The modern computer age began 40
years ago, with IBM's launch of the 360 computer, its first line
of compatible machines. The computer age is about 60 years old,
dating from the emergence of the first digital computers in the
1940s.
So how does computing today match
with the forecasts of yesterday? We could contrast it with the
visions of computing pioneers of the Cold War era, such as
Claude Shannon or John Von Neumann.
But I prefer to take the low
road, and compare "Star Trek's" portrayal of computing
with present realities. I do this with some hesitation, as I am
a viewer of the show, but not a "Trekker." For those
who are obsessed with these matters, a book has been written on
the topic ("The Computers of Star Trek," by Lois Gresh
and Robert Weinberg).
"Star Trek's" portrayal
of physics and biology is quite radical, with the Enterprise
breaking the speed of light, transporters "beaming"
people from place to place and crew members having promiscuous
sex with aliens (Dr. McCoy should have advised Kirk that he
wasn't only sleeping with an alien hottie, but everyone the
alien ever slept with).
But "Star Trek's"
vision of information technology's future is quite realistic.
Consider the state of computing on "Star Trek: The Next
Generation," 350 years from now:
• Computers remain idiot
savants. Science fiction is full of computers who think like
people, like the SKYNET that generated Arnold Schwarzenegger's
Terminator in the movie of that name. Since 1960, artificial
intelligence researchers have insisted they are at most a decade
or two away from building a computer that is autonomously
intelligent.
But those dreams remained
unfulfilled. Even today, true artificial intelligence remains
far off in the future. Reproducing human intelligence turns out
to be much more difficult than originally thought. Computers
today process information much more quickly than people do, but
have yet to pass the tests for autonomous intelligence devised
by Von Neumann and others 50 years ago.
This doesn't mean the research --
billions of dollars funded by the government and corporations --
has been wasted. On the contrary, the effort to produce
artificial intelligence generated some of the key advances in
information technology of the past 20 years, such as object
oriented programming (programming with conceptual
"objects") and graphic user interfaces (interfacing
with computers through intuitive visual metaphors).
"Star Trek's" vision of
artificial intelligence is essentially conservative. Computers
answer questions, they don't ask them. And the questions must be
phrased in specific, narrow, terms. "Garbage in, garbage
out" remains an IT rule of thumb.
The ship's computer, though it
has a voice interface, does not have a personality, like HAL in
"2001: A Space Odyssey." This leads to a second
connection between "Star Trek" IT and our own:
• Robots are the exception. The
character of Lt. Data, the android with the jaundiced
complexion, provides numerous opportunities for exploring how an
artificial life form would develop and interact with people. But
Data is a unique prototype -- there is one of him, not
thousands.
This is again a tribute to
"Star Trek's" sense of the possible. The difficulty in
producing an autonomous artificial intelligence is one barrier
to robots. Here's another: Even if the technology became robust
enough to enable mass production of robots like Data, they would
just as likely resemble Data's psychopathic brother, Lor.
Once an entity has intellectual
and emotional autonomy, like people, they face the same
uncertainty -- morally and emotionally -- that people do. Human
societies (and animals, too) have spent tens of thousands of
years developing societal structures to balance loyalty and
autonomy. The Terminator's portrayal of an artificial
intelligence that turns into a murderous maniac upon gaining
consciousness has an unfortunate ring of plausibility.
• Information is universal.
"Star Trek's" IT has clearly solved a problem that
corporations struggle mightily with in the present: integrating
information companywide so it can easily be exchanged regardless
of the technology platform.
On "Star Trek,"
databases connect with each other seamlessly, both at the
technical (messaging) level, and semantically. The Enterprise
can download information from an alien computer, or even an
ancient civilization, and analyze the information immediately.
In current jargon, they have achieved true "open
systems."
Unlike artificial intelligence,
this is a realistic goal. The barriers to seamless connectivity
between different systems depend on the maturation of computing
as a process discipline, rather than fundamentally new
scientific discoveries.
Compare this with the history of
electricity. Imagine if each electrical appliance required a
unique electrical outlet, rather than a uniform one. This was
computing until recently, where each application had to be
tailored to the system it was running on.
• Mainframes still matter.
Though several "Star Trek" series were originally
produced during the PC era, the show's vision of IT remained
mainframe-centric, rather than a distributed one.
In this, it was true to
traditional science fiction views of computing, and to the
resurgence of server-based mainframe computing that resurfaced
in the Internet era.
• Computing is ubiquitous.
Identification badges that serve as communication devices,
handheld "tricorders" that are powerful computers in
their own right. On "Star Trek," computing devices are
everywhere, with data downloaded from the central computer. As
the wireless revolution continues, our society might
increasingly resemble this vision of computing.
Stay tuned for next month's
column: "Planet of the Apes" and the future of
outsourcing.
