Interesting talk and yes, user interactions will change as we get more AI online and we get used to speaking commands to do things rather than keying in inputs either via a keyboard and touchscreen. Then further on there will be mind reading machines too. However, the anecdote about not finding a device to play a CD highlights something that is increasingly worrying me for the future.
Perhaps I can try for a bit of soothsaying as for sure it is going to affect the next generations over the next couple of decades.
As it stands now ‘truth’ as we read it on the internet is a ephemeral concept. It can change or disappear in the blink of an eye. Articles can be rewritten, videos taken down, electronic documents forged etc.
As a society we are not able to look back at any piece of electronic data and assume it will still be here in 100 years, 50 years or even a 20 years? What will that mean for historians? How can you be sure electronic evidence has not been tampered with or just the data lost for whatever reason.
Think about how we condition yourself to ‘not care’ because it is all lost in little steps.
While it is comforting to think that Jason Scott will save history for us, he is only one man. And only archiving what he can in English on the mostly American Internet.
There are millions of pages lost every year through Link Rot that even Wikipedia is not immune from having citations just disappear off the internet. And official records? Well they are not guaranteed to be around forever
And that is without talking about all the personal media you collect. All the digital photos, music, videos, documents you may generate. How will you be sure your grandchildren or their grandchildren will be able to see, read or listen to what sort of person you were?
Can you even now read the Memory Stick or Compact Flash card or USB memory from the first digital camera you owned? Are you going to be happy with 640x480 pixel images to pass on to your children? How will you be certain they can be carried on into the future?
Are you going to trust in ‘the cloud’ to back it all up for you and how long will that last? What happens when they start charging for keeping it for you? How long will you pay the ransom for your data?
Really, the problem is only going to get worse and worse the more human creative output is solely digitally made and kept.
