TechTakes

Futurism articles really make me feel how these people are not living in the same reality as I.

Looking from now into 2149 and war is a nonfactor in Baby's life. "Genocide" isn't mentioned once, or "fascism", or "borders". No food or water scarcity. No mention of what happens to insects or wildlife or people in island countries or near the Equator. The only mention of "ecosystem" is in the expression "Center for Advanced Computer-Human Ecosystems". The only mention of "climate change" is to say that it will lead us to a "reconfigurable architectural robotic space". Somehow people have all the energy in the world to power AI girlfriends and moveable robotic walls and menstruation-sensing tech panties. The human body, the animal that is the human being, doesn't really matter in this world where Microsoft VR smells your anxiety in your deathbed and comforts you with self-warming textiles. Where does the food that sustains the flesh comes from, what is our relationship to the plants and animals and insects and bacteria who we depend on for food and air and shelter, who builds all this stuff and under which conditions—considerations that do not even cross the mind of this person when they think of the question: "What does the future hold for those born today?"

Found on metafilter, along with this excellent comment:

Learning will be increasingly self-­directed, says Liz Gerber, co-director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction and Design at Northwestern University. The future classroom is “going to be hyper-­personalized.” AI tutors could help with one-on-one instruction or repetitive sports drills.

No it won't. Learning has been going to be "increasingly self-directed" since before I was born, but it turns out, in fact, that you need to have a certain amount of maturity and focus before "self-directed" means anything more than "goofing off as much as possible" or possibly, just possibly, "intense focus only on those things that interest me intensely". What will happen is that the children of the poor and the less-involved middle class will have shitty digital "tutors" in chaotic classrooms or goof off in isolation while the children of the rich are taught the old-fashioned way, by talented individual humans with only such technology as supports focused, human-centered learning. "Learning will be increasingly self-directed" will be used as a justification for treating everyone but the rich badly.

Furthermore, if people do have digital spy tutors looking over their shoulders, they will either be janky and kids will devote a lot of time to fooling them or they'll be creepy surveillance that will fuck the kids up, or probably both. At best, these will be simulations of people and kids will learn to have "relationships" with fake people that don't exist, don't think or judge and do not love them, and IT optimists will somehow spin this as great and helpful. (I suppose there is some possibility that we will create and enslave actual conscious AI, which will be a nightmare in its own way).

she’s calling a“baby handler”—picture an exoskeleton crossed with a car seat. It’s a late-night soothing machine that rocks, supplies pre-pumped breast milk, and maybe offers a bidet-like “cleaning and drying situation.”For your children, perhaps, this is their first experience of being close to a machine.

Ah yes, famously the worst part of having children: touching them. Urgh. At least we can be pretty certain that this sort of thing will have no negative psychological impacts on babies and young children, who are famously disinterested in their parents, and neglect isn’t a thing!

Or, once the baby arrives, in nipple stickers that nursing parents could apply to track biofluid exchange. If the baby has trouble latching, maybe the sticker’s capacitive touch sensors could help the parent find a better position.

Do you know what the worst thing about breast feeding is? It is hard to monetise! Women just excrete milk! For free! Anyway, what if we could interpose a disposable data-harvesting device into the process, maybe on a subscription basis?

The future as predicted by people who are completely addicted to computers.

Yes officer this smart device idea right here:

If the baby has trouble latching, maybe the sticker’s capacitive touch sensors could help the parent find a better position.

I seriously wonder, do any of the folks with the "AR glasses to assist repair" thing ever actually repair anything, or do they get their ideas of how you repair stuff from computer games?

Ok don’t know why the AI companies are courting the hacked found footage toilet voyeur market but here we are, I guess

Will the rectum monitor keep track of the duration of my nocturnal erections? I need to find out if I can hit 179 minutes to flex on 18-year olds.

Selected quotes:

Well before you were born, you were known to the algorithm.  You’ll realize that images of yourself are a kind of social currency.  An unobtrusive bracelet or smart watch tracks your performance. Kids often tell him AI-enabled technologies are … creepy. It tells you when you’re near In-N-Out. Later on you realize that you were the only real human in that entire room. Everybody else was AI. You might be able to rent out each of your fingernails as an ad for social media. The home will finally be what Le Corbusier imagined: a machine for living in. What is the plan for tomorrow? They know ahead of time, even before you do, that you’re thirsty. Perhaps it’s better to let the toilet or the mirror do the tracking continuously. Faraway loved ones can visit by digital double.

But by now, maybe the agent is no longer your friend.

Maybe, at last, it is you.

If you have a digital twin, we hope it’s not a deepfake. 

No thanks.

And speaking of electronic ass-monitoring, I’m reminded of this gem from 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

So little has changed since then!