Ever since the beginning of civilization, people have worked to make their own lives easier. In essence, they worked hard so they never had to work hard again. To solve problems that in their own time were difficult, (but in hindsight are now considered relatively easy,) things like the abacus were created. The abacus made a mathematician's job incredibly easier, but the mathematician still had work to do. (Also, isn't it funny to think that at one point a "mathematician" was considered anyone who could at 2+2 with the help of beads?) And over time, the abacus turned into the calculator turned into the basic computer turned into a machine that can essentially think for us. Now, a mathematician is no longer someone who knows how to compute incredibly hard equations by hand, with a little assistance of an invention to keep his math straight; a "mathematician" is a computer who can do equations that are monumentally harder than any human could ever compute within milliseconds, all with a little help of a human controller, who's sole function is to enter the equation and press a big red button that says, "solve."
As Vannevar Bush said in the essay "As We May Think,"
"A mathematician is not a man who can readily manipulate figures; often he cannot. He is not even a man who can readily preform the transformations of equations by the use of calculus. He is promarily an individual who is skilled in the use of symbolic logic on a high plane, and especially he is a man of intuitive judgement in the choice of the manipulative processes he employs."
Technology has made our lives too easy. No longer do we ask ourselves, "How do I solve this?" but rather, "Which program is best at solving this for me?" Soon, our whole lives will revolve around technology (more than they already do, we still do use our brains for some things,) and that concept scares the crap out of me. But then again, maybe that's because I just recently watched The Matrix movies and have a deep fear of a computer system trying to beat me up. Or maybe its because I learned they are no longer teaching cursive in schools, because it is now outdated and won't be a necessary tool for budding adults to need to know. Or maybe because of the fact that over 60% of children who are now kindergarten students, when they complete college, will hold a job that currently does not even exist. (I paraphrased that statistic and am hoping the percentage is correct.)
The idea that computers are taking over our society reminds me of both the giant brains in the episode of Futurama that try to kill the world with knowledge, and the lethargic, lazy, don't-know-how-to-do-anything-for-themselves society from the movie Wall-E. When will the line between whether humans control computers or whether computers control humans be crossed? Perhaps it already has...
