By 1995 around 250,000 robots are expected to be part of American industry, but the total number could be well over a million if personal robots are included. With advancing computer power, microminiaturization, and voice recognition, we can tell many inanimate objects what to do and they can tell us what to do. Our whole environment will seem to change from dumb matter to one of conscious partnership as we tell our telephones to phone home, our lights to turn off, and our music to turn on. Concurrent with these developments is an explosion in human consciousness. Consciousness creates technology, which in turn expands our consciousness, which in turn improves our technology, and so forth.
Technology is a mirror of consciousness.
Looking into this mirror changes our consciousness. When the two directions cross over into one, Conscious Technology will emerge. This will begin to be noticeable around the year 2000, but will not likely be a major force until 2025 to 2050, simply because of the time lags from laboratory to mass commercialization. The greatest masterpiece of Chopin played by the greatest pianist of our age fails miserably if the piano tuner improperly adjusted the strings. A virtuoso performance requires the proper state of consciousness by the pianist and the proper tuning of the instrument.