Articles
The following articles have also been published at https://medium.com/@startrekclub.
How Star Trek Has Predicted the Future
By: Angeline Chen
As a teenager in Silicon Valley who has grown up with both Star Trek and technology, I have discovered that much of today’s technology parallels technology portrayed on Star Trek. Communicators are similar to flip phones, replicators are similar to 3D printers, and holodecks are similar to virtual reality headsets. However, I never thought to see similarity to the Borg, cyborgs permanently connected to a hive mind, reflected in real life.
One day, during a family reunion, I sat with my peers, trying to initiate a conversation as they were sending text messages non-stop and playing video games. Immersed in their own virtual worlds, my peers showed no interest in real time interaction with me or anyone else. Feeling dejected, I thought about how technology has changed our daily lives. In the past, my peers talked with each other, played board games with each other, and visited brick-and-mortar stores together. In the present, my peers use their smartphones to chat with their friends on social media, play video games with virtual opponents, and browse online shopping websites alone. Ironically, technology connects people who are far from each other but separates people who are sitting next to each other.
While I have observed that people rely on smartphones to interact with others, I have also observed that people walking on sidewalks and waiting in lines constantly use their smartphones. Technology has become ubiquitous, which begs many unanswered questions. Will people learn to balance technology and humanity so as to make life more efficient, meaningful, and at the same personal? Will technology take over people’s lives, causing them to lose their individuality and their humanity and become more machine than human?
As technology improves, the issue of balance between technology and humanity grows more acute. In the future, machines with artificial intelligence that function in every conceivable way like humans will further complicate the issue of human identity.
One day, during a family reunion, I sat with my peers, trying to initiate a conversation as they were sending text messages non-stop and playing video games. Immersed in their own virtual worlds, my peers showed no interest in real time interaction with me or anyone else. Feeling dejected, I thought about how technology has changed our daily lives. In the past, my peers talked with each other, played board games with each other, and visited brick-and-mortar stores together. In the present, my peers use their smartphones to chat with their friends on social media, play video games with virtual opponents, and browse online shopping websites alone. Ironically, technology connects people who are far from each other but separates people who are sitting next to each other.
While I have observed that people rely on smartphones to interact with others, I have also observed that people walking on sidewalks and waiting in lines constantly use their smartphones. Technology has become ubiquitous, which begs many unanswered questions. Will people learn to balance technology and humanity so as to make life more efficient, meaningful, and at the same personal? Will technology take over people’s lives, causing them to lose their individuality and their humanity and become more machine than human?
As technology improves, the issue of balance between technology and humanity grows more acute. In the future, machines with artificial intelligence that function in every conceivable way like humans will further complicate the issue of human identity.