The Future Will Be Pretty Weird
The field of human-centered design philosophy is changing all the time. I believe that the best designs, the best interactions, are yet to come. In the near future there may easily be a world where slipping into virtual or augmented reality is as simple as slipping on a pair of glasses, unencumbered by wires, gadgets, or heavy battery packs. Who is to say what advertising or marketing may be possible when we can rewrite the physical landscape with something new?
In his book, The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil defines 'the singularity' as a time period in which technological growth is at a such a pace that it blurs the distinct lines between nature and technology. It is presented in a compendium of ideas depicting progressive technological leaps, to the point where technology merges with and overtakes biology. Our intelligence becomes super powerful, evolving into a non-biological entity with the extraordinary processing power of machines.
The marriage of these two will saturate the building blocks of humanity, birthing an optimal level of artificial intelligence. In this state, what kind of civilization will be built? Maybe one where existence itself will transcend our biological constructs and will become infused with advanced machine learning. Crazy or not, who is to say what the future may hold?
