The
future looks more exciting every month. We often hear about
the good old days, but the evidence suggests they haven't arrived
yet. In the last century, we learned a lot about the basic science
governing the world around us. We are just beginning to exploit
this knowledge but there is much more to learn. In the next
century we will make more technological progress than we have
since we invented the wheel and will begin to truly master our
environment. People sometimes argue about what is the most significant
future technology - IT, materials, biotechnology, space? The
argument misses the point. Technologies are converging. Biotechnology
already relies heavily on IT and materials technologies, and
will further develop as we explore space. Many new materials
and information technologies have already arisen from discoveries
in biology. Let's take a look at some likely developments, bearing
in mind that I can't possibly imagine what might be invented
by some 21st century genius.
Today information technology is the major driver of change.
In a few decades, with cheap chips and easy networking, everything
that should be connected will be connected. Ubiquitous networks
will mean that everything is in communication all the time,
everywhere. The chips-with-everything lifestyle will make
the world much easier to live in. Things will sort themselves
out most of the time and be easier to use, thanks to improving
interfaces. In fact, rather like on Star Trek, we will just
take it for granted that technology can hear us and knows
what we are talking about. It rapidly becomes invisible. The
many boxes we have today will gradually vanish, replaced by
discrete sensors and displays built into our environment.
Machines will probably surpass overall human intellectual
capability by 2020, and have an emotional feel just like people.
At some point they will develop genuine self awareness and
consciousness, and we will have to negotiate their rights.
By the end of the 21st century, they will have
far superior intelligence to people, but probably also have
more attractive personalities, so relating to machines will
be more pleasant than dealing with other humans. We have to
hope that they will want this pleasant relationship to continue,
because the least feasible part of the Terminator scenario
is that the people win. As a precaution, we will have to learn
how to make transparent links from our machines to the human
brain, with full thought recognition, and will have to achieve
this in the first half of the century. This will allow us
to directly harness machine intelligence as a virtual brain
extension. Then machines won't outsmart us. Doing this will
catapult mankind into the evolution fast lane. We will decide
which way we want to go and often have the technology to make
it happen. Darwin out, Lamarck in. We will have vastly superior
intellectual ability and technology development will accelerate
until it nears physical limits.
Because of this progress, every human institution will be
disassembled and reconstituted to serve people better, as
geography becomes irrelevant except for physical processes.
Politics, business and society will be totally restructured.
Every institution we know today will be changed dramatically.
We will become used to rapid change, but by the end of the
21st century, the human world will be barely recognizable.
Accelerated development through machine enhanced intelligence
will drive huge breakthroughs in biotechnology, materials,
genetics, nanotechnology, energy and travel. Biotechnology
is progressing nicely at the moment but will accelerate in
the coming decades. When my daughter was born in 1994, she
was estimated to have a life expectancy of about 87. Less
than six years later, doctors now suggest she might well live
to 130, thanks to greater understanding of the human genome,
and potential nanotechnology medical advances. Never before
has life expectancy increased faster than people get older.
By the time she dies, she will in all likelihood be able to
have her mind backed up on the network, and upload into an
android body. Her natural death will not be so traumatic for
her children, and won't even be a significant career problem.
Nanotechnology will certainly make headlines in biotechnology,
with micro-machines wandering around our bodies, fixing damage,
extending our lives, maybe even keeping us young looking.
But by the end of the century, we may well have mastered this
technology, which allows us to manipulate matter at the atomic
level. We could eat roast beef synthetically prepared from
mud, water and air, recreating the processes normally done
by grass and cow cells. We could grow houses by dumping materials
and instructions and letting assembler microbots get on with
it.
Our understanding of genetics will enable us to have customized
pets or living dolls, just like on Blade Runner. We could
customize children too. And remember these are just the things
we already know in principle how to do. All of which highlights
a problem. This mastery of our world should have a warning
sign attached. Just as some toys are not suitable for children
under 3, we should ask whether mankind is yet mature enough
to play with these tools. But the problem is deeper still.
People can affect and direct change to some degree, but they
can't easily halt it. Barring worldwide catastrophe, there
are no existing human institutions that can prevent these
things from happening. We are deluded if we think these are
only possibilities - some people will want to go down these
roads, and have an increasing choice of countries in which
to do so. When anyone decides to use a technology, the rest
of us often have no choice but to follow.
Having said that, and even allowing for the fact that politicians
often ignore things until they are already problems, most
futurologists believe that we will mostly make reasonably
sensible decisions. We will muddle through as we always do.
We will keep most of the benefits, with just some of the problems.
It won't be a utopia, but compared with today, it will be
the good old days.
Ian Pearson, for British Telecom
(http://www.bt.com/sphere/insights/pearson/technology_drivers.htm)