Technology and Humanity Part 2

Is the Metaverse the key to the future of transportation technologies? Throughout history, transportation technologies have been key to the development of civilisation as humans sought to conquer the barriers of time and space. Within the span of a human life, we have gone from the steam age to the space age and beyond into a world where our virtual selves can travel through space and time and be simultaneously in more than one place at the same time. Transportation technologies are increasingly autonomous and no longer depend on the skills and experiences of humans. This article covers mankind's journey through transportation technologies to explore what this means for the future of mankind and whether the metaverse is our final destination.

This article is part 2 of my journey from the past into the future, originally recorded in February 2021 and based on the book I wrote in 2012. The book was called “Gadgets to God - reflections on our changing relationship with technology”. As we prepare to enter 2022, I invite you to join me on that journey.

The Future of Technology and Humanity Part Two looks at the past, present and future of the transportation technologies which have played a fundamental role in the development of civilisation. It explores the quantum leaps in transportation technologies and the implications for the future of mankind.

The focus of part 2 is the role that digital technologies have played in bringing us from the age of steam into the space age all within the span of a single lifetime.

One of the primary reasons why transportation technologies have played such a major role in the development of the world we live in today is that human beings have always sought to overcome the physical constraints of time and space. We use our intelligence to develop tools that overcome our physical limitations. One of those limitations is the ability to transport ourselves and our goods and services to other locations. That, combined with our desire to explore, drives many of the developments we have seen in our history.

Transportation technologies have played a crucial role in the development of civilisation and the empires that arose from them. Egyptians, Romans, Vikings and the British have all prospered as a result of quantum leaps in and mastery of advances in transportation technologies.

At the beginning of the 20th century with the invention of the petrol engine and pioneers like the Wright brothers, the speed at which human beings could travel and the distances that could be covered in a single day began to increase exponentially to the point when in 1969, mankind took its first steps on the moon.

Once a new transportation technology came onto the scene and disrupted the status quo, there were only a series of incremental changes in the speed, power, accessibility and affordability of the new technologies for over a century. The impact of these new technologies on humanity and our way of life was a slow process. For example, the first railway locomotives of the 1850s were, in essence, not much different to the last locomotives built in the 1950s. However, within my lifetime, we have seen a quantum leap from steam locomotion to driverless electric trains in metro rail networks around the world.

The same is true of motor transport. The family car which, even in the 1950s, was relatively rare has evolved now into the robot cars within the space of a lifetime. The implications for humanity are likely to be quite profound because, with all transportation technologies, the human skills needed to get the best from these machines have been replaced by developments in technology.

Consumerisation is the process of making a technology affordable, accessible and attractive to the mass population. It has been entrepreneurs like Thomas Cook who have seen the potential of transport technology to enrich the lives of ordinary people and broaden their horizons. Thomas Cook’s first ever railway excursion in 1842 transported over 600 people on a 12 mile journey from Leicester to Loughborough and was the start of package holidays as we know them today.

What Thomas Cook did for mass transportation, Henry Ford did for personal transportation by recognising the potential of petrol combustion to give consumers personal choice and control over where and when they could travel.

The early motor cars were not so reliable but cars like the Austin Seven were designed so that they could be maintained by their users. This 1932 Austin Seven made a trip from Corsham in the UK to Tokyo in Japan, crossing Siberia and attracting hundreds of supporters willing and able to sort out problems en-route.

Where Thomas Cook consumerised public transportation, Henry Ford began a revolution in personal transportation as we demanded more freedom and control over our journeys.

My lifetime has seen major developments in the technologies embedded within our vehicles whether they be public, commercial or personal transportation devices. These development in the technologies found today in cars has changed our relationship with these vehicles. The 1952 MG sports car shown here was capable of travelling at speeds similar to the 2007 mini convertible. The MG was much loved but was difficult to drive and unreliable whereas as the Mini can be relied upon yet needs far less skill to control.

The digital revolution has totally transformed our relationship with transport with possibly profound consequences on the future of humanity. In the 1950s, vehicles were able to show speed, petrol, mileage and oil temperature. The majority of car owners only used this information to avoid breaking down or breaking the law and were reliant on “knowledge professionals” to maintain the cars and fix problems.

Garage owners and mechanics had limited tools to diagnose problems in those days and relied on years of training and practical experience to earn their living. The human relationships between car owners, their cars and the mechanics who serviced them was very close and personal.

Today, the specialist technologies that were originally embedded in cars and were proprietary, dumb and not connected to any networks, have now evolved into smart, connected technologies that are designed for and used by consumers.

These quantum changes brought about by digital technologies empower car owners with tools that would have been thought of as science fiction in the 1950s. Cars are no longer just a transport tool that needs professional mechanics, they have become entertainment centres, mobile communication devices and gateways to the world, even capable of self-diagnosis and adjustment.

These advances in technology act as expert on-demand guides for our journeys, allowing freedom of choice and non-judgemental advice on the consequences of our journey decisions.

Comparing the technologies available in the cars of the 1950s with those available in the latest electric or hybrid cars should make us consider what this means for the future of humanity both in the form of opportunities and challenges.

Thomas Cook understood the basic human desire to overcome the barriers of space and time and the freedom, independence and quality of life transport technologies can bring. He saw the rapid growth in the railway network in the 1840s as an opportunity for social change by making rail travel attractive, affordable and accessible. He was a major driving force for changing the transport experience. These drivers are still in place today and are founded on making transport attractive, affordable and accessible.

Developments in transport technology have given us all the power and freedom not only to travel but also to capture travel experiences remotely using consumer devices that allow us to fly.

These developments have not arisen from a single technology but from a cocktail of inter-dependent generic technologies that are being applied to multiple applications outside of transport.

Significantly for the future of humanity, these technologies are not dedicated solely to empowering human beings but are increasingly being used to remove the need for human beings. Technology enabled mankind to travel to the moon in 1969 but the latest planet explorers are increasingly autonomous.

The scale of transport technology developments is also exponential rather than incremental. The memory capacity and processing power of the computer that took astronaut Ed Mitchell to the moon on Apollo 14 is less than you might find in one of today’s voice activated birthday cards. Today’s smartphones are a factor of millions times more powerful than Ed Mitchell’s computer in the lunar module.

With almost all forms of modern transport technology, there is very limited opportunity for human control or operating skill except to intervene in cases of technology failure.

We are already seeing these technologies being piloted for the transportation of goods where pre-programmed drones are being used for deliveries and, in the UK, small robot delivery vehicles are a common sight in Milton Keynes.

All of these developments raise the question of the future role of human beings in our transport networks. Both public and personal transportation solutions are actively using driverless or autonomous vehicles.

Within the span of a lifetime, we have seen the transport technologies of the steam age where human skills, experiences, challenges and satisfaction involved in driving a steam train made being a train driver every schoolboy’s dream and these have been replaced by driverless trains with no human dependence.

However, every cloud may have a silver lining and the same developments that replace humans are creating new opportunities for transportation of a different kind.

From the dawn of time, story-telling has provided humans with a virtual transportation experience. From tribal camp fires, through stories in books to radio plays, technology has been applied to transport the mind to new places and experiences.

Cinema and television technologies enriched these experiences and reached ever increasing global audiences.

Virtual Reality and immersive technologies extend the capabilities of virtual transportation beyond imagination into physical and increasingly realistic experiences.

Today, with virtual reality headsets and various haptic devices, we are beginning to see the emergence of the metaverse as a potential environment for human habitation and social and commercial interaction.

If we do a comparison of physical and virtual transportation technologies, it seems obvious that mankind has made a quantum leap in addressing the challenges of crossing time and space. We can now teleport our virtual selves to different locations on demand and this can include experiencing events in the past. The financial and environmental costs involved in virtual transportation are also significantly lower.

As with all advances in different digital technology applications, there are plenty of things to think about.

How will these developments change our lives?

What will be the future role of humans in all aspects of transportation?

Do we need to balance our needs as individual citizens against societal needs?

Are we in control of our own future?

Human life is a paradox and in the domain of transportation, digital technologies now allow us to simultaneously be in several places at once in space and time.

Another way of putting it is that human involvement in transportation is now dead – long live transportation.

Thanks for your attention. You are welcome to contact me at david@ davidwortley.com or via the 360in360 immersive experiences web site. The online video of this presentation is shown below:-