Is this the future of technology?

[YellowSubmarine]

I'm not sure what info tech is supposed to mean, but I fail to see how automated construction by robots is not interesting. This could reduce the price of building things to levels where you can freely build things that we currently don't because we see them as too expensive. We could build the tunnel under the Atlantic, or build air-tight cross-country tunnels with extremely fast trains that merge distant city into one big city, we could build underwater cities, or moon bases. When the labour is free, those are really not that difficult.

You'd also have your luggage follow you wherever you want to go, climbing in the self-driving cab on its own and then climbing into the aeroplane on its own. How's that not interesting?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

There is no one area of technology that I would say is dramatically more interesting than others--they are all related in some way and they all contribute to whatever future we may have.

Information technology is fascinating because we're getting better and better at managing vast amounts of data. It's not having that much data that's important--it's knowing how to categorize and mine it and draw conclusions from it. One thing that I think will be pretty fascinating in the not-so-distant future is mapping current events based on Internet activity. Think about how people use twitter to spread news. You could actually determine just where and when an event transpired, and then how knowledge of it is disseminated across the globe. Some people have already taken stabs at this, and I think that sort of real-time data analysis will become even more sophisticated. This has interesting implications for military intelligence, governance, journalism, etc.

Materials science isn't very sexy but it's incredibly important. We're learning more and more about what carbon can do--it may be the most versatile element out there! We also keep making progress with composites as well as trying to solve more problems with miniaturization. Transistors can only get so small--or can they? We want to keep making computers smaller and smaller, which will require new materials and possibly new types of transistors.

I think biotech is also really exciting, if you consider that this is more properly the field of medicine. We used to think so many of our problems would be solved using robotic/electronic components, but in reality it's turning out that the manipulation of chemicals (including DNA) is the real key to medical advancement. We learned to use viruses to create vaccines, now we're creating bacteria to fight cancer and perform gene therapy. While we haven't yet figured out just how DNA turns nonliving matter into a self-replicating life-form, we're getting there. I know there's been recent progress in creating bacteria "from scratch," injecting synthetic DNA into a bacterial cell. The possibilities here are tantalizing. I wonder how many diseases we will end up being able to treat and even cure through the use of synthetic microbes.

Robotics is one field that has advanced remarkably slowly, and I think that's largely because artificial intelligence research has stalled. That's a field where strong AI has been "just around the corner" for decades, and we're still nowhere near it. That probably hampered robotics research for a long time. But now, digital sensing and pattern recognition has really taken off, and it's opened a lot of doors in the robotics world. We first needed computers that could sense and analyze their environment before we could develop robots to act on that analysis. I think we'll see more rapid progress in this area as we improve sensing and pattern recognition technology.

Technology wise, I think the future will be pretty awesome--at least for those who have access to it.

 

[RAMA]

There is no one area of technology that I would say is dramatically more interesting than others--they are all related in some way and they all contribute to whatever future we may have.

Information technology is fascinating because we're getting better and better at managing vast amounts of data. It's not having that much data that's important--it's knowing how to categorize and mine it and draw conclusions from it. One thing that I think will be pretty fascinating in the not-so-distant future is mapping current events based on Internet activity. Think about how people use twitter to spread news. You could actually determine just where and when an event transpired, and then how knowledge of it is disseminated across the globe. Some people have already taken stabs at this, and I think that sort of real-time data analysis will become even more sophisticated. This has interesting implications for military intelligence, governance, journalism, etc.

Materials science isn't very sexy but it's incredibly important. We're learning more and more about what carbon can do--it may be the most versatile element out there! We also keep making progress with composites as well as trying to solve more problems with miniaturization. Transistors can only get so small--or can they? We want to keep making computers smaller and smaller, which will require new materials and possibly new types of transistors.

I think biotech is also really exciting, if you consider that this is more properly the field of medicine. We used to think so many of our problems would be solved using robotic/electronic components, but in reality it's turning out that the manipulation of chemicals (including DNA) is the real key to medical advancement. We learned to use viruses to create vaccines, now we're creating bacteria to fight cancer and perform gene therapy. While we haven't yet figured out just how DNA turns nonliving matter into a self-replicating life-form, we're getting there. I know there's been recent progress in creating bacteria "from scratch," injecting synthetic DNA into a bacterial cell. The possibilities here are tantalizing. I wonder how many diseases we will end up being able to treat and even cure through the use of synthetic microbes.

Robotics is one field that has advanced remarkably slowly, and I think that's largely because artificial intelligence research has stalled. That's a field where strong AI has been "just around the corner" for decades, and we're still nowhere near it. That probably hampered robotics research for a long time. But now, digital sensing and pattern recognition has really taken off, and it's opened a lot of doors in the robotics world. We first needed computers that could sense and analyze their environment before we could develop robots to act on that analysis. I think we'll see more rapid progress in this area as we improve sensing and pattern recognition technology.

Technology wise, I think the future will be pretty awesome--at least for those who have access to it.

Almost everyone will have access to it, the reduced cost of price-performance will mean that almost anyone can have access to it. The growth rate of economies in the poorest countries is increasing faster than developed countries.

I agree that what we do with information is more important than information itself, however, the ability to produce a much greater pool of information is essential to the modern world. Tools used to access and sort this information are also hugely important..witness the growth of Google and it's associated endeavors. There will be more and more customized information, so people will get less "chaff".

Robotics has evolved slowly, but based on infotech (computational power, RAM, cognitive computers, quantum computers, sensors, et al) the growth statistically predicted should give us computers equal to all human brains, before 2045. So while it's been slow, development will increase at a rapid pace.

RAMA

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Almost everyone will have access to it, the reduced cost of price-performance will mean that almost anyone can have access to it. The growth rate of economies in the poorest countries is increasing faster than developed countries.

No offense, but that's a complete joke. Only the parts of the world that can afford it will have access to it. Modern technology requires infrastructure that some parts of the world don't have and aren't likely to have anytime soon. Will 99% of humanity eventually have access to the latest technology? Probably. Will it be soon (within our lifetimes)? Nope.

I agree that what we do with information is more important than information itself, however, the ability to produce a much greater pool of information is essential to the modern world. Tools used to access and sort this information are also hugely important..witness the growth of Google and it's associated endeavors. There will be more and more customized information, so people will get less "chaff".

I agree with you that data mining is far more important than how much data there is to mine.

Robotics has evolved slowly, but based on infotech (computational power, RAM, cognitive computers, quantum computers, sensors, et al) the growth statistically predicted should give us computers equal to all human brains, before 2045. So while it's been slow, development will increase at a rapid pace.

Well... I think that's what I said.

Let's not count on quantum computers just yet, though. That technology is in its infancy and the most recent developments I've seen indicate it may not ever be practical.

 

[publiusr]

Information overload and focus on one branch of technology are the hidden dangers. A lot of answers to vexing questions might be had with generalists looking at other fields--but there is so much coming out that folks can get swamped. also--folks are paid by focusing on specific problems--even if solutions to those problems can be found by reading journals from elsewhere

 

[Lindley]

Indeed, I have seen at least one academic paper which begins, "In recent years the authors have observed the Computer Vision community beginning to 're-discover' techniques which are well-known to the photogrammetry community...."

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Robotics has evolved slowly, but based on infotech (computational power, RAM, cognitive computers, quantum computers, sensors, et al) the growth statistically predicted should give us computers equal to all human brains, before 2045. So while it's been slow, development will increase at a rapid pace.

RAMA

You're basing this assumption on Moore's law - processing power increases exponentially.

But you are ignoring Moore's second law - R&D costs also increase exponentially, in order to allow for processing power to increase exponentially.
You think the computer firms will continue to throw exponentially increasing amounts of money into R&D just to fulfill your vision?
Don't bet on it; markets most definitely don't increase exponentially (for these firms to still make a profit).

You also ignore the fact that technology doesn't just advance exponenetially wihout limit; it reaches its theoretical limit and that's where it plateaus. This happened several times until now. It will happen with computer tech - sooner, rather than later.
You think a given technology can advance exponentially ad infinitum?
Or that, in a given field, there are an infinite number of revelations/paradigm changes that will allow the tech in said field to follow an exponential curve for more than a relatively short period?
Good luck with this, RAMA.

 

[Deks]

Big whoop.
Moore's law works 'perfectly' with capitalism (in fact, it relies on it to the point where it was conceived with it in mind).
Throw money out of the equation and if technological progression was focused with a premise of implementing new materials and research in practice (within 2 years of said research into it) then you'd probably see an exponentially bigger development tech-wise - in fact, we have had the capacity to implement new technological solutions within 2 years of their initial discovery for decades.
New materials could have been used to create much more powerful/efficient computers at least a decade ago.

Current technological progression is severely limited with the prospect of 'money'.
Resources are not the issue here - there's more than enough to go around (even without recycling the mountains of trash all over the world).
'Cost' in terms of 'monetary expenditure' are our issues because companies look towards how to spend minimal amounts of money and make huge profits - hence why most of the time we see nothing more than mere 'revisions' in the market with actual innovation being rare and why a die-shrink of a cpu is touted as something 'huge' when it's a practical blimp in a development process (but large companies see far more profit in releasing these constant revisions until they 'dry it out for all it's worth' before they switch to something else - unless the technological sector or the public demands for changes, and boom- suddenly, you have computers with an exponentially higher power/efficiency ratio than predicted).

Batteries for example are in stagnation for decades.
While I will agree that things are 'speeding up' somewhat, given our history of not doing technological progression for the sake of everyone (instead it's done for profit), it will probably take a while before we see 'big' things happening.
Current technological progression/development/level is slow/low for our capabilities.