Column: Being human and enhancing intelligence

Engineers and technicians assemble the James Webb Space Telescope on Nov. 2, 2016, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/TNS) ap — Alex Wong Narain Batra. Copyright (c) Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. I’m not a techno-romantic person. But I believe that technology could solve our most complex problems though in the process sometimes it would raise legal, ethical, and social issues. Climate change, reproductive freedoms, school safety, random gun violence and other conundrums cry out for technologically innovative solutions. When policy wonks and lawmakers are at loggerheads, technology might come to our rescue. Human beings won’t be replaced, but their capabilities could be enhanced multifold by technologies with embedded intelligence systems. Just think how NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has given us a glimpse into the early universe with its sharp and deep infrared photos. We do not know what impact, if any, it would have on our daily lives but there’s no doubt that more than the political dramas being played out in the Capitol, our future is being determined by technologies including information communications technology (ICT), artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, space technology, biotechnology and quantum computing. There’s no endgame in technology. The gun powder, printing press, the steam engine, the telegraph, the Internet, the mobile phone, for example, have been determinants of history. Technologies’ disruptive potential on societies should not be underestimated. In the early days of globalization, for example, technology […]

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