9/22 What is Code Response

Successful technology enhancement makes mundane activities seem more fun and happen faster, presumably more efficiently. The tech projects of an organization might start with the materials of hardware and add pre-packaged or customized code, which transforms into specific software considered enhancing to the organization’s mission. Pre-packaged code embeds the eloquence of master programming languages like C that write other languages like Python using wrapping functions — — replete with designs, such as algorithms, standards of libraries and other such magic. The implementation of tech projects depends highly on the evasive IT department, populated by masterminds who like to fly off to conferences in different time zones to learn new tricks of computer science. Yet, with the potential of high return through tech enhancements comes risk: rarely completed on time or under budget, tech projects frequently stall out…or worse…lose their “master,” if he (sadly, rarely “she”) is quickly hired away.

The implications of technological rapid change have far-reaching socio-economic, cultural ramifications too. The 30-something, executive programmer who says that a tech solution can be unveiled in three months is “outted” by the newly graduated, newly hired programmer who claims that a range of cloud microservices can construct an even better solution in the next three minutes (citation). No wonder, then, that my parents’ friends who graduated with degrees in Applied Mathematics (Computer Science wasn’t even “labeled and identified” yet) from the best universities, and who later joined some wild-eyed start-up called DEC followed by a stint at CPQ (Compaq), are now either multi-millionaires or decades-long unemployed and, perhaps, unemployable. How is it then that so many young people are running for the T and E of STEM careers, when the evidence is quite clear: like an athlete, your knees are going to give out before your mind!

Tech change means that a business can fail more rapidly (because it keeps the likes of old-tech YOU on the payroll), is subject to merger more easily (and preparing to pink slip you) or shape-shifts elegantly in response to new world economics (which means you were let go many years ago and replaced by…software, say, running on Java). What does early forced retirement mean sociologically? I don’t know yet, but I’m taking this course to understand better the consequences of under-employment, which might face me at 40 or 50 years old because software that enhanced my personal life also made me professionally obsolete.

What is going to happen when technology FINALLY hits hard the professions of healthcare, one of the growth drivers of the US economy over the last fifty years? Computers might read CAT, PET, fMRI scans better than Board-certified, fellowship-trained radiologists do. Theoretically, there is no reason for this change of circumstance NOT to occur: just consider the access and cost pressures in healthcare (does anyone care about quality any longer). After all, the software of this scanning hardware already might diagnose better than primary-care providers, like Marcus Welby, or infectious disease physicians, like Dr. House. In the near future, long-eye lashed, sweet smiling, big-eyed and headed robots might take the ER patient’s blood pressure, O2 and temperature measurements, weight/height before software in a machine scans for core viruses and hell-raising bacteria. Software already checks for bleeds and broken bones. Software also dispenses the meds, sends the bill to the single-payer insurer, creates the next appointment date, compiles the record-keeping, telephones with reminders…

What is going to happen when technology FINALLY hits hard the professions associated with education? My hometown private and public high schools already offer on-line courses through Virtual High School and Global Online Academy. How does learning on-line affect psycho-developmentally the adolescent mind? Can such changes in education help students want to build strong, close communities of face-to-face encounters, to achieve an understanding of adaptability and flexibility in a constantly changing world, to question fruitfully conventional wisdom and to find happiness? ? I don’t know yet, but I’m taking this course to try to understand the different outcomes from the unstoppable trend of technological development.