Symbiosis - Maybe not so good

I would have to agree with what most of the class felt in that why does Margaret Morse even need to assign a gender to the Internet or cyberspace? I find it especially perplexing in that we really don’t know what it means to be feminine or masculine. These are both socially and culturally formed opinions; therefore, particularly with the Internet, which is a worldwide entity, it seems foolish to try and assign a gender.

For me I find Licklider much more interesting. In class, Chris and I discussed the problem with symbiosis in that we may lose vital learning experiences if computers were to take over doing the little tedious tasks for us. For example, already I believe our society is losing its ability to spell and calculate, two very basic skills. Just now I used my built in spell-checker to fix some word I didn’t spell correctly. And I remember come senior year of high school when I was using my TI-89 to do complex calculus problems, I would also grab it just to add or subtract two small numbers. It’s sad, and I for one am sad that I have been affected in this way. Surely, I do believe the use of computers and their amplification will be very beneficial, but I still want to hold onto the idea of extension rather than purely amplification. Once again, right now I am using my computer to help me compose my thoughts by typing. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t hand-write this fast. But I would prefer to stick with purely that. My computer types what I want, it doesn’t put words into my mouth. I think that if it ever happens that true symbiosis does occur, we as humans may lose all identity. I picture it as attack of artificial intelligence. To me, if something has really developed ai, doesn’t that mean it can think and do things on its own? Who are we to control it at that point. So maybe not only in the sense that symbiosis will hinder our intelligence, it could possible even take over our minds and ability to be in control. Just a thought.

Something else I found very interesting was Daemian’s question about why hasn’t verbal recognition caught on? I know I can talk faster that I can type and it would seem that if my computer could understand what I was saying, things would be a lot easier and faster. It may be interesting to see what becomes of this. Maybe one day it will catch on.

Finally, Licklider discussed the issues of input and output equipment. I thought I might share that one of my hall mates freshman year was blind and one day it occurred to me, “Hey, he uses the Internet and e-mail, how does he do it?” So I asked him. I found it very interested that he had no display or monitor. What happened was that his computer spoke to him at such a fast pace it sounded like crazy Morse code or something. So as he moved his controls around, it would read things out to him. I thought this was just something interesting that I would share with the class.