I recently took part in an aptitude test known as "find your way, by
car, from J.F.K. Airport to various locations in Pennsylvania, West
Virginia and Maryland and then find your way back again without getting
lost."
I passed with flying colors. Or, more accurately, the driver did and I
helped by punching the details of each location into the Magellan GPS
navigation system in the rental car. More accurately still, the Magellan
system passed with flying colors and we, the driver and I, helped in
rather insignificant ways. We were instrumental in getting two computers
talking to each other - the one in the car and the one in the satellite
that knew where the heck we where on the planet. After that, the two
computers just got on with it and we followed their instructions.
It was a wonderful experience. As close to total bliss as it is legal to
get whilst in control of a motor propelled vehicle. So blissful, that I
cannot imagine attempting to drive around an unfamiliar city without
GPS. In time, quite a short time I suspect, GPS will be standard kit in
most cars in the developed world. It will, in a short period of time
from now, be elevated to the same status as the calculator, or the
remote control for a T. set or the cellular phone. How did we ever
survive without this stuff?
Our ability as humans to subserviate ourselves to machines borders on
the masochistic. We submit readily and speedily to each new labor saving
device be it physical labor, such as getting up to change the TV or
mental labor, such as subtracting numbers in our heads. To the list of
onerous chores banished from our lives will soon be added the tiresome
task of finding a route from A to B using a map and basic navigation
skills.
I readily admit to being just such a gadget-masochist. My living room is
a menagerie of remote controls for all sorts of things. I cannot
subtract numbers in my head. I cannot write with a pen legibly any more.
My handwriting - even of my signature - has atrophied to the point of
illegibility through disuse.
All of this has happened to me in the last 10-15 years. I used to
physically haul my assentient self out of the chair to change TV
channels. I used to write legibly with a pen. I used to subtract numbers
in my head.
I am not the person I was 10-15 years ago. Parts of me no longer
function well without the clear and present intervention of computers. A
scary thought. An even scarier thought is that I am already, in one
sense, part machine. For various functions in my life I need a computer
to be effective. For trifling reasons of anatomy, these machines and I
are physically removed from each other. This day will probably soon pass
as machine implants become the fashion at the bleeding edge of digital
gadgetry.
This final step, a subcutaneous homesteading by the digital drugs we are
hooked on, is but a perfunctory step. We are already, for better or
worse, part machine. They are already in your pocket, in your car, on
your desk, all day every day. Moving them a few inches closer by putting
them under your skin is surely no big deal from a functionality
perspective.
Perhaps the skills I have lost on the road to my current designation of
part male/part computer has been compensated for by the accretion of
skills in other areas?
Perhaps.
If I find any I will let you know.
