The moon is shining and that’s a good sign
Cling to me closer say you’ll be mine
Remember, baby, we won’t see it shine
A hundred years from today
One hundred years from today
To say the world is in a weird place would be putting it mildly. I’m not even just talking about politics and the culture. With AI this-and-that throwing all of the creative world into a blender, it’s hard to imagine what life will be like a decade from now, much less in a hundred years. Do you believe what you see on the Internet? Have you seen “deepfakes”? Have you seen what they can do with your voice and your image?
Reminds me of the early 90s when the “Internet” as we know it was a fledgling thing and we hadn’t a clue how it was going to change the whole world in every possible way. It’s weird to contemplate, but I lived nearly half of my life without the ubiquitous Internet. The first half. Without a smartphone in my hand or email or even digital mapping to help me get around. My oldest daughter just turned 30 and it would be like her trying to conceive of what life was like with absolutely none of it… five people – a family – sitting around in a room after dinner and no one scrolling on their phone or texting. But listen, we had a TV. Not that we watched it all the time, but we had it.
When I read old novels, it fills in the picture for me. In the old books, whether it is Tolstoy or Jack Finney, you see people sitting around in what was known as “Parlors”. When I was young, the “Living Room” was a dying remnant of the “Parlor.” We had a “Family Room” and a “Living Room.” A Family Room could have a television in it, but no respectable people would have a television in their “Living Room.” The Living Room was for entertaining guests. Almost everyone entertained at some level – had people over for dinner or drinks or a Christmas party. The Family Room was for families. The living room was for guests. In our house, the living room was somewhat of a museum. It was not to be messed up or even really used unless we had company. You want to roughhouse or play games or stretch out on the sofa? Go to your room or to the family room. TV was in the family room. The Living Room was the memorial to the Parlor.
But in the old books, they had a parlor. And the parlor was where the family would go after supper. Usually, everyone had a skill or a talent, and people would take turns entertaining. Ruby would sing a song, or play a tune on the piano or violin. Alfred would tell a story of remembrance or would relate the latest “News.” Entertainment. That’s where we get that word in relation to having guests over to the house for a visit. We called it “entertaining guests.” If you couldn’t sing or dance or tell stories off the top of your head, then you could read. Aloud. Poems, stories, anecdotes. I have antique books in my library that were published for that purpose; To educate and entertain guests in your parlor. After that, came the radio. And things changed. People sat around being “entertained” by strangers far away. This was the birth of what would become the “entertainment industry.”
There are a lot of quote marks in this column. That’s just the way it is.
But Bunker, you say, you’ve gotten off on a tangent. What does this have to do with the future and “A Hundred Years from Today.”
Well, my point is that we don’t know what life is going to be like in a decade because we are in one of those technological whirlpools wherein the leaps forward in tech are changing things so rapidly that we have no real solid footing. Technological advancement is not linear, nor is it guaranteed. We may move forward into a brave new world or an authoritarian techno-dystopia, or maybe we get thrown back into a stone age reset. I wouldn’t bet against any of these things.
The song I quoted at the beginning of this column was originally written and recorded in 1933. Ninety years ago. We’ll pretend it was a hundred years ago for the sake of trying (and failing, probably) to make a point.
In the song, which has since been recorded by everyone from Jack Teagarden to Frank Sinatra to Seth MacFarlane, the singer is trying to, shall we say, loosen a lover’s morals. The argument goes, “Listen babe, we’re all going to be dead in a hundred years, so why act prudish tonight? No one will care when we’re dead.”
The first bit in the song goes:
Don’t save your kisses, just pass ’em around
You’ll find my reason is logically sound
Who’s gonna know that you pass them around
A hundred years from today
The idea was that no one knows what you do in secret, or what you really think, so “do what you will.” But they didn’t have the everywhere-present-always-on cameras everywhere AI Internet. The robots weren’t rising. We’ve had thirty years of typing into machines and taking pictures of our surroundings and videos of everything. In a hundred years (hell… in a dozen years,) if things go the way they seem to be going, someone will be able to recreate your life. No reason to have a biopic or a “based on real-life” movie of a famous person or show shaky clips from home movies. All of that data – your life – will live online, real or not, and the AI will be able to make it a real 3D walk-through VR experience. That’s the world we seem to be walking into.
But I bet something happens to shake it all up.
That’s all I’m saying.
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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.