After watching my Netflixed copy of "A Praire Home Companion," a film which celebrates the aged art form of the radio variety show, I started thinking about what sorts of things I would remember in a few decades with the same sort of nostalgia. The thing about technology today, compared to the slow-moving Midwestern world that the film evokes, is that things are often moving so fast that we don't have time to sit back and reminisce. Even when we do, it's sometimes hard to remember the world without some of our new technologies because they have become such integral parts of our lives.

Imagine life when computers and internet access were relegated to geeks, businesses and academia. It's sometimes hard today to even conceive of such a world, but it astounds me that it was merely a decade ago. Even the iPod, one of the most important consumer devices of our time, only recently came into public consciousness in 2001. I dare you to try and find someone in a first-world country today who couldn't identify one of Apple's music players.

What I'm getting at is this: In a time where we're moving forward faster than ever before in human history, it becomes all the more important for us to remember where we're coming from and understand the significance of the technology that we sometimes take for granted. With indescribable amounts of information freely available at sites like Wikipedia.com, in addition to more widespread access to the Internet, I'm not so much worried about the availability of content. No, the big issue now is making sure that we take the time to sit back and remember the past, while at the same time keeping pace with the rapid evolution of technology.

Some may not think the recent past is worth much consideration, but when it comes to technology there is no doubt. Futurists like MIT's Ray Kurzweil stress the importance of understanding that technological advancement is growing exponentially. This basically means that the rate of technological progress is increasing sharply every year, and that the time between major advancements is decreasing. He predicts that in a few decades we'll have computers with the power of the human brain, which leads to artificial intellgience, which leads to untold possibilities. Imagine how primitive our lives would seem today after all of this.

While I'm probably beginning to sound like a science fiction nut (which I admit to be true), the impetus for my rant comes entirely from my respect for the capabilities of mankind. But while I stand in awe at our ability to detect oceans under Europa's icy crust, or map the human genome, I'm also well aware of our potential for horror. One can only imagine the future of warfare and atrocity when combined with future tech. By paying special attention to our recent past, we put our progress in perspective. Ultimately, it forces us to make careful decisions about the progress of technology, which will become all the more important as we approach the ethical gray areas favored by hard science fiction authors.

Would androids with artificial intelligence and all the trappings of human emotion be deemed sub-human? Should we worry about granting autonomy to artificially intelligent computers? These are the sorts of questions we need to start thinking about, especially since we'll be seeing these advancements sooner than we think.

I'm trying to cover some incredibly deep topics with broad strokes, dear readers, because this will be my last issue of "Amherst Bytes." The series went on much longer than I anticipated (this is issue #39), going a full year and a half after I graduated. I will instead be focusing my energies on my tech blog (www.devindra.org/tech), where I will cover the same sort of material as I did in these columns. My intention in starting Amherst Bytes was to help clarify technology for our little College on the hill. My shift to the blog is merely taking that ideal to a global scale. For those interested, I will also be making Amherst Bytes archives available there in addition to their hallowed place on The Student website.

If there are any budding technologists on campus who want to take over the mantle for "Amherst Bytes," please drop me a line at dahardawar@amherst.edu.