Complex | Apple’s iWatch and the law of accelerating anticlimax
March 12, 2013
Source: Complex — March 12, 2013 | Michael Thomsen
The advent of wearable computers was one of Ray Kurzweil’s early predictions about the ever nearing Singularity, the moment when computer intelligence will surpass human intelligence and slowly slip out of our control.
At the time he said it, the prediction was as strange sounding as the idea we might all one day be wearing phone booths, and yet both have come to pass in their own ways, though in doing so both have revealed arcane inflexibility in how we used to think about computers and phone booths.
With smartphones, the world is your phone booth, and with portable, wearable computers it becomes your office and entertainment center. [...]
Comments (4)
by Cybernettr
I agree with asiwel. The article was bashing Kurzweil’s theories more than it was criticizing Apple. The writer mentions Kurzweil, but he quotes less from anything Kurzweil has written than from a piece that seems to be critical of Kurzweil. All the author envisions is that there will be a limit to people’s interest in computers, not seeming to realize that computers will go inside of us, becoming a part of and extending life itself.
by DrDubious
Who knew it would be Dick Tracy on the other side of the Singularity ?
by anthrobotic
We have so little to look forward to these days. Thank Buddha for Elon Musk & Richard Branson. The reason people care so much about the next iPhone/iWatch/iDon’tKnowWhat is because the American Dream is broken. “iPhone 5 Hyper-Anticipation: It Didn’t Mean What You Think it Meant (AGAIN)” http://bit.ly/YvAeCO
-Reno at Anthrobotic.com
by asiwel
After reading this article, it leaves more questions than answers. Actually the idea of a really friendly, really powerful “wrist watch” .. as maybe an intermediate step between PCs to iPads to iPhones to invisible human computer interfaces … is sounding more and more like a really good idea. Lot better than gesturing around waving arms in the air. The idea of accelerating returns does of course depend on human ingenuity .. as does any sort of technology .. but it is sort of an aggregate or statistical idea and assumes millions of humans doing human stuff, not just individuals or even individual countries or cultures. Finally, the idea of people getting tired of hearing that everything depends on or involves “computers” is rather ridiculous. This is just a loaded word, like “drone”. People are natural learners and communicators and “technology” is simply an enhancement of a more general process of educating oneself. We don’t “get tired” of talking, reading, experiencing, and learning … although these may take different forms and involve various aids.