I almost forgot: how do you like you superhero: in a comic, as a movie or the game?

@Jan: the convergence of media is a process that started with the invention of the internet, back in the 60’s. Since then, all electronic media have lived their own lives, even the internet on itself, but only recently it’s integrating, and not to far from now, our iPads and smartphones will just as be connected as our TV’s and will not only act as remote control but the TV will also ‘control’ our iPads and smartphones. We raise our tiny screens in front of our TV’s, we make a snapshot, and we can zoom=in in much further detail than the pixels on the TV would held possible; just because you’ll just downloaded a higher resolution, without even being aware of that.
With our fingers we can ‘slide’ content from one screen to another and back.
That’s what I call integration.

@Vic: Money is a temporary model. I believe in 2050 the largest ‘companies’ in the world are networks. They are not based on previous capitalism. The basic thing will be that everyone should add something to society and can expect something in return. Some skills which are scares can be exchanged easily. But trading of companies, not considering the sake of the customers but just of the shareholders, will disappear.  Fortunately….I would say…

But trading of companies, not considering the sake of the customers but just of the shareholders, will disappear.

Intriguing, but except if the trading system is allowed to completely self implode (because of automated trading and prediction models like that based on twitter messages,...) doubtful. But, perhaps I see this as I saw banks a couple of years ago: impossible to fail.
This is something I’ve actually been thinking of a lot, just can’t see how/with what to replace such a system. Ye rock the boat baby, change it all… 

Banks are another topic. Wanna talk about that too?

Jan - I think you need to re-read the above posts.  We have basically established that we need more than “virtual worlds” to kill the written word (not that we want to, or need to).  We need strong AI and mind reading machines (Erwin) in addition to VR.

Also, taking education content from paper books and putting on a computer screen will not change how kids think of school and want them to stay in school.

Kids learn because a) they want to learn, it is a desire within them.. it is WHO they ARE, (or who they are not),  and b) they have a good, happy home live.  You think a child with an alcoholic parent that beats them and can’t afford school supplies is going to say “oh… but they have the stuff on the computer now, so I’ll forget about how bad my home life is, and get right into it.”

Also, why do you want them to stay in school? Like we established in the above posts,  in 2050 we will need strong AI (and not just VR), thus why do we need humans to be educated?

@ERwin: @Vic: Money is a temporary model
      nope.  (I have no more time to argument about another concept !!!)

oops…  “home live” => “home life”,  Erwin, get that edit button back.

Also, taking education content from paper books and putting on a computer screen will not change how kids think of school and want them to stay in school.

That’s not exactly what I meant with changing the school system. I was referring to the opposite: less theory, more real life education, smaller groups, teaching methods adjusted to the learning skills of the pupils (not everyone fits into the frame: learn from book - perform written test) and an adjusted ‘content’ (for each child separately) is also badly needed.

Kids learn because a) they want to learn, it is a desire within them.. it is WHO they ARE, (or who they are not),

I agree with you (partly). Every kid has an innate desire to learn. It is the experience they have as children that tends to determine whether they embrace school or start to reject it. That’s why I think our school system should adjust cause at the moment, this is a loosing battle.

You think a child with an alcoholic parent that beats them and can’t afford school supplies is going to say “oh… but they have the stuff on the computer now, so I’ll forget about how bad my home life is, and get right into it.”

I don’t think this, I know this. I am such a child.

Also, why do you want them to stay in school? Like we established in the above posts,  in 2050 we will need strong AI (and not just VR), thus why do we need humans to be educated?

To keep them from using that AI to blow up the whole thing. Educated people tent to take a more educated decision (emphases on ‘tend to’) .

Aren’t banks and money linked: as long as we have banks, there’ll be money and visa versa?

Money is a temporary model.

I think Erwin has been watching reruns of Star Trek.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsy4mjSHtcE

Money, is simply a convenient way to exchange “value”. Since energy is not yet free, and some physical resources (laptops or food food for example) do not exist in all locations, money is used to exchange things of value. “Work” for “food” for example. Money will not go away although the coins and paper that our grandparents thought of as money may be replaced with “plastic”.

Erwin said: In this century even books will disappear because the skill to read to books with evolve into a hobby instead of something everybody learns at ‘school’ (where the concept of school will change as well).

The original reason why coded language has been important is because of its essense: to transfer knowledge to new generations. It’s extremely important to learn from others. What they have done in the past. What they have learned. We grouped knowledge into classes. Maths, Geography, History and all kinds of classes for occupation.
The original reason to learn coded language, i.e. to read and write, will disappear. Therefore, in 2050, according to my vision, we’ll have a serious movement in society which is willing to stop reading and writing classes for children and leave it to historicans and hobbyist instead.

I couldn’t disagree more. There will be more written communication in 2011 than in all of the years from 0-2000 combined.

The ability to read and write was not only adopted to communicate across generations, but to communicate a concept within a society. Laws for example. The adopting of Twitter, Facebook, and texting support this point. Today, anyone under age 20 sends text messages more than calls to stay in touch with their friends (ask your kids if you don’t believe me). This is even though verbal communication might be more accurate. More bandwidth and better AI will not change that.

Reading and writing will continue to be taught and continue to be important. But, they may be taught in new and “virtual” ways. Possibly by the best teacher at a remote location, or by an AI/Avatar that represents that best teaching methodology.

convergence of media

There continues to be a blending of device technology based on Moore’s law. You can get “radio” on your TV and PC. Your cell phone has more power than last decade’s PC. I can get the New York Times in hard copy, or web form on a TV, PC, or Cell Phone. All content becomes digital and can be transformed to the most usable form. I now often find myself multitasking with more than one of these devices at the same time.

Jan - thanks for the explanation.  Now that I know what you really meant, I agree—except the point about children from less than perfect homes - you may be an exception, but I think many, many children do not pursue higher education when subject to a bad home life.

many, many children do not pursue higher education when subject to a bad home life.

That is true, but I don’t think it has to be. I think it is a result of the ‘mass production’ scheme that we use. If you don’t fit the mould, you are dropped. Given the limited resources that we have now, there is no other way. Soon though, those resources might be there. The question is, how do we use them?

Another question for Erwin:

We have had calculators for what, 50 or 100 years now?  electronic ones at least 40 years.  Yet children learn arithmetic in school, why do you think that is?  Why not just put a calculaor in their hands and teach them which buttons to press??  That would just be so WRONG in so many ways!

I share in the dream of the future of robots, AI, virtual worlds, etc etc.  But I don’t want humanity to become stupid.  I don’t want us to be “the Eloi” ( see time machine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine ).

Also, what about security?  A certain portion of humanity will always be evil.  And never mind if we provide enough for everyone, people will still be ‘bad’ - with nothing to do, even more so!

What happens if someone attacks the inner workings of these machines?  With noone to read/write or THINK, we’re doomed.  Hack a machine hosting your “virtual world” and I take control of everyone mind because we’d be all dumb zombies just following the machine.

No, I want a future of increasing machine intelligence, that will be very cool and helpful, but I also hope humanity doesn’t become ignorant, oblivious and illiterate.  That would be using technology to de-evolve rather than evolve.

Jan Bogaerts - Jan 5, 2011:

many, many children do not pursue higher education when subject to a bad home life.

That is true, but I don’t think it has to be. I think it is a result of the ‘mass production’ scheme that we use. If you don’t fit the mould, you are dropped. Given the limited resources that we have now, there is no other way. Soon though, those resources might be there. The question is, how do we use them?

I am in extreme agreement with you on this one.  I hated the way school content was delivered when I was in !!!!

Victor Shulist - Jan 5, 2011:

. .take for example “text messaging” .. for some reason teenager think that “texting” is more high tech than voice messaging, which is of course stupid.

I don’t think teens consider texting more high tech than spoken conversations. Texting provides the advantage of allowing users to compose and phrase what they want to say without real-time constraints. (For teens especially, there’s the additional advantages of texting being cheaper on most cell plans as well as easier to do surreptitiously in class.)

This is the major reason, I believe, that written language will never die. The composers can with more precision and leisure frame their message. There are advantages for the reader as well. Just glancing at a volume of text can provide a reader with a summary of the content and a sense of the style/skill of the composer. The same cannot be had from spoken words, which must be listened to in sequence, at the rate they were spoken.

I think future generations will be FAR more intelligent than ours, but AI is even FAR more intelligent.

Do you have children? Do you recognize the situation of have small kids at an age of 3,4,5. They are asking questions to their parents, and always have ‘followup’ questions. Something like this:

Kid: Mam, what’s that?
Mum: That’s a spider
Kid: What it is spider
Mum: A spider is an little insect.
Kid: Is it dangeorous?
Mum: Sometimes they can be dangerous, but this one doesn’t
Kid: Why does it have 8 legs?
Mum: I don’t know
Kid: What does it eat?
Mum: I don’t know
Kid: Does it drink water?
Mum: I don’t know

In the future, AI will always know. always. All knowledge ever recorded, is available to the smallest generations, in all possible languages.

The impact will be that these generations, just because of their natural curiousity, will be far more intelligent than their parents or their grand parents (=us).