Reflecting On Emerging Technologies
Throughout the duration of the academic year, no lecture has made a greater impact on me than Nick Almond’s Emerging Technologies in Fashion. The topics of AI, bitcoin and robots stealing my job stuck with me for days afterward – really brought on the existential dread. I had the same conversation six times in one evening, asking ‘How do you feel about AI?’ to every flatmate that was unfortunate enough to enter the kitchen that night.
Their answers were each very similar, in summary viewing AI as potentially dangerous and mildly terrifying, but moreover stating that the future is unknown and we’ve not a faint idea of what is yet to come. This ideology is clearly backed up by Almond, as he quotes in his lecture “trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window”(Drucker,2020).
I was enlightened by a certain portion of the lecture that was dedicated to the creation and purpose of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin. Prior to this lecture I was only familiar with the concept of Bitcoin as a meme, with the continual mockery of the individuals choosing to invest in it being labelled as overly ambitious idiots. However, after listening to Almond’s introduction and considering the treatment of Steve Sasson regarding his invention of the digital camera and the way in which his colleagues at kodak criticized the idea, I could agree that Bitcoin seems remarkably similar in terms of being an emerging technology that society is not yet ready to adapt to. In terms of the politics behind Bitcoin, I believe that people, more so than corporations, would significantly benefit with what could only be described as the disqualification of exploitative behaviour from banks and certain corporations. This I wholeheartedly approve of, and would wish to experience for at the very least a short portion of my life.
All in all, the topics of the lecture remained in my mind for around a week, after reaching the conclusion that graphically picturing terminator-like scenes and worrying about how I’ll fend off the robots when I’m 80 isn’t a beneficial move for my mental state, I instead imagined what good technology could do. I remembered a futuristic advert I saw quite a few years ago, of a British primary school connected to a classroom from a different country. The screen connecting the two made it look as though the children were playing in one classroom as they interacted with each other and learned together, and with the realisation of how much technology has both taught and served us, I became pleasantly distracted from the idea of murderous robots.
Drucker, P. (2020) ‘Emerging Technologies in Fashion’ [Lecture]. London College of Fashion. 14 April.