6/4 LLA Response

The lecture was given by Mr. Ken Enochs. The future of technology! I have been always wondering what is going to happen or to be invented in the future. When I hear the phrase "invention in the future", I always think of the movie Back to the Future Part II. The film was produced in 1985 and included various illustrations of what are expected to be invented in 2015. There were flying cars, video games that can be played handless, televisions that display 10+ channels at once, microwaves that defrost pizza in 3 seconds and many other inventions. Are we going to have these technologies only 2 year from now? That sounds too unrealistic, but according to Enochs, prediction in 1940's came true today, such as computers, internet, cellphones, moving sidewalks or Skype. If Moore's Law, which states that processing speed doubles every 2 year, is accurate, it might be possible to witness fantastic inventions in 2015.

Enochs explained four future technologies that we are likely to see: GRIN. Genetic engineering, Robotics, Intelligence and Nanotechnology are expected to develop radically. He then explained Weak and Strong points, but I personally thought a robot playing a violin was amazing because I could hear vibrato from its performance.

Three visionaries on the future technological developments were Ray Kurzweil, Francis Fukuyama and Bill Joy. RK is the only techno-optimist and other two are techno-pessimists or Luddites. They all support their points with details and evidences, but it is also true that technological developments have both pros and cons.