The Exciting (or Scary) Future Changes in Technology

Another Way for week of June 30, 2022

The Exciting (or Scary) Future Changes in Technology

I was super frustrated.

Why did my credit union have to completely change its online banking services? A new password was needed. Oh, now they want me to use at least one numeral. Try again. Then it locks me out temporarily for 10 minutes. Oh why all this difficulty for those of us in our “upper years,” shall we say?

Because things are getting dicey in terms of online activity and if we don’t keep up, as seniors we will soon dry up, have to rely on our kids or other younger helpers to do our accounting, etc., our online business, and even checking the “My Chart” medical info that is so so so hard to get to. Hey hospitals and doctors: do you hear me?

My husband has taken to driving and showing up physically at the cardiac department of our local hospital to make arrangements for an appointment, because too often the phone tagging back and forth with messages left and not answered for 48 hours are left hanging. Or, you are left in queue endlessly and then have to listen AGAIN to 12 different messages if you want this service or that office or whatever.

Ok. Rant over.

The world of AI, artificial intelligence, may be exciting and serve useful purposes, but also scary to those who fear they won’t be able to keep up with technology. AI can clone your loved one’s voice and make a phone call where you think you are hearing from a granddaughter, for instance, who says she needs money to get home from an accident. Or something like that. And it isn’t your granddaughter at all.

Psychology Today website notes that “facial recognition technology can be used to identify individuals without their consent, or to track their movements.”

Some are also concerned about early experiments with self-driving cars. TechTarget website explains that a self-driving car (sometimes called autonomous or driverless) “is a vehicle that uses a combination of sensors, cameras, radar and AI to travel between destinations without a human operator.” These can be not-so-safe and I hope and pray those game-y efforts are shelved for safer models many years (say maybe 25 years) in the future. Our children and grandchildren may have to worry about them or eagerly adopt them but we can hope for real people to be in control and that our grandchildren will be able to keep up.  

I was intrigued by a fellow blogger and distant friend, Shirley Showalter, who recently wrote a regular blog post about her grandchildren, and then worked through the Bard website to write a second section of her blog post using AI. The computer-written piece was well done, perfect in every way—but without the human touch of Shirley. A computer does the research and supplies sentences on the topic. I have not yet tried Bard or ChatGPT but I can imagine that if I were still in an office job, I might use such tools to write routine things like a report or news release or advertisements. But stay assured: this is me writing, not a robot!

In a recent small group, those of us over the age of 70 expressed our frustration and fears for the future, especially those of us with children and grandchildren. Just like my grandparents likely did over a hundred years ago! My grandmother on my father’s side was orphaned at the age of five; my grandfather on my mother’s side lost his mother at the age of eight. But both children were resilient (and taken in by relatives). They grew up to be fine persons and parents themselves. So while we may worry about what may be ahead for our grandchildren because of changes in technology, health concerns and worldwide issues, it may not be wise to worry excessively. We can try to keep up the best we can.

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I’d love to hear your rants or raves or cautions about technology!

Write to me at Another Way, P.O. Box 363, Singers Glen, VA 22834, or email anotherwaymedia@yahoo.com.

Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of ten books, most recently Memoir of an Unimagined Career. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.  

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