So what started this internal debate off, before I'd even thought about it or researched it, was what is going to be the big Paradigm shift in tech/human relations? Personally I don't think there is going to be one. Tech will become more and more ingrained in our existence and life without it will seem unimaginably difficult (just imagine it).
I lived for four years on a narrow boat. It did not have mains electricity (think about it) but it was quite possible to live in comfort, and after all it was designed for it. Society demands more and more power but objects to the infrastructure being in sight. Now how about a life with no tech. Every company, organisation and government would cease to function (their backups wouldn't work either in this scenario), how long would it be before society broke down for weeks, days or just a few hours.
Take the example of just one company. In the UK virtually all fixed line infrastructure is supplied by BT (It also routes bulk communications for mobile companies as well). They use packet switching which allows data (including voice) to to go from A to B by different nodes/exchanges. Their system will have built in redundancy and it will have, so called fail safes and hopefully backups for the fail safes. But what if a group or perhaps even an individual found away of taking out the system what would happen? No voice calls, no text and no broadband (I'll give some leeway to cable uses who can only to talk to them selves). Take food retailing the whole supply chain from producers to manufactures is virtually all automated via barcodes. A BT systems failure would see supermarket shelves empty in days. The logistic industry and the whole 'just in time' supply chain cannot function without computers in a profitable way.
There have been several "I lived without my smartphone for a week" newspaper articles and television programs Companies have instigated policies forbidding employees e-mailing people within the same office. Although 'silver surfers' are in abundance many of the 50+ have not wanted to use computers and are excluded from cheaper banking, energy bills etc.
To attempt to conclude, yes user interfaces will develop, this may well include'wetware'(do watch a web TV series called H+ very high production values). The real question I guess is what do I want to do? Can I do it better with technology (The old 10 minute rule should always apply)? I think the technology should adapt for us rather than the other way round. I think that cloud computing will become the norm but there needs to be better security from criminals (Iris/Fingerprint) and government snooping should be curtailed. Let's just hope the lights don't out.
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