Inventor Ray Kurzweil Looks to the Future of Technology in This Month's JVIB Speaker's Corner
Posted by Web Admin. on 10/10/2003 9:46:39 AM.
In the October 2003 Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB) special issue on technology, Ray Kurzweil--the founder, chair, and CEO of Kurzweil Technologies--predicts the future of intelligent technology and its impact on people with disabilities. An inventor since age 5, Kurzweil has had his fingers on the pulse of emerging and assistive technology for the past three decades. In his Speaker's Corner column, he observes "the progress in the 21st century will be about 1,000 times greater than in the 20th century, which was no slouch in terms of change." In terms of the benefit visually impaired people will experience from the acceleration of technological development, Kurzweil says, "We will have reading machines within a few years that are not just sitting on a desk, but are tiny devices you put in your pocket. . . . We encounter text everywhere . . . and these pocket-sized reading machines will enable a blind person to read this material." Learn more about Kurzweil's vision of technology's future by reading the article. Then join in an online discussion on these and other topics.There is currently 1 reply.
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1 . Re: Inventor Ray Kurzweil Looks to the Future of Technology in This Month's JVIB Speaker's Corner
Posted by leslie_bevill on 10/21/2003
Kurzweil cites impressive statistics about the rate of progress: “…at today’s rate of change, we will achieve an amount of progress equivalent to that of the whole 20th century in 14 years ….” He calls that progress rate the “paradigm-shift rate” and continues the article by describing and predicting new paradigms of computer size, speed, implementation, and capability. Omitted from those descriptions and predictions is a discussion of the paradigm-shift rate of the average public. Is the public’s ability to adapt to and incorporate new technology increasing at the same rate new technologies are developed and released? What is the relationship between technology rates of progress and the public’s rate of progress? How do you encourage the public to learn and respond flexibly so that they can keep pace with the rapid technology paradigm-shift rate? Some new technologies might be frightening to the public. How do you allay the fear that accompanies the integration of new technologies? What is socially responsible progress? And in the case people with visual disabilities, new assistive technologies offer “miraculous” possibilities; however progress might also mean that crucial visual information is lost to the visually impaired while they are in the early stages of adapting to a new technology. Is the socially responsible rate of progress different for assistive technologies?
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