Article by christian lanni by Freestyle Academy

The Technological Rock An in depth look at the future of technology

Christian Lanni

Picturesd; sign hanging above Museum of Modern history

magine a rock resting atop a snowy mountain. For thousands of years, this rock has stood undisturbed, until suddenly for no discernible reason, a strong gust of wind pushed the rock forward and down the mountain. The rock begins its descent, slowly at first, quickly gaining traction and velocity in its downward descent. The rock moves faster and something new begins to happen. The rock, on its journey to the base of the mountain, is now bringing snow down with it. The rock careens down the mountain, entombed in a growing ball of snow and dirt. The rock, once merely a pebble, is now a titanic ball of ice, crushing everything in its path down. It’s monstrous now, unstoppable until it reaches a cliff of the mountain. It falls over the side, into the mountain’s fog, never to be seen again. Technology is much like the small rock at the top of the mountain. For most of humanity’s time on earth, progress was slow, with breakthroughs, like gusts of wind, occurring

between long intervals. With the onset of the computer in the sixties, technology as a whole has been falling down the mountain, quickly reaching a breakneck pace much like the rock. However, if we do not want technology, and as a side effect, society, to fall over the cliff, we must prepare. Not through bomb shelters or gun stocking like some would argue. Instead, we must look at our past as a species and at technology, today, what it’s doing to the world and to us. Not only must we look at these things, but we must do it through the eyes of people, who’s insight doesn’t inspire bomb shelters and gun stocking: scientists, engineers, historians, teachers, and the elderly. These are the types of people who, with their vast knowledge of the world around them can show us the path forward. I have interviewed three people: an aging, but very perceptive man, a young Biotech teacher, and a museum curator, whose knowledge of computer history is both vast and inspiring.

For most of humanity’s time on earth, progress has been slow, with breakthroughs, like gusts of wind, occurring between long intervals. From thousands of years of nomadism to the onset of the computer, technology as a whole has been falling down the mountain, quickly reaching a breakneck pace, much like the rock. However, if we do not want technology and, consequently, society to fall over the cliff, we must prepare. Not through bomb shelters or gun stocking like some would argue. Instead, we must look at our past as a species and at technology, today, what it’s doing to the world and to us. Not only must we look at these fears and methods, but we must do it through the eyes of people whose insight doesn’t inspire bomb shelters and gun stocking: scientists, engineers, historians, teachers, and the elderly. These are the types of people who, with their vast knowledge of the world around them, can show us the path forward. With this criteria in mind, I selected the following people to interview: an aging yet very perceptive man, a young Biotech teacher, and a writer/ museum curator, whose knowledge of computer history is both vast and inspiring. What would an older man think about the future? What would their opinions on technology, the history of computing, and our future path as a species be? These are the types of questions I wanted answers to when I spoke to sixty-five-year-old Sam Lanni, my father, the source of inspiration, who . while not having a technological background offers an older and wiser perspective due to his age. Mere weeks after contacting him about doing a possible interview, I found myself sitting in the front seat of a van, at 9 pm on a Friday, outside some quiet sushi place. The scene seems unremarkable, but in fact, such a mundane location ironically provided a fitting backdrop for the

interview. After asking how technology has changed over his lifetime, Sam Lanni recalled “When I was young, we had three TV stations, and we had an extra station from a cord you had to connect to the back of your set. The first radio I remember was a little white transistor radio I bought when I was young to listen to the Dodgers. And that little transition radio, having that same one today. It would be like if I went to Pompeii and saw the little wheel marks from back then. You would look at it and say what the hell is that? It’s definitely not like my phone, or my computer, or my TV, and in a few years I’m going to be able to sit in a car and not drive, that’s awesome. When I was little we had to do everything – we had to make our own toys. I remember when I was younger, the first telephones we had in Whittier, we had four people on the same line. So now, I mean, I don’t want to say life is easy, because tech is making the world better and can be changed to your own liking better, and tech is a great thing, so use it wisely.” Here is a man who through his descriptions, has existed in two ages of society. A time before the massive interconnectivity of the internet, and during that period. From the remembrance of his transistor radio to the small quip on self-driving cars. I can start to now unravel his opinions on technology. Moving past the bluntness of “Tech is a great thing”, there’s a certain hesitation both before and after the statement. He mentions how he doesn’t want to say life is easy, which is something many would argue as obvious. Furthermore, he feels he needs mention to use technology wisely. He is not wholly optimistic about the future There are many people in the world who seem to think humanity cannot exist in a few hundred years. Elon Musk, a famous and renowned man in the tech industry, is one of these people. As he has stated in many interviews, he can’t see humanity being

in any way similar to us now or existing at all. I asked Sam what his opinions on this were. (Musk) “Gosh, first you would have to figure out what humans are gonna be like in a hundred years. I was reading about a week ago, as odd as this may sound, sperm count in men are dropping quickly around the world. Is evolution doing something with us? I mean sex desire is dropping around the world, is that evolution? A 17-year-old, are they gonna have the same testosterone or hormones flying around? Or are they gonna be taking some sort of new form or tweak some electronic thing in their brain that will calm them down? Are people gonna have relationships? Will there be love? I mean these questions are very serious about where humans are going and how we’re going to get there. Technology seems to be taking our humanity away but is giving us immense creativity. In a hundred years, you won’t be going to school, I would think the schools would be gone, everything you want to know is gonna is connected to you somehow, so even as a baby you’ll have access to all knowledge, I mean everything! So a 17-year-old, is he or she gonna have a boyfriend or girlfriend, I don’t know, I think maybe not. I don’t think it’ll be a max mad catastrophic world. I think the worlds heading to a beautiful creative balanced economic life for everyone. At the same time how we get there is gonna be interesting. God 100 years. Will there even be cars in 100 years?

Pictured; Sam Lanni

My next subject, I assumed would be wholly different. Instead of the someone methodical, and immensely reflective, I sought someone faster, optimistic, and most importantly, keen. I believe I found this person in Meghan Strazizich, an intelligent teacher, and scientist in the biotech industry. There was no hesitation when I asked her if she would like to be my interviewee. A week later I found myself sitting next to her in her class at Los Altos High School where she teaches biotech. “Explain how you got into such a particular field of science and what about biotech interests you enough to I guess, teach it” “I did a lot of undergrad in what’s called conservation genetics for my research. When I was in college I was going to be a researcher. So I was researching in one of the labs, why certain animals in the lab were surviving, why some were not surviving, I started teaching bio. And a friend of mine introduced me to another person who was starting this new curriculum in biotechnology. And there were no teachers who were teaching this about 10, maybe 15 years ago. So they introduced me to Ellen Dorey, who just like, phenomenal, great personality. We just clicked, and I was just like, “Oh my god”, I could be teaching the stuff that I loved, in college, to my students. That’s kinda the short version of how I got into it.” “If you could predict what the future would look like in 20, 30, 40 years, what would you think it would look like? “I see it becoming more fluid, you know, and I already see that happening in our lives with tech being much more fluid. Just off the top of my head with NEST and how you can manipulate

Pictured; Mrs. Strazizich

the temperature of your house. Or just our interactions with technology and how its apart of our life. I just see it being more fluid. Fewer bugs fewer hiccups, less wait time, you could upload a page sitting in class and boom boom boom. It’s already your lifestyle, but as far as a teacher, I feel less like I am the keeper of all information, which is kind of how it was back in the day before the internet and before students had access to more information, and now I feel like, you may have even heard this term before, teachers are more like coaches. You’re able to access a lot of information, my job is to to help you sift through it all and help you find what’s good information and what not, and get you to know why it’s important in your life. That’s what I love about biotech. Everything were learning in class relates to real life and what’s happening in the world and what we feel about what’s happening in the world. So I feel I’m less and less a keeper of info, and more a coach of that info.” Fluidity was not something I expected to hear about the future of technology. From my previous interviewee interpretation being much vaguer and up to interpretation, there’s now optimism. She describes this fluidity as “fewer bugs” “fewer hiccups”, in other words, casual improvements to today. While the idea may seem less convoluted than what my first interviewer would say, I believe this simplicity to be important. Asking anyone about the future, people are always apt to say its impossible to know, the future is amazing, or the apocalypse is near. But if we look at the basics of what will most likely be, I believe Meghan Strazizich to be correct. We don’t know if the end of days is near, or if the future is flying cars, but what is certain, is methodical improvements. Phones get faster, computers load pages quicker, technology, improves. The world becomes more fluid.

“Would you agree that as we move forward, technology is getting a lot better and it’s getting a lot better, very fast. Would you agree with that?” “Yes and no. technology as we define it now in particular, electronic computing technology I think, does definitely have Moore’s laws sort of curve to it, that it is exponentially increasing, that each innovation itself increases the speed at which we can integrate technology into our lives. But that’s been true of every different technology and every different field. If you look at things like the plow, even a little increment of the plow lead to huge, massive changes, but the time period was slower in particularly to computer technology. It is the only technology that has affected every other technology with the possible exception of the light bulb. I think that saying technology is getting better faster than ever before is a judgment call that I’m not quite willing to make just because of a very simple idea that it is seldom, only the technology itself that defines better, but how we interact with it and there are still a lot of very negative use of technology.” “Do you think that it is not only affecting, as you said maybe how we process information with numbers, but do you think it’s affecting how we interact with each other on, say a social level?” “Oh, absolutely. I think it goes without saying. I think that human interaction on a social level has been changing through the use of computing in particular networking and more in particular of course, social networking. I think that the idea of friendship has changed more than anything in the past decade. I think we’ve got a new idea of what it means to be someone’s friend and and I literally think that actually has been happening before even Facebook took over when you were looking at things like my space. This idea of friendship being a connection doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s someone who spent a lot of time with someone who does presentations. You spend a lot of time with whose content you spend a lot of time with. And I think that that’s changed forever and I actually think that’s a very big positive in that it particularly makes people who feel who would ever in the past felt very alone, very isolated. That I think it really helps that realm. I also think it’s very dangerous because it makes people with very negative attitudes, very easy to connect with other people with those same attitudes. So that’s always a dangerous thing. But again, it’s, I see it as more of a generally positive, but I understand the power of the negatives.”

Pictured; Chris Garcia

“I see it as more of a general positive, but I understand the power of the negatives.”

When I left the museum, I was still reflecting over the interview, and the answers are given. Mr. Garcia had a much more technical impression of the future the either of my other interviewees gave. Even if had no prior info on Chris Garcia, I could tell, quite simply, that he knew much more about the subject at hand. Beginning with my first question, “Do you agree that technology is advancing at a pace faster than ever before”, I had expected the same answer as I had always gotten. Instead, I got something different. Instead of the average “hunky dory” answer of “of course it is”, Chris gave a detailed analysis of how electronic computing is different than non-electronic computing, and how electronic computing is following an exponential curve, it is not necessarily alone in the process. I had asked each of my interviewees a long list of questions, some much more important than others. The ones most important and had gained the most beneficial answers were put into question here. This last question I asked Chris Garcia, about, focusing on how technology is affecting humans on a social level, is what I believe to be the most important question of the interview I had with him. Anyone who looks beyond their own nose can see that within the past 10 to 15 years, social media has taken a stronghold on both peoples free time, and how we interact with each other. Being social is now not only how many parties you go to, or how outgoing you are, but your online networking skills and your friends list on facebook. Knowing this, I asked Mr. Garcia this question,

Pictured; Computers at the Museum of Modern History

trying to understand if this fundamental social change was inevitable or not and if it was healthy. He believes that it is inevitable, and beneficial to an extent, but also dangerous since now everyone has a voice. After hearing him answer this question, I was begrudged. I finally had the answer I was looking for, about what the future of technology was going to look like, and whether our future with it was bright. The future cannot be determined as black or white, good or bad. That was what I discovered through my three interviewees. It is impossible to determine. With how fast electronic computing is advancing, we cannot know what people will look like in 200 years, or whether we will have a place in it. We can see positives of course, increased fluidity in life, more social harmony, easier living in general. Yet we also see negatives, reliance on technology, and a breaking down of the human social structure. The future is negative, the future is positive, but most importantly, the future is uncertain. As the rock falls faster and faster down the mountain, we can only now look at its speed in wonder and amazement. We can no longer stop its descent. Whether that leads us over a cliff into an abyss, or launches us into the stratosphere to greater heights, cannot be certain. Though if we as a species clasp hand and prepare for the rock hurdles to into the mist, we just might be prepared for anything.

Christian Lanni is a student at Los Altos High school, and lives with his mother Catherine Sauber and his brother Dominick Lanni. He is 17 years old, with his birthday on October 16th. He spends his free time reading and watching movies, most of both being science fiction. He also has a strong affinity for writing, he practices every day in hopes of one day being an author. He someday wants to be able to write science fiction, but currently focuses on fantasy, since he believes it to be an easier genre to practice with.

Works Cited “50 Years of Moore’s Law.” Intel, www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/silicon-innovations/moores-law-technology.html. Dellinger, AJ. “Overrated Human Elon Musk Says ‘Humans Are Underrated’.”Gizmodo, Gizmodo.com, 14 Apr. 2018, gizmodo.com/overrated-human-elon-musk-says-humans-are-underrated-1825264384. Garcia, Chris. Personal interview. 15 Apr. 2018. Lanni, Sam. Personal interview. 21 Mar. 2018. Strazizich, Meghan. Personal interview. 12 Apr. 2018. ---. Personal interview. 18 Apr. 2018. Sulleyman, Aatif. “AI Is Highly Likely to Destroy Humans, Elon Musk Warns.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Nov. 2017, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-openai-neuralink-aiwarning-a8074821.html.