Topic: Workstations in high tech

[markc]

 The more I think about a high tech environment the more I see the ability to get rid of workstations. IMHO the info could just be pumped into your brain if the tech allows for this and so you do not need workstations and areas like you would in non tech design.
 What do you think?
MDC

[Marc R]

First depends how expensive and risky a brain link is.

The one place a workstation might come in handy is for massive multitasking. . .like a guard sits in front of 400 monitors waiting for movement, or a technician monitors 50 machines in one console. . .Sometimes with many feeds it might just be too overwhelming to have them all in focus at the same time.

[Defendi]

Depends on the tech a lot, I agree.  In a novel I'm working on they project into the brain for casual user use, but never military.  The reason if that feedback from a system disruption during combat could disorient the crew.  Instead, they use direct retinal holograms, which are less likely to debilitate.

[markc]

  I was also thinking about just a plain helmet that beamed all the info into a face plate. Again no need for a lot of big bulky equipment and even the helmet dose not need to be that big. Maybe just a strip of plastic or something like this in the crews zero pressure gear.
  I can see the need for some sort of protective station for the crew if things get dicey. Maybe some sot of protective cocoon until a rescue pod could pick them up.


MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

First depends how expensive and risky a brain link is.

The one place a workstation might come in handy is for massive multitasking. . .like a guard sits in front of 400 monitors waiting for movement, or a technician monitors 50 machines in one console.

The places I could see the usefulness of it would be repair/maintenance people and emergency response of any kind, including medical people. When you're up to your elbows in someone's chest I could see it being helpful to have the ability to call up any sonograms, MRIs, etc that are relevant if you like, without having to ask anyone or turn your head.

Same goes for the specs for the airlock you're welding on. Same goes for the bomb you're trying to defuse.

Anything where your hands are busy with something vital and your eyes wish they could look at the docs.

Then again, the entire nature of "data access" changes when the data in question can be input directly to the nervous system. Presumably the doctor would be literally able to feel his patients' pain, at least to whatever degree his medical instruments are able to sample and record it. The existence of AIs and "virtual people" would strongly imply that quite a lot of nervous system data flow would be decoded and electronically reproducible on demand.

As for the dangers, well... I currently have a scenario going where someone who has implanted RAM in his brain recently discovered that he's got malware.

 

[Marc R]

A lot depends on what you're controlling too.

Like the scene in aliens, where the Lt is watching like 16 helmet cameras, each with a vital signs readout on a screen below it. . .this takes up a wall of the APC with two chairs in front of it for the Lt and a communications tech. (Ripley sits in that chair). .

shrink those 32 monitors down and put them on the inside of a helmet visor and they might be too small to be useful.

[GrumpyOldFart]

shrink those 32 monitors down and put them on the inside of a helmet visor and they might be too small to be useful.

Whereas, shrink those 32 monitors down and input them directly to the optic nerve, with "channel" and opacity variable merely by wanting it... yeah, I could see it being worth the risk for some.

[Marc R]

T'was in reply to this:

  I was also thinking about just a plain helmet that beamed all the info into a face plate. Again no need for a lot of big bulky equipment and even the helmet dose not need to be that big. Maybe just a strip of plastic or something like this in the crews zero pressure gear.
  I can see the need for some sort of protective station for the crew if things get dicey. Maybe some sot of protective cocoon until a rescue pod could pick them up.

Cyber, we shall see. . .it's possible that would be possible, perhaps not. . .I suspect beaming 2 channels of TV into most people would be enough to overwhelm them, while I knew a guy who could watch 4 channels of sports or news on different TVs at the same time and keep track of what was going on clearly for all 4 channels. . .most people would fall into focus on one at a time and lose the others, including me. (Frankly, lieutenant Gorman in Aliens locked up in information overload just after the excrement hit the propeller blade, Riply extracted the Gestalt and rescued what was left of the platoon.)

[providence13]

Workstations may be a handy vehicle for drama. Let's not forget how entertaining it is when you see someone sitting at a workstation and through no fault of their own.. it explodes!
It appears that every Fed Star Ship workstation has some kind of electro-plasma energy powering it. For the most part, as tech increases, voltage/power is reduced. This is quite the opposite in sci-fi dramas..  

[markc]

Workstations may be a handy vehicle for drama. Let's not forget how entertaining it is when you see someone sitting at a workstation and through no fault of their own.. it explodes!

 Yes. And BTW you hardly every see submarine workstations explode or arc with electricity.
MDC

[GrumpyOldFart]

Workstations may be a handy vehicle for drama. Let's not forget how entertaining it is when you see someone sitting at a workstation and through no fault of their own.. it explodes!

Which of course is precisely why you should make sure your players are cautious about having their workstation imbedded in their heads.

 

[arakish]

Would it not also depend on the laws of the society?  I am currently running a FtF SM campaign where the Terrans do have the tech level to cybernize such, there are laws prohibiting such cybernization.  This is due to the RAC War the Terran Star Empire suffered in the past.  The RAC War rose due to the invention of AI.  In a scenario a la Terminator, the humans found themselves in a war against the machines.  Needless to say, the humans won and laws were passed prohibiting AI/SI, cybernetics, et. al.

Sorry, RAC = Replicant, Android, Cyberntic.

Also, if you think about it, Star Wars definitely has such technology, but their ships had tons of workstations, even compared to Star Trek.

Thus, it may not be so much if the technology exists, but how the society accepts it.

Even today I find myself wishing I had a cybernetic link with my computer and could just "think" what I wanted done.  It would definitely speed some things.

rmfr

[GrumpyOldFart]

Even today I find myself wishing I had a cybernetic link with my computer and could just "think" what I wanted done.  It would definitely speed some things.

Yes, but if "a short in the power supply" meant raw voltage being dumped to your brain, you'd think twice about getting something like that installed regardless of what the law or local cultural mores had to say about it, no?

I mean, if a serious malfunction = slow electrocution of your pain center, does it matter much how low the serious malfunction rate is?

 

[Vyrolakos]

^{"Rise my little thread, rise and do my bidding!"}

Ahem...

I wonder if future workstations will actually have to become 'old tech' to allow humans to interact with them?

As technology progresses, we humans will find it increasingly hard to interface or even just keep up with what the technology is doing. No matter what neural or 'science fiction' interface we come up with, the human mind can only process information and make decisions at a certain speed, and while I'm sure we haven't reached that speed limit quite yet, it wont be long before we do.

As an example, I have always had an issue with netrunners in Cyberpunk/Shadowrun style games. The idea of the human brain being interfaced to a PC and being able to even keep up with just a modern (2012) computer is just silly. I've always favoured the idea of prearranged scripts and avatar AI's (clever but not really AI) to the notion of the netrunner doing the actual decision making - which pretty much negates the need for the netrunner to interface their brain with the computer for anything other than sensory stimulation. This last bit is important, as it still allows you to have cool netrunners hooked up to their wireless rigs - but without the actual suggestion they are making real time decisions against ICE or an actual AI.

Which brings me back to workstations.

The operator (human or otherwise) needs to be able to control the functionality of the workstation, but that kind of requires that the workstation operate in a manner and at a speed that the 'human' can actually interpret and make real time decisions on.

The actual interface for the workstation has to adapt to the human need, not the human adapting to the advancing technological capabilities. That's the point of technology. It does stuff for us.

So perhaps future workstations will not look that different (on the surface at least) to existing workstations. I would imagine some form of hyper dynamic configurability perhaps, simple surface shapes that become chairs, screens and morphing controls that can be manipulated by the occupant. Especially important in a universe with multiple species interacting in the same vehicles.

I guess it really just comes down to what the particular vision is of the setting.

It's a fascinating subject with no real answer, only want we envisage.

[RandalThor]

I did not read the entire (resurrected) thread, but here: AI. In the far future, AIs, or SIs (Simulated Intelligences) will abound to assist people. (Provided we didn't get into a war with them and/or rampant paranoia about them doesn't exist.)

Likely, a "modern" person will have a micro computer directly linked to their brain and the AI would be part of that, so they would have their own personal assistant at all times. Plus, critical workstations would have their own, so that security guy would not neccessarily be looking at 400 monitors at all times, but cycle through them (when not surfing the web), while his security AI is actively "watching" all feeds and has a program that rates security threats. The human is there to provide that thing that AIs haven't yet been able to develop: intuition.

No matter what, with the basics of a a high-tech society, AIs and things set on "automatic" (like traffic: you get in your car tell it where you are going, at it plugs itself into the local traffic grid which just adds it to its massive database and program (of which no human not massively altered could hope to keep track of) and the car goes there automatically, no human error* to cause an accident, just sit back and enjoy the ride, or sleep, I would probably get more sleep. the only jobs humans would be doing in all of this, is the initial programming and some monitoring "just in case" something happens, to provide guidance, if needed. (The traffic grid program would likely have an emergency protocol in place with numerous aspects to deal with all manner of incidents.)


*Except in the initial AI and traffic grid programming, though with enough redundancy checks it could be made to be so much more safer than thousands of individual humans controlling their own vehicles that a death, or even injury, due to a traffic accident would become national news it would be so rare.

[JimiSue]

Many years ago, I got seriously into one of the Space master games I was playing, to the extent where I was writing a companion story to the campaign from the point of view of the PC's friends and family (I'm not sure I could be more nerdy, but let's leave that for now ).

One of those NPCs was a high powered corporate executive who in some ways was quite technophobe - for example, didn't like the nanofabrics that would mould the furniture around the person sitting on them - but in others made full use of them. Her desk at work (i.e. her workstation) allowed for three-dimensional holographic work with tactile feedback, so she could feel what she was working on. It also doubled as a video-conferencing device (although in that high tech environment giving someone actual face time with a visit was considered quite flattering) as well as data storage, security system, and so on. Note this was written at about 1990 when mobile phones were still in their infancy and even the idea of laptops was fairly not-yet-there, but the principle still holds.

She also made use of the 'tell the car where to go and it does it' AI, using the time to do work to and from the office (she was Kashmerian, so very dedicated to the job she had been bred to do), and also made use of a domestiv service bot to keep her apartment clean & tidy, process laundry, and so on.

I think that humanity will continue to do what it already does - adapt and use technology in a way that suits the individual. Some will be happy with a brain link to access their data, others will still want to make use of pens and paper. I think one of the drawbacks is that the human brain is designed by evolution (and man, I hate that phrase because it is completely inaccurate) to be really good at two things - processing vision, and processing complex social behaviours. We are adapted to seeing things for real, in front of us. This is why magazines are so popular, why people like us (roleplayers) still prefer a dead tree copy of a rulebook at the gaming table. I'm not sure even the 10,000 years of SM (SM2 that is, not sure about Privateers) will be sufficient time to undo billions of years of evolution.

[Vyrolakos]

... why people like us (roleplayers) still prefer a dead tree copy of a rulebook at the gaming table.

Never a truer word spoken. 

Take note e-publishers!

[Marc R]

I think it might be worth noting that in design, emergency features often go back tech.

Like if all the doors in the office of the future open by recognition of a broadcast signal from the transmitter in your head, there will be a small hidden panel next to it where you key the code in by hand, and then next to that a red lever that just disengages the lock manually so you can push the door open by hand. It's all around us even now, and the sensor/alarm system tends to be the only high tech part of it. i.e. the manual override on the fire door sets off the fire alarm, to keep you from using the door override in a sneaky manner, but the fire door opening mechanism is a push bar lock.

For some reason cars get away with not having manual overrides on everything, but they are very evident in planes and boats, especially military stuff that may need to deal with field or battle damage.

So I suspect that in the 25th century, astronauts may indeed be head plugged wirelessly into their gear, there will be backup key systems, and then backup manual systems still in play. . .so you'll still end up with an "Engineering station" on the bridge, even if 99% of the time the engineer is using a virtual HUD instead.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Yeah, that.

Vital systems will have safety precautions on their safety precautions and redundancies built into their redundancies.

Truly vital systems will in addition have a way you can run them stark naked with no tools while running for your life.

[Vyrolakos]

will ... have a way you can run them stark naked with no tools while running for your life.

Ah, we've all been there!