Unfortunately, I missed this session due to a major migraine. It was not the first time it struck this semester, but the first time it struck on a Monday morning. So, instead of giving my thoughts on the various presentations, my comments and suggestions will be confined to the readings that were provided for this week.
Before I continue, just wanted to share this video of an ULTRA-portable laptop. I'm not so sure when it will be available, but it will help lift a weight of most people's shoulders :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_XcfwXSNq0&feature=related
It is undoubtedly important to have a framework in place to assess the risks and benefits of new and emerging technologies and decide which of them should be implemented. While nobody knows what the future has to hold, we can at least guess, can't we? Technology implemented without thought of its repercussions can cause severe damage to our societies.
Of the different technology assessment techniques proposed, the best model (or ideas for a technology assessment institute) appears to be that suggested by Richard Schlove from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in "Reinventing Technology Assessment". The new technology assessment criteria he set out for organizations are:
(1) to involve citizens and obtain expert analysis - they complement each other in understanding the situation
(2) need for a decentralized, agile and collaborative structure - allows the institution to keep pace with 21st century needs
(3) encourage, evaluate and adopt new TA methods, including those from outside the field - allows for the best TA methods to be adopted for the different fields. e.g. the TA method for medical technology may not be the same as that for agricultural technology
(4) Need for transparency in approach - this would allow for the public (i.e. citizens and companies) to feel as if their interests and concerns are being addressed.
I do believe that this is a good model for decision makers to use when they are deciding whether to adopt new technology or not.
The readings for this week were quite interesting, but were obviously not meant for a person with a migraine. Overall, I would give it a 7.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Session 9 (week 10): Emerging and Future Technologies
"You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were, and I say, 'Why not?'"
- George Bernard Shaw
This quote was aptly chosen by Prof to introduce this week's topic on emerging and future technologies. One needs to challenge his mind in order to create new concepts and develop new technologies. Being bounded by the current norm, or what is considered 'acceptable' would cause a stagnation in development.
With that in mind, some of the presentations this week did bring up rather interesting problems.
The first was the presentation that challenges the concept that humans and robots cannot develop a relationship. One example from our youth would be the obsession some people had with their tamagotchi toys. A more recent example could include this - Love Plus. A game developed by Japanese software developers that has real men trying to date virtual girls, and has even caused positive spillovers to the tourism industry. For more information, check out the following sites:
Men Treat virtual girlfriends to beach vacations
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20015133-1.html
Virtual Girlfriends, Real Boyfriends and the Japanese Town which loves them
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/09/01/atami-welcomes-virtual-girls-real-boys/
Only in Japan, Real Men Go To a Hotel with Virtual Girlfriends
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
although these developments are quite interesting, they have potentially disastrous consequences to humans and the human race. It can be seen from the high number of people who are into such activities, and the need for men to develop a perfect woman robot (which is subservient and serves his every need) that there is a growing divide between men and women. Instead of traditional relationships with a flesh-and-blood female, men are turning to these alternatives to get their comfort. This could be a result of the 'instantaneous' nature of the 21st century, where the 'here and now' is more important and common than rewards after a long struggle. This has also shaped relationship such that people expect to get the rewards instantaneously, without putting in the effort. Such technology has also the effect of further objectifying women into objects which men use to seek pleasure, and nothing more. That CANNOT bode well for the future relationships between men and women, especially the steps that women have taken towards emancipation over the past decades.
I find this to be a worrying trend, or it could be that I have a vested interest and feel this way. It seems like most of the guys in the room were not the least bit disturbed by these developments though.
The technology which I personally find fascinating is the concept of charging electronic devices wirelessly. That would definitely remove much of the hassle of having to deal with wires that are all over the place, and have a tendency to get tangled. It would greatly improve our mobility and streamline the appearance and processes. It would also spell the end to the wire industry - which might not be such a bad thing.
Overall, I felt that the new technologies being presented were quite interesting, and would rate the session a 7 out of 10.
- George Bernard Shaw
This quote was aptly chosen by Prof to introduce this week's topic on emerging and future technologies. One needs to challenge his mind in order to create new concepts and develop new technologies. Being bounded by the current norm, or what is considered 'acceptable' would cause a stagnation in development.
With that in mind, some of the presentations this week did bring up rather interesting problems.
The first was the presentation that challenges the concept that humans and robots cannot develop a relationship. One example from our youth would be the obsession some people had with their tamagotchi toys. A more recent example could include this - Love Plus. A game developed by Japanese software developers that has real men trying to date virtual girls, and has even caused positive spillovers to the tourism industry. For more information, check out the following sites:
Men Treat virtual girlfriends to beach vacations
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20015133-1.html
Virtual Girlfriends, Real Boyfriends and the Japanese Town which loves them
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2010/09/01/atami-welcomes-virtual-girls-real-boys/
Only in Japan, Real Men Go To a Hotel with Virtual Girlfriends
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703632304575451414209658940.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
although these developments are quite interesting, they have potentially disastrous consequences to humans and the human race. It can be seen from the high number of people who are into such activities, and the need for men to develop a perfect woman robot (which is subservient and serves his every need) that there is a growing divide between men and women. Instead of traditional relationships with a flesh-and-blood female, men are turning to these alternatives to get their comfort. This could be a result of the 'instantaneous' nature of the 21st century, where the 'here and now' is more important and common than rewards after a long struggle. This has also shaped relationship such that people expect to get the rewards instantaneously, without putting in the effort. Such technology has also the effect of further objectifying women into objects which men use to seek pleasure, and nothing more. That CANNOT bode well for the future relationships between men and women, especially the steps that women have taken towards emancipation over the past decades.
I find this to be a worrying trend, or it could be that I have a vested interest and feel this way. It seems like most of the guys in the room were not the least bit disturbed by these developments though.
The technology which I personally find fascinating is the concept of charging electronic devices wirelessly. That would definitely remove much of the hassle of having to deal with wires that are all over the place, and have a tendency to get tangled. It would greatly improve our mobility and streamline the appearance and processes. It would also spell the end to the wire industry - which might not be such a bad thing.
Overall, I felt that the new technologies being presented were quite interesting, and would rate the session a 7 out of 10.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Session 8 (Week 9): Energy, Transportation and World Change
Week 9's session was the first class for all of us after a week's break from classes. For most (myself included), it was only a break in the sense of there being no classes, but not in terms of workload etc.
This week's session was on Energy, Transportation and World Change. Preliminary points that were brought up and sounded interesting included the idea of creating lifeforms that did nothing but produce hydrocarbons to ensure that we have a renewable source of electricity. It is interesting, but brings back the bio-ethical concerns of doing such research.
Another interesting, and less controversial issue, would be a world-wide energy grid, allowing energy to be transmitted from the part of the world producing energy to the energy consuming regions seamlessly. This would be an interesting and useful concept, but one which needs to be executed carefully. Terrorists and other militant organizations if in control of it, or if able to hack into the system, would instantaneously gain control over the world's energy supply. This would leave all of us as sitting ducks, with the exception of those who didn't rely on electricity in the first place, or who have their own back up generators.
Apart from these 2 points, another thing that jumped out at me from the presentation was the idea of nuclear power as an alternative to current energy production processes. Other commentators seem to share that view as well (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/nuclear-option-deserves-our-most-objective-gaze/story-e6frg6zo-1225926989266) However, one thing that most nuclear power proponents fail to address is that the current "cheap"-ness of nuclear power is partially attributed to the stores of decommissioned nuclear weapons of the US and Russia that have been sold as uranium sources since the Cold War ended. Such stores are rapidly depleting and uranium deposits would have to be mined from the earth to supply the reactors - something that is definitely more expensive than selling weapons that you are not going to use. Hence, I personally do not feel that nuclear power is the solution, but other forms of renewable energy, like osmotic power, sound rather exciting.
Overall, I would rate the session a 7. Although I found it interesting, the discussion was boring as new points were not being brought up.
On a side note, this is an interesting website and experiment on the influence of surveillance technology and how hard it is to escape from the "clutches" of government and private companies (http://erasingdavid.com/)
This week's session was on Energy, Transportation and World Change. Preliminary points that were brought up and sounded interesting included the idea of creating lifeforms that did nothing but produce hydrocarbons to ensure that we have a renewable source of electricity. It is interesting, but brings back the bio-ethical concerns of doing such research.
Another interesting, and less controversial issue, would be a world-wide energy grid, allowing energy to be transmitted from the part of the world producing energy to the energy consuming regions seamlessly. This would be an interesting and useful concept, but one which needs to be executed carefully. Terrorists and other militant organizations if in control of it, or if able to hack into the system, would instantaneously gain control over the world's energy supply. This would leave all of us as sitting ducks, with the exception of those who didn't rely on electricity in the first place, or who have their own back up generators.
Apart from these 2 points, another thing that jumped out at me from the presentation was the idea of nuclear power as an alternative to current energy production processes. Other commentators seem to share that view as well (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/nuclear-option-deserves-our-most-objective-gaze/story-e6frg6zo-1225926989266) However, one thing that most nuclear power proponents fail to address is that the current "cheap"-ness of nuclear power is partially attributed to the stores of decommissioned nuclear weapons of the US and Russia that have been sold as uranium sources since the Cold War ended. Such stores are rapidly depleting and uranium deposits would have to be mined from the earth to supply the reactors - something that is definitely more expensive than selling weapons that you are not going to use. Hence, I personally do not feel that nuclear power is the solution, but other forms of renewable energy, like osmotic power, sound rather exciting.
Overall, I would rate the session a 7. Although I found it interesting, the discussion was boring as new points were not being brought up.
On a side note, this is an interesting website and experiment on the influence of surveillance technology and how hard it is to escape from the "clutches" of government and private companies (http://erasingdavid.com/)
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Session 7: The BioBusiness Revolution 2: Agriculture and the Environment: Past, Present, Future
This session was probably the one which struck a chord with most of the people in class as food is something that is essential for all of us to survive. It also informed me that I am probably a "stick-in-the-mud" i.e. conservative person when it comes to new technologies. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as too many "pro" people just feed off each other's reassurances and can lead to horrible consequences. One such example was the 2008 global financial crisis, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US. Too many smart people - in this case, number crucnhers - got together and designed credit default swaps and other opaque financial instruments that seemed to diversify away the risk involved with these loans. If they had listened to dissenting voices along the way and were not so driven by short term profits, maybe the results would not have been so devastating.
The Agricultural Revolution allowed us to feed the burgeoning global population. In fact, we apparently produce more than enough food to feed the whole world! Yet, every few seconds, some poor soul in the developing countries dies of hunger. The issue is evidently not one of production, but of distribution. If food can be distributed effectively to where it is needed, there wouldn't be such a problem.
It appears to me that one of the problems in the world today is the disconnect between related issues or between problems and their solutions. What do I mean by this? As with all questions, including those in the examination, it is crucial that the solution is suited to the question. Yet, many a time, this is not the case. I feel that part of the reason is the increasing specialization of our occupations and the world around us. This has prevented us from taking a broad picture approach to understanding the world's problems and solutions, instead we are fixated on a certain aspect. I would not deny that I am guilty of this at times.
An interesting perspective provided by an article I was reading this week pointed towards contraception being a better solution to global hunger issues. One of the reasons the author put across is the fact that in many developing countries, contraception is not easily available, leading to more children. With more mouths to feed and an unstable income, this leads to more hungry children and adults, which contributes to the global hunger problem. Her suggestion is that more money and energy should be invested in research on contraception for the developing countries to deal with this problem. Read her article for more information
("Notes from a Young American in Congo: Contraception" http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/notes-from-a-young-american-in-congo-contraception/
and "An Aside on Contraception"
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/an-aside-on-contraception/ )
That is the end of my "segway" into other issues this week. I shall move on to the discussion in class as well as other issues they bring up.
Farming Methods
A point brought up in class by Prof Shahi was the fact that traditional farming approaches would not enable us to feed the world. I agree that it might be the case, but an argument made by non-industrial farmers is that modern farming methods has led to a shrinking nutritional content of the food we eat today! (See http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ePJpGXQYNeoJ:www.space-age.com/nutri-farm.ppt+shrinking+nutritional+content+of+food.&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sg) Alternative methods that hark back to Mother Nature's practices are preferred to up the nutritional content and feed the world with food of a higher nutritional content. The question is, are we looking for quantity or quality when it comes to food production?
GM Food
The other issue is that of Genetically-modified or GM food. I do not have that much opposition to GM fruits and vegetables as I think that tweaking with genes is something that Mother Nature does all the time. All the labs are doing is accelerating and de-randomizing the process. For fruits and vegetables, the issue is one of ethics as there are many profit-centred firms (e.g. Monsanto) that hold farmers hostage through their various schemes (e.g. the Terminator gene in crops). However, I do have an issue with GM meat, specifically, in vitro meat.
"Why the concern?", one might ask. Instinctively, there is something repulsive about eating meat grown in the lab. Apart from this "yuck!" factor, there are other underlying issues that make me disapprove very much of in-vitro meat. First, one of the arguments for in-vitro meat is that is prevents wastage as we only grow the parts of the animals that we eat. However, this does not take into consideration the by-products of the laboratory processes used to produce the meat (e.g. in the production of the nutrient solution, making the specialized equipment, monitoring systems etc). All these require equipment and expenditure of energy. Second, I find it inconceivable that one would argue that producing meat in the lab is the answer to the problem of food shortage. In the first place, the countries that need alternative sources of meat are those who cannot afford this technology. A more sustainable, and natural solution is for people to ration the amount of meat they eat. As much as possible, I hope frankenmeat will not be seen as the solution to the future. Call me narrow-minded, but I do not see myself eating it.
Algae biofuels
A technology which I find interesting, is the use of algae to create biofuels. Algae is one of the easiest things to grow and if the genes are properly tweaked, it can be used to clear up industrial waste as well. One idea I have for this is the use of algae to clean up industrial and chemical spills around the world. There are many areas where the dumping of waste has rendered the land inhospitable to humans. Using algae that has been modified to break down the waste would have a twin solution of providing biofuel as well as clearing up contaminated land. The problem of the need for specialized plants to process the algae into biofuel can be solved through the transportation of this algae to a centralized plant to be processed. Such algae would also have no need for special nutrient solutions to grow in as they draw their nutrients from the waste, thereby saving costs. The main costs for this would be the initial experimentation to create such algae.
That's the end of my rather long post for this week. Overall, I would give this session an 8/10. I do hope the class would participate more though. With each lesson, it seems like most of the class is just present in person, but not in mind. More participation would leave us with more interesting debates rather than only 2 opinions for each topic.
The Agricultural Revolution allowed us to feed the burgeoning global population. In fact, we apparently produce more than enough food to feed the whole world! Yet, every few seconds, some poor soul in the developing countries dies of hunger. The issue is evidently not one of production, but of distribution. If food can be distributed effectively to where it is needed, there wouldn't be such a problem.
It appears to me that one of the problems in the world today is the disconnect between related issues or between problems and their solutions. What do I mean by this? As with all questions, including those in the examination, it is crucial that the solution is suited to the question. Yet, many a time, this is not the case. I feel that part of the reason is the increasing specialization of our occupations and the world around us. This has prevented us from taking a broad picture approach to understanding the world's problems and solutions, instead we are fixated on a certain aspect. I would not deny that I am guilty of this at times.
An interesting perspective provided by an article I was reading this week pointed towards contraception being a better solution to global hunger issues. One of the reasons the author put across is the fact that in many developing countries, contraception is not easily available, leading to more children. With more mouths to feed and an unstable income, this leads to more hungry children and adults, which contributes to the global hunger problem. Her suggestion is that more money and energy should be invested in research on contraception for the developing countries to deal with this problem. Read her article for more information
("Notes from a Young American in Congo: Contraception" http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/notes-from-a-young-american-in-congo-contraception/
and "An Aside on Contraception"
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/an-aside-on-contraception/ )
That is the end of my "segway" into other issues this week. I shall move on to the discussion in class as well as other issues they bring up.
Farming Methods
A point brought up in class by Prof Shahi was the fact that traditional farming approaches would not enable us to feed the world. I agree that it might be the case, but an argument made by non-industrial farmers is that modern farming methods has led to a shrinking nutritional content of the food we eat today! (See http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ePJpGXQYNeoJ:www.space-age.com/nutri-farm.ppt+shrinking+nutritional+content+of+food.&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=sg) Alternative methods that hark back to Mother Nature's practices are preferred to up the nutritional content and feed the world with food of a higher nutritional content. The question is, are we looking for quantity or quality when it comes to food production?
GM Food
The other issue is that of Genetically-modified or GM food. I do not have that much opposition to GM fruits and vegetables as I think that tweaking with genes is something that Mother Nature does all the time. All the labs are doing is accelerating and de-randomizing the process. For fruits and vegetables, the issue is one of ethics as there are many profit-centred firms (e.g. Monsanto) that hold farmers hostage through their various schemes (e.g. the Terminator gene in crops). However, I do have an issue with GM meat, specifically, in vitro meat.
"Why the concern?", one might ask. Instinctively, there is something repulsive about eating meat grown in the lab. Apart from this "yuck!" factor, there are other underlying issues that make me disapprove very much of in-vitro meat. First, one of the arguments for in-vitro meat is that is prevents wastage as we only grow the parts of the animals that we eat. However, this does not take into consideration the by-products of the laboratory processes used to produce the meat (e.g. in the production of the nutrient solution, making the specialized equipment, monitoring systems etc). All these require equipment and expenditure of energy. Second, I find it inconceivable that one would argue that producing meat in the lab is the answer to the problem of food shortage. In the first place, the countries that need alternative sources of meat are those who cannot afford this technology. A more sustainable, and natural solution is for people to ration the amount of meat they eat. As much as possible, I hope frankenmeat will not be seen as the solution to the future. Call me narrow-minded, but I do not see myself eating it.
Algae biofuels
A technology which I find interesting, is the use of algae to create biofuels. Algae is one of the easiest things to grow and if the genes are properly tweaked, it can be used to clear up industrial waste as well. One idea I have for this is the use of algae to clean up industrial and chemical spills around the world. There are many areas where the dumping of waste has rendered the land inhospitable to humans. Using algae that has been modified to break down the waste would have a twin solution of providing biofuel as well as clearing up contaminated land. The problem of the need for specialized plants to process the algae into biofuel can be solved through the transportation of this algae to a centralized plant to be processed. Such algae would also have no need for special nutrient solutions to grow in as they draw their nutrients from the waste, thereby saving costs. The main costs for this would be the initial experimentation to create such algae.
That's the end of my rather long post for this week. Overall, I would give this session an 8/10. I do hope the class would participate more though. With each lesson, it seems like most of the class is just present in person, but not in mind. More participation would leave us with more interesting debates rather than only 2 opinions for each topic.
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