One Can Make a Difference (16 page)

Due to its exponential growth pattern, information technology is doubling its power every year, which means that we will achieve the capability of human intelligence in a machine by 2029. It will then soar past our current understanding because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies and the ability of machines to not only process information and make decisions based upon it, but to instantly share their knowledge with each other. When the time comes that computers are far smarter than human beings, a moment I call the Singularity (a metaphor borrowed from physics referring to an event horizon beyond a black hole and past which we cannot readily see), it won't be from an invasion of machines from outer space, but from within, from technology that we have created.The impact of this will be so deep that human life will be irreversibly changed.

Although it's hard to grasp how different our world will be, we shouldn't be scared of the coming transition: it will be a revolution that radically enhances rather than destroys human life. We'll be able to access and master so much more information at such an incredible speed, and the technology to use it will make today's pocket computers seem very primitive. Even before the Singularity, intelligent nanobots (robots smaller than human blood cells) will be deeply integrated into our bodies, our brains, and our environment. They'll be injected into our bloodstream and interact intimately with our own biological systems, detect problems, slow down the aging process, turn genes on and off, and help us keep our bodies healthy. We're already reverse-engineering the human brain, simulating the functioning of many regions of the brain including the cerebellum, and modeling how our neurons work. In about twenty years, nanobots swimming in our brain capillaries will increase our brainpower substantially as they communicate with our biological neurons, as well as with each other over a wireless local network and with the Internet. Similarly, nanobots in the environment will be capable of reversing environmental degradation, in particular removing carbon dioxide from the air. They also have the means to revolutionize renewable energy by providing efficient nano solar cells, for example, and nanoscale fuel cells to store the energy. I find all of this very exciting; therefore, I take care of my health using today's knowledge, being careful to eat lots of vegetables and fruits, to drink green tea and alkaline water and take supplements to “reprogram” my biochemistry. I don't tailgate! I want to live long enough to enjoy the benefits of technology that can increase our life spans and eventually give us effective immortality.

The future will be remarkable indeed. By 2029, we'll see the full maturity of these trends. We have to appreciate how many generations of technology it took to get us there. The first step took tens of thousands of years: stone tools, fire, the wheel. Since then, we've always used the latest generation of technology to create the next generation. The first computers were designed with pen and paper, now we use computers. We've had a continual acceleration of this process right through to nanobots! They'll first be used for medical and health applications, cleaning up the environment, and providing powerful solar panels and widely distributed, decentralized fuel cells. These technologies are very democratizing.Technology development means that knowledge sharing isn't limited to big corporations, but accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. For instance, because of the Internet, kids in, say, Pakistan and Nigeria, have access to the highest quality education.

That is happening in villages where students gather around a computer and take courses from my old alma mater, MIT, for free using MIT's “Open CourseWare” program.Virtual reality technology is improving to the point where within a decade there won't be a discernible difference between being there or not; cell phone calls will soon be prosaic, as people will “meet” in various virtual environments instead. Within a quarter century, by interacting with our biological neurons we'll be able to experience full-immersion virtual reality from within the nervous system. The nanobots will shut down the signals coming from your real senses and replace them with the signals your brain would be receiving if you were in that virtual environment. You can visit these virtual surroundings with other people and have any kind of experience involving all of the senses.

“Experience beamers,” as I call them, will be able to put their whole flow of sensory experiences out there on the Internet so that others can plug in and feel what it's like to be someone else. But most importantly, it will be a huge expansion of human intelligence through direct merger with this technology. These technologies hold both our promise and our peril, so we must have the will to apply them to the right problems.

The thrill for an inventor is making a difference in people's lives. Hearing from blind or dyslexic people who say that my reading technology—which translates print into speech— enabled them to get an education or do their jobs, is the real reward. It's also exciting when musicians and musical groups send me their albums with messages indicating how the Kurz-weil music technology (by which a world of sound is available to them on a computer) enabled them to create new sounds.

As far as I'm concerned, failure is just success deferred. For example, consider what a “failure” Thomas Edison was. He tried over 1,000 filaments and none of them worked. Until, that is, he found one that did. We don't remember all of those “failures.” People fail only because they declare themselves to have failed.

BONNIE-JILL LAFLIN

From Pom-Poms to Playbook

The photographs of Bonnie-Jill Laflin that you see if you click onto her Web
site are jaw-droppers. Sometimes wearing little more than a cowboy hat and
a pair of tight denim shorts, her pearly white teeth visible behind a dazzling
smile, Bonnie-Jill is the quintessential all-American pin-up (a fact not lost on
the troops she has entertained on her USO tour of Iraq). It would surprise no
one that this model and dancer guest-starred on
Baywatch
, has been named
one of
Maxim
's “Hot 100 Women,” and was a cheerleader with the Golden
State Warriors, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Dallas Cowboys (2,500 girls
auditioned for that job). What is likely to surprise anyone is that she is the first
female scout for the NBA.

I met Bonnie-Jill when she posed for PETA's poster against the rodeo
that reads: “No one likes an eight-second ride.” And while men in sports have
discovered that behind those drop-dead looks there is a woman who knows the
teams, the players, and the stats, I discovered a kindhearted person who once
stopped her car to scoop up a little dog that was being beaten by two youths and
has protested the bullfight. All that aside, for anyone who has fought for his or
her dream, Bonnie-Jill Laflin is worth listening to.

I
have always loved sports. My father was a policeman who moonlighted as a bodyguard for sports figures like Jerry Buss, the owner of the Lakers, so I've been around men in sports my whole life. I looked up to them as a kid; they were like my big brothers. Everyone in my family, from my dad, with his various season tickets, to my uncle to my mother, was an avid sports fan. My dad took me to my first game when I was two years old. After that, we went to all the football games, baseball games, and basketball games. I remember people would see me sitting in the stands and would say, “Oh, get the little girl some Crackerjacks or some of that candy,” and I would think, “No! I don't want that. I want to watch. I want to know how fast that guy ran the forty.” I soaked up stats like a sponge. When the paper was delivered in the morning, another kid might have grabbed the funnies, but I grabbed the sports pages. I loved playing sports and talking sports and watching sports, and I knew I always wanted to be in sports.

Sports is very much a man's world. It is now, and was even more so a couple of decades ago. I never dreamed I could break into it professionally. Fortunately, I loved to dance. I knew my dancing could get me into cheerleading, and then I'd have the best seats in the house! When I was eighteen, I started cheerleading for the NBA and then the NFL. My most prized possession is the Super Bowl XXIX ring I won when I was cheering for the 49ers. Of course, I also prize my three rings from the Lakers' wins and wear one or two of them on most days. In one way, cheerleading opened some doors because I got to know so many more people in sports, and that networking helped when I worked my way into sports broadcasting. In another, it has been a hindrance, leading to the “Oh, she was a cheerleader” kind of attitude that allows people who don't know me to dismiss me.

During my broadcasting career, each interview was a hill to climb. Sports broadcasting is a man's world too, and people can try to lock you out. A lot of men don't think women should be on the airways talking about “their” game. I would have a hard time even getting an interview for a job. They would think “What can this pretty little miss possibly know?” or “We don't have time for this kind of girl.” But that only made me hungrier to succeed, that much more determined to break the barrier. Once my agent was able to get me meetings and I could sit down with the people at the different networks, they were taken aback by how much I knew. As I spoke I could see their eyes open and their minds going “Wait a sec. . . .” I started getting jobs as a correspondent at ESPN and CBS doing sports news.

But even then, I ran into difficulties. Some men, older men particularly, think of me in a certain way; it's hard for them not to because of tradition and what they have been used to their whole lives. Some guys make certain settings really uncomfortable, and they won't help you in the way they would help a man. They don't want to get to know you, and they won't treat you as a human being, just as a “girl.” I have done a lot of different things, including study hard and start a sports clothing business, but if they look me up online and see those sexy photos, they think that's the sum total of me. Jerry Buss has been like a father to me; his family is like my own. But even he'll admit that he had to think hard about hiring a woman; he'll tell you straight that he was a male chauvinist. I understand that. But he was good about it. He sat me down and grilled me on football and basketball and, when he saw that I knew my stuff, he decided I deserved a chance to succeed.

Because of Jerry's decision, I'm the first female scout in the NBA, and that's exciting. When I'm out, I might be on the lookout to fill a particular spot—a power forward or a point guard, maybe—or looking at everybody as potential prospects. I have an edge in a way, because women can sometimes spot things men aren't programmed to notice. We can sometimes pick up on a person's chemistry. Maybe a coach has told me he's looking for a quick and speedy guy or maybe we need a taller guard, but first of all you have to have a player who will be “coachable,” not someone who's arrogant and won't listen. I look for someone who can keep the team spirit up even when things go wrong, someone who meshes well with the others, because this isn't a one-man sport. If a player has a good attitude, that can make all the difference in a game. After that, you look for the fundamental skills; they have to be smart or they can't learn the playbook.

The whole management at the Lakers is terrific and supportive. They've taken me under their wing and they treat me with respect. At first I thought I would just sit there and be ignored, so it was a really big moment for me the first time I was asked for my opinion, the first time when I heard the magic words, “What do you think?” It can be tough when I'm on the road working with other offices in the League, because I have to prove myself at every step. If I'm in a meeting and they ask me something and I don't know, I'm done! At those times, Jerry's words ring in my head: “No matter what people think, it doesn't matter. Prove them wrong!”

High school girls and college women get in touch with me all the time to ask me how to break down the barriers and break into sports. I tell them that everyone in the world has to work to gain respect, and I'm still working on it. I haven't hit my best yet, but I'm working at it. You need to get a start and struggle on and study the game. Become an intern, find a toehold, and keep going. There's a lot to that slogan from the
Rocky Horror Picture Show
, “Don't dream it, be it!”

WANGARI MAATHAI

When Life Calls,
Be Packed and Ready!

Nobel Peace Prize–winning author Wangari Maathi campaigns to cancel the
debts of the poorest countries in Africa and has been imprisoned and beaten for
protesting against land grabbing and what she calls the “theft” of public forests.
She has served on the United Nations Commission for Global Governance
and the Commission on the Future. She is also the founder of the Green Belt
Movement, a grassroots organization that improves the quality of life for African
women and the environment through tree-planting programs.

Born into a farming family in the highlands of Mount Kenya in 1940, Professor
Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral
degree (pursuing studies in Pennsylvania, Kansas, and in Germany as well as in
Africa) before becoming the first woman to hold a chair position at the University
of Nairobi. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya's Parliament, carrying 98 percent
of the vote, and later was appointed assistant minister for the environment.
Forbes
and
Time
magazines have both named her as one of the 100 most influential
people in the world. She belongs in this book for her achievements, which are too
many to list here, and for her beacon-like energy and determination.

T
he sort of life I live doesn't come with a blueprint. And I must be honest, I haven't examined it critically to see why I did this, or then why that happened. Nevertheless, I would say it is very important to prepare yourself psychologically, health-wise, and so on, so that you are ready to take advantage of opportunities when they come. I recently heard somebody say that what we call luck is simply when opportunity meets preparedness. I think there's a lot of sense in that. When you're young, it's difficult to have this preparedness, though the challenges are there. The challenge of leaving home, of going to school, for me at a time when there was insecurity in the country. Then later on, the challenge of staying in school because there are so many temptations that make it difficult for a girl to stay focused and not to be distracted, especially when you are in a society where not every girl is being persuaded to go to school. And then of course, the challenge of leaving home permanently and not knowing what lies ahead and having to trust that everything will be okay. These sort of situations force you to trust in yourself, trust in a greater energy, and trust in the people who are guiding you. Quite often, these guides turn out to be good friends, which is fortunate because it would be impossible to do everything without the people that you meet on the way. Life is a journey that you walk with other people. If you are lucky, they become positive influences and help you to have a positive experience. If you are unlucky or you end up in the wrong company, then of course they can contribute toward your negative experiences in life. I can say I was sometimes lucky.