Some reflections on IT

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine IT as a technology. We try to investigate negative implications of IT, both socially and morally so that we can eliminate or, at least, find remedies for, as many harmful elements as we can perceive before the damages are done. We ponder upon the ethics of capitalism fearing that the free market system will collapse if we act unethically. We believe IT will help accelerate the process. The question is how to integrate and enhance human values and fundamental rights through innovation. In the case of the elderly, difficulties arise with the memory; the elderly more or less suffer from decline of semantic memory. To overcome this loss of memory we propose a scheme: the multimedia triad reference system: this will not only help the elderly express themselves with ease and sophistication, but also assist them in learning interactive cross-references between multi-modal meanings.Examples are from the Japanese culture tradition for short poems of waka and haiku. The phenomenon indicates that the desire to express oneself not only enhances one's quality of life but also is closely connected to one's self esteem and dignity. Based upon this philosophy, the proposed thesaurus classifies some 10,000 kigo or season words, which play an important role in composing haiku, and carries as many words and phrases that are used in wakaIn conclusion, . UA (Universal Accessibility) will soon have to mean accessibility for people of the order of billion. We must learn from the past and mean to be multilingual and multicultural.

REFERENCES

• 1: Japanese Thesaurus ( Yamaguchi ed., Taisyukan, Japan due in 2002,)
• 2: Prospective Dictionaries-Thesauri Systems and Information Technology ( Yamaguchi, Bonas Workshop, 1999)
• 3: Several Reports on "Human-Centered Computing, Online Communities and Virtual Environments." (NSF/EC Workshop, 1999, Bonas, France)
• 4: Roget's International Thesaurus Fifth Edition ({1} Thesaurus of Quotations ( T. Tripp, Crowell, 1970, NY)
• 5: Familiar Quotations (J. Bartlett,14th Ed., 1968, Toronto)
• 6: Collins COBILD Dictinary of Phrasal Verbs ( 1974 )
• 7: Oxford Duden Pictorial Japanese and English Dictionary ( OUP, 1979)
• 8: Culture-Bound and Trapped by Technology: Centuries of Bias in the Making of Wordbooks, in Cultures, Ideologies, and the Dictionary ( Braj B. Kachru & Henry Kahane, in Lexicogaphica Series Major 64, Niemeyer, Buringen )
• 9: Walter VINCENTI The Stanford Observer. November 1982
• 10: Capitalism in 21st Century (Iwai, Chikuma, 2000,Tokyo, Japan)

INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
learn from the past, multicultural-multilingual, multimedia triad reference system, sense of reality, universal accessibility