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Inttranews Special Report: The end of the written word
By webmaster@inttranews.net
http://www.inttranews.net
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The ways in which we use language are currently
undergoing faster change than ever before, principally
due to technology. But if language is the defining
characteristic not only of who, but of what we are,
as human beings, how will those changes affect us,
and the societies we live in?
One of the pioneers in this realm of research is
William Crossman, a philosopher, futurist, professor,
and the author of a new book, “VIVO [Voice-In/Voice-Out]:
The Coming Age of Talking Computers.” Crossman
is the founder/director of the CompSpeak 2050 Institute
for the Study of Talking Computers and Oral Cultures
www.compspeak2050.org,
and he teaches critical thinking, writing, and English
as a second language at Vista Community College
in Berkeley California. He has prophesied the end
of the written word by 2050, as we enter what he
calls the VIVO Age, in which computers can be controlled
using voice-in/voice-out technology - without any
need of literacy.
Inttranews decided to find out more….
Inttranews: What are the principal factors
leading us into the VIVO age?
Crossman: Four "engines" are driving
us: (1) Evolutionarily/genetically, humans are hard
wired and driven to speak. (2) Technologically,
humans are driven to develop technologies that allow
us to access information by speaking and listening.
Also, text/written language, being an ancient technology
for storing and retrieving information, will get
replaced - as do all technologies - by a newer technology
that does the same job more efficiently, quickly,
and universally. (3) Young people in the electronically-developed
countries are, en masse, rejecting text as their
technology of choice for accessing information in
favor of speech-driven and non-text, visual-driven
technologies. (4) The billions of functionally non-literate
people worldwide want access to information, including
the Internet and World Wide Web, without having
to learn to read and write.
Inttranews: What in your opinion will be
the advantages of that age?
Crossman: Overall, it has the potential to
democratize the flow of information worldwide. How
will our using VIVOs do this? (1) 80% of the world's
people are functionally nonliterate. Using VIVOs,
they will finally be able to access the world's
storehouse of information - if they can gain access
to VIVOs. (2) VIVO's instantaneous language-translation
function will let people speak with people around
the world using their own native languages; all
language barriers will melt away. (3) People whose
disabilities prevent them from reading and/or writing
will use VIVOs to access all information; if they
can't speak and/or hear, they will use sign language
to converse with their VIVOs. (4) Powerful nations
and societies won't be able to use their "standard"
written languages as tools of cultural domination
against less powerful nations and societies. (5)
Since schools will no longer have to require students
to learn to read and write, basic education can
evolve from focusing on writing rules and arithmetic
to focusing on the four "C's" - critical
thinking, creative thinking, compspeak (programming
and accessing information using talking computers),
and calculators. The deep literacy crisis affecting
schools today in the electronically-developed countries
will end because text literacy itself will end.
(6) Our consciousness will become more unified within
itself as our use of VIVOs reconfigures and reunifies
our neural-sensory system. As a result, the ways
we will perceive and conceive of reality and the
universe will become qualitatively more integrated,
unified, and expansive.
Inttranews: What in your opinion will be
the disadvantages of that age?
Crossman: Highly literate people of today
will have to learn to develop eight currently-neglected
VIVOlutionary skills in order to access information
using VIVOs. These include: (1) speaking skills;
(2) listening skills; (3) visual skills; (4) time-sound
and distance-sound correlation skills; (5) otographic
and photographic memory skills; (6) critical thinking
skills; (7) creative thinking skills; and (8) mathematics
without written numerals skills.
Inttranews: If there is no need for people
to learn to read and write, will this not result
in a greater "digital divide," not between
those who have and have no access to information,
but between those who control the access to that
information, via computer coding?
Crossman: Since the creation of the information-storage
technology we call "text" or "written
language" 10,000 years ago, the power-elite
classes have viewed literacy as a privilege rather
than a right. As a result, there has been a divide
between those (literates) who control access to
the written information because they know the codes—that
is, the pictographs/hieroglyphs or alphabets, and
the grammar rules that combine these into words
and sentences - and those (nonliterates) who don't.
In the VIVO Age, we won't create programs by writing
them; we will speak, draw, sing, or dance them.
VIVO programming skills have the potential to be
universal—just as reading/writing skills do—but,
as with reading/writing skills, VIVO programming
skills must be taught to everyone starting from
the pre-school years through K-12. If we don't commit
to doing this in the coming VIVO Age, we will replicate
the digital divide of the former Text Age. Our motto
must be: everyone a VIVO programmer!
Inttranews: When dictators first take control,
the first thing they do is control the written word,
because of its permanence, rather than spoken freedom
of speech, which they curtail later. Is that not
proof of the power of the written word?
Crossman: Dictators in print-literate societies
usually try to simultaneously curtail both freedom
of the press (the written word) and freedom of assembly
(the spoken word - people speaking to one another).
As we move into the Talking Computer Age, what will
become "permanent" will be information
stored in digitized form and accessible online as
speech and graphics using VIVOs. Dictators will
continue to try to control the flow of this stored,
digitized information - and we who hate dictatorships
will continue to fight for the free flow of this
information. Access to the information of our world
is a human right; access to the hardware, software,
and programming skills that make information available
is also a human right. We can't let dictatorial
governments take these rights away from us.
Inttranews: Do you think that political
control is one of the reasons why so much money
is being invested in VIVO technology, rather than
in literacy programs?
Crossman: Political, economic, and cultural
control and mega-profits are always the underlying
motives for investment under capitalism. Today,
capitalists are hedging their bets and supporting
both text and VIVO formats. On the one hand, they
invest in and rely heavily on text email, advertising,
records, l etters, etc. to run their corporations
and governments. They fund computer-writing labs
in schools, and, when these fail to teach young
people to write, they fund private, after-school
literacy companies. On the other hand, as Bill Gates
says, the future of computing is voice-recognition—and
he’s right - which is why capitalists are
throwing huge amounts of research and development
money into developing talking computers. Capitalism
understands that it is in its interest to sell products
to 100% of the world’s people via online speech/graphics
ads than to merely 20% of the world’s people
(the literates) via online text ads. Note: Capitalism
also understands that it is not in its interest
to permit universal access to information—it’s
too dangerous!—which is why no capitalist
government has ever really committed the economic
resources required to teach all of its citizens
to read and write well, and also why no capitalist
government in the future will allow truly free universal
VIVO access for all of its citizens—unless
those citizens unite to demand it and struggle for
it.
Inttranews: We can read about four times
faster than we can speak. Does the VIVO age suggest
that we shall have to talk faster. and so think
faster?
Crossman: We will be able to talk faster
as we develop the VIVOlutionary speaking and listening
skills mentioned above—but that’s not
the point. The point is that using VIVOs to search
for information will be quicker and more efficient
than reading text. We have to drop our text-based
models or paradigms here when we think about using
VIVOs. With text, we can rapidly read and skim pages
of data; when we try to imagine speaking and/or
listening to all those words, it seems much slower
and less efficient. But we won’t speak/listen
to all those words. We’ll search by conversing
with the VIVO—just as we usually converse
with each other. When we converse, we use keywords:
hypertalk instead of hypertext. If I want to find
out what hippopotamuses eat, I’ll ask my VIVO,
"What do hippos eat?" and it will quickly
answer me. We will think faster, not because we
will speak faster, but because our neural-sensory
systems will become more integrated and our consciousnesses
will become more multi-sensory as we leave written
language behind and move into the VIVO Age. (See
the next question.)
Inttranews: You cite statistics that show
IQ scores are getting higher as literacy rates drop*.
Can you explain this trend?
Crossman: An article titled "Spelling
Skills Decline in Germany," from the April
17, 1998 issue of The Week in Germany, succinctly
describes this trend that has been happening with
young people in every electronically-developed country.
" Young Germans are losing the ability to spell,
despite the language’s relative consistency
and close correspondence to pronunciation. Professors
at the University of Heidelberg tested 600 native
speakers aged 16 to 30 [in 1998] on their ability
to correctly transcribe dictated text. Nearly 40
percent received grades of ‘inadequate,’
compared with 5 percent in a 1968 study. Declining
spelling skills may be the result of a decline in
reading and increased exposure to nonwritten forms
of communication such as graphics-heavy computers,
the researchers speculate. Today’s German
youth score higher on intelligence tests than did
their counterparts in 1977, and they do markedly
better in comprehending visually presented information."
In short, as each new generation of young people
further lose their ability to read and write, they
are developing the very VIVOlutionary learning skills
they will need to intelligently access and create
information via talking computers—including
(surprisingly?) better visual comprehension.
Inttranews: Does the VIVO age not also
suggest that not only what we say but the way we
say it will change as well, in the same way that
"textese" [the use of acronyms to send
messages by cell phone] is gradually entering the
younger generation's vocabulary?
Crossman: Absolutely! Young people’s
use of "textese" is an intermediate stage
in the devolution of written language from the use
of complete written words and sentences into the
use of speech and graphics (including visual symbols
and icons). Regarding spoken language, new technologies
birth new ways of speaking and bury ways of speaking
associated with old technologies. For example, young
people in today’s world of push-button phones
and digital watches have no idea what the words
"dial" (as in "dial a phone number")
or "quarter past twelve" (referring to
time on a round watch face) refer to. The original
text-based references and meanings of phrases such
as "all of the above," "erase that
thought," "scratch that idea," "I
want to underscore that point," "entering
a new chapter in your life," "are we on
the same page here?" and "I wouldn’t
rule it out" will be incomprehensible to people
in a decade or two. What new phrases will the VIVO
Age inspire? Will we say "shout" that
idea instead of "underscore" it, or "gag"
that idea instead of "scratch" it?
Inttranews: Do you not think that the beauty
of written forms of language, such as mediaeval
illumination, Japanese calligraphy, Egyptian hieroglyphics,
Maya inscriptions and so on, will incite people
to want to learn to read?
Crossman: No. People’s appreciation
of these as beautiful design elements won’t
lead to most people’s desiring to explore
their semantic content. That is because most people
will no longer have the ability, or interest, to
access information using written languages of any
kind - no matter how beautiful the texts may look.
Professional academic "literacists," linguists,
archeologists, etc. will continue to pursue the
meanings of past texts, but for the small number
of other interested individuals, all reading and
writing after 2050 will be a hobby. By 2050, text
will be an obsolete technology replaced by speech
and graphics, just as the horse and wagon have been
replaced by the car in industrialized societies.
Some schools in 2050 may have Written Language Clubs
as an extracurricular activity - much as some schools
today have chess clubs, karate clubs, and choral
groups.
Inttranews: Out of some 6,500 spoken languages
around the world, only about 200 are written. Does
this argue in favour of your theory, and if so,
what affect will VIVO have for the peoples who are
not represented in writing?
Crossman: Most societies and communities
in the world today are still oral cultures. People
in these societies want to access the stored information
of the world right now—without having to learn
to read and write. Will these societies be required
to pass through a literacy era before they eventually
replace text with talking computers? Or will they
simply save themselves enormous resources and jump
directly from their present oral cultures to the
VIVO-driven worldwide oral culture of the future?
The people of each of today’s oral cultures
will have to decide for themselves which course
is best for them. Whichever course they take, I
believe that talking computers, with their instantaneous
language-translation function, will help to preserve
local native languages around the world, and will
therefore help to preserve the native cultures of
which the languages are a key element.
Inttranews: Your theory is based on developments
in technology. But was not language itself the first
effect of primitive technology, such as using objects
as tools?
Crossman: Spoken language was not an effect
of technology. Our human species is hard-wired to
access information by speaking and listening - as
well as by seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
Through evolution and genetics, we have become the
creatures who can speak as we do. It's in the creation
of WRITTEN languages that tools played a more important
role. Ten thousand years ago, when the influx of
new information during the so-called "agricultural
rev olution" overwhelmed our ancestors' ability
to store information in their memories, they created
written language as a tool—a technological
extension of their memories. However, their creation
of text was a historical accident. They could just
as easily have carved a cylinder out of stone, bone,
or wood, coated it with beeswax, then attached a
porcupine quill to an open gourd, rested the quill
on the cylinder while rotating the cylinder, and
then spoken into the gourd. They would have created
the first wax-cylinder phonograph, and all libraries
after that time would have been stocked with wax-cylinders
instead of books.
Inttranews: Does technology influence the
way we use language, or does our language influence
the technology we create?
Crossman: It’s easy to see how technology
influences language use, as the "dial a phone
number" example above shows. It’s more
interesting and complex to try to see how language
influences technology. First, we’re learning
more about not only how our thinking shapes our
language, but also how language actually influences
our thinking - that is, how the word meanings, grammatical
structures, and sounds of a particular language,
especially a language we learn as children, can
impact how we perceive and think. Since language
can influence our thinking, that means that the
language we use to describe a particular problem
can shape our thinking and behavior as we try to
create new technology to solve that problem. For
example, a government’s using the words "collateral
damage"—rather than the words "slaughter
of innocent civilians" - to describe civilian
deaths during wartime works to whitewash the horror
of the government’s war crimes and to grant
it permission to create and use a technology such
as cluster bombs on civilian neighborhoods.
Inttranews: In what other ways is technology
affecting language?
Crossman: One exciting current project is
NASA’s research into "subauditory, subvocal
speech." If you’ve read this interview,
you might be picturing rooms full of workers, students,
or family members all shouting over one another
as they try to converse with their VIVOs. What a
sonic clash! How will we ever get any work done
in the VIVO Age? Relax. Instead, visualize rooms
full of VIVO users silently compspeaking. NASA reports
that when a person silently reads or speaks to themselves,
their tongue and vocal cords receive speech signals
from their brain, even if they’re not moving
their lips or facial muscles. Small sensors stuck
under their chin can gather these nerve signals,
which are sent to a processor and then to a computer
program that digitizes them. Once digitized, a person’s
subvocal speech can be turned into either aloud
speech, written text, or sign language. [Reference:
"NASA develops system to computerize silent,
‘subvocal speech,’" NASA News,
NASA Ames Research Center, March 17, 2004; Release:
04-18AR.] How might this technology affect language
in the coming decades? Will speaking to our VIVOs
subvocally, rather than aloud, for much of each
day make us forget how to sound out our language’s
words—how to pronounce them aloud and give
them proper intonation?
Inttranews: Please indicate any sites or
bibliographical references you wish to recommend:
Crossman: As a starting point, I would recommend
my new book, VIVO [Voice-In/Voice-Out]: The Coming
Age of Talking Computers. The website for my CompSpeak
2050 Institute for the Study of Talking Computers
and Oral Cultures www.compspeak2050.org
lists various online sites, publications, and TV
and radio programs which have presented and/or critiqued
my ideas. For a more complete list, go to your favorite
search engines and enter keywords: ViVO {Voice-In/Voice-Out],
William Crossman, compspeak, or talking computers.
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