Final Blog Post

Technology is a double-edged sword.  On one end you get amazing technological advances that can save lives.  At the other end though you get something that can be so overpowerful so quick something that almost has a godly-like power to where we almost need to question is too powerful for us.  

    The first video was about what people in 1964 thought it was going to be like in the future.  The crazy part is they were almost right.  It is scary how accurate they were on an almost 60-year prediction.  Technology has a ton of upsides and this video prediction of the future showcases a lot of those and some that we haven't accomplished yet.  Only this video is missing some things.  Technology over the past 60 years has also brought a lot of negatives.  Cyberbullying is a huge one that no one thought of and now is so common that it has to be taught in school.  Technology took something like bullying and with the help of us creating social media we gave it this new platform where it can spread like wildfire.  All it takes is pressing a screen, not even a real button just a flat surface, and someone's life can be ruined.  That's not even where it stops though.  This then has a direct effect on youth suicide rates.  Think about that, YOUTH, not even old enough to be considered an adult.  They didn't even get a chance to see how amazing the world really is.  Are we really that sucked up in the latest and greatest technology not to realize the monsters we have become?  I'm not saying technology is bad or evil but at what point do we take a step back and say how do we fix this and prevent it from happening again.  They say that love can be blinding in a relationship, so are we blinded in our relationship with technology?

    The second video is so so powerful and honestly catches me off guard every time I watch it.  It's so sad to think that we are disconnecting from the world more and more.  I never understood the middle school and high school trips out into the wilderness to go camping or to Costa Rica but I honestly am so grateful for them now.  It's trips like this, we as a world need to keep doing to show the true beauty nature has to show us.  We can go a couple days without our phones and survive.  I think it is tremendously important that we keep connecting with nature because with the runaway rise of technology we are just going to get pulled away from nature more and more.  I think we need to wake up and make technology help us in this sense.  Technology is such a powerful tool but when it is used in the right way.  It is sad to see where the world has gotten to and this video is a wake-up call for me as I am one of these people so obsessed with technology. 
 

Technology is not only coming for our attention though, it's also coming for our jobs.  With the rise in AI technology, we are losing power more and more of technology.  Once again we are giving it the power to control our lives.  Things like self-driving cars might sound safe and innocent but are they?  Where does the technology go from there?  We are already seeing AI-driven trucking companies.  Are we going to have AI servers at restaurants?  AI police officers? Then what?  The World is not black and white and yeah that might not be the best thing but it makes us human.  We make mistakes and screw up, but we all have a heart deep down.  You can program a robot to see the world in black and white, right and wrong, but you can't program them to see the rest of the world, to feel the world.  Sure a car driven by AI isn't that bad right now.  What happens when you give that AI too much power though.  Not to get into every movie about robots taking over the world but what happens when they are smart enough to control themselves or each other.  Once you show an AI robot how to code no human is going to be able to outcode it.  Once again technology is so powerful to where we really need to question when enough is enough.  Is it too
powerful for us?  Are robots going to turn into the next nuke?  Only this time it will be dropping off a couple in a country and letting them take over the country as they want just like an invasive species.  When will we stop?  When will we draw the line?  Technology is like medicine, take the right amount and cure your illness, take too much and it can kill you.  What is the right amount?