Supertrends

4.COMPUTERS, SOFTWARE, AND ELECTRONIC NETWORKS

The first time I wrote a book (or a ‘compendium’ as it was called) was for my lectures as an external lecturer at the Danish Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in 1982. I wrote it by hand, after which a secretary typed up the text on a typewriter. I think she hated me.

I wrote my second book on a typewriter myself in 1984.

The following year – 1985 – I bought a PC for one-and-a-half months’ post-tax salary and wrote my next book on it. I thought that was really cool. I found most of the information for that book by spending endless hours in a variety of libraries. Later, I began to search for information for my books on the Internet, and the process of searching became even easier when Google and Wikipedia came on the scene. But what will writing books be like in the future? Here is one possibility.

Let us suppose that in 20 years’ time we have a software program called ‘SpeedWriter’. SpeedWriter is programmed to be a data-driven fox that continuously scans the Internet and other intelligent sources such as scientific study databases. And because it is based on artificial intelligence (AI), it can also understand the meaning of everything. Further, unlike many people, it has an impressive ability to distinguish idiocy from brilliance, and it knows that scientific studies are better than conspiracy theories, just as a scientific meta study is more valuable than a single study.

Imagine that on this day, 20 years from now, ...