Misdirected Technology : With the Cold War Over, Our Scientists Should Be Zeroing In on Making Life Easier

A PRESS AGENT named Gary Hanauer thinks I might get “one hell of a hilarious column” out of a client of his: Carnival Cruise Line’s new Crystal Palace & Casino, in Cable Beach, Nassau, the Bahamas.

Its main attraction, he says, is the $25,000-a-night Galactica Room, which offers an array of high-tech services including those of a 5-foot, 9-inch robot named Ursula, who, among other things, will mix and serve your drinks (she already knows what you like), turn on your favorite TV programs and turn your bath water on and off.

I don’t see any possibilities for hilarity in this prospectus, but it does make me wonder whether we are misdirecting our technology toward mere divertissements . Is a female robot butler the best thing the computer can do for us?

Since the moon walk, we have addressed every social problem with the question: “If we can put a man on the moon why can’t we . . . ?” It is true that many technological wonders have been achieved--for example the car telephone, the briefcase computer and the automatic teller.

Now that the cold war is over, maybe our technologists can concentrate on making life easier for us and expanding our options and capabilities instead of improving the accuracy and killing power of guided missiles.

Dick Schermerhorn of Claremont suggests that I send up a ‘trial balloon,” asking readers to suggest “needed inventions.” He himself suggests a noiseless leaf blower--one that would “replace the current ear-splitting din with a blessed calm.”

Several years ago Redbook magazine used to run a regular monthly feature called “Why Don’t They . . . ?” It listed numerous brief suggestions, from readers, for inventions that seemed useful and well within the technology of the time.

Now is the time, it seems to me, with our minds released from the demands of defense, to attend to the development of an inventory of gadgets, hardware and software, that would enhance the pleasure of living.

My tensions would be eased by a machine that could program my videocassette recorder. I paid $800 for my VCR but it isn’t sophisticated enough to program itself. What I’d like would be a machine that you could tell: “I’m going out for the day. Will you please tape the Super Bowl game for me?”

I see no reason why a voice-activated device couldn’t find out what time and what channel the game was scheduled for and then make the necessary adjustments. The VCR would automatically receive each weeks’ programming from some central source.

It goes without saying, of course, that most of our inventive genius should be devoted to the cure or amelioration of disease and disability, but surely some will be left over for the easing of non-life-threatening frustrations.

Hanauer says the door to the Galactica Room will be unlocked by the tenant’s voice. Why can’t our homes and cars be equipped with locks that unlock at our command, so I won’t have to turn the house upside down every time I lose my keys?

During the Olympic Games I saw a man fly from the Peristyle to the center of the Coliseum field in a couple of seconds by means of some portable jet-propelled power pack. Why couldn’t that machine be improved so that each of us could have one, thus being able to give up our cars.

Imagine. No more gridlock. Each of us flying about every which way, going directly from one place to another, as the crow flies. Remember, the Wright Brothers’ first flight lasted only 12 seconds, and look how far we’ve come since then. Of course the Motor Vehicles Department would have to become the Air Vehicles Department, and we would have to have some new rules. We would have to be very careful about left turns and rights of way, and perhaps people from certain neighborhoods would have to fly at certain altitudes. But imagine the freedom of just being able to step out onto your front porch and take off!

It is hard to imagine any household appliance that hasn’t already been invented. The microwave oven leaves the homemaker little to do in the preparation of meals but select a prepared dinner, open a package, pop it into the oven and set the timer. It seems ironic to me that in this age when technology has reduced housework to an almost pleasant minimum, so many women should want to leave home for the stress and grinding competition of the marketplace.

Why has no one invented a bed to read in? The head of my electric bed rises, so I can sit upright in a reading position, but I need a robot to hold my book and turn the pages. Holding a book is tiring, and turning the pages is a nuisance.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Ursula is available for that kind of work.