\n<\/p>\n
W<\/span>ashing machines liberated women to get soul-crushing jobs that ate up their free time. Social media gave the world one revolution \u2013 before it destabilised democracies everywhere else. Now AI is here, and its main job seems to be replacing screenwriters. It\u2019s easy to fall into techno-pessimism, but new documentary Seeing into the Future (Sunday 23 November, 8pm, BBC Two) has a different angle. For disabled people, tech has already brought about life-changing advancements. And we haven\u2019t seen anything yet.<\/p>\n It is presented by comedian and Strictly winner Chris McCausland, who is blind. Some of the most casually astonishing scenes occur early on, showing how he uses his phone \u2013 essentially, an eye with a mouth. \u201cWhat T-shirt is this?\u201d he asks, holding up a garment. \u201cA\u00a0grey T-shirt with a graphic logo of Deftones,\u201d his phone obliges. It can even tell him if the shirt needs ironing. But it\u2019s where all this is going that fascinates McCausland, so he heads to the US, to see what\u2019s in development at the houses of our tech overlords.<\/p>\n He swings by a facility belonging to Meta to try out some smart glasses. To my mind, he may as well be entering the lair of the White Worm, or popping round for macarons at Dracula\u2019s castle. But that\u2019s partly because I\u2019m not in direct need of such technology, and the documentary\u2019s job is to highlight possibility not jump on pitfalls. It\u2019s not like Zuckerberg is personally in the lab, stroking a cat and spinning round on an egg chair.<\/p>\n I love having my perspective shaken up. A glass screen with no buttons sounds like the most excluding device imaginable, McCausland acknowledges, yet his phone became the most accessible tool he\u2019s ever used. He\u2019s similarly excited by the Meta Specs \u2013 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what they\u2019re actually called \u2013 which are always on and offer live video interpretation, telling you what you\u2019re looking at. Like a phone but, crucially, wearable. \u201cThe one thing blind people never have is two hands free,\u201d he observes.<\/p>\n <\/span>McCausland with Maxine Williams, VP of accessibility and engagement at Meta, trying out their smart glasses.<\/span> Photograph: BBC\/Open Mike Productions<\/p>\n At MIT, a nanotechnologist tells him how molecular devices could repair cells inside our bodies. He tries bionic gait assistance \u2013 a device that straps on to the calf, giving the wearer added power. It looks like the knee brace Bruce Wayne uses in The Dark Knight Rises to kick through a brick wall when he learns he\u2019s got no cartilage in his knee. Most moving, in every sense, he takes a trip in a driverless car. It\u2019s the first time McCausland has taken a car journey alone.<\/p>\n Driverless cars will arrive in the UK next spring. (That\u2019s a long journey.) They are what I would call an instinctive NOPE. But \u201cIt\u2019s not massively different to trusting a driver I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know,\u201d McCausland reflects. They are extraordinary: mounted with spinning radars, making calculations involving the speed of light to 3D-model the environment in real time. They may as well have gullwing doors. The fact the steering wheel moves on its own is McCausland\u2019s favourite thing about them, which is charming. Coolness is certainly the second best thing technologists can pursue, after equality of access to lives of dignity and independence. In my defence, it\u2019s not just that I don\u2019t trust technology. It\u2019s that I don\u2019t trust profit-driven Big Tech companies to behave for the public good, or with any accountability.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a parallel pleasure in the documentary \u2013 transatlantic cultural difference. These are not just Americans, remember. These are San Franciscan Futurists. The inadvertent comedy is amplified by the addition of the dry McCausland. A man so British that, even when he\u2019s interviewing a nanotechnologist about blood-borne computers that could potentially restore his sight, he sounds as if he\u2019d hand you thirty English notes right now if you could teleport him to the pub instead.<\/p>\n Even the tech is unmistakably American. \u201cI can hear a plane?\u201d prompts McCausland, trialling Zuckerberg\u2019s glasses. \u201cYes, a plane is visible in the clear blue sky,\u201d responds the earnest spectacles. Later, our presenter wryly looks back toward his own camera crew. \u201cDo they look like they know what they\u2019re doing?\u201d he provokes. \u201cJudging by their equipment, yes, they are professionals.\u201d Go-go-gadget-missing-the-joke. Computers may increasingly be able to play God, but irony remains a step beyond. Even with\u00a0a\u00a0Batman\u00a0leg brace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Washing machines liberated women to get soul-crushing jobs that ate up their free time. Social media gave the world one revolution \u2013 before it destabilised democracies everywhere else. Now AI is here, and its main job seems to be replacing screenwriters. It\u2019s easy to fall into techno-pessimism, but new documentary Seeing into the Future (Sunday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5477,3215,795,3427,2284,3948,19689,1299,812,1779],"class_list":{"0":"post-34725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-astonishing","9":"tag-changing","10":"tag-chris","11":"tag-disabled","12":"tag-future","13":"tag-lives","14":"tag-mccausland","15":"tag-peoples","16":"tag-tech","17":"tag-television"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}