Attended this afternoon, a public lecture by Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft, and one of the three most senior executives at Microsoft who succeeded Bill Gates after he retired.
This was quite an eye-opening lecture. Mundie pointed to the next phase of computer technology development, which is NUI, Natural User Interface. This is moving from interacting with computers through keyboards and mouse’s, etc., to more humanlike modes of interaction, like ‘talking to, and with, computers’.
Mundie also showed and demonstrated the next generation of computers: a ‘computer work table’ which allows several people to stand around a ‘computer table’, and key in commands using their fingers; a foldable computer the thickness of cardboard paper….
During the Q and A, one member of the audience asked whether further advances in computer technology might further take away people’s jobs. Mundie said he had been answering the question for 30 years. If computers can take over some human beings’ work, then people will be able to find other kinds of work. In fact, he wouldn’t want to see human beings trapped in low-level, mechanical, work all the time. If computers can take over the more mechanical, mundane work, then human beings can move on to work that is more creative and challenging.
I immediately thought of marking compositions, especially by secondary teachers. (The mechanical grammar exercises that teachers of primary and secondary students are marking day in and day out: I think this should have been taken over by computers long long ago.) At the moment, computers are still not clever enough to mark compositions for teachers. But as computers become more and more powerful, theoretically, that day will come. (At least, marking compositions on the grammar and vocabulary level.) Teachers may still mark a few just to keep a feel for their students’ writing and progress, but it is absolutely unconstructive that teachers should plough through piles of compositions after piles of compositions, when they can spend their time more constructively in planning more interesting and effective lessons.
It isn’t right that teachers should spend their all their weekends marking compositions.
