Robots, Trackers, and Polls
Would you undergo life-saving robotic surgery conducted over the Internet by an overseas surgeon?
If you said yes, you’re in good company. We recently surveyed Americans on their opinions regarding new technologies, and 45% of those surveyed would undergo the surgery described above. 24% of those surveyed would not go through with the surgery and 32% were not sure. Younger respondents, respondents with college degrees, and men were also more likely to agree to the hypothetical surgery.
Also included on this survey was a question about support for an electronic tracking unit connected to the Internet for use by parents on their young children. Overall, 52% of those surveyed approved of this device, while 40% were opposed and the remaining 8% were unsure. To see some additional demographic breakdowns on this question, including the somewhat surprising finding that older respondents are more likely to approve of such a device than younger respondents, check out our press release here.
The questions on this survey were designed to measure our comfort with technologies that (as far as we know) do not exist now but may exist sometime in the future. Many of the technologies we take for granted now – think streaming news and entertainment over the Internet, for example – might have sounded equally strange when described to survey takers ten years ago. Developing accurate and reliable online surveys (such as the survey described above) has been a major technological focus of our company, and we’re excited to see where new technology leads polling and our company in the future.
How do you personally feel about the technology described in our survey? Would you have the robotic life-saving surgery? Would you want to monitor your children’s whereabouts from the internet? Do you think either of these ideas are likely to become reality? Where do you believe the future of technology is headed?
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All of these science fiction technologies. predicted by various authors, jules vernes, the author of ‘uplift’ the only one to predict the internet. There is one constant theme of warning about a future clash between man and machine. Yesterday i read in ‘news week’about a famous futurist who wants to have his brain placed in a canister but kept alive and connected to computer controls and the internet. I don’t know if he read ‘The Machine crusade’ but that’s exactly what that book predicts. A bunch of people do the same with disastrous results.
there is one new way of watching TV that I’ve been trying to market to those with the power to make it come to be yet like most good ideas that will come about. it’s ignored by those who can most profit from said idea, because they didn’t think of it first. Imagine if you will you’re watching the TV, there’s a beautiful object/blouse/sculpture in the background, you press the laser pointer enbeded in the remote the screen freezes a submenu appear, giving the name of the item, where to buy it how much it costs and wether or not you want to buy it now on line. This my internautonats is the future of television.
No to the surgery. What happens when the power goes out?
No to tracking the kids. Too dehumanizing. I’ll put a chip in my pet, not my son or daughter.
Remote surgeries won’t happen. Tracking kids probably will happen, unfortunately.
I vote no to remote surgery. I think it has potential for someone who is in a remote area, no in-person surgery is possible, and the choice is remote surgery or die.
However if the power goes out, network goes down, or robot breaks, you’ll be having a bad day.
What!!! Nobody goes wow At comment #2.