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The future according to Microsoft
By Rosie Perera | March 3, 2009 at 11:06 pm
A friend of mine collected several videos by Microsoft envisioning the future of technology.
http://yapdates.blogspot.com/2009/03/future-according-to-microsoft.html
There are some cool ideas there. I was intrigued to see that in Microsoft’s view of the future, people will still walk into a bank brank and interact with a human being when getting a loan. Handshakes are not a thing of the past, according to this vision.
But I do have concerns about the amount of visual stimulation in such a world, and the emphasis on touch only as a way of manipulating information and images, rather than a way of sensing textures and temperatures. It looks like a world where being in control is the number one priority.
While I’m sure there are wonderful benefits to being able to cure diseases and identify plants instantaneously with technology (as one of the segments in the first video showed), gone is the hallowed sense of time, and the loving interaction with the created world. Everything is mediated through a gadget. When the stethoscope was first invented, people shuddered at the thought that doctors would no longer be listening directly to patients’ chests and diagnosing by physical touch, but there would be this new-fangled technology intervening between them. That is much less personal care. We’ve come far beyond that now, and it looks like it’s only going to get better/worse in the future. There are always trade-offs for improved living conditions.
There’s no doubt that some of this vision of Microsoft’s will become a reality. But will we Christians be at the forefront of making sure the new technology is as human-friendly as possible, or will we take a back seat and let it be “done unto us” and then only have the option of avoidance vs. wholehearted adoption of the new technology?
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