Misery out of Abundance

Misery out of Abundance

Is the computer boom coming to an end?

In the past, devices such as locomotives, cars, sewing machines or refrigerators were designed to be operated and even repaired by normal home improvement. In the course of the escalating computer mania, things like the simple linkage that connects the gas pedals to the carburetor throttle are replaced by a computer link. And we've had so many solemn praises about computers and their wondrous abilities about us that it's high time for a tangible complaint.

Even the best and most expensive computers have glitches. Where information processing decides about life and death, in American space shuttles, for example, all onboard electronics are never controlled by a supercomputer but by at least four or five independent units. There is a dull stubbornness inherent in the phenomenon of a computer crash, a stubbornness compared to what seems like the stubbornness of a donkey of near Einstein's wisdom. The stubborn reluctance to execute certain commands, and recurrent functional delays everyone knows, who are familiar with the normal computer everyday life.

When publishers were still settling accounts with their authors - who often did not even have a mechanical calculating machine with a crank - the money was usually faster than it is today, even though the supposedly ultra-fast electronic systems should actually accelerate the process. In the end, it is always a solid literary agent that detects bugs in the publisher's accounts. Because computers have reached inaccuracy after - almost everywhere - prevailing opinion, all derailments are always charged to people sitting at the computer.

John von Neumann called the human brain a system made up of uncertain factors. I do not know where to look for the weaknesses in computers and should. However, I know that the need to keep functions as problem-free as possible has triggered a veritable computer mania in a wide variety of areas. Like women or, more correctly, people are not thoroughly bad, because everyone has their advantages, so it is also with computers: you can expect a lot from them, count on some and get a good deal. But just as it would be futile to expect only divine virtues from the wife of Caesar, one hundred percent confidence in the infallibility and reliability of computers has fatal consequences.

There are so many computer programs that it's getting harder and harder to choose the program that's best for a particular task. As is well known, we have various data networks with many nodes, and we have browsers for surfing the net; However, the most important thing is to know how to quickly find what you need in the information thickets that are hidden microscopically on the hard drives. For the less experienced in particular, these searches are sometimes like walking through a giant labyrinth - and then we remember wistfully how easy it was to get the information you were looking for from a book encyclopedia.

In addition to the computers that are currently on the market or are announced with great enthusiasm by large companies soon simple parallel computers and even quantum computers are available. At the moment, the height of daydreaming is a liquid computer presented on a model that represents a glass of coffee - it can also be milked. Numerical tasks or simulation tasks are to be solved by means of an electric control field and by molecules in a magnetic field applied to the glass of coffee from outside.

By no means do I claim that this belongs in the realm of fairy tales. In many areas of life, what our fathers thought was unbelievable came true. However, building a multi-storey building from ordinary playing cards is a simple task compared to building a computer of atomic spin - because atoms or electrons behave reasonably well in the area of ​​absolute zero, that is, where the Bose-Einstein statistic applies. At room temperature, on the other hand, one can only dream of a quantum computer, since at this temperature all configurations of the subatomic states are extremely unstable.

However, I will no longer be nagging at the grandiose pageant of the latest computergenic ideas that are supposed to transform atomic chaos into perfect order. Without naming names, I'm just reiterating the view of experts predicting that the computer boom, which has grown exponentially in recent years, seems to be nearing its limit and thus its end.

We have screens that are flat like a picture on the wall, and we already think a computer mouse is a rather old-fashioned device. The connection of televisions, monitors, computers, modems and fax machines to uniform pseudo-organisms is getting closer. We have devices for right and left-handed people. So it seems as if, at the end of our century, we would endeavor to complete everything in the vast space of information that was left over to construction.

Of course, although specialists have failed the wisdom teeth on the two zeros of the Y2T, this twilight did not mean an end of information technology. It's different, in other words, it's not as bad as I said. We got lost in the traps of the operating systems because they do not understand us or ourselves. Ultimately, it shows that the mind, as the system that works with concepts, can not be completely replaced at the moment. So I bet on the main prize, on what is the hardest to win, though I do not know when it will be ours. We have to go the path that leads our alienated minds back to the mind, no matter how far that way. Even if we risk countless slip-ups and mistakes, there will be no other way in the near future.

Because the future is always different from what we imagine it to be, what I write is shaped by a subjective conviction, which, however, is quite strong. I do not claim nevertheless that I know the future as accurately as the contents of my drawer.