Technology’s Leap of Faith – Dreams Do Come true!

Do dreams come true?

To find out, read on.

Because this is the story of technology’s leap of faith told through my eyes:

I remember when I was just a kid in the mid-1990s, I used to watch lots of animated cartoons and children’s shows on TV. I was so obsessed with it back then. Especially during my school holidays, I would be glued to my chair in front of our TV the whole day long, reveling in watching my favorite cartoon TV shows.

Sometimes I would even forget to eat my breakfast and lunch. I remember how my mother would scold me so much for that. But, no matter how much she scolded me, I would still be in raptures watching my favorite cartoon shows. And I would marvel at how all that stuff came on my television and who did it. Back then, it was not the time of DTH (Direct-To-Home) or online streaming services, it was the time of cable television networks. So, I would think it was our cable guy who must have played all of those cartoon shows somewhere on his TV and then transferred it all on our TV through a cable, and he would take money from us for it every month.

I used to fantasize, “God! What if I’m able to carry that TV in my pocket one day, it’ll be so nice. I’ll get to watch all of my favorite cartoon shows whenever I want and wherever I go!” I also used to marvel thinking, “God! What if there is some kind of a device where I can connect with my friends who reside away from my place and then we can see and talk to each other from miles apart!”

Back in the day, in our house, we had this landline phone. Yeah yeah, you visualized it right–the receiver and number pad kind of an ancient-style phone. Oh dear God! I’m feeling really nostalgic right now, as I’m sharing this with you. As I was saying, we had this landline home phone. With that phone, one was able to make only voice calls to one’s relatives or friends.

And if you were traveling, you couldn’t carry that phone to make emergency calls. So, we had these payphone booths set up in every corner of every town and city. To use the payphone, you would have to insert a buck coin in that phone box, and then you would be able to make calls. You would get only 60 seconds per buck inserted, and the seconds would count down and eventually run out. So, you would have to insert another buck coin in the phone box to get an extra minute. And if you wanted more minutes to talk, you would have to insert a buck each time in the phone box for every extra minute, or else it would run out, and the call would get disconnected.

Then came the early 2000s–the time of cell phones. And this was the first time I realized some part of my childhood fantasy had come true. With cell phones, you could make calls to anyone while walking, dancing, studying, gossiping, or doing anything from anywhere. You could also send text messages. And I was so amazed by that technology.

Then it was the mid-2000s, the time of mobile internet. What I could only browse on my computer, I was now able to browse it on my cell phone too. I could also take pictures on my cell phone and shoot videos of the places and the people. It was so marvelous to see my fantasies coming true.

Then in the early 2010s, it was the arrival of the greatest technology of all, the technology of smartphones. With the mobile Internet and a smartphone, I could do everything I had imagined and fantasized about in the 1990s when I was a kid. I could now make calls to my friends where they could see and hear me, and I could see and hear them too via video calls. I could watch my favorite movies on the phone anytime, anywhere I wanted.

Social networking platforms like Facebook began to rule the internet world. I could find and connect with any school or childhood friend of mine, no matter where he or she was in the world. All I had to do was search for his or her name on the Facebook website or on its mobile app on my phone. It began to seem like the world was becoming a tiny little place.

When the Coronavirus pandemic invaded our human world, I thought it was all coming crashing down. I was working as a customer service representative back then, where I would need to talk to customers from around the world, from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Ireland, England, Scotland, and Canada.

I was not aware of how intense the pandemic was going to be. I thought it was some hoax, and it would be over in no time. But the pandemic situation intensified, and everything had to be closed down. The whole world came to a drastic halt for the first time in my life. And here I was, locked up in my home with my family just like the rest of the world in their homes. I thought I would be out of a job.

A month went by and things got more severe and intense. So, then my company decided to allow everyone to work from their homes. That was how this WFH (Work From Home) terminology came into existence for me for the first time in my life. And once again, I couldn’t believe it. I was talking to my customers from the comfort of my living room. Once again, technology had made it all possible. Even when the entire world came to a halt, it was not really halted, I thought to myself.

Although some small businesses did suffer great losses due to the pandemic, the world was still moving and making progress. The Internet, smartphones, computers and laptops, and digitalization, all these modern-world entities kept the world going.

And finally, the pandemic is now on the verge of a defeat against the human race. The indomitable spirit of the human race has prevailed once again. Of course, many lives have been lost during this time. My heart goes out to the people who lost their loved ones to the virus and are now left behind to carry on their lives with the memories of their lost loved ones. The world could still hold together only with the help of technology.

Not too long ago, two of the world’s richest men, Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, traveled into space in their respective spacecraft along with their crew members and returned to earth safely, thus making them first-time civilians to travel into space. I have no doubt that in the coming few years, even space travel is going to be like normal airplane travel, or even like bus or train travel, and I’m 100% certain about it, it’s not an expression of any kind of exaggeration.

Some days ago, I stumbled upon one article written about Sophia, the first humanoid robot developed by the Artificial Intelligence tech company Hanson Robotics. Sophia is also called the first robot citizen of the world.

Then I searched for her videos on YouTube, and I was immensely mesmerized by Sophia’s interviews and interactions with the humans in those videos. I observed she has been developed in such a way that she can capture human demeanor and then reuse it as her own. She is a learning robot. She has been to Hollywood, and to various award ceremonies. She has given several interactive interviews on different news channels. She seems like one of those smart and intelligent robots I’ve seen in the movies such as I, Robot, The Terminator, and The Transformers.

I’m sure, in the near future, everything in this world will be managed by humanoid robots like Sophia, but it goes without saying that humans will always be in control.

All this is possible now because of the leap of faith the technology has taken in the last 25-30 years. I do not doubt if there’s any child of this generation fantasizing about something even more marvelous than I had fantasized about in the 1990s, will see all of his or her fantasies becoming realities in no time. Please also read my article 7 Important Life Lessons Children Teach Us (The Adults).

So, the dreams do come true, all we have to do is believe!

Finally, I would like to conclude this article with one of my favorite movie quotes from the movie The Prestige, “Man’s reach exceeds his imagination.” 

Disclaimer: The pictures used in this article belong to their copyrighted owners.