Chapter 4

The Information Age : Technological Takeover?

If a generational revolution lies ahead, is a technological revolution also on the horizon in 2001?

   Futurists and scientists disagree at points. Some say that with the invention of the computer and discovery of DNA, a revolution unparalleled in scientific history has already occurred. What we will see between now and the end of the century, they predict, will be a shift from innovation to application. The harnessing of existing technologies will bring new lifestyles, new ways of transmitting and assimilating information, and new ways of performing tasks at home and in the workplace.

   Others believe the pace of new developments will increase exponentially this decade. They foresee revolutionary and unpredictable breakthroughs in physics, electronics, and biotechnology.

   The seers are agreed, however, on one point: This is the information age, and whoever wins access to knowledge will control power.

   Alvin Toffler asserts that control of knowledge "is the crux of tomorrow's worldwide struggle for power in every human institution."1 And electronics expert James D. Meindl calls "the information revolution the most explosive development of our lifetime" and asserts that international competition for control of it "will take place on a scale utterly without precedent."2 Meindl goes on to describe

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some of the "future marvels" that may be commonplace early in the coming century:

   Of course in this chapter we can only sketch the barest outlines of these and a few other technological wonders, but I've tried to pick some of the most fascinating, as well as those most apt to influence how we live.

   While we consider these technological wonders beckoning us to cross the threshold of 2001, it's essential that we grasp both the limitations and the potential for subversion inherent in technology. Information-hungry technology in a high-surveillance society can erode our freedoms and compromise our privacy. Already, the average American has information about his or her private life stowed away in eighteen federal computers, sixteen state and local computers, and twenty-five private-sector computers.3

   If worshiped, technology in the end proves to be a false god, corroding human values and desensitizing the spirit. Yet few Christian authors, aside from French sociologist Jacques Ellul, have called the "technological bluff" — the title of his most recent book — in a compelling way. The siren song of "liberation technology" conceals the negative consequences of technical progress in contemporary society, Ellul says in his sweeping critique.4

   In another probing and prophetic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman observes:

Public consciousness has not yet assimilated the point that technology is ideology . . . . To be unaware that technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple . . . . Introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution.5

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Faster than a Speeding Light

   Our ability to sense, manipulate, store, display, and transmit massive amounts of data is largely due to the wedding of photonics, the most recent high-tech discipline of electrical energy, and fiber optics — tiny, dense filaments of glass that are super-efficient conductors of light. A single fiber strand can transmit 16,000 telephone conversations at once, compared with 24 for the old copper wire technology. And the speed is so fast that the entire text of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Bible combined could be sent around the earth via fiber cable in less than two seconds!6

   Photonic devices convert electrons (electrical energy) into photons (light) and vice versa. The process is common to the working of television, illuminated readouts on watches, microwave and automobile instrumentation, and in photocopiers and most long-distance telephone transmissions. Although the first photonic device — the incandescent light bulb — was invented by Thomas Edison in 1879, photonics is still in its infancy as a technology, especially when it is linked with fiber optic communications.

   Photonic systems, wedding high-tech electronics and the information revolution, are combining these functions with higher speed, smaller size, lower power, and less cost than ever before. In fact, photonics is thrusting us into "an Age of Light."

   James S. Harris, Jr., director of Stanford University's Solid State Laboratory, helped me understand the social implications of photonics through a chapter in the nontechnical paperback, Brief Lessons in High Technology.7 Here are some of the likely ways these applications will affect the way we live:

   Our available knowledge base will increase dramatically.

   With the capability to reproduce the equivalent of 1,000 books on just one 3.5 inch compact disk for under $10, a personal collection of 10,000 volumes will be within reach of anyone with a personal computer. And with localized fiber optic networks we could have almost instant access to current journals and magazines as well as to the entire Library of Congress.

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   Low-cost memories will enable us to store unlimited information.

   Continuous newscasts and other information will be delivered through local fiber optic networks to our homes. Newspapers will be broadcast to a receiver and recorded on an optical disk which we may then play on our television set. News stories will likely be a mix of video and audio descriptions. With low-cost copiers, we can print selected material at home or "archive" it on optical disks for future reference.

   Eventually integration may enable a single network to carry all types of information and provide all kinds of services. If that network then becomes a meta-network which sophisticated users can access to define and configure their own communications systems, there is potential for both positive and negative outcomes. On the plus side is very low cost and virutally unlimited control; on the negative side is a threat to the free flow of ideas.

   Harris raises such questions as: How far do we converge toward a single world news reporting agency? How do we insure that multiple points of view are presented? Could governments restrict or control access to generally available public information by controlling the technology — prohibiting CD players and personal computers, for example? Toffler also worries about the "continuing war for the control, routing, and regulation of information."8

   Multiple video channels provided by both long-distance and local networks offer the potential for people at widely separate locations to participate simultaneously in business meetings, large conferences, and church gatherings.

   Interactive video conferences have already been used very successfully by more than a thousand national corporations and other groups, and this use will increase. Local networks link computers within a single business or complex, while worldwide networks connect workers — say for IBM or Hilton Hotels — globally.

   In the field of religion, Campus Crusade for Christ put together a massive international evangelism conference with interactive video in multiple locations. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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and the United Methodist Church were among the first U.S. denominations to do teleconferencing by satellite.

   Another trend likely to escalate as we race toward 2001 is church use of computers to promote dialogue between members. (Barna Research Group projects that by 2001, 83 percent of churches will be equipped with computers.)9 In the nation's capital, the Rev. Stephen Arpee initiated "Church Without Walls," a computer "bulletin board" devoted to conversation on religious topics. Operating around the clock from his basement, the computer systems provide "log on" interaction for callers "on subjects ranging from abortion to Zoroastrianism."10

   Meanwhile, the Christian job-matching ministry Intercristo makes worldwide job openings for Christian service in 200 occupational categories available through a new software package called "Prospectus."11

   And in Brea, California, Norman Whan, a telemarketing specialist and creator of "The Phone's for You" evangelism technique, has helped launch several thousand congregations by dialing up prospects and inviting them to come out to an organizing worship service. Decidedly low-tech, some might say. But it works. "You can get at least 200 [out of 20,000 phone calls] to do anything," explained Whan.12

   The extent to which electronic communication between individuals or groups can replace on-site meetings and personal one-to-one conversation remains to be seen, however, and the issue doubtless will be debated well into the next century.

   Fiber optics and photonics will make it possible for people to process digital data just about anywhere.

   In the next century business travel will be reduced and work forces will be less concentrated in central offices. Workers will use portable cellular phones, personal computers that handle sound and video, or high-definition TV sets that use the digital language of computers and are connected to fiber optic networks. This high-definition TV will produce images five times sharper than those on existing sets.13

   "For the future," notes Lanny Smoot of Bell Communications Research, "what you're looking at is telepresence — allowing me to be where you are. Not just seeing you, but seeing all of the things

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associated with you — all the papers on the desk, your PC, your whole environment. This is a wave that is not possible to stop."14 For better or worse, we have "woven ourselves into a global electronic nervous system from which we will never be able to extricate ourselves."15

   Video channels and networks may also dramatically alter the way we shop and handle personal business.

   By 2001, on-line services will extend to banking, ticket and catalogue purchases, referral services, brokerage services, and social networks, according to American Demographics magazine. "Advertisers who know how to target niches will profit in this new medium."16 Christian ministries and churches will have an opportunity for expanded contacts through this medium as well.

   In early 1991, the Federal Communications Commission proposed making a special broadcasting frequency available for ordering goods and services through television sets. Called Interactive Video Data Service, the technique, using digital technology and satellite transmissions, would be made available in every community.17

   Harris wonders, however, if such electronic buying capabilities will tend to eliminate many small retail stores and shopping centers, making them "the dinosaurs of the 21st Century."18

A variety of new gadgets, products, and services will spring up.

   Items offered for instant purchase via video will amaze and tempt us: digital audio tape recorders giving a cleaner, higher-quality sound and threatening to replace CDs; "smart" translator cards (under $100) the size of thick credit cards that can translate among five languages (more expensive versions will "speak" words or phrases for you); hand-held freeway off-ramp guides that electronically show you the nearest restaurant, gas station, motel, and other services.

   Other "smart" stuff: cars with miniature offices including laptop computers, fax machines, and small microwaves to heat snacks; dashboard-mounted video displays to guide you to your destination, updating routes in light of current traffic conditions as you go; freeways with computerized traffic-flow control that will move cars automatically; shopping carts with video screens to guide customers to products and daily specials; cards with magnetic strips containing your financial and medical information; TVs that "know" what you

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want to watch before you turn them on; pill bottles that beep when it's time to take medication, then automatically record the time and dosage.

   "Smart" automated houses will control everything centrally: turning on the lights as you enter the room; changing the room temperature depending on who's there; voice-activating the TV or stereo which has been preprogrammed to understand your viewing and listening tastes; and turning on the security system when you leave the premises. Self-diagnosing appliances and utility systems will recognize operating problems and automatically report them to repair and maintenance crews over a phone line. And your outdoor irrigation system will use built-in sensors to adjust watering in accordance with the weather.19

   The home of the new millennium may also contain what producer Norman Lear has called "the control booth for worldwide entertainment." With high-definition TV, surround-sound systems, giant wall screens — even three-dimensional laser imaging — these technological advances may soon make home theaters a futurist's dream come true.20

   Computerized games and gadgets will continue to fascinate children of all ages, and the younger generations — unlike many of today's older adults — will be computer literate. But a new technological phenomenon known as "virtual reality" or "cyberspace," which allows users to see and experience places and events as though they were actually present, may dominate the pastimes market.

   In the future, predicts Sine, we will be able to experience both three-dimensional visual effects and other sensory experience to simulate reality through "total experience chambers . . . We will be able to sit participants down in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge, take them into stellar space or on a guided tour inside of molecular structures."21

   Although this technology may have beneficial educational and therapeutic uses, its frightening underside is the potential to so mesmerize futuristic voyagers that they become unable to distinguish "virtual" from "actual."

   "For many," says researcher Judith Waldrop, "it will replace drugs as an escape from reality"22 — perhaps a small comfort in an addictive society.

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   Technology, through robots and artificial intelligence, will revolutionize workplaces and speed up the way many tasks are performed.

   With the next decade:

Computerized secretaries will reduce office staff by taking and editing dictation. Industrial robots will virtually take over assembly lines, and on the farm so-called agribots will rove through orchards picking fruit at harvest time. The presumed outcome will be better products and services at lower prices, but also painful pink slips for millions of low-income workers who failed to . . . train for new jobs.23

   Furthermore, robots and artificial intelligence will be used by manufacturers to custom-design and produce goods and control inventories as well as construct the machines that make this possible!

   With technology-driven, flexible design, manufacturers can offer a whole wave of variations on a new product almost immediately after they have introduced it. Using "small batch" manufacturing, for example, an Indiana casket-maker has slashed the time it takes to turn out a casket model from an array of designs.24

   In 1985, 99 percent of robots in use in the United States were in industrial applications. Today there are an increasing number of mobile robots in the home (until recently, mostly toys), in medicine, in space, and in the military. "Entry level" military robots include "smart weapons" like the Patriot missiles. These weapons, which use electronic sensors and computer brains to destroy other sophisticated weapons, came into prominence during Desert Storm. There are also underseas robots with propellers, sonar, and electric field sensors that can search for ships, planes, submarines, and even priceless artifacts.25

   Futurist Joseph Coates thinks that by the 21st century fire-resistant robots will rescue people from burning buildings, and robotics expert Michael Higgins predicts criminals will use personal robots to rob banks.26

   Then there are microbots. The World Future Society predicts that these tiny "machines," after being swallowed, will perform surgery inside a patient's body. They will be "guided by a human surgeon

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'seeing' the patient's internal organs through a combination of computer imaging and 3-D simulation."27

   While robots are designed to "do the work," the technology behind Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life will blur the line between machinery and humanity.

   At the beginning of the 1990s, AI could already accurately recognize continuous speech and operate computers on voice commands.28 Fifteen years from now, affirms communications and graphic-arts wizard Richard Saul Wurman,

technology will be such that people can make their own artificial intelligences, so we will be able to shape semi-intelligent agents that can essentially be extensions of our own will and our own goal structure. And instead of having to go to a central database and sit there for a couple hours puzzling through it, a lot of this kind of work will be done by our agents, who will constantly be rummaging for us.29

   The outer reaches of artificial intelligence research go beyond teaching machines to categorize and organize knowledge; AI experts like Hans Moravec of Carnegie-Mellon University have a vision of the future in which humans may achieve immortality by transferring their minds into indestructible machines.

   Others, however, like Joseph Mellinchamp, director of the University of Alabama Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, have analyzed the limitations of a machine's intelligence, consciousness, belief system, intuition, and common sense and concluded that these characteristics "are qualitatively different from the same attributes in a human."30

   Still other scientists are poking around the edges of "neural networks" that mimic the way the brain and nerves work together. Such technology can be applied to tasks related to machine vision and robotics as well as speech, text, and handwriting recognition.

   Chase Manhattan Bank presently uses a neural net system to detect credit card fraud, while Japanese designers have programmed a washing machine to sample laundry water and, depending on how dirty the water is, select the optimum washing time and detergent

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quantity. And medical researchers have designed neural systems to detect abnormal heart sounds and interpret electrocardiograms.

   Looking ahead, Peter D. Moore of Inferential Focus, a marketing-intelligence firm in New York, believes neural networks "will tend to displace white-collar workers — from middle management to top decision makers — by substituting their human-like decision-making capabilities" for those of the workers.31 And perhaps, if these machines can think and choose with free will, they may someday acquire civil rights! And go to court!

   Out on the frontier's farthest edge is the search for "artificial life," the attempt to synthesize lifelike behavior in nonliving systems. At UCLA, for example, David Jefferson and Robert Collins have created colonies of randomly generated computer "ants" that evolve, over many generations, the ability to navigate electronic mazes and search for symbols representing food.

   "Can something that 'lives' inside a computer really be alive?" questions Philip Elmer-Dewitt in a Time magazine article about the experiment. "That is the bizarre question at the heart of artificial-life research."32

   Artificial life scientist Christopher Langton at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico contends that "artificial life will be genuine life. It will simply be made of different stuff." He has also said that artificial life represents "life as it could be," as opposed to "life as we know it."33 Yet Langton and other scientists in the vanguard of the artificial-life movement recognize the potential dangers of playing God with electronic creatures and the need for an ethical framework to deal with the consequences that might result from science gone berserk.

   David Barnard, director of Computer Services at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, thinks that "smart" machines will affect the way we relate to God in the next millennium, but he believes that the advancement of AI will only enhance the believer's relationship to the Lord.

   "The Bible does not depict men and women as being unique because we are the most intelligent of all God's creatures," Barnard said in an interview with Spirit! magazine. "Instead, it teaches us that we are unique because of the personal relationship we can have with God

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. . . To claim that progress beyond certain limits is impossible may only serve to invalidate our Christian faith for future generations. We simply don't know what technological advancements are possible. So we need to be careful to put limits only where the Bible puts limits and admit ignorance in areas where we really don't know."34

   But Bill Bright, founder-president of Campus Crusade for Christ, believes the AI movement "is perhaps the most potent threat to Christianity in the immediate future." It could rival the Darwinian theory of evolution in causing problems for the faithful, he says, because AI is predicated on the assumption that man is an entirely material being and can, in principle, be duplicated and even surpassed by computer scientists.

   This view "makes the concept of a soul and a Creator superfluous," Bright wrote, after participating in a symposium on "Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind."35

   Another technological juggernaut of the future is developing a universal language that machines can "understand" and "speak."

   Although computers already can understand human speech in limited ways, Harris points out that delivering information in a single language would save up to 1,000 times the cost of delivering it in the hundreds of languages spoken worldwide or even in the 10 dominant languages.36 Research into a universal computer language is in progress; once perfected, such a language will cause a leap forward in applications for businesses, mass communications, and education.

   And finally, here's a sampling of other "mind-bogglers" scientists will seek to unravel at the century's turning:

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   Maybe, just maybe, they'll look to God?

   But while some scientists look for God in the years ahead, others will be accused of "playing God."

Chapter Five  ||  Table of Contents