Southwest High School - Spirit Yearbook (Macon, GA)

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s 6 — Exploring High Technology

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fELANOLOGS GRUAUENS Captain Martin. we have just received a bomb rhrear ar rhe Mall. | have instructed rhe main computer to program Roboto to search out the bomb and disarm it. See rhar he is on loca- tion ar sixteen hundred hours Robots to clean our homes, answer our phone calls, and see to our sofery — such high technology is right now available. Its conven- ience, speed, and accuracy as well as rhe possibilities for its work and enjoyment activities are all mindboggling. Imagine scheduling 3000 students into six classes in less than two hours! Replacing a person's kidney — even his heart — possibly his brain — to prolong and preserve life! Traveling millions of miles from earth at super- sonic speeds! Preparing a full meal in fifteen minures! Storing volumes of information on a tiny piece of microfische! Monitoring a baby’s vital signs inside a mother's womb! Playing video games with three dimensional figures! All this speed and convenience truly make high technology appear to be rhe new savior of rhe world. But at what price? Exploring High Technology — 5

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Ms. Goldstein, we finally have a donor whose genetic make-up complements yours perfectly. He is a scientist from the Pfizer, Inc. laboratory and his IQ is even twelve points higher than yours. What a genius you will produce from this union! Your appointment is set for three o'clock. Impossible? Not so. The picture directly above shows Doron Blake, the sec- ond deliberately created genius High technology has made a genetically engineered human race a matter of choice. What will be the choice of the future? Whar should it be? Exciting, challenging, a little scary — high technology forces the new world it has created to answer a few questions, solve a few problems Are we willing to give up our privacy for the benefits of high technology? Computers today can record how much a citizen makes, where he lives, what he owns, whom he calls, what he reads, and where he has been. The Videotex system, a two way television enhancement of the telephone, television, and computer, provides us with lazy chair shopping, banking, mail- ing, and doing computations. However, this useful system is joined to only one telecable, possibly indicating the loss of con- fidentiality. Harnessed to big government, all that data could infringe on our privacy. Are we willing to become just another number? At birth we became 250-68-0537, in school 111 952, at the bank 582049 618724, and the list goes on and on. Numbers really are easier to deal with than humans. But at what point do we lose our identity? Exploring High Technology — 7