1957 film, Desk Set, starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, was a reflection of how the early introduction of computers began to change the workplace. In the film, Tracy plays Richard Sumner, an engineer for an established computer company who is working to install a bulky, floor-to-ceiling wall-sized computer called EMERAC in the research department of a news organization. Naturally, the entire department becomes suspicious and is afraid the new machine will take over their jobs – and after receiving pink slips, their fears are realized. However, after EMERAC makes a terrible mistake, Sumner begins to realize the machine’s limitations. Furthermore, it is revealed that the EMERAC unit in Payroll accidentally printed out pink slips for everyone in the building. Sumner reassures the department that the new computer is not there to take over their jobs, but rather to help them – and all ended well.

That was 1957. Today, we know that machines have indeed taken over many jobs once performed by humans. Factory work, receptionists, electronics manufacturing – all largely automated. Robotics and artificial intelligence are two established fields that are growing by leaps and bounds. And now, scientists are forecasting a day when robots will become self-aware and will surpass even the intelligence of human beings.

Will we one day be forced to “upgrade” ourselves cybernetically in order to compete with the very intelligent machines we created? Will they rule over us as we saw in futuristic films such as The Matrix, or will we heed the clear warnings and curtail research and development in such areas? As Jeff Goldblum’s character (Dr. Ian Malcolm) poignantly opines in the 1993 sci-fi thriller, Jurassic Park, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

But despite numerous perils, pitfalls, and prophecies of impending doom, many of which never materialized, we humans have been fascinated with the future for thousands of years. We all have an innate sense of wonder and fascination at what the future holds. Ever optimists, we dare to dream with excitement – even passion – at what kind of world we will be living in twenty, fifty, or even one hundred years down the road. This is exactly why television shows and movies that carry a futuristic theme are so popular.

What will transportation be like in the future? Will we still be driving fossil fuel vehicles, or will we have the Star Trek-like ability to dematerialize and rematerialize from point to point? Will we conquer the universe and send our spaceships into foreign galaxies, fighting Gorns, repelling Romulans, and duking it out with the dark side? Will we finally eradicate modern-day maladies such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and heart disease? Will the future be so infused with peace, harmony, and wealth that working is no longer necessary?

The 1984 film, The Terminator, stoked fears of technology getting out of hand and intelligent machines taking over the world by 2029. In this film, we are presented with artificial intelligence and the cyborg: human beings fused with high-tech electromechanical body parts that give them an obvious advantage. Cyborgs (cybernetic organisms) are also portrayed as the nefarious, inescapable “Borg” in the Star Trek series. Resistance is futile!

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no futuristic concept. It is here today in various forms, and growing ever faster. Have you ever called customer service, only to get a robot receptionist on the other line? Of course you have – humans have been increasingly phased out of the receptionist/customer service business. Many will agree, most of the time you’re lucky if you can so much as figure out how to get a human being on the line. Many companies make it very difficult (if not impossible) to do so.

But now we’ve gone from the choppy, garbled Max Headroom of the 1980s to advanced automated voice-command AI receptionists and customer service representatives, and the technology is being refined even as we speak. In recent years, we’ve seen vast improvement in the comprehension and response time of AI entities. Admittedly, they sound and act more and more like human beings. What will artificial intelligence bring us in the future? Hopefully we won’t see The Terminator’s omniscient SkyNet, but as the technology progresses and machines grow smarter and even self-aware, it’s something we need to keep an eye on.

Cybernetics, however, wasn’t a new concept when they filmed The Terminator. The early 1970s television series, The Six Million Dollar Man, in which astronaut Steve Austin (Lee Majors) is tragically hurt in a plane crash and is “remade” via fusing his body with electromechanical body parts, was truly ahead of its time. One can still hear the intro: “Gentlemen: we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s fist bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better that he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

Imbued with superhuman strength and amazing new powers, Austin is able to leap over tall fences and onto rooftops with ease, lift cars, and see things nobody else sees. It was great fantasy; nobody ever dreamed back then that it may become reality in the future. But as we’ll see later on in this book, it may very well start with just one little chip under your skin – or better yet, an [invisible] RFID-ink tattoo or a tiny RFID/GPS dot on your hand or forehead.