rise of the fast idiots

We all know that Dan Ashcroft was right with his predictions of the cereal cafes and twit machines which invaded Hipston and other oft-bearded areas.

I still occasionally watch an episode of that Nathan Barley series, which is so ancient that it had to predict the likes of Twitter and smoked salmon coffee before they were, y'know, things.

Now much of Ashcroft's world has happened, to the extent that some people watch the TV show on YouTube and have to ask if it is meant to be a spoof. Meanwhile the nextgen worldview variants are powered up, with ever increasing artificial intelligence. There's earnest debates on the radio about the rise of robots to replace workers.

Some of it seems bizarre, like the camera built into an oven to check how the cakes are coming along, and the full sized screen on a fridge to show its contents without opening the door.

In technology we used to talk about a solution looking for a problem. I sense that we have passed that point now, as many of the Generation Y and even some Zs are reaching positions of influence in product design.

I can see the temptation put ever-cheaper electronics into everything, but it can all go awry. Our previous oven was touch-screen controlled but would require a complete re-boot about once every two weeks. The built-in microwave needed about six separate menu selections to start, compared with the prior one which needed one twist of a dial.

The new smart radiator controls miss a point. Generally you don't need to continuously micro adjust the heat output of individual home radiators and an occasional twist to, say, position 3 can suffice. Below are a couple of thermostat examples. The one on the left is manual and twisted to position 3. The one on the right is battery operated, requires a wi-fi connection and can then be set by the arrows or a phone. I notice it is also low on battery at the moment.

Of course, I do play around with the home technology and have some of it for lights and television control simplification (one handset instead of five etc). It's that question of balance.

So will my self-driving car be capable of negotiating twisty Devon single track lanes with passing places. Will it be able to convincingly reverse when a tractor is ahead? Will Alexa learn to stop interrupting television shows with random outbursts of non-comprehension?

Can Google learn that when I ask for "train Exeter to Paddington" (A famous and high-speed route from the dawn of the railways direct to London), that I don't want to go to Paddington, Warrington.

We seem to be at an interesting point. Like Dan Ashcroft's rise of the idiots, I suspect we now have to add in a couple of other factors. The click generation with it's less than 140 character attention span coupled with an abundance of high speed. They used to call a computer a fast idiot; perhaps its time has arrived?