Your city is smart, but are you too?
We call to self “smart people”. We live in a smart city. We are using our smartphone every day. We are prone to smartness. Aren’t you smart enough? Don’t talk with me. You show your smartness to people in terms of your expensive "smartphone", you show your smartness to others in terms of the so-called "smart electronics” wired with tons of sensors and stuff you don’t know what they are and how they work. You use your smartphone to call your friends, relatives and to the people, you may or may not know, to the people you may not have any concern about, to the people whom you rarely have met, or will not meet your entire life. You use your smart television and home electronics to work on their own specific time and condition automatically without your manual working operation. It’s hot! automatically opens your Air Conditioner. You clap and lights off. Someone’s at the door, door camera captures pic automatically and you’ll be notified with your smartphone at that instant. Smart devices made the day too easy, smart devices made the life easy. You walk in the road in the evening, street lights lit up automatically. You entered the home, the house recognizes you. Use your fingerprints and the door opens just for you. Want to book a seat for the movie, or train or plane? Smartphone - the smart solution in your hand. These are all the smart inventions you and I are currently using today. In fact, there are way more smart devices and applications made every day, yesterday, today, now and the world will be innovating itself tomorrow as well. But! But!! But!!! Do you name this a "smart city"? Do you call the embedded use of cool sensors which you have never understood how it worked and will be never understanding all of it? Do you mean digitalizing yourself as being smartness? Do you mean the easy applications and solution to everything as the degree of smartness? Sorry pal, I don’t agree with you.
Yes, I love my smartphone and I'm engaged with my Facebook account 24x7. I, like you guys, do, also love and use today's technology trends and I very agree they are super great. But, you know, that's not smartness. In fact, they are not. Neither they were, nor they are, and nor they will be. The actual smartness lies in the attitude and your thinking to use the available resources the mother nature provided to us. The actual smartness lies in our way of thinking on any topics, generating/creating new opportunities and paving our own boundary limits.
You buy a smartphone costing such an expensive amount that its equivalent to 3-4 months or more of your savings and you are known to just a few functionalities of it. Are you smart enough to buy that?
You have a plenty of time to do a task and you do it completely at the last minute using any of your smart devices. Can you call to be smart about using it, then?
I remember when I was a child, I used to watch my favorite cartoon Ninja Hattori. There, in one of the show, Kenichi Mitsuba used a long stick to turn on his television channel from his bed, since he was so lazy to go to the television set to turn it on. Yes, he acted smartly to turn his television set in his smart way possible, but on the other hand, the continuous act of using the stick for the purpose will definitely make him lazy. Now, that won’t be smart anymore. On the other hand, Ninja Hattori himself, uses his own amazing Ninja techniques for instantaneously solving any kinds of problems and this is what I personally believe is the real example of smartness.
On the other hand, Doraemon always uses amazing smart gadgets, which we would never have thought of, to solve any kinds of problem and difficult situations which Nobita faces. Yes, the smartness comes to play, when you know to use your right tool and equipment (to be called as ‘resources’ at the right time, and which is what I think the today’s generation is lacking. For me, the always being resources are time, money, friends and family). So, think of yourself. Are you smart enough to use your available resources in the best possible way?
Smartness is not always using hi-tech advance technology, but in fact, its the practice of solving the problem in the best possible way. Our dad uses their own technology to tackle their and our problems, yet without using the advanced technologies of today’s. Yet, they can’t be called as not being smart.
Today, we have a disruptive market of energizing new smart technologies all being embedded in one place - the Internet. The extensive use of IoT, and online services for goods and services delivery, despite being of any category are more enormously and extensively used by today’s people. But, aren’t they making today’s people lazier? That’s the one point to note down. The emerging use of so-called "smart" technologies should not and never make humankind lazy, else I don’t think to call then "smart" ever after. Yes, they should obviously make people do their works easier, better, cheaper, faster and in a more efficient way, but without being the source if laziness in the people, rather bringing more and more creativity and productivity.
The next burning and emerging example could be seen as Augmented Reality (AR), which are today extensively been used in STEAM sectors and tourism and marketing sector. But, although AR give the natural look and feel of natural quality of any object, it should never make the platform to replace the nature itself.
Every inventions of human beings are being smarter than the previous inventions, but are the human society being smarter in the same pace? If yes, that's super awesome, no doubts. But, if not, there will be a serious problems. There will definitely be wrong uses of the emerging technologies, resulting to cyber crimes.
There is a smart saying “Work smarter, and not harder!” Yes, that’s great. True that. Even Einstein quotes “Work should be done simpler, but not the simplest.” Yes, what I actually trying to say is let’s not the smart electronics makes us dumb. We, as engineers and scientists, are smart enough to breakthrough the invention and discoveries but are the end users of these technologies are equally smart enough to handle these? is the important question here. Or else, the same condition would happen ad shown in ‘Robot’ movie of Ranjikant — the ultimate dismantle of ‘Chhiti’.
Along with the increasing smartness of the electronic stuffs and robots, the AI and computing, the smartness of human being to understand those stuffs and to properly handle them without the negative impact to the mankind is equally important. It could not be denied.
Much to write in this topic, but, this much for now. Only smart citizen would make smart city, and not just the smart electronics. Be smarter, not just your electronics. Thank you.
