Friday, December 03, 2004
The Future of America, Part 3
Bet you didn’t think I’d write a third part, did you? Oh wait, you don’t even care, because you didn’t read the first two. Scroll down, and read them. And don’t skip Patrick’s posts. Unless you’re in a time crunch, then I’ll forgive you. Well, in this third and perhaps final part of my series, I’m going to talk about the future of American (and world) technology.
Like it or not, the future of the world depends on the future of technology. Will we find clean, renewable, abundant energy? Will we venture out into space? Will we create sentient AI? I’m not going to be so naïve as to say all the world’s problems will be solved with technology, but technology changes the way humanity functions, and it’s these changes that will tell us where we’re headed.
Energy:
The USA uses up a ridiculous amount of energy. Now I don’t have specific numbers, but last I heard we use up a very disproportionate amount of the planet’s energy. Right now, the planet can survive our country, because there are countries like China and India, and continents like Africa, where the citizens are on a relatively break-even pace with energy. Whereas an American such as myself (techno-geek that I am) uses up a ridiculous amount. If other countries start developing and moving the US’s direction, can we possibly produce enough energy? And even if we could, would we be heating up the globe like crazy? It’s tough to say. Like I said in my doomsday post, we don’t know what global warming is doing. We’re burning up all the fossil fuels that have been stored in the planet for millions of years, and it’s probably doing something bad. And it’s not renewable. In terms of renewables, we’ve got limited options: natural gas, solar, wind, and perhaps hydroelectric. Out of these options, I think only solar is a viable option. Solar energy reflects how our planet works the best: Photons from the sun hit the planet and are released as heat.. If we could harness this energy, turn it into electric or possibly chemical energy, we’d basically be middle-men in the equation. Once we used the energy, it would be released into the atmosphere as heat. So from a simplistic perspective it’s the least harming and the most reasonable. However, solar power is not very efficient. Perhaps solar powered Stirling engines are the key, but until we have a breakthrough we’re still going to be holding a lot of progress back. I personally think wind energy is a farce; you can’t take that much energy out of the atmospheric currents and think you’re not totally changing the environment. You’re just substituting one unknown evil for another. I happen to think nuclear power still holds promise: it creates massive amounts of energy, is clean, and although it isn’t renewable, is still abundant. Of course, there’s the problem with nuclear waste disposal, but I think nuclear waste disposal is an easier problem than environmental reconstruction. And there’s the stigma of ‘nukular’ energy being bad and dangerous. Basically, the energy problem needs to be solved. I think this is one of these things that works itself out; either we’re going to run out of energy, or we’ll find something to produce it. Not a deal breaker, but time is definitely a concern--we can't advance technologically if we are being held back by energy quotas.
Artificial Intelligence/Robotics:
So I got my Master’s degree with a concentration in AI. I won’t even pretend to be an expert on it, though. I do feel qualified to tell you that we’re not even close to creating sentient computers. Some people think that it’s just a matter of creating more and more powerful computers. Well, to some degree I think that is true. At some point it would be possible to create a computer so powerful that you could simulate a human brain inside (assuming we knew exactly how the human brain worked).
I’d hope for a more elegant solution to the problem than that, but it does make sense that we’d try to emulate our own consciousness. And in that regard, the problem is almost more of a biological problem than a true tech problem.
Is creating AI inevitable too? Will this work itself out? I don’t know. In the long run, the technologist in me assumes that we will, because there will always be top people working on it. Will it happen sooner, or later? That, I really don’t know. We live in an age where a single breakthrough can cascade into a full-scale revolution. That said, I haven’t heard of any breakthroughs lately, so we’re probably at least 30 years away from an outside chance.
And AI is hugely important. I mentioned what it could mean for a communist society, but we do have to be wary of what happens when they do become sentient; will they be content with being our slaves? Will we keep them just a bit dumber than us? Can we keep them in line? I like to ask questions, if you haven’t noticed, but I don’t have the answers. As I said before, I think the change towards socialism needs to happen before the robotic revolution; but I think that's already the current trajectory of the US.
Medicine:
With gene research still at sky-high levels, stem cell research picking back up again (in California at least), and general technological advances, like synthetic materials being used for artificial hearts, replacement blood, joints, stents, sutures, etc; the medical future of the US looks good. Pharmaceutical companies may need to do a little restructuring over the next decade or so, but the medical industry looks promising from a technological perspective. Will we cure diseases like AIDS or cancer? It’s tough to say. There will probably always be viral threats like AIDS or SARS, or the flu, like I mentioned in my doomsday post. But we can make progress on purely genetic diseases, and with a few key breakthroughs in stem cell research, we can probably eliminate quite a few degenerative diseases as well.
Miscellaneous:
Space travel may seem a step closer, but interstellar space travel still seems a long way off, even farther than AI, perhaps even farther off than usable nanotechnology. So we’re probably not going to be colonizing planets or harvesting mars for its resources. At least not in the next 100 years. I won’t spend a lot of time talking about anything else in particular, but I guess I should mention the fact that there’s always a chance some crazy shit could happen and turn technology on its head. Like teleportation, or something even more unimaginable. Unlikely, but you never know. Lastly, I want to mention the fact that the US, being quite large and quite diverse, does have trouble moving quickly in the tech world. That’s why not everyone has an internet connection and why our cellular networks are spotty and yet redundant. It takes time for us to change and revamp our infrastructure, and that does put us at a disadvantage in that sense. Of course, there are also people who fear technology and are often paranoid about its new applications, so that doesn’t help speed things up either. It’s also not encouraging when the American public totally misunderstands science (45% believe in creationism!) and wants to keep the education system in the dark ages. But we’ll surivive.
So are we really in for a bright new future of the US? I think it’s clear, looking at our current status and the history of humankind, that we are. Of course, like marmar says, there’ll be speedbumps, but hopefully not any roadblocks. The take-home message: Your kids will be living in a new world; and it will be better.
Like it or not, the future of the world depends on the future of technology. Will we find clean, renewable, abundant energy? Will we venture out into space? Will we create sentient AI? I’m not going to be so naïve as to say all the world’s problems will be solved with technology, but technology changes the way humanity functions, and it’s these changes that will tell us where we’re headed.
Energy:
The USA uses up a ridiculous amount of energy. Now I don’t have specific numbers, but last I heard we use up a very disproportionate amount of the planet’s energy. Right now, the planet can survive our country, because there are countries like China and India, and continents like Africa, where the citizens are on a relatively break-even pace with energy. Whereas an American such as myself (techno-geek that I am) uses up a ridiculous amount. If other countries start developing and moving the US’s direction, can we possibly produce enough energy? And even if we could, would we be heating up the globe like crazy? It’s tough to say. Like I said in my doomsday post, we don’t know what global warming is doing. We’re burning up all the fossil fuels that have been stored in the planet for millions of years, and it’s probably doing something bad. And it’s not renewable. In terms of renewables, we’ve got limited options: natural gas, solar, wind, and perhaps hydroelectric. Out of these options, I think only solar is a viable option. Solar energy reflects how our planet works the best: Photons from the sun hit the planet and are released as heat.. If we could harness this energy, turn it into electric or possibly chemical energy, we’d basically be middle-men in the equation. Once we used the energy, it would be released into the atmosphere as heat. So from a simplistic perspective it’s the least harming and the most reasonable. However, solar power is not very efficient. Perhaps solar powered Stirling engines are the key, but until we have a breakthrough we’re still going to be holding a lot of progress back. I personally think wind energy is a farce; you can’t take that much energy out of the atmospheric currents and think you’re not totally changing the environment. You’re just substituting one unknown evil for another. I happen to think nuclear power still holds promise: it creates massive amounts of energy, is clean, and although it isn’t renewable, is still abundant. Of course, there’s the problem with nuclear waste disposal, but I think nuclear waste disposal is an easier problem than environmental reconstruction. And there’s the stigma of ‘nukular’ energy being bad and dangerous. Basically, the energy problem needs to be solved. I think this is one of these things that works itself out; either we’re going to run out of energy, or we’ll find something to produce it. Not a deal breaker, but time is definitely a concern--we can't advance technologically if we are being held back by energy quotas.
Artificial Intelligence/Robotics:
So I got my Master’s degree with a concentration in AI. I won’t even pretend to be an expert on it, though. I do feel qualified to tell you that we’re not even close to creating sentient computers. Some people think that it’s just a matter of creating more and more powerful computers. Well, to some degree I think that is true. At some point it would be possible to create a computer so powerful that you could simulate a human brain inside (assuming we knew exactly how the human brain worked).
I’d hope for a more elegant solution to the problem than that, but it does make sense that we’d try to emulate our own consciousness. And in that regard, the problem is almost more of a biological problem than a true tech problem.
Is creating AI inevitable too? Will this work itself out? I don’t know. In the long run, the technologist in me assumes that we will, because there will always be top people working on it. Will it happen sooner, or later? That, I really don’t know. We live in an age where a single breakthrough can cascade into a full-scale revolution. That said, I haven’t heard of any breakthroughs lately, so we’re probably at least 30 years away from an outside chance.
And AI is hugely important. I mentioned what it could mean for a communist society, but we do have to be wary of what happens when they do become sentient; will they be content with being our slaves? Will we keep them just a bit dumber than us? Can we keep them in line? I like to ask questions, if you haven’t noticed, but I don’t have the answers. As I said before, I think the change towards socialism needs to happen before the robotic revolution; but I think that's already the current trajectory of the US.
Medicine:
With gene research still at sky-high levels, stem cell research picking back up again (in California at least), and general technological advances, like synthetic materials being used for artificial hearts, replacement blood, joints, stents, sutures, etc; the medical future of the US looks good. Pharmaceutical companies may need to do a little restructuring over the next decade or so, but the medical industry looks promising from a technological perspective. Will we cure diseases like AIDS or cancer? It’s tough to say. There will probably always be viral threats like AIDS or SARS, or the flu, like I mentioned in my doomsday post. But we can make progress on purely genetic diseases, and with a few key breakthroughs in stem cell research, we can probably eliminate quite a few degenerative diseases as well.
Miscellaneous:
Space travel may seem a step closer, but interstellar space travel still seems a long way off, even farther than AI, perhaps even farther off than usable nanotechnology. So we’re probably not going to be colonizing planets or harvesting mars for its resources. At least not in the next 100 years. I won’t spend a lot of time talking about anything else in particular, but I guess I should mention the fact that there’s always a chance some crazy shit could happen and turn technology on its head. Like teleportation, or something even more unimaginable. Unlikely, but you never know. Lastly, I want to mention the fact that the US, being quite large and quite diverse, does have trouble moving quickly in the tech world. That’s why not everyone has an internet connection and why our cellular networks are spotty and yet redundant. It takes time for us to change and revamp our infrastructure, and that does put us at a disadvantage in that sense. Of course, there are also people who fear technology and are often paranoid about its new applications, so that doesn’t help speed things up either. It’s also not encouraging when the American public totally misunderstands science (45% believe in creationism!) and wants to keep the education system in the dark ages. But we’ll surivive.
So are we really in for a bright new future of the US? I think it’s clear, looking at our current status and the history of humankind, that we are. Of course, like marmar says, there’ll be speedbumps, but hopefully not any roadblocks. The take-home message: Your kids will be living in a new world; and it will be better.
# posted by Stuart @ 1:39 AM 
