Bill Gates: Computers “will be absolutely pervasive”

Now I like computers. I’ve stated on most online profiles that I am probably a net addict who’s just never been far enough from a terminal to face withdrawal. Yet when someone uses words like “will be everywhere” and “absolutely pervasive” in regards to computers, a sinking feeling this way comes.

Gates recently gave a keynote where he discussed the possibility of computers taking over every surface (table to wall) in living and working spaces [read here]. That kind of freaks me out. Kinda sounds like a sci-fi movie I don’t wanna be in.

Are we ready for the digital realm to become all-pervasive?

The courts and legislators are still playing catch-up. And taking into account the recent actions of a socially-conscious hacker – who drew attention to his government’s selling of voter information electronically for financial gain (read here) – it’s safe to say we haven’t figured out where to draw the line with privacy either.

I don’t know whether we should or even could slow down the development of technology for the sake of society’s immaturity, even if an abuse of the best science has to offer is a sure thing.

But for me it comes down to social divisions and a choice of direction in development that can shrink that gap. The only way a society can constantly produce tech that its people are not ready to use is if there are solid divisions between the literate and illiterate, the have’s and have not’s.

A completely computerized pad (alla Tony Stark) is cool for a rich guy in a first world country but as the third falls further into disarray and more and more of the first falls into that third, how practical is it really?

Gates is noble and his vision is kinda cool but more economical and sustainable tech should be the focus of Bill’s great mind. Otherwise we’ll have first-worlders who can operate a company before puberty and third-worlders who can’t operate a living-room at 45.

Now if you look at the fall of fashion couture and how exclusivity eventually endangered an industry, the same could happen with tech that’s made elite. I don’t trust how they measure ‘affordable’ anymore, do you? And I don’t want to live in a showroom.

Anyway, I’m rambling, it’s 2am and I’ll cut it short here:
Gates, simplify that vision and think about accessibility (in more than just the Control Panel context).

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