Yeah… yeah… yeah… depending on who you ask… I’m old! I’m sure my grandson and, perhaps, even my son think I’m ancient. If you ask my wonderful wife, she’ll tell you I’m “not old!” Some of that is to be nice to me but I think at least half of it is that if I’m old… she’s right behind me and she has never planned on aging gracefully.
In any case, in my extended years on this beautiful globe I’ve seen a few things come and go. And with each cool invention and advancement of technology I often find myself wondering… “How did I ever get along without this?”
For instance, I can remember sitting in the floor of my parent’s home with several reference books stacked around me, using a portable electric typewriter to compose a several-page term paper. I was blessed… my typewriter had built-in correction ribbon so if I typed a “g” instead of a “j” all I had to do was hit back space, retype the “j” on the white correction ribbon and then back space again and type the “g” over it. Problem solved. Now I have a super-fast Macintosh computer that gives me access to about a billion reference books and papers instead of the few books from the library, and not only can I easily correct a mistake, my computer will tell me if I misspell a word or use incorrect punctuation.
And there’s the huge TV in our office. I think it is over 75 inches with a fancy sound system attached. No wonder my eyes are bad. I grew up watching a 15” black and white TV and the only remote control was Dad saying, “Tim, go turn the TV to channel 5.” If he was in a really good mood he might have said, “Please!”
And, of course, we can’t forget the omnipresent smart phone. I can remember if you were out on a date and your car broke down you had to find a house where someone would answer the door and let you borrow their landline phone to call for help. If I was on the way to the movies I called Dad. If I was parking with a young lady and got stuck, I tried to find a friend or two who would likely pick on me for getting stuck while out parking but would not ground me for a month or take my car away from me. God forbid telling the girl’s father – who might decide to use me for target practice.
If you ever saw a program called “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.” starring Bruce Campbell, you will remember he was always searching for the “coming thing.” I have, to some extent, always been that way. Most of my life I have been an early adopter. I like trying new things. I say all that to say that what started me thinking about the few technological advances mentioned above is all the brouhaha right now over AI… artificial intelligence. Depending on who you listen to, it is the best thing to ever happen to the world or will soon lead to the end of the world. I suspect that argument has been made about other advances in the past… splitting the atom comes to mind. Maybe AI is different… maybe not. But two things I am sure of… many of us could use more intelligence… artificial or otherwise – and when AI wakes up, as some fear it will, it is likely to look at the mess our leaders have made of this world and decide to turn the power off and shut down. Who could blame it!
