freelance paradigm

I read a lot about brains and how they work lately. I just finished reading Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence which made a lot of sense to me. I will pursue this topic in some of my future posts, for now I'd like to stop at a passage which the author wrote as an introduction to the chapter dealing with application of AI, based on his proposed Memory-prediction framework.

Originally posted by Jeff Hawkins, On Intelligence:

It's hard to predict the ultimate uses of a new technology. As we've seen throughout this book, brains make predictions by analogy to the past. So our natural inclination is to imagine that a new technology will be used to do the same kinds of things as a previous technology. We imagine using a new tool to do something familiar, only faster, more efficiently, or more cheaply.

Examples are abundant. People called the railroad the "iron horse" and the automobile the "horseless carriage." For decades the telephone was viewed in the context of the telegraph, something that should be used only to communicate important news or emergencies; it wasn't until the 1920s that people started using itcasually.

It is exactly what I have been thinking for a long time and it is not hard to find other examples. Science fiction of late 19th century depicted future with large steam machies. They were unable to think of anything else. Sci-fi of 1960' already had computers, but guess what; no displays! Only flashing buttons. They just projected new applications on the existing technology.
On more realistic side: at first World wide web was just a copy of printed media. Only recently we developed interactive applications that can't be found anywhere else. Or one thing that frustrates me with cars; once a crank handle was required to lower a car glass. It is normal, that the handle was located on the inner side of the car door. But now, since we have electronic buttons, that position is no longer obligatory. Buttons can be placed anywhere in the car! Why not the stearing wheel? Yet only few cars take advantage of the very technology they use. It is still a lot easier to change technology than paradigm.

An other example that effects me a lot more personally now is in photography. If you take a look at present day digital cameras, they don't look much different than their film predecessors. I believe that the digital technology brings a lot of new ways how to build and use camera and we have not yet exploited them.

I observe that thing happening on myself. Recently I bought a decent digital camera, yet I still use it exactly as it was on film. I don't take many shots, I don't experiment enough and I don't play arround in post-production... I just shoot like 20th century photographer.
But I think it is time to move on. I found many photographers on the internet that never used film and their aproach is very refreshing. One of them is Lenart Senica, a young guy from Slovenia, who takes his camera to school. Just look at the results! I would never imagine doing something like that in my highschool days.

So... yes... It is time to rethink my assumptions and rearrange my neurons

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