Tsukuba
March 1985
It
was a rainy day in Tsukuba. The Fuyo robot show was a little
tacky with its crude metal and plastic creatures. But at the
Japan IBM exhibit a revolving triple-screen movie showed how
the creative mind process, new technological inventions, and
impending social re-organization could be all seen as one big
integrative process.
The
American exhibit at the Expo told me HAL was coming....
A
little boy learned how to play games with the aid of a thinking,
talking computer. Then the little boy as a grown-up doctor solved
diagnostic lab problems with the same computer as it threw out
colored holograms to aid in the computer/human dialogue regarding
a surgery case. Then the same little boy
was lying on his death-bed with nothing, but memories to guide
him and the same computer into the next generation. The great
grand-daughter of the little boy taught the computer how to
play a new game as the computer reminded her of her great grand-father.
The
American then looked at the rain and pondered his impending
exile back to America.
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