Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
-- Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1973 edition
Technology is always our most advanced set of tools: we probably wouldn't call a clay pot 'technology' these days, but it was the technology of the day. And as technology advances, we get closer and closer to being wizards and magicians. This is a book about digital or digitally-enhanced versions of technology - and this Chapter explains how these digital technologies can be like Magic Goo...
What Makes a Good Technology
The history of our relationship with technology is a history of getting more results, more quickly, for less investment. Technology's sole purpose is to make our desire-to-experience cycle as short and as broad as possible: to quickly deliver more and better experiences. Experiences that need merely be good enough to satisfy us. Like magic, there are two ways that a technology can be successful by oiling the desire-to-experience cycle:- it can allow us to achieve more than before;
- it can be easier to use;
No-one complains that the water running out of the tap can't
be swum in or doesn't have ducks on it, because it's always
available where the river isn't. A child talking to granddad
will try to kiss the phone, but soon giggles at the 'mistake'
and thereafter accepts the substitute experience as far better
than not talking to him at all between visits. We settle for an
experience that trades enhanced powers and senses here for
cut-down ones there.
Secondly, if less skill or knowledge is needed to go from desire
to experience via some technology or if it 'just does what I want'
- it does bigger cycles - that technology will probably
succeed. The fewer barriers that technology puts in our way, the
less it demands that we think, or learn a new skill, the bigger
the desires we can express through it, the better its chances
of success.
In general, power comes before ease of use when choosing a
technology, but ease of use soon catches up, and is invariably
the deciding factor when a winner is finally chosen in the market.
Technology Still Misses The Breadth and Ease-of-Use of Wizardry
As children we eventually discovered that anything labelled 'magic' wasn't available to us. What we didn't realise was that many of the things that weren't labelled for us as 'magic' were as near magical as our ancestors could have dreamed of:
Consider electric lights, telephones, cars, television, video
recorders, aeroplanes, spaceships.. Think what the average
caveman would think if he could see us whizz around in planes
or walk around the street talking to - ourselves? No: talking to
someone else who isn't even there! He would say we were a race
of wizards. 'They can make light - light that goes on and off
when they wave their hands!!'. 'They can see into their past
through a crystal window!!'. We can't see home videos of our
future children yet, but no doubt that will come...
Except that, still, as our ancestors did, we have to learn each
technology separately, to manipulate and interact with it in
its particular way: there are no spells or wishes yet, big or
little cycle.
Technology isn't really the same as magic
because a given piece of technology is usually limited to one
or two spells: a lightbulb/switch combo is pretty much
restricted to the 'let there be light' incantation; the
landline telephone to the 'join up my living room with theirs,
so we can talk' incantation.
What we'd really like is a single, unified technology aggregate
that can do any spell in the book, to make wizards of us all.
We'd like to think of something we want to see or do, recite
the incantation, and experience the result right away.
Currently, even after millenia of tool evolution, we still have
to think, choose or buy the right tool, operate it according to
its own unique method, then experience the result:
A tap turns anticlockwise to get us from the thought 'more
water!' to the result. A volume control turns clockwise to
express 'louder!'. Each time, we need to locate the tool, then
operate it correctly. Each time, we need to have learned the
skill that makes it automatic, or we need to think first.
But why can't we just express the desire 'more water!' or 'louder!' directly, in one way not two? Or, better still, the bigger-cycle desire: 'the bath should be filled for Jack!' (who likes it extra hot) or 'when David comes on the radio, I need to hear him!'.
This is where the Magic Goo of digitisation comes in...
But why can't we just express the desire 'more water!' or 'louder!' directly, in one way not two? Or, better still, the bigger-cycle desire: 'the bath should be filled for Jack!' (who likes it extra hot) or 'when David comes on the radio, I need to hear him!'.
Enter the Magic Goo of Digitisation
Few self-respecting technologies come without their own computer these days. Each of us has (possibly without realising) several computers working for us in our cars, washing machines, childrens' toys, PDAs, MP3 players, televisions, cameras, etc. These computers are being deployed around us for simple economic reasons: you can get more features for less money, and next year's model simply needs reprogramming into this year's. Also, digital technologies are more 'interoperable': they all talk much the same language, harmonising and commodotising the technology of their production. They can even talk to each other with the help of just a little bit of software. There has been talk of 'convergence' between various technological domains for some years now, and we are slowly seeing it happen via digital and computer technology. The flexibility or programmability of digital and computer technology is what makes it possible. A side effect of this digitisation and computerisation is that technology is becoming increasingly multi-spell; general-purpose PCs most of all:
Phones are now also cameras, games pods, PDAs and
messaging devices; televisions can show broadcast, film,
slideshows, games; games machines can play videos and music;
PCs can do all of the above, partly because they are actually not just one computer, but have at least four processors in them (central, maths, graphics, sound).
VoIP (telephone-over-the-Internet) and the ability to record TV shows onto a computer's disk are examples of the power of the PC to cross technology boundaries. Our voices and TV shows look just like any other data to the computer.
Digital technology can be very good at using the 'good enough' rule to boost our powers: take a panel of a million or so tiny pixels (multi-colored light dots) and give it to a computer: you may really start to fear what's around the next corner or flinch when shot at - in a 3D game.
Indeed, many of the spells of wizardry will be familiar to players of online games, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. In these games, wizardry and magic are rife. Of course, the magic is limited to the inside of the computer and the minds of the players, but that is real enough for most players' needs. Their needs to taste omniscience and omnipotence, that is.
There are no types of technology that can't be touched by digitisation: cameras, washing machines, radios, cars, microphones and loudspeakers in mobile and cordless phones, screens, nanotechnology, keyboards and mice, paper printers, power plants, furniture production lines, holograph generators, clocks, etc.
Digitisation can make magic with these other types of
technology. It can:
PCs can do all of the above, partly because they are actually not just one computer, but have at least four processors in them (central, maths, graphics, sound).
VoIP (telephone-over-the-Internet) and the ability to record TV shows onto a computer's disk are examples of the power of the PC to cross technology boundaries. Our voices and TV shows look just like any other data to the computer.
Digital technology can be very good at using the 'good enough' rule to boost our powers: take a panel of a million or so tiny pixels (multi-colored light dots) and give it to a computer: you may really start to fear what's around the next corner or flinch when shot at - in a 3D game.
Indeed, many of the spells of wizardry will be familiar to players of online games, or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. In these games, wizardry and magic are rife. Of course, the magic is limited to the inside of the computer and the minds of the players, but that is real enough for most players' needs. Their needs to taste omniscience and omnipotence, that is.
There are no types of technology that can't be touched by digitisation: cameras, washing machines, radios, cars, microphones and loudspeakers in mobile and cordless phones, screens, nanotechnology, keyboards and mice, paper printers, power plants, furniture production lines, holograph generators, clocks, etc.
- join them together: to give us a more 'seamless' interaction with them, smearing over the boundaries between them and making them easier to use because there's one way to interact with them, not many;
- make them dance: animate them, to control and orchestrate them, or bring them to life, further enhancing our powers and senses through them, by allowing us bigger wishes and good enough experiences;
- allow us to do what we want with them: give us a more customisable or even programmable version of them, both making them easier to use (bigger wishes) and further enhancing our powers and senses through them.