Tech Talk: Impact of Technology on Learning

(Andy) #1

Have you thought about the impact of technology on Learning? From babies to adulthood there is a huge shift in how humans are learning with so much new technology being part of modern society. Now very young children watch cartoons on a phone and quickly learn how to use controls, and kids in school have access to an almost infinite amount of information to research and can have video chats with people in other parts of the world. No more encyclopedia or maps, now it’s immersive technology.

Adults are also using more technology based training methods to learn, and now we’re also starting to see Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence being added to the equation. These tools will become more commonplace over the next few years and it’ll be interesting to see what that will do for the learning process. We should see increased safety and performance, but are there certain areas that will benefit more than others? I can imagine taking a virtual cooking class where you log in and get immersed into a kitchen with other students and the teacher. I would probably still set off the virtual smoke detector! In all seriousness it’s something that could be applied for almost any job role,

and be much more accessible for people than standard options. The old saying about only using 10% of your brain will certainly be challenged going forward, even right now some young kid is probably reading about the work of Stephen Hawking and starting a whole new passionate learning path that will include all kinds of technology and maybe even space travel. I really can’t wait to see what advances are coming!

(Howard) #2

Andy, I hope we see all the positives that could come out of this. I think we are in a rapidly transformational era with the potential for both good and evil. It depends on how society interacts with the process of learning.The human brain really doesn’t multi-task well according to research I’ve read. However, we are quickly moving toward a convergence of reduced attention span, focus, and pressure to absorb tremendous amounts of information to process as we learn. So likely researchers will feel compelled to solve that problem. Most likely we are in the process of evolution of our brains right now. However, before our brains have time to evolve we are likely to see brain hacking and a blending of AI and implants. Organizations are forming to try to regulate this in the same way as say --bioethics. There are many positive sides that AI can bring to society. In the short term, I see all kinds of teachable augmented reality applications and simulations helping us to do things faster, and more creatively. There are many dark sides of this multi-faceted technology if societies go down the wrong path. Of special concern to me is social engineering of society. I digress a bit from your central point and the wonderful potential opportunities ahead. I just hope we don’t turn into a dystopian society! Sci-fi turns seems to turn into science reality. Unfortunately, the blending of Artificial intelligence and Augmented Reality is now being used for facial recognition to social engineer Chinese society. And now we see Facebook profiles being used in a massive social engineering ploy. Two chilling things are taking place in China now.
China’s police are using facial ID glasses and implementing a social credit system score in China which is a chilling modification of the old FICA scores. The mission. Physical control of their societies movements for those who don’t have enough “credit.”

I sure hope we can use our technology to make our children learn faster and retain a highly agile mind and body. It will be great to see them solve our human problems faster, with technology fueling creativity going forward. In the background of all this sits the unknown actor of AI. How soon will it overtake our own human abilities? But that’s another discussion. I hope we can steer clear of the darker sides of what happens in some societies. But now that we see the bad things that can be done. We can do our best to work to make sure that we elevate the human condition with technology that becomes available!

China implementing a social credit system.