October 2007 Edition
EDITOR'S CORNER
The Future Sneaks Up on Us
Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock to warn about the impact of technological advances on society. He may have overestimated things. Today we accept "miracles" of science as the expected.
Here's my dirty, little confession. I'm an avid reader of hard-science, science fiction. Yes, I do so, but then make sure I wash my hands afterward.
I grew up in the golden era of gadget science fiction, when Robert Heinlein and Arthur Clarke were showing us what the world would become, or at least should become. They were the generational followers of super-science SF writers like E.E. "Doc" Smith, and John W. Campbell.
As a kid, I couldn't wait for the future. Like most of my generation, I anticipated Year 2000 when we would have flying cars and wear silver, plastic clothes. Well, we got the plastic clothes – polyester – back in the late 1970s, and quickly decided they weren't very suitable [although they have evolved and made a comeback as microfiber].
Personally, facing what can be a harrowing commute each day to and from the office, I'm glad we don't have flying cars. Those things would be dropping on our heads at a prodigious rate. Instead, we have airlines – don't get me started on those; there are only so many comfort trade-offs I'm willing to make to get to my destination quickly.
"Just in time!"
In the super-science stories, genius scientists/engineers/machinists, guys who made Einstein look like a slacker, would pull a super-gadget out of their . . . air, in just the nick of time, saving the world and revolutionizing society. I was disappointed that such stuff didn't happen in real life. Instead, we have incremental improvements that offer many of the same results, just not as dramatically.
My father was a machinist. During his youth, humans controlled everything. "Machine controls" meant a steady hand. Yet, today, we have machine tools and software that let a skilled programmer define a part, simulate its machining, optimize its cutting, determine the correct tools for the job, and then control the physical machine to make the part.
If someone had plopped such a machine into my dad's machine shop, there would have been serious future shock.
Probably the biggest industrial revolution began when a couple of kids used some leftover computer processors from their job to build a computer in their garage, that could fit on a desktop. Of course, they stood on the shoulders of giants to achieve that, but taking processing power out of the hands of the white-coats and giving it to the masses, moved digital technology into everything from CNC machines to hotel doorknobs. See Norman Bleier's column, "Controlling Interest," on page 22 for a bit of NC and CNC history.
We Can All Ask "Mr. Know-It-All"
Isaac Asimov envisioned a huge computer he dubbed Multivac, that could answer almost every question posed to it. It was the repository of all human knowledge.
We don't have that mountain-sized computer today. Instead we have a network of distributed computer servers around the globe, where, using such tools as Google and Wikipedia [beware of the latter's accuracy, Garbage In – Garbage Out], we can find the answer to almost any question available in human knowledge. For free.
The same goes for communication. For instance, want to know what's coming up at the 2007 FABTECH International & AWS Welding Show? You can go to their website and do everything from signing up for exhibitor space to registering [try www.fmafabtech.com, a pretty simple URL], for the show.
Not only can you register online, you can see floor plans of the exhibition so you can chart your visit. I expect within the near future, a virtual tour of the exhibition halls will be available in something analogous to Google Maps. Cool, but it won't replace walking the floor, of course.
The point is that advances that would have astounded our grandparents if they had been dropped on them suddenly are accepted as mundane because they happened incrementally. Robots aren't some anthropomorphic bipeds walking around looking like they just dropped in from Forbidden Planet. Instead, they are tools almost any shop can employ to do work too precise or tedious for a human.
We're moving into an era where working in a shop demands as much skill with our brains as the shop in which my father started demanded use of hands.
