The spirits I summoned – the ambiguity of the spirits of the net in context of learning

Abstract

You have just called a friend about a planned trip to India and, magically, the latest flight and hotel offers are displayed on the phone. Immediately, the route to the planned destination is one click away, automatically displaying your home in the right place on the map, all based on individual GPS data – spooky, isn’t it? After arriving, the map on your mobile phone guides you to your destination, using AR (augmented reality) elements on your display. The software recognizes your location and identifies the surroundings such as street signs, buildings and intersections – as if it were going to have a life on its own. Rather reassuring is the possible future option of the American company Google, which will show you particularly well-lit routes to destinations in foreign countries – as if the app had an awareness of your fears. There we create foreign correspondence, simply by using a website service for translation – free of charge. You enter the text in your mother tongue, whereby the software learns from user errors and is constantly improving. The results are surprisingly good and I wonder to what extent the profession of translating will be- come unnecessary in the future – comfortable, but somehow also scary.