Changes in Life and Education: You have seen Nothing yet
Hermann A. Maurer · E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education · 2004
Computers are going to continue to evolve at very high speed. The omnipresent computer that acts very much as extension of the human brain is less than ten years away. This will clearly influence society, and particularly education. How much and what will we have to learn when we can, almost telepathically, get the answer to any question that comes to our mind by just passing it on to our personal PC? How much will the world change if the current millions of web cams are supplemented by mobile (flying) version, much as they are already in use as military drones? And what if we then depend on computers and computer networks for most of our activities and the whole system fails, maybe due to a cyber attack? This and similar questions are addressed in a series of novels whose main ideas will be presented. In this poster we present, in the form of a series of SF novels, dramatic changes that are going to happen much faster and much more massive than is usually understood. The poster focuses on two topics: the functionality of the PC in some 10 years and how it will influence life and learning. The poster will show a picture of the PC along the following lines: The poster will explain how this futuristic computer will work. It will show how this device will revolutionize life, but more specifically learning. And the main point is: not HOW we will learn, but WHAT we will learn. Learning of facts and more will, in a sense, become superfluous, since the omnipresent small computer will be able answer just about any question immediately. Thus, the computer will become, much more than it is already now, an extension of our brain with many advantages and also some dangers. This part of the poster is a follow-up to the invited talk “A scenario for the Computer in 6 to 10 years and its effect on learning and society” by H. Maurer (November 2, afternoon) The second topic the poster will focus on is the fact that attacks on computers and computer networks are increasing in number exponentially: a cyber attack that might disable all computers in large regions of the world for a long time is not unthinkable any more, unfortunately. The above two topics and other computer related issues are addressed in “The Paradoppelganger” and “The Paranet”, two of the six books that are related to the topics mentioned and will be briefly presented in the poster. The other four are: The Telekinetic ... showing how dangerous it is to have talents that go beyond what other persons have; this not so much a technical novel but shows from a new vantage point how difficult it is to integrate minorities with special talents. The Parawarriors ... showing a world at the brink of nuclear war, averted by a combination of special talents and high tech (drones). The Paracommunicator ... speculating that telepathic-like communication may well be possible if advanced technology is used, and that even the storage of everything that ever has happened around a certain person might be feasible at some stage. The Parashield ... telling the story of special talents and their problems. All these books are parts of the Xperts-Series (see www.iicm.edu/xperts ) that will deal in the future with further topics like the influence of supervision by flying cameras (drones), with e-Smog, and other topical developments, like techniques to make persons invisible, a hot research topic of current day military, hiding under the inconspicuous term ‘active camouflaging’.