Let’s call them “things"

 

Technology has reached a level where innovation not only fulfills our needs; though introduction of new marketable goods it also creates the “need” for even more technology. The market for a product exists because the ancillary opportunities presented by some gadget we adopted a year or two ago are created in a way that, if that first-generation gadget is accepted, will give birth to new branches of opportunity. A fertile plot of virtual empty space to breed and farm innovation.

 

This business of creating a need and fulfilling it with that thing we now need to make the other thing we needed last year really work right, even though the former did not exist and therefore the original need was not even possible, is the modern-day gold rush.

 

We even have a cool new name for this. The name is indisputably accurate simply because it is about as vague and all-encompassing as an acronym can be without being a blatant joke.  IoT Capital “I” lower case “o” capital “T” (It even looks kind of cool its almost symmetric but off balance in a hipster kind of way) The “INTERNET of THINGS”

 

The “Internet of Things” an industry with staggering monetary projections. Currently, and through the next few years, a place where fortunes will be made and inclusion into high-risk high potential funds’ will be selected as part of more aggressive investor options. IoT is, and will continue to be a place where venture capital goes to vaporize as startups compete in this infinite space of possible “Things” still must compete for finite resources, and this balloon which is comfortably filled with the air of great concepts is quickly stretched beyond its limits; we wince in anticipation of the forgone bursting of. (dare I say) “bubble.”

 

Not to say the Internet of Things will fail.  It cannot fail, it is truly too big to fail. Our way of life depends on technology and to say that “things” are not going to succeed is as ridiculous as the acronym itself.  But by defining such a broad scope of “what will be” we have just about guaranteed that the majority of the companies fighting to be part of this vacuum of “whatevers” are going to build the same mouse trap, all be it better than the current one, again, I think. Or they will work towards a world void of the need for trapping vermin through a concept less traveled. Yet most of them will be selling cubicles on Craig’s list before their first office lease has come to term.

 

I suppose “IoT” is best described as moving from the information age to the “use of information” age.  (The letters still remind me of a shack that a building inspector would red tag, but I digress) Giving purpose to global communication, automation, and data collection, complex mathematical algorithms aka AI, in a practical sense. We are kind of informationally saturated and starving for new things right now.  We are a kitchen full of ingredients yearning for a chef to feed us something our pallet has yet to experience. Our collective ADHD nation needs some new toys. We are conditioned with a Pavlov reaction to the innovation path and our appetite is insatiable even with the exponential pace that we are currently forced to keep up with.  Or are we?

 

The tech revolution has begun to wear thin on many professionals.  I have stated that i long for the day when people understand that they can be away from their smart phone for half a day and they will survive, moreover those who cannot get in touch with them will understand that downtime is important.  Discussions about the tech dependence and the need to always be available have finally become mainstream.  I see acceptance and even recommendations that individuals set time away from the ubiquitous connectivity to the world and it gives me hope.  I hope we can reach a point where “TechTolerance” is understood.

 

There is certainly an upside to economic growth as our nation leads the way in technology and innovation. We manufacture intellectual property better than anyone.  But as we turn the burden of problem solving and day to day tasks over to technology, we, the general public; the consumers of newfound technology, lose the cognitive skills to solve things for ourselves.  In a way, computers will certainly become smarter than humans, but that’s partially due to humans becoming dumber.  Why? Because we can. We will collectively gravitate to the path of least resistance and in the “use of information” age, we need not concern ourselves with truly learning, we just need to pair a device that will take it from there! The device will even tell you that it will now be learning (so you don’t have to) This genie left its bottle and the lack of our need to learn is going to dictate how intelligence, artificial or otherwise is valued.  This should be our real fear, if we want to rationalize fear of AI.  This process is already underway.

 

The key to a happy life is balance.  We can consume technology faster than you can say “firmware”, but we have to balance our lives without the anxiety that 17% battery life and no charger cord can bring from time to time.  Find a balance embracing the digital age while remembering WE are not computers, and intelligence will never be artificial.  Art, Music, Opinions, Empathy, Optimism, Humanity, Tradition, Exploration, Innovation, Invention, Learning and Living; enhanced by reality; REALity complemented by the augmentation or virtualization we have created in our digital dimension are all really important. Dare is say even more important than THINGS?  Okay perhaps not more important than things, but certainly more important than stuff……… I think.