Final Project: Describing Communication Technologies
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to another episode of Going Google with Miss Guevara! In this week’s episode, I invite a current, but not quite seasoned, technology user, my 10-year-old nephew, Lucas! And I say not quite seasoned, because he hasn’t been exposed to all the types of technology. I Introduced to him my speculative narrative from the previous Task 12; explaining and showing him my take on a Utopian and Dystopian relationship between media, education, text and technology. Right off the bat, he understood the differences in the technologies presented and their importance to human life. Having interacted with most of those text technologies, he was able take it in and take a stance on the future of text technologies. And as a member of the next generation, he was ready and willing to share his idea on what technology might look like, more specifically a physical robot to assist us. And as Dunne and Raby describe “[society is becoming more atomized…and a society of individuals] (2013) so it only makes sense to me that we would continue to need assistance! Although, according to Harari, the human technique and touch is still valuable that “we will probably have an AI family doctor on our smartphone years before we have a reliable nurse robot” (2017) so we’ll have to see! But for now, sit back, listen and enjoy!
hello everyone
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and by everyone i mean
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my one professor
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hello ernesto
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this is clarissa guevara i am here with
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my nephew
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lucas
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lucas
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can you introduce yourself how old are
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you i’m 10. and do you
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engage with technology and uh experience
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technology every day yeah i experience
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technology every day excellent so
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thanks for coming
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thank you for joining me with me yeah
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i like it i like it thank you for
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letting me join with you today excellent
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thanks okay so thinking about the
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utopian and the dystopian stories that i
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showed you
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what do you think about them do you
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agree
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or like do you disagree that this is
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kind of what would happen
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or i agree with this is what would
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happen in the future and what’s
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happening now oh what do you mean now
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like
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we
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we we keep
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alexa at home normally right yeah
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but then bringing the moment you said it
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my mind like lit up
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because i have an echo dot rates
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she heard you okay keep going so like
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and we bring all those other stuff
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in our bag yeah so do you agree that
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some of them are more used than others
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do you agree with mine yeah i think like
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the laptops now more than pencils a
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little bit and the
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calligraphy pen yeah
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calligraphy pens yeah
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more more than yeah yeah
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and yeah okay okay and then what do you
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think about alexa and siri becoming like
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a super power someday
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yeah
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i think they’re going to be more popular
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than
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of these other things
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are there tools but there also may be
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new tools that could take over siri and
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alexa okay okay okay i like it
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thinking about technology in general yes
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what what kind of technology do you
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use
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i use my phone
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on nintendo switch yeah the computers at
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school and at home
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the tv so those are like the main things
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yeah which one would you say you use the
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most
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maybe
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um my nintendo switch and the tv
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not the computers at school
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well i guess i do most of my homework
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there nowadays yeah everything’s
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electronic now right because
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you’re in grade five now so like things
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are like really electronic i mean at our
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school anyway would you say it’s more
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electronic in grade five than it was in
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grade four yeah yeah why do you think so
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why did you take more photos and upload
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it on google classroom baseball yeah we
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do more assignments we do more typing
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practice oh
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okay so we type more often than we write
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okay why do you think you’re typing more
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than your writing it’s quicker oh it’s
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quicker okay i think it’s quicker at
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least yeah well you practice right how
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do you think it would feel for someone
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who’s not quite as fast as a typer as
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organized
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yeah yeah who’s not as practiced but
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maybe mid the pencil since we’ve been
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doing it for
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longer so
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using the computer maybe like using a
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new skill learning something new yeah
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yeah so it may take a few days weeks or
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months to get used to that typing okay
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would you say that it’s taking you
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that long no this has a sense of covet
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since we had the oh yeah the
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home homeschool we had to use the
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computer or ipad more often yeah so you
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got more practice than you probably
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would have before and also before
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my parents wanted me to learn how to
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type more yeah
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just for to get ready
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and
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also that i could
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text my family or something that’s cool
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that makes sense you get used to like
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the keyboard and stuff yeah can you type
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without
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looking so only if i know what i’m
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writing it’s good for you
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that’s great if it’s in my end
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my mind thinking yeah i could do it oh
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okay okay but i mean like if i type too
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quickly yeah the letters may be spaced
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out because i press i may press the
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space button then the letters yeah
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too early then like maybe like the last
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two letters of the word may be separate
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oh i see i see okay so thinking about
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how you you probably use the computer
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and the
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what do you say the tv the most
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um and then thinking about your
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classmates some of your classmates who
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might not be as you know as good at you
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using a keyboard and a computer is you
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do you think that you will still use
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pencils and pens in the future
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yes but or
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rarely okay why rarely do do you think
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like you’ll just stick to typing all the
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time or what is it well it depends what
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type of person you are okay i feel like
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writing more
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yeah first i like typing more because
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it’s quicker first of all yeah and my
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fingers don’t need to go that far out
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yeah yeah you just need a press of a
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button instead of moving your whole hand
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and finger okay so you get less tired
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yeah yeah so you like that you can type
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a bit faster but what if it was like
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easier to draw something
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and uh like draw it on paper would you
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still would you go draw it on like a
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tablet or something and still take it on
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paper yeah
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yeah it’s still draw on paper yeah but
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you’re saying writing writing-wise
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writing-wise you’ll type
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but you’ll still draw on paper for like
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pictures and stuff you’re not
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necessarily going to go digital for that
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okay so do you think that like the
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pencil and the pen
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would still be around
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yes yes but
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they probably won’t be as known as these
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new newer tools and items like what
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like siri or laptops
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yeah do you yeah on some other new
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things that we don’t know of now that
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may be
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made in the future do you think there’ll
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be one that’s like a combination of all
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of them
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i mean there kind of is like tablets
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kind of are yeah because you can use
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your finger to like write and they’re
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in there’s keyboards
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yeah that’s true
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i guess
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right yeah yeah and like but do you
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think that
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like alexa and siri
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because that’s like very oh
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she won again
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she went blue again um do you think
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alexa and siri would um be used in like
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schools and stuff because we don’t
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really use them in schools now right
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like we very much go and we tell you to
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yeah we show you how to google things
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you don’t think like we’ll come into a
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classroom and be like siri turn on the
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lights or whatever it is no no why not
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well because
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we already have our own smart board in
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our school
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we don’t need to connect our computer
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yeah that much that’s true
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like our classroom has a new one but we
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have to get rid of our whiteboard but
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it’s kind of like a computer yeah
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because it has different tabs yeah
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it’s completely a lot bigger it’s like a
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big big computer but then we can write
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on it you sing ours right yeah we have
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one too oh you do yeah yeah yeah all the
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classrooms do oh they do yeah it’s great
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it’s giant
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i feel like iron man
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you know i mean iron man is going like
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this
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with his fingers and he’s like when he’s
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in his suit yeah then he like and then
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he like squishes and like throws it that
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way yeah yeah yeah like he makes it
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bigger that’s literally that’s literally
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how i feel when i’m using the smartboard
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yeah do you think we’ll ever get to a
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point of being like iron man with that
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yeah but maybe longer than 20 years
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maybe
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do you think in your lifetime maybe not
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in my lifetime but in yours because
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you’re younger yeah we’ll get there
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you’ll get to be like
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technologically advanced as iron man
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yeah maybe yeah cool i like it but by
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that time they’d be making you cooler
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movies
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so i have one last question for you yeah
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do you think
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there’s going to be any cool tech in the
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future or like do you have any ideas for
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cool tech in the future in like at home
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or at school
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do you have any cool idea that could
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have one cool idea okay but for home
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okay
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maybe like a
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robot that can do home chores for you
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home chores or like take
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like maybe feed your pet every day
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okay
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or like turn on the lights or like
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vacuum or something so you’re thinking
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like they’re kind of like an assistant
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like a fully moving
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yeah kind of like a
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has like a body
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and arms and legs yeah would you like
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this robot
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well it depends because if they get
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tired of it they could create an
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apocalypse yeah but like that’s a very
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human
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feeling yeah
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do you do you think oh follow-up
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question
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do you think this robot your little
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assistant
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could have human feelings
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yes oh how
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put brains in it
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not necessarily but like
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since a human created it yeah maybe it
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um it took in that stuff from the human
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that made it
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into the robot oh okay
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so it’s kind of like the humans will put
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it in or the robot will just like absorb
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it human the robot will absorb it from
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other people in around its surroundings
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okay so it’ll kind of just like
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understand it and figure it out yeah oh
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interesting okay i like it and that’s
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the one that you think will be in
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something it’ll be in the future yeah
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but maybe the robot will one robot or a
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few robots will try and protect the
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humans since they understand oh so
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there’ll be lots of these robots maybe
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cool i like it and they have adaptive
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adapted and muted okay okay
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i like it a lot thank you for your idea
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thank you
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so thanks for joining us it was nice to
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hear from
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a 10 year old who is really in
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the technology yeah really into
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technology and using it and is the
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future of our world
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[Music]
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bye thank you
It was very fun chatting with my nephew! To be honest, this was not his first time joining in a podcast of mine! In a previous MET course, I chose to present my learning in a similar fashion and had invited him to join me! As a 10-year-old in the thick of education, media, text and technology, I value his insights and opinions. His idea on technology just being able to absorb conscious thought, by what could be described as osmosis, was thought provoking. Harari explained that there have been “tremendous development in computer intelligence, but zero development in computer consciousness” and that “studying these differences will help us to predict what AI can and cannot do, and to decide what should be kept out of its control” (2017). I mean, I don’t think my nephew has analysed or studied the differences, but he is clearly aware of the significance of having information at the ready. To some extent, he understands that there is so much information out there that needs to be stored and remembered, that assistance would be valuable. Considering that “writing was invented to solve [the] particular problem of information only [existing] if someone could remember it” (Gnanadesikan, 2011), our ideas about text technology are on par there. According to my Utopian world, having a mix of old, modern and “new” technology is the direction in which I think our society will go. That there so are many different functions of each technology but they all work towards the same goal, making our lives easier or better.
While technology will evolve and I believe there will always be a need and use for older technologies. With the resurge of calligraphy and that “longing in our souls to get back to the hands-on art form of older ways of doing things” (Cooke, 2013) – in reference to a letterpress – there will also be room for the “manual ways of doing things”. That while speech is “inseparable from our consciousness” (Ong, 2002), we need ways to express this speech coming from our consciousness. Even my nephew agrees – that typing it up isn’t always the way to go. My nephew said “it depends on the type of person you are”. And I think he’s right! Person, not just technology, not just AI, but a human being who has used an intelligent machine and has allowed it to reflect themselves and their social interactions. And according to Vallor, AI is just a mirror reflecting a whole network of society. It will always just mirror what humans have brought to it; even if society has allowed AI and technology to shape their patterns and routines, human compassion, condition and thought will always prevail. Anyway, thanks for listening! Join me next week as I communicate with my 4-month-old nephew, Paolo, using just his cries and the voice recognition on Alexa. Bye!
References
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Code.org. (2017). The Internet: How Search Works
. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVV_93mBfSU&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Code.org
Cooke, D. (Director), & U. (Producer). (2013, November 1). Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWSoRGHyL9I&ab_channel=UniversityofPlymouth
Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
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Ong, W. J. (2008). Orality and literacy. In Language in South Asia. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511619069.016
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. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40UbpSoYN4k&ab_channel=SantaClaraUniversity