How different the world changes from decade to decade; I am only a comparatively young person next to some, but that doesn't necessarily entail that I do not sometimes find myself astounded by how rapidly, and how unpredictable technology and its applications are developing.
If, in the latter months of my high-school education, anyone had told me that in 8 years time, I would be sat in front of a flat screen computer at 3 in the morning, watching a live internet feed from a remotely operated vehicle at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, I would not just have told them that I am not 'That' much of a nerd, but that what they are speculating about is complete and utter dog-shit and that they ought to stop adding ketamine to their herbal remedies. Yet, here I am:- watching this robot at the bottom of the sea, thousands of metres below the surface, whizzing around its oil-pipeline-bodge-jobbing business.
It wasn't just the sheer marvel of this technological feat; never mind the sudden wave of intrigue that rolled over my mind as I began to think "Ohh- it's moving!! What the fuck...what has it got now?", but it was also the slow tide of fear that accompanies the "How-the-fuck" and the "What else can they do with this technology?". Applications that first come to thought are military applications; it dawned upon me that in some God-forsaken place in the world all these flashy robots, low-light cameras and ridiculously mind-boggling communications technology are being used in the service of killing other people.
It is frightening to think of being on the receiving end of this technological maelstrom of death, and just because we are not threatened by a technologically competitive and productively equal axis power at the present time in history doesn't give us the all clear for the future. There is something very unsettling about the thought of groups of trained people, located in a bunker 3000 miles away, chasing after you with robots armed with automatic machine guns and flame throwers. It doesn't just end at this nightmare either; I read an article on http://www.newscientist.com/ that B.A.E. are working on their latest killing machine; an unmanned fighter aircraft with "deep mission" capability, which Robo-DemiGod-bearded-guy 'Noel Sharkey' has commented on, saying that:
"deep mission" is military speak for "beyond the reach of a remote pilot". "We need to know if this means the robot planes will chose their own targets and destroy them – because they certainly will not have the intelligence to discriminate between civilians and combatants." -Newscientist.com
How long will it be before The Terminator prophecy is fulfilled? Are we going to be living under the threat of being attacked by robots that automatically seek us out and attempt to reduce anything it considers a threat, literally to shreds of trembling flesh in the next 20 years!? Intelligent robots seem to have significantly surpassed the ever-present winter-flu threat, the British population was reduced to shivering with fear in front of BBC News this winter just passed because "There was snow outside, and it was cold". Sheesh - you have clothes, do you not? What will be their reaction when killer-robots are chasing them down the street?
Friendly servants today, bringers of death on another day. I wonder if you can program it with the soothing homo-erotic voice of Stephen Fry - just like people do with their Sat-Navs?
"Oh, you mischievous little scamp, Mr. Davies!!"
that is scary!! :S I don't know if I would have thought of that while watching the machines working on the oil spill but now that you do say that.... does send a shiver up the spine, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteBetter a shiver than a bullet, right?
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