Our future is in Auto-Tune
Bicycles and computers. Humanity augmented is our future.
Auto-Tune is an audio processor created to correct off-key inaccuracies. This allows vocal tracks to be perfect despite actually being off-key. Auto-Tune is always listing to the input and bends pitches to be exactly in pitch of the nearest tone in the scale.
In the movie Inception the “Architect” needs to only think broad stroke and the other parts of the brain fill in the details. I need only think “Skyscraper” and and hundreds of offices and floors fill with all the nuanced details. Smells, textures, sounds and family photos on cubicle desks all fall into place. In effect, this is what Auto-Tune does. This is a basic system of a computer augmenting and fill in the details of what the brain can do.
To me Steve Jobs summed it up well:
I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.
And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”
~Steve Jobs
Music as a breeding ground
Music is based on a clear set of predictable rules. We can “correct” inaccuracies based on these guidelines of pitch and rhythm. There is a huge market of people pursuing inhuman perfection in the field. They clamor for the next piece of software to prefect expand their art.
Pitch
As I have already introduced we have pretty much eliminated any reason for a singer to ever sing off key. There are endless advocates and antagonists of it’s use. Either way, It’s undeniable that this is a clear example of human ability increased by the power of a computer. This track of Britney Spears without Auto-Tune shows just how powerful of a tool it can be.
Harmony
Harmonies in many genres generate at the push of a button. Sing the first line out of key let auto-tune fix it and let the harmony engine take it from there creating layers of lush vocal harmonies.
Rhythm
Rhythm Quantizing is software recognizing when a drummer is playing out of time and fixing it. Most Quantizing even allows adjusting the groove and feel of the song as the user sees fits. The computer perfects and polishes the drummers performance captured. This speeds up production and allows recordings to be exactly what’s in the musicians and producers heads without having to worry about playing exactly locked to the rythm.
Design
Several discipline’s of design have sets of specific rules and guideline’s that lend themselves to being aided by algorithmic programs.
Architecture
WikkiHouse is an idea to create an open source community for building homes. With thier software you can broad stroke design how many rooms you want your structure to have and the layout of the floor plan. When you are finished the software they have created will render the entire structure into it’s component pieces that can simply be assembled into a livable structure like a LEGO set or a piece of furniture from Ikea.
Writing
Automated Insights has been developing technology that creates automated content content based on input. These articles read just as if somebody took the time to internalize the information and relay it through an article. They have published millions of automated articles for Yahoo! Sports and other publishers. You have probably read many of these articles without even realizing it. As of right now most of the content generation centers around standardized and data based information. Things like sports and finance. There isn’t any reason this type of technology can’t move to other areas in the future. This same idea can apply to helping us be better writers analyzing the content we create to make it better. Even this article was put into Hemingway app, a tool that allows writers to create better content with the assistance of a computer.
Medicine
Computer aided Diagnoses
These systems assist doctors in the interpretation of medical images. Modern Imaging techniques yield an overwhelming amount of information. These systems analyze digital images to recommend areas that need further inspection or biopsy. In some cases they even provide recommended diagnosis. A typical application is the detection of a tumor. Some medical practices run every general checkup through systems like this and only have a person inspect once the system flags an issue.
Computer Aided Surgery
Britney Spears has auto tune. Your doctor has Cyberknife and many other similar systems. With these systems the surgeon carries out the procedure with the use of a robot that offers steady-hand manipulations of the instrument. This ensures that incredibly sensitive procedures like brain surgery are carried out with impossibly inhuman perscision. Some procedures are even performed by the robot with a surgen simply supervising the procedure.
Not just for rocket scientists and doctors.
Everything you know will be augmented by software. Mechanics use computer assisted diagnostics to fix your car, they have for years. Firefighters model and try to predict flames. Everything can and will benefit from software and the power of the cloud. IBM even works within the same principles to create software that assists with culinary design to create creative recipes based on input. There is nothing hidden from this next step in our evolution.
CAD to EDA to our future
“Computer-aided design” dates back to 1949, it’s the basis for most of what’s in this article. Computer Aided design or “CAD” creates software models of the physical world to help the designer. The designer can see how a design will function if it’s made using different materials or how a design performs aerodynamically. This is all accomplished with free and infinite bits instead of costly prototypes and testing. Skip to 1980 and the principles in CAD brings us into the age of Electronic design automation. Electronic design automation or EDA centers around microchip design. EDA allows you to describe what you want your microchip to do using a programing language that compiles to silicon.
The ability to describe something using the written word and watching it compile to our physical world has powerful implications. Combined with more powerful computing and modern manufacturing techniques like 3D printing, the day is not far where you can describe a complex prototype of an electronic or mechanical nature and see it in the physical world in minutes. Not long after I am confident we will see bio and nano tech created similar processes.
What will stop us when our physical world renders as simply as a few lines of CSS?