What is sustainability?
If you look up the word in a dictionary it says:
‘The ability to be maintained at a certain level or rate.’ This is the original meaning.
The new modified version is :
‘The avoidance of depletion of natural resources to maintain an ecological balance’. Here we are talking about sustainability in terms of nature and mother earth.
If we look at the two meanings both of them have the keyword ‘balance’ at their core.
So….. .. when we talk about balance and the future that would probably look something like living in balance with nature and technology. Where both the elements work together in harmony to create an environment that benefits us as human beings and is conducive to our survival.
We looked at a few sustainability projects in our TnT class, very few were taking nature into account. The ones with artificial intelligence at the forefront were gaining momentum.
Here I will talk about two projects that caught my attention.
- Olli – a self driving bus. A project by Local Motors. https://localmotors.com/meet-olli/
- Project Jacquard – that designs smart products (A liberating take on the wearables) by Google. https://atap.google.com/jacquard/
Both these projects rely heavily on Artificial Intelligence.
Olli is a self driven shuttle, on their website they claim that it will enhance nature by reducing the number of cars on roads (which will eventually cause the carbon emissions to go down), will increase road safety, will safe time which will encourage creativity and carefree attitude , will alleviate poverty by giving mobility to far off jobs. Which is all well and good. In addition it also gathers information about its surroundings, weather and talks to the passengers by recognizing what they are wearing, the interaction becomes personal and providing them recommendations on restaurants and food.
Let’s put a pin here and look at the second project.
Project Jacquard: their tagline is Big Tech, Small Tag. They are converting our everyday regular things like bags, shoes, clothes into high tech smart items. That helps you with your everyday activities and interactions, like taking a picture by simply swiping over your jacket cuff or lets you know if you have left your phone behind by lighting up the cuff or a tactile nudge of the bag strap, lets you drop pins so that you remember where you parked your car. And so much more.
After looking at both these projects the interim conclusion that I have come to is that humans’ dependence on these devices is increasing. They are relying more on technology and less on their own motor and cognitive skills.
Let’s take out the pin that we had put earlier, and discuss Olli’s ability to recommend restaurants and food that it has never been to or tasted for that matter. A consequent result of this will be that we would have little to none interaction with fellow humans. Rather than talking to the person sitting next to us we would be engaging with the bus itself. This is troubling thought number 1.
Troubling thought number 2 in case of Project Jacquard, we are being encouraged to use increasingly simpler gestures to operate technology and connecting these very things on our bodies through bluetooth. What would happen to our health at micro level due to all these rays going through us and secondly we may still remember how to use our phones or drive our cars but what about the next generation that would be born into this, they wouldn’t know how to do things by hand they would be completely dependent on devices.
An underlying fact that we all have become oblivious to is that there is constant information gathering and data collection happening through each use. Point to ponder is ; will all this data be used against us when theArtificial Intelligence realises that we as humans are detrimental to our own safety and future.
Who is to say that AI would not evolve of its own accord, with no one to control it make decisions as well?
Or it would not annihilate us or try to take us over?
Or a less darker version could be that we continue to use the technology so much that it needs to continue evolving and demanding constant updates that we overflow our landfills with older models. Eventually there is no place for us to live in and we are forced to leave the planet because of our own negligence. Maybe try to return at a later time to a better environment and leave robots to clean up after us.
In my opinion too much reliance on technology is not a sustainable solution it may advertised as being in sync with nature. But reality is not so. Now my opinion may be based on movies, but there is always the case of life imitating art.
Therefore we need to keep our senses, skills and brains sharp. In order to survive and thrive we need to do things that we were born to do like thinking. It is imperative that we be analogous in some of our daily routines no matter how mundane. Especially where critical thinking in involved, otherwise we would be sitting right next to another human and not know how to interact.
Photo credits: Wall-e, Project Jacquard Website, Clipart
Tools & Technology in Art Education 