The other Sunday, the Jensen family was watching an old Disney movie, The Beauty and the Beast. One of the central scenes in the old film is when the beauty arrives to the enchanted castle where teacups, kettles, watches and chandeliers are singing and dancing.
The children of the Jensen family were puzzled by the amazement of the young girl, the beauty. In the old movie, it was magic to have paintings and lamps moving about. To the kids today, that is what we expect objects to do.
The kids brought the issue up for discussion at dinner that night. 8-year old Anna had just gotten a new doll. It had immediately become her new best friend. It had a lot more skills and understood her far better than her old doll. But she felt a little bad about not having recharged her old doll since she had received the new one. She knew that the moment she pressed the "on" button, it would know that it was no longer the most important doll in Anne's life.
"Oh, don't worry about it", her mother said. "Even if it cries, it's not really sad. It's just doing what it's designed to do."
Anne's older brother, Anders, told that in school he had heard about the three different states of existance: You could be dead - like a rock. You could be living, like a human being or a cat. Or you could be a animated machine - like a fridge.
The funny thing about the Disney film was that it was obviously from a time when people considered machines and objects to be dead like doornails - which - as both mom and dad pointed out, was not that long ago.
The perception of machines gradually started changing in the early years of the millennium, when people began sensing that there was "something" inside their various gadgets. With each new and improved model - whether it was a mobile phone, a car or a washing machine - technologies were refined and the machines became increasingly better at making decisions and solving problems. It was like they developed and enhanced their personality on the basis of their experiences with the user and the surroundings in which they operated.
When mom and dad were kids, the car would not automatically hit the brakes if something got in the way, and the washing machine would continue its set program even if everything inside it was turning pink thanks to a red sock accidentally thrown in with the white linen.
Yes, and do you remember when we first met a robot officer. Bla bla bla... Anders and Anne looked at each other. Once their parents got started about the old days there was no stopping them. That was the problem with adults, you couldn't simply change the subject or switch them off.
The Same Set Of Senses - Embedded In Everything
Contrary to the predictions, computer technology advancements did not slow down. Processors grew increasingly powerful but the extra power was not employed for enhancing video quality or to further speed up search functions. Instead, developments now focus on making computers increasingly human - a task which puts heavy demands on power and advanced programming.
In a manner of speaking, computer power has become a set of senses that can be embedded in all kinds of objects - much like electricity became incorporated in all kinds of objects, toothbrushes, stoves, etc., in the 20th century.
The mobile phone is the epitome of the development. Basically, a mobile phone was nothing but a computer chip with a microphone, a loudspeaker, a camera, the ability to transmit signals, and enough power and memory to work as a calendar, notebook, game machine, etc.
Later, the ability to register exact location was added - plus a number of sensors measuring temperature, humidity, chemicals, etc. As mobile technology grew cheaper and became more compact, it rapidly outgrew the physical confines of traditional telephony and handheld devices. The same set of qualities could be built into any household object - as is evident now. In a car, the device will keep track of the weather, contact emergency centers if relevant, and receive notice of service check-ups, etc. In a thermos, it registers how much coffee is left, it shows the temperature and orders refills.
Today, the applications of the original mobile phone are available in milk cartons, bicycles, clothing, shoes, walls - everywhere. In a sense, our surroundings have become sensitive. At the same time, they have become far better at analyzing what they see and linking it to the observations they receive from the other types of objects with which they are interlinked.
Development in this area is accelerating at a still higher pace - which is why everything around us seems increasingly alive and conscious.