The Inevitable Book Report
The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly is a simple book but at the same time it has such rousing objectives when it proposes to understand how technology will behave in the upcoming 30 years. The author does it by identifying twelve macro tendencies that are already flowing among us, supported by the fact that in the face of digital technology evolution, we could have not avoided some technological developments that puts us into life changing situations. Those inevitabilities are based on the trends generated by technology itself boosted by the way we interact with technology ourselves.
Basically, we are living a feedback process in terms of technology development. Those trends have influence on the future technologies; on our interaction with technology …show more content…
and so on. The author stablishes 12 macro tendencies, based on his experience within the tech world, that tend to direct technology and our relationship with it in the upcoming 3 decades. They are shown as verbs so that they can be characterized as forces that will drive the tech evolution.
Each of the tendencies will Interact with the others and suffer their influences at the same time showing that the connection among them will work as the basis for a highly connected world and society when humans will be facing the challenge of discovering why we are here for, simply because they will execute only functions that cannot be executed by no one else than humans.
All the rest of the functions will be delegated to the machines and artificial intelligence, even more than ever. We are just in the beginning of a never-ending evolution when it comes to technology development, digitization and artificial intelligence.
The author stars his theory by exploring a tendency denominated Becoming. By becoming he means that as long as technology apparently generate products, it is increasingly generating services which are always upon mutation. Everything needs maintenance. The products are dynamic on its lifetime as long as it needs constant maintenance to remain active at the same time they are less considered something owned and perceived as something useful. Good examples of those mutation processes are smartphones, tablets and wearables that are being constantly updated without requesting our approval or any action to do
so.
Technology is in constant need of refreshment and the inclination towards change is inescapable. As a consequence, we are living an avalanche of upgrades since upgrades trigger more upgrades and so on. The author describes it as a hygienic process: we have to do it regularly to keep our technologies healthy. We, as a result are subject to changes and to the acceptance of the changes sometimes without thinking of it, as the author mentions the Amish communities in the US, using the web to promote local business. The web reach is immensurable and inevitable and as the world become more technological, the way the society interacts with it changes as well. Everything we make will be constantly in need of updates and in the process of becoming something else as long as technology moves toward a non-static estate where everything is in transformation for the better.
Following the becoming tendency, we are introduced to the Cognifying process which stands for the fact that artificial intelligence is already among us and it is increasingly bringing new facilities that were not even dreamed before. According to the author, it is just the beginning.
If we think that scientists around one century ago discovered electricity and saw on it a possibility to connect anything we had in hands by using switch plug on the wall, a lot of manual functions become automatized as a result of it, it will similarly happen to artificial intelligence (AI). In a nearly future, low cost and high capacity AI will be available as we have today electricity in our walls and inventors aware of the opportunities will come up with countless automatized functions around us.
Curiously, we look around today and we already see a saturated technological world and the author on the other hand, says that the possibilities are right here right now and that 30 years from now people will look back and say that by 2016 there was a lot to do. The truth is that everything that can be cognified will be in the nearly future, since music, laundry, real estate, nursing etc., thanks to the breakthrough of cheaper parallel computation, big data and better algorithms. It will be a race together with the machines once we let robots do our work and we work on teaching them how to do it even better at the same time we can figure out what we are really here for. It is the surrender to atomization instead of being afraid of the robot’s takeover.
As a third tendency, the author defines Flowing. According to his arguments, the internet is the biggest copy maker in the world by that he means that everything that is once digitalized and available on the internet will be indiscriminately copied. In the past, LP became CDs and now he have streaming services. The same for the movies with Netflix and Amazon, which makes items as CDs and DVDs obsolete. The constant and easy data flow is transforming entire industries worldwide. The press is undergoing deep transformations once printed newspapers and magazines are losing relevance while the articles are becoming bits. Not to mention they become easier to access as well.
According to the author, an economy law has an important role in this flowing process: by the moment something becomes free, it becomes popular and its economical position shifts. As example, we have the electricity. It was very expensive in the beginning of the 20th century so the poor people had no choice but using candles to light up their houses. Once the electricity became popular, its price went down and candles started to be seen as sophisticated items. So, if we are in face with the biggest world copy maker, the internet, where everything can be copied, there will be still things that cannot be copied and they are: Immediacy, Personalization, Interpretation, Authenticity, Accessibility, Embodiment, Patronage and Discoverability. There will ever be people willing to pay for these kinds of things even when almost everything is being offered for free.
Basically, we are living a feedback process in terms of technology development. Those trends have influence on the future technologies; on our interaction with technology …show more content…
and so on. The author stablishes 12 macro tendencies, based on his experience within the tech world, that tend to direct technology and our relationship with it in the upcoming 3 decades. They are shown as verbs so that they can be characterized as forces that will drive the tech evolution.
Each of the tendencies will Interact with the others and suffer their influences at the same time showing that the connection among them will work as the basis for a highly connected world and society when humans will be facing the challenge of discovering why we are here for, simply because they will execute only functions that cannot be executed by no one else than humans.
All the rest of the functions will be delegated to the machines and artificial intelligence, even more than ever. We are just in the beginning of a never-ending evolution when it comes to technology development, digitization and artificial intelligence.
The author stars his theory by exploring a tendency denominated Becoming. By becoming he means that as long as technology apparently generate products, it is increasingly generating services which are always upon mutation. Everything needs maintenance. The products are dynamic on its lifetime as long as it needs constant maintenance to remain active at the same time they are less considered something owned and perceived as something useful. Good examples of those mutation processes are smartphones, tablets and wearables that are being constantly updated without requesting our approval or any action to do
so.
Technology is in constant need of refreshment and the inclination towards change is inescapable. As a consequence, we are living an avalanche of upgrades since upgrades trigger more upgrades and so on. The author describes it as a hygienic process: we have to do it regularly to keep our technologies healthy. We, as a result are subject to changes and to the acceptance of the changes sometimes without thinking of it, as the author mentions the Amish communities in the US, using the web to promote local business. The web reach is immensurable and inevitable and as the world become more technological, the way the society interacts with it changes as well. Everything we make will be constantly in need of updates and in the process of becoming something else as long as technology moves toward a non-static estate where everything is in transformation for the better.
Following the becoming tendency, we are introduced to the Cognifying process which stands for the fact that artificial intelligence is already among us and it is increasingly bringing new facilities that were not even dreamed before. According to the author, it is just the beginning.
If we think that scientists around one century ago discovered electricity and saw on it a possibility to connect anything we had in hands by using switch plug on the wall, a lot of manual functions become automatized as a result of it, it will similarly happen to artificial intelligence (AI). In a nearly future, low cost and high capacity AI will be available as we have today electricity in our walls and inventors aware of the opportunities will come up with countless automatized functions around us.
Curiously, we look around today and we already see a saturated technological world and the author on the other hand, says that the possibilities are right here right now and that 30 years from now people will look back and say that by 2016 there was a lot to do. The truth is that everything that can be cognified will be in the nearly future, since music, laundry, real estate, nursing etc., thanks to the breakthrough of cheaper parallel computation, big data and better algorithms. It will be a race together with the machines once we let robots do our work and we work on teaching them how to do it even better at the same time we can figure out what we are really here for. It is the surrender to atomization instead of being afraid of the robot’s takeover.
As a third tendency, the author defines Flowing. According to his arguments, the internet is the biggest copy maker in the world by that he means that everything that is once digitalized and available on the internet will be indiscriminately copied. In the past, LP became CDs and now he have streaming services. The same for the movies with Netflix and Amazon, which makes items as CDs and DVDs obsolete. The constant and easy data flow is transforming entire industries worldwide. The press is undergoing deep transformations once printed newspapers and magazines are losing relevance while the articles are becoming bits. Not to mention they become easier to access as well.
According to the author, an economy law has an important role in this flowing process: by the moment something becomes free, it becomes popular and its economical position shifts. As example, we have the electricity. It was very expensive in the beginning of the 20th century so the poor people had no choice but using candles to light up their houses. Once the electricity became popular, its price went down and candles started to be seen as sophisticated items. So, if we are in face with the biggest world copy maker, the internet, where everything can be copied, there will be still things that cannot be copied and they are: Immediacy, Personalization, Interpretation, Authenticity, Accessibility, Embodiment, Patronage and Discoverability. There will ever be people willing to pay for these kinds of things even when almost everything is being offered for free.