CR: yes, point taken about the advantage of texting.

Also, you hit the same point I made earlier in this thread where I gave an example of voice mail versus text email.

Erwin Van Lun - Jan 5, 2011:

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

More intelligent than previous generations, but can’t read or write text, and just ask the computer everything.

I still don’t know, if they loose written text because the computer can speak to them, if it can also do all thinking for them, why would they only loose written text and not everything, all thinking, since the computers will be doing that also?  why just loose written text???

If they don’t need to even ask the computer anything with voice, why wouldn’t they loose verbal communication skills also?  you already said the computer would read minds, and take care of all our needs and desires, thoughts, etc, in 2050.

Victor: Yes, I completely agree that the written word will never die.

As access to education and writing technology has grown, the volume of written words has only increased. From advances in paper and printing to computers and the internet. The internet is just the latest avenue for the explosion of written language. And though advancements in computer tech will allow more visual and audio communication, I see no reason why written text will be supplanted.

Erwin Van Lun - Jan 5, 2011:

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).

You can see the beginning of this today. Kids have become adept googlers, and have far wider general knowledge than previous generations. Of course, there are down sides to an instant gratification world—the attention span of kids today has also shrunk considerably.

C R Hunt - Jan 5, 2011:

And though advancements in computer tech will allow more visual and audio communication, I see no reason why written text will be supplanted.

The interesting thing is that the internet trend is video video video, kids don’t want to learn to read or write, but they do want to play and enjoy. Reading and writing is simply not in our nature, but it was the best way to survive and grow. That’s why reading and writing is considered as very important in society today. But that important will rapidly decrease when other children appear to learn faster in another way and eventually it will disappear and only hobbyists and historicians will have a developed skill to read and write. Others just live their lives happily and peacefully.

Erwin Van Lun - Jan 5, 2011:

C R Hunt - Jan 5, 2011:

And though advancements in computer tech will allow more visual and audio communication, I see no reason why written text will be supplanted.

The interesting thing is that the internet trend is video video video, kids don’t want to learn to read or write, but they do want to play and enjoy. Reading and writing is simply not in our nature, but it was the best way to survive and grow.

What is in our nature, laziness?  for some perhaps, not all.  Some kids don’t want to learn anything, and a lot of adults don’t want to work.  Some, but not all.  We have to teach our kids to grow up to be contributing members of society, not just to sit back and enjoy video and games all the time.

don’t want to work = don’t want to anything?

it’s a matter of creating the right environment for each kid, and parents don’t know how to create that for their offspring, simply because they have experience with 1, 2 or 3 childs. But strong AI will identify very soon in the life of the new generation, probably already before birth, what environment, what stimulus a child need to get to best out of life.

That is what this page is about:
http://www.erwinvanlun.com/ww/trends/experience_economy/

(I actually should rewrite all the stuff over there, spending all my time on Chatbots.org… :-s )

Interesting, I agree with the content on that page.