Computers of the Future
Predictions and Best Guesses are all we have for the future of
computers. Here a few fairly far out guesses--or maybe not!
| "By 2019, a $1,000 computer will match the processing power of
the human brain: 20 million billion calculations per second." Ray Kurzweil During the past two decades, Ray Kurzweil has created computer companies whose products read text to the blind, convert speech to text and create music without using musical instruments. His new book, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (Viking Press; $25.95; hardcover; 352 pages), explores the growth in computing power in decades to come -- including the time when computers become smarter than the people who created them. (For more information on the book, see www.penguinputnam.com/kurzweil). Daniel P. Dern spoke with Kurzweil about the book and his work: For the interview go to http://www.airtight.com/kan/raycw.html
|
| This prediction is a look
into the future of universities of the world. Can they maintain themselves as
viable, physical storehouses of knowledge when the computer technologies of the, perhaps,
not-so-distant future are opened up to the populace?
"The threats to universities may not appear overnight, but they will surely arrive. People often overestimate the impact of change in the short term, but they also underestimate it in the long term. They recall that earlier promises about the potential of broadcasting as a tool of distance education failed to materialize, and they now believe that even a vastly more effective interactive medium will meet the same fate, forever. Yet the fundamental forces at work cannot be ignored. They are the consequence of a reversal in the historic direction of information flow. In the past, people came to the information, which was stored at the university. In the future, the information will come to the people, wherever they are. What then is the role of the university? Will it be more than a collection of remaining physical functions, such as the science laboratory and the football team? Will the impact of electronics on the university be like that of printing on the medieval cathedral, ending its central role in information transfer? Have we reached the end of the line of a model that goes back to Nineveh, more than 2500 years ago? Can we self-reform the university, or must things get much worse first?" 1996 Annual Meeting Preview For more of this fascinating article go to: |