Technology 20 years from now (Class-wise Elocution Competition/SASRD)

"Bro Zara, you look so calm and confident", my juniors said while waiting for their turn to represent their respective classes. I assured them that it was going to be all right and that they were going to do just fine. I was not in the position to tell them that because as nervous as they were, I was. And yes, they did just fine. 

The following speech took me to the stage in the auditorium of SASRD. It was one of my most cherished moments. 

Technology 20 years from now 

 20 years from now, public speaking will be non-existent. People will depend more on artificial intelligence. Competing in Elocution will be history. There will be less talk of stage-fright as the majority of the human population will communicate through the internet alone. There will be a major food revolution in which we grow food in AI-controlled vertical buildings rather than horizontal land. We will grow hydroponic plants for fruits and vegetables and in-vitro cloned meat. 

Questions like “May I take you out to dinner? Would you like to go for a ride? Shall we go fishing? Would you care for a cup of coffee?” will just be embedded in someone’s memories. Our children will have trouble mingling with real people. 20 years ago, parents would take their babies out in strollers on cold mornings in order to strengthen the immune system of their babies. But today, kids have to be forced to go outside and play with their friends. 20 years from now, our kids will not remember that it is a normal thing to do to get out of their beds. 

In Japan, 1 in 4 men and 1 in 7 women are still unmarried at the age of 50. They choose to stay single and engross their entire lives to working. The natality rate has been declining drastically. With technologies getting improved day by day, generation of jobs especially in the high technology world will ensure the possible death of this country, then probably, the world. 

 20 years from now, the need for manpower in almost all countries will be minimized. Rather than humans working with machines, automation is likely to make some jobs redundant: taxi drivers replaced by self-driving uber cars; receptionists replaced by robots, finding partners from behind the screen instead of approaching a girl and ask her out (wait… sadly, this is already happening in today’s world). 

Technology 20 years from now will get smaller, smarter, and cheaper. 

Considering how self–righteous we think of ourselves and how self–centered we already are, I dread technology 20 years from now as the unprecedented future the evolving technology could bring could hamper the remaining real relationships that exist between human beings. 

AI-Tech Company of China has recently created a silicone-wrapped robot that can consciously respond to human beings, and which is thought to have the potential of taking the place of women in bed. 

But I have wishes…. 

I wish we could go back to 20 years from now, where people would actually talk to one another; where we still cared about how the other person would feel; where we lent and borrowed reading – books; where kids played with their toys and not with hearts. 

I wish we could go back to the time where they sent letters; where they expressed their feelings through words on papers, and not in conversational threads in mobile phones. 

 And I have hopes...

I hope that humans will soon realize that robots do not have feelings; that they will never fill the emptiness of a man; it is intimate love that has been keeping us alive. 

I hope we learn soon that tears can never be wiped away from the cheeks through electronic devices; we need to feel the warmth of another person’s body. 

I hope we never forget the feelings and the excitement the smell of new books brings. 

I hope we always choose humans over technology. After all, technology is meant to ease our life, but not complicate it.  

The change technology 20 years from now will bring is inevitable. 

But the way we change will forever be our decision-to-make. 

TECHNOLOGY 20 YEARS FROM NOW 

STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS 

VIRTUE OR VICE 

BOON OR BANE 

The choice is yours.