Playtimes HK Magazine Spring 2019 Issue | Page 118

last word
AS WE MERGE WITH COMPUTERS
we’ll be
TRULY in
H
CONTROL
of our
Are you at one with your computer, asks Nury Vittachi?
umans will soon start to
physically merge with
computers, technology guru
Ray Kurzweil said on TV.
Soon? What’s he talking about? It’s
been happening at my apartment for
years. All three of my kids have become
one with their gadgets.
My son’s right hand was replaced
by a Nintendo game thingy about
six years ago. It’s no trouble. I’ve
seen him do all sorts of two-handed
activities perfectly well with his
current limb arrangement, although I
have stopped asking him to give me
head massages.
My daughters both have mobile
phones where their right ears used to be.
All three have laptops permanently
in front of them: I’ve forgotten what the
lower halves of their faces look like. All
three may have beards, for all I know.
Mr Kurzweil says that this process
will accelerate to a point at which life
itself will become fully digitised and
humans will “control their own realities”
using computer-style commands. He
calls that moment “the singularity” and
predicts it will happen soon.
I can’t wait. I plan to have a keypad
built into my left forearm. Here’s how it
will work.
116
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lives
PARENTING AFTER THE SINGULARITY
1. When you want to leave a building,
you just press Exit.
2. To get back to your apartment,
press Control / Home.
3. Want to go shopping? Simply find
a shelf of stuff you like and press
Select/ All. (My wife kind of already
does this.)
4. What about work? To get an
assistant to do it all for you, press
Open Task Manager.
5. If you say something stupid, press
Undo or Control-Z.
6. If you are regularly accused of saying
the wrong thing (for example, if you're
a married man), select a time from
a drop-down menu, say, two hours
ago, and press System Restore.
7. Is an annoying person spoiling your
life? Go to Control Panel and click
the tab that says Add/ Remove.
Scroll down and Uninstall all the
people you don’t like.
8. Lost your keys or something similar?
Click Control-F and type the name
of the object you want to find.
9. Fed up of wearing unfashionable
clothes? Tick the box to Enable
Automatic Update and keep your
wardrobe regularly refreshed.
10. Getting old and wrinkly? No
problem. Set the display resolution
to a lower number of pixels per
virtual reality centimeter so worry
lines vanish. Or Photoshop your
entire head.
11. Feel that life is getting all too much
for you? To suspend the present
existence, press Escape. The go
to the Start menu, click Hibernate
or Sleep. Everything will stop for
as long as you like. You can restart
your life just where you left off
whenever you feel ready to.
12. And what if you mess up your whole
life? No problem. Press Format: C
to go back to the beginning and
be born again. No need to feel
ashamed that you didn’t get it right
the first time.
As the Bible says, “No man shall enter
the kingdom of heaven unless he is
rebooted.” (That‘s the revised version.)
So, as I say, bring on the singularity.
We need it.
Anyway, I see I am out of space,
so it’s time to finish this column, or,
as we computer people prefer to say,
Shut Down.
Nury welcomes your comments and
ideas at his Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/nury.vittachi