Asimov predicting the impact of Internet 25 years ago

once we have Outlets computer outlets in every home each of them hooked up to enormous libraries where anyone can ask any question and be given answers be given reference material be something you're interested in knowing from an early age however silly it might seem to someone else that's what you're interested in and you ask and you can find out and you can follow it up and you can do it in your own home in your at your own speed in your own Direction in your own time then everyone will enjoy learning nowadays what people call learning is forced on you and everyone is forced to learn the same thing on the same day at the same speed in class and everyone is different for some it goes too fast fast for some too slow for some in the wrong direction but give them a chance in addition to school I don't say we abolish school but in addition to school to follow up their own B from the start well I love the I love the vision but what about U what about the argument that machines computers dehumanize learning well as a matter of fact it's just the reverse uh it seems to me that it's through this machine that for the first time we'll be able to have a one to one relationship between information source and information consumer so to speak well in the old days in the old days he used to have tutors for children a person who could afford it would hire a pedagogue a tutor and he would teach the children and if he knew his job he could adapt his teaching to the tastes and abilities of the students you see but how many people could afford to hire a pedagogue most children went uneducated then we reached the point where it's absolutely necessary to educate everybody but the only way we could do it is to have one teacher for a great many of students and in order to organize the situation properly we gave them a curriculum to teach from so how many teachers are good at this too like in everything else the number of teachers is far greater than the number of good teachers so we we either have or want to one relationship for the very few or a one to many relationship for the many now there's a possibility of a one to one relationship for the many everyone can have a teacher in the form of access to the gathered knowledge of the human species through the libraries that are connected to the computer that's right in my on my desk in my home right I can sit there and call up uh well what if I want to learn only about baseball well that's all right you learn all you want about baseball because the more you learn about baseball the more you might grow interested in mathematics and try to figure out what they mean by those earned run averages and the batting averages and so on you might the end become more interested in math than baseball if you follow your own vent and you're not told on the other hand someone who is interested in mathematics May suddenly find himself very enticed by the problem of how you throw a curved ball and he may find himself engaged in sports physics so to speak well why not why not but you know Dr aof we we have such a spotty in fact we have such a miserable record in this country are providing say poor children even with good classrooms and I wonder if our society can ever harness itself to provide everyone including poor children with good computers perhaps not at the very start you know but uh it's like asking yourself is it possible to to supply everybody in a nation with clean water now there are many nations where it is impossible to get clean water except under very unusual circumstances that was one reason why people started drinking beer and wine because the alcohol killed the germs if you didn't drink that you died of chalera uh but there are places where you can supply clean water for nearly everyone now the United States probably supplies clean water for a larger percentage of percentage of its population than almost any other Nation can it's not that we would expect everybody to have a perfect computer right off to have equal access to outlets but you try for it and with time I think more and more will just as for goodness sakes when I was young very few people had automobiles very few people had telephones in the home almost nobody had an air conditioner now these things are very common indeed almost Universal it might be the same way so you're in a sense every student has his or her own private school yes and it belongs to him or her he can be the sole dictator of what he is going to learn of what he is going to study and mind you this is not all he's going to do he'll still be going to school for some things that he has to know common knowledge common database right and interaction with other students and with teachers you can't get away from that but he's got to look forward to the fun in life which is following his own bent this revolution you're talking about personal learning it's not just for the young is it no that's that's a good point no it's not just for the young that's another trouble with education as we now have it it is for the young and people think of Education as something that they can finish and what's more when they finish that's a right of passage into manhood real world right finished I'm finished with school I'm no more a child and therefore anything that reminds you of school reading books having ideas asking questions that's kids stuff now you're an adult you don't do that sort of thing anymore you see and in fact like prison the reward of school is getting out exactly kids begin to say when you're getting out and every kid knows that every kid knows the only reason he's in school is because he's a kid and little and weak and as soon as he and in fact if he manages to get out early if he drops out why he's just a premature man so that's exactly right in the city I've talked to some of these dropouts and they think they're there they think they've become men because they're out of school that's right what's wrong with it well what's wrong with it is you have everybody looking forward to no longer learning and you make them ashamed afterwards of going back to learning if you have something like this then anyone any age can learn by himself can continue to be interested there's no reason then if you enjoy learning why you should stop at a given age people don't stop things they enjoy doing just because they reach a certain age they don't stop playing Tenn tennis just because they turn 40 they don't stop with sex just because they turn 40 they keep it up as long as they can if they enjoy it and learning will be the same thing the trouble with learning is most people don't enjoy it because of the circumstances make it possible for them to enjoy learning and they'll keep it up there's the famous story about Oliver wend Holmes who lived to be well into his 90s he was in the hospital one time he was had not long to live he was over 90 already and uh President Roosevelt came to see him and there was Oliver wend Holmes reading a Greek grammar and Rosell said why are you reading a Greek gramar Mr Holmes and Mr Holmes said to improve my mind Mr President

Channel: mycollectivebrain

Views: 44,127

Keywords: collective intelligence, swarm intelligence, artificial intelligence, global brain, collective brain, wisdom, crowd, noosphere, emergence, collective consciousness, singularity, social organism, super organism, world brain

Id: Zib6OC_yJxk

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Sun May 20 2012