What are your top 5 technologies of the next 15 years?

[sojourner]

How do you know the motivation would be pettiness? As they say, we can't even comprehend things beyond the singularity.

[YellowSubmarine]

RAMA wrote:

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1. Biotech... [...]
2. AI... [...]
3. Clean power technologies [...]
4. Portable and integrated computer technology/gadgets everywhere [...]
5. Nanotechnology [...]

Only Earth-centred technologies then, and with absolutely nothing revolutionary?

[Cutter John]

YellowSubmarine wrote:

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Only Earth-centred technologies then, and with absolutely nothing revolutionary?

Sadly that seems to be the direction humanity is heading. Nobody cares about space, or expanding our horizons anymore. Society is turning inward, and all most people care about is more cable channels, and shinier,faster handheld gadgets and tech toys.

[Asbo Zaprudder]

sojourner wrote:

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How do you know the motivation would be pettiness? As they say, we can't even comprehend things beyond the singularity.

True, it's only one possible option. I was being facetious about the Skynet thing. There might be many different conflicting factions among uplifted humans. Vernor Vinge also postulated that the Singularity might be unrealisable in practice.

[sojourner]

I tend to agree. the "singularity" in my opinion is happening all the time. For people from the 1700's it happened almost a hundred years ago.

[TeknoNurd]

1) iBrain
2) iBrain 2
3) iBrain 3
4) Windows 9
5) iExtinction

[Cutter John]

TeknoNurd wrote:

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1) iBrain
2) iBrain 2
3) iBrain 3
4) Windows 9
5) iExtinction

Oh! Someone even more cynical than me. Well done sir!

[RAMA]

YellowSubmarine wrote:

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Only Earth-centred technologies then, and with absolutely nothing revolutionary?

Space technologies could come later, let's assume we do reach a singularity, then a natural progression would be to spread smart matter through the galaxy. Nanotech spacecraft, starseed robots would be child's play by then. In the near term, space based lasers transmitting power would transform the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predict...2_the_Universe

Nanotech is pretty revolutionary. Despite it's current growth, it won't be a change overnight, it'll only be in that 15-20 year range when we start seeing what it can really do.

If you look at my top 5, they all connect in some way, which I note at the end of the entry, making them more than individual advancements but a sum of the parts...human biotech improving humans-->AI providing the "brain", or expansion/extension of knowledge and info storage-->nanotech providing the "body"...this could mean foglet bodies or some extension of machine tech--->clean, nearly limitless power generation to run it all.

RAMA

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

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How do you know the motivation would be pettiness? As they say, we can't even comprehend things beyond the singularity.

I was pretty doubtful about the future of humanity as we know it in the advance of machine AI after the mid-90s (Minsky), but it's been mitigated by the fact that there is a chance that human AI would replace the machine centered AI...while it's true I can't predict the outcome, I'd speculate that the pre-singluarty exponential growth of transhuman type tech might somehow transform human thinking into something more long-view and complex. This could carry over into the post-singularity AI infoscape. Might there be an "Artilect" war? Sure. Let's hope not.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/18/cos...-de-garis.html

sojourner wrote:

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I tend to agree. the "singularity" in my opinion is happening all the time. For people from the 1700's it happened almost a hundred years ago.

There's a distinction to be made, exponential growth has indeed been happening even longer than Moore's and other related laws, but the Singularity is a whole other animal.

Cutter John wrote:

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Sadly that seems to be the direction humanity is heading. Nobody cares about space, or expanding our horizons anymore. Society is turning inward, and all most people care about is more cable channels, and shinier,faster handheld gadgets and tech toys.

Or...the long-view (long-view for humans at least, in terms of our historical time, if we become a spacefaring race, even 50-100 years from now--a mere 100-150 years after man ventured into space--is a tiny a fraction of the human technological age, and a tinier fraction still of modern man) I pointed out would lead to a literal saturation of the galaxy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predict...2_the_Universe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOC0DBvhuaY

RAMA

[sojourner]

RAMA wrote:

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There's a distinction to be made, exponential growth has indeed been happening even longer than Moore's and other related laws, but the Singularity is a whole other animal.

Like I said, to someone from the 1700's, it's already occurred. The future will always look like a singularity if you project far enough. It's just a matter of perception from where you are on the curve.

[Geckothan]

Self-driving cars can GTFO, some people actually enjoy driving, though I guess real cars with proper engines that aren't restricted by pointless feel-good eco regulations, aerodynamics that aren't shaped by pedestrian safety committees, proper mechanical or hydraulic controls that don't nanny the driver with every input, proper manual gearboxes, and without stupid gadgets that add absolutely nothing to the driving experience other than expensive bills when they go wrong and have to be repaired at approved garages with the right proprietary ECU interfaces, will probably be banned/taxed out of existence/forcibly phased out long before self-driving cars are on the market anyway, so it's not like there will be any enjoyment left to lose.

[Venardhi]

Or they could become strictly for hobbyists like most old cars are today. With the mathematical elegance of self-driving cars reducing stop-and-go and even the space needed between cars, traffic would be much less of an issue for manual drivers. I wouldn't be surprised to see "automated" lanes replacing the carpool lanes in a couple decades.

[Crazy Eddie]

Asbo Zaprudder wrote:

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Perhaps only a fraction of humanity would upgrade. It might be they who are the instigators of the purge of the remainder.

There's no "perhaps" about it. We're a species right now with a massive disparity between wealthy and poor; a few thousand well-placed political and industrial elites already make decisions that affect (and often devastate) the lives of the other 6 billion people here. One way or another, a small group of individuals would use the "upgrade" to either protect their privileged position, or to gain that position in the first place. Either way, everyone else is screwed.

[Crazy Eddie]

Geckothan wrote:

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Self-driving cars can GTFO, some people actually enjoy driving, though I guess real cars with proper engines that aren't restricted by pointless feel-good eco regulations, aerodynamics that aren't shaped by pedestrian safety committees, proper mechanical or hydraulic controls that don't nanny the driver with every input, proper manual gearboxes, and without stupid gadgets that add absolutely nothing to the driving experience other than expensive bills when they go wrong and have to be repaired at approved garages with the right proprietary ECU interfaces, will probably be banned/taxed out of existence/forcibly phased out long before self-driving cars are on the market anyway, so it's not like there will be any enjoyment left to lose.

OR you could just install a "manual control" switch in a self-driving car.

[YellowSubmarine]

Hopefully, people will realise that using the “manual control” switch is as bad as DUI, and its use will be banned except under extreme circumstances.