[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 46 (Thursday, April 17, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E706-E707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




``VISION OF THE FUTURE''--15-YEAR-OLD LEVI TILLEMANN-DICK DISCUSSES THE 
 IMPACTS OF TECHNOLOGY IN TWO GENERATIONS--ESSAY WINS NATIONAL CONTEST

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                         HON. GARY L. ACKERMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 17, 1997

  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call the attention of my 
colleagues to a young man who at the tender age of 15 has already 
established himself as a thoughtful analyst of the future. Levi 
Tillemann-Dick of Denver, CO, was winner of a recent essay competition, 
``Vision of the Future'', sponsored by the Association of Computer 
Manufacturers [ACM] to examine how changes in computer technology will 
change our lives over the next 50 years.
  The essay contest was held in order to highlight the Association's 
celebration of the next half-century of computing, and it was conducted 
with the assistance and cooperation of the magazine Popular Science. 
The purpose of the contest and the focus of the judges involved in 
evaluating the essays submitted was getting students to realize that 
whatever choices they make with computer science will have future 
implications for society, economy, and across all spectra of life.
  The essays were judged on the basis of their creativity and sense of 
excitement about what future technologies will be like and how they 
will affect our daily lives. Levi was awarded a college scholarship of 
$2,500 for his winning essay--an important incentive for a student in 
this age when advanced education is essential for young people to reach 
their full potential in this information age.
  Levi Tillemann-Dick, at the age of only 15, is currently studying at 
Regis College in Denver. Until January of this year he was schooled at 
home by his mother, Annette Tillemann-Dick, the daughter of our 
colleague from California, Tom Lantos.
  Levi Tillemann-Dick's winning essay, ``Gigatrends: Technology's 
Impacts Two Generations from Today'', reflects the kind of thoughtful 
education in technology that is essential for the future of our Nation. 
Mr. Speaker, I ask that this outstanding essay be placed in the Record, 
and I invite my colleagues to read it. It is important as we here in 
this body consider the effect that technology will have

[[Page E707]]

upon the lives of our children and grandchildren, and these are the 
kinds of problems on which we in this body should be focusing.

      Gigatrends: Technology's Impacts Two Generations From Today

       (By Levi M. Tillemann-Dick, the Yale Academy, Denver, CO)

       Fifty years ago, a Naval scientist labored for hours beside 
     a computer the size of a small bus, calculating the 
     trajectory of a single artillery shell. Today's notebook 
     computer can perform the same operation in a fraction of a 
     second. IBM and Hewlett-Packard have just announced the 
     invention of the PAN--Personal Area Network--a set of devices 
     that use the human as a conductor to relay detailed textual 
     information from one person to another simply by touch. While 
     it is very difficult to predict what the hardware will be 
     like in fifty years, it is possible to make reasonable 
     predictions of what the technology will be and how it will 
     affect our lives.
       Computers have demonstrated themselves to be especially 
     well adapted to two types of activities: communications 
     transactions, and information processing and storing. In key 
     respects, computers have operated with much the same impact 
     on society as did the printing press and the book, but 
     accelerated a million times. Tom Sawyer on the printed page 
     created a virtual reality device that led us toward the media 
     of today and the shared experiences and artificial sensations 
     of tomorrow.
       The Internet's technology is the communications gateway to 
     the near future. It will wholly transform people's lives. The 
     Internet will, of course, be used for commerce, personal 
     communications, entertainment, and research. It is a 
     relatively small conceptual step, however, from the PAN 
     processor that relays a written message through one's body by 
     a shake of the hand, to a microcell sensory transmission 
     system that relays ideas and sensations directly to and from 
     the most powerful processor in the world, one's brain. Within 
     a few decades, developments stemming from PAN-type research 
     will transform the Internet into the LifeNet, a comprehensive 
     sensory environment for human habitation. Our minds will be 
     afforded wireless direct sensory interfacing with other 
     people and various databases. A dramatically enhanced version 
     of what we now call ``virtual reality'' will become as common 
     as air conditioning. Telephones, TVs, PCs and other media 
     conveyors will be replaced by wireless sensory feeds from, 
     and to, communal microcells. The LifeNet will become 
     infinitely more important to mankind than the telephone is 
     today. It will become as essential to our lifestyles as 
     electricity or running water is now.
       What are the implications for our society? Strong arguments 
     can be made that the place of technological advancement will 
     be accelerated, and human interactions forever altered. Some 
     have suggested that today's Internet is addictive. They have 
     hit on a key point but used the wrong terminology. It is not 
     addiction that causes these people to return to the Internet 
     each day, but the fact that they can craft a new identity for 
     themselves--any identity they choose. Or they can participate 
     in experiences that are otherwise beyond their reach. If 
     today's crude mess of wires and two-dimensional web sites so 
     captivate people, consider the impact of a technology 
     affording a lifestyle where you could go wherever you wanted 
     to go, and be whoever you wanted to be whenever you chose. 
     Every field of human endeavor would be affected, from 
     business to entertainment to courtship and art. Over the 
     course of not many years, the technology's impact upon 
     society would be all-encompassing.
       Fifty years ago, the average person in the workforce was a 
     farmer or laborer. They were physically strong. They ate 
     more, but weighted less. Today's office and service workers 
     have diminished physical capabilities, but are better 
     educated. The LifeNet will accelerate this trend. The amount 
     of food needed to survive when spending weeks, months, or 
     years on the 'Net would be drastically reduced from the 
     amount needed to sustain a body that is undergoing today's 
     activity. Like most changes, this is a two-edged sword. 
     Resource depletion resulting from overpopulation will cease 
     to be a major issue when we are subsisting on 600 calories a 
     day in a sensory reality where we can eat all we want. Our 
     mansions will be built in our minds, and our future Ferrari's 
     will be driven along the roads of our collective 
     imaginations. The physical body (over a period of time) would 
     deteriorate to a state where the full recovery back to a 
     state of good physical health would take months--if it was 
     possible at all. Fifty years from now, our minds will be 
     working and playing in ways now beyond our imagination, and 
     paradoxically, the sensations we will feel will be just as 
     real as those we experience today.
       The time constraints relating to day and night will 
     dissolve when we can communicate effortlessly anywhere in the 
     world. It is likely that humans will require less sleep, 
     since we will need only the time to file and store the 
     information that our brains have collected and not to rest 
     our physical bodies.
       These technologies will not be expensive. On a per capita 
     basis, participation in the LifeNet will consume far fewer 
     resources than an automobile, and reduce our housing and 
     other needs. This fact, along with a lack of prior investment 
     in other infrastructures like highways and copper cabling, 
     will prompt the rapid expansion of the LifeNet into third-
     world countries. The equipment required for the microcellular 
     sensory transmission technology will be modular, redundant, 
     and like that for the Internet, incrementally inexpensive. 
     Countries that have problems with overcrowding and famine 
     would quickly embrace the LifeNet. Their resources would be 
     extended, and planners would likely program the system to 
     minimize the population's reproductive drive.
       People will still have jobs. There will be lots of work to 
     do. People will want to consume the newest experiential 
     sensations. Some food will need to be prepared, and equipment 
     manufactured. Government would be divided into two 
     categories: geographical-physical and communicative. The 
     responsibilities of the geographic governments will be to 
     defend landmasses and keep order in the physical world--much 
     as they do today. However, there will likely be another type 
     of government co-existing with today's political successors. 
     The responsibilities of these communicative governments will 
     be to administer, regulate, and defend cyberspace. The 
     communicative government will also be responsible for the 
     maintenance of the input-output microcells. The communicative 
     governments already exist in the form of the various online 
     services--and their monthly fees are the taxes. As they 
     mature, these communicative governments will develop such 
     things as better defense systems against the threats of 
     cyberspace terrorism.
       Religion has been, is and it is safe to assume always will 
     be, a major part of society. Televangelism's success leads us 
     to the conclusion that the LifeNet will support religions of 
     many sorts. It is not clear whether people will completely 
     forego interpersonal religious contact as the LifeNet becomes 
     pervasive.
       The darker side of religion and the LifeNet may the result 
     of a large and potentially violent antitechnological cult 
     movement that could arise. These cults would likely be 
     something parallel to today's right-wing extremists and 
     Muslim fundamentalists, but vastly more diverse and 
     considerably more dangerous. It is frightening to contemplate 
     the destructive ``holy wars'' that they could embark upon and 
     the grave consequences for LifeNet residents
       Some people would have to remain physically active and 
     strong, because of the nature of their labor. There will 
     always be tools and equipment that will break down and will 
     have to be repaired, and there will always be operations and 
     experiments that must be carried out physically to know the 
     outcome. Manufacturers, natural resource harvesters, and 
     explorers of all sorts are likely to be visitors to the 
     LifeNet, rather than residents.
       The field of manufacturing would be dramatically reduced in 
     size, considering that large cut of the world's population 
     would no longer need much in the way of cars, clothing, 
     physical tools and countless other physical objects. Natural 
     resource harvesters will work in every field from farming to 
     mining. Harvesters will be supported of new technologies and 
     these activities would also decrease for the same reasons as 
     manufacturing would--the virtual elimination of every 
     physical non-necessity.
       One of the few physical job categories that would likely 
     grow is that of the explorers. An explorer is anyone from a 
     cellular bio-chemist to an astronaut. This field is sure to 
     expand in the years to come, as science expands and becomes 
     more complex, and as space and deep-sea exploration become 
     further reaching.
       Another small category of physical beings would work for 
     various medical and life-support companies. They would have 
     the lives of every individual in the cyberworld in their 
     hands. They would be paid to keep the devices that nourish 
     and climatically maintain all the people who chose to enter 
     into the cyberlife. They would have the solemn but necessary 
     responsibility of--after the allotted amount of time--turning 
     off the machines.
       It is impossible to predict exactly what the technology 
     will be in fifty years considering that when my Dad was 
     fourteen there were no PCs, and when my Grandma was fourteen 
     electricity was cutting-edge technology. But one thing is 
     certain: There will be things that are wonderful, things that 
     are beautiful, and some things that are deeply frightening 
     that will all become realities in the next fifty years.

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