1. The Future of Technology
January 2008
Melanie Swan
MS Futures Group
melanieswan.com

2. The Future of Technology
2
Summary
 Growth paradigms are not just linear and
exponential, most importantly they are
discontinuous
 The realm of technology is no longer discrete, technology is
imbuing other areas with exponential and discontinuous change
 Computation (hardware and software) outlook: Moore’s Law
improvements likely to continue unabated in hardware; software
faces challenges
 Next fifty years: linear and exponential growth and possibly a
discontinuous change with greater impact than the Internet
Image: Fausto de Martini

3. The Future of Technology
3
Paradigms of growth and change
 Linear
 Economic, demographic, life span phenomena
 Exponential
 Technology: processors, memory, storage,
communications, Facebook applications
 Discontinuous
 Plane, car, radio, wars, radar, nuclear weapons,
satellites, computers, Internet, globalization
 Impossible to predict
• Evaluate rapid transition time and doubling capability
• Cascading technology advances from adjacent areas
Exponential
Discontinuous
Linear

4. The Future of Technology
4
 The future depends on which coming revolution
occurs first
What will be the next Internet?
Artificial
Intelligence
Molecular
Nanotechnology
Anti-aging
Therapies
Metaverse
Technologies
Quantum
Computing
Robotics
Intelligence
Augmentation
Personalized
Medicine
Affordable
Space Launch
Fabbing
Synthetic
Biology

5. The Future of Technology
5
Evolution of computation
Future of computing
 New materials
 3d circuits
 Quantum computing
 Molecular electronics
 Optical computing
 DNA computing
Electro-
mechanical
Relay Vacuum
tube
Transistor Integrated
circuit
?
Source: Ray Kurzweil, http://www.KurzweilAI.net/pps/ACC2005/

6. The Future of Technology
6
Extensibility of Moore’s Law
Source: Ray Kurzweil, http://www.KurzweilAI.net/pps/ACC2005/
Transistors per microprocessor
Penryn
45 nm, 410-800m transistors
Core 2
65 nm, 291m transistors

7. The Future of Technology
7
Current semiconductor advancements
Source: http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2007/01/a_look_inside_i.html
Standard Silicon
Transistor
High-k + Metal Gate
Transistor
Historical semiconductors
65nm+
Intel Penryn 45nm chip,
shipping fall 2007
Metal
Gate
High-k
Insulator
Silicon substrate
DrainDrain SourceSource
Silicon substrate
SiO2
Insulator

8. The Future of Technology
8
ITRS semiconductor roadmap leads the way
Source: http://download.intel.com/technology/silicon/Paolo_Semicon_West_071904.pdf
2009
 32 nm 2009, 22 nm 2011, molecular manufacturing needed for 10 nm

9. The Future of Technology
9
Software remains challenging
 Abstract, difficult to measure
 Doubling each 6-10 years
 Wirth’s law: “Software gets slower faster than
hardware gets faster”
 Failure of large projects (FAA, CIA)
 19 m programmers worldwide in 20101
 Possible improvements
 Open source vs. proprietary systems
 Interoperability testing
 Standards, reusable modules
 Web 2.0 software for the enterprise
 Software to write software
1
Source: http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P8481
Lady Ada
Lovelace

10. The Future of Technology
10
Arms race for the future of intelligence
Machine Human
 Blue Gene/L 596 teraFLOPS (>596 trillion
IPS) and 74 TB memory1
 Unlimited operational/build knowledge
 Quick upgrade cycles: performance
capability doubling every 18 months
 Linear, Von Neumann architecture
 Understands rigid language
 Special purpose problem solving (Deep
Blue, Chinook, ATMs, fraud detection)
 Metal chassis, easy to backup
 An estimated 20,000 trillion IPS and
1,000 TB memory2
 Limited operational/build knowledge
 Slow upgrade cycles: 10,000 year
evolutionary adaptations
 Massively parallel architecture
 Understands flexible, fuzzy language
 General purpose problem solving,
works fine in new situations
 Nucleotide chassis, no backup possible
1
Source: Fastest Supercomputer, November 2007, http://www.top500.org/system/8968
2
Source: http://paula.univ.gda.pl/~dokgrk/bre01.html

11. The Future of Technology
11
Artificial intelligence: current status
 Approaches
 Symbolic, statistical, evolutionary algorithms, learning
algorithms, mechanistic, hybrid
 Current initiatives
 Narrow AI: DARPA, corporate
 Strong AI: startups
 Nearer-term applications
 Auditory, visual, transportation
 Format
 Robotic
 Distributed
 Virtual
 Non-corporeal
DGC: Boss, 2007

12. The Future of Technology
12
Molecular nanotechnology
 Definition
 3D atomically precise placement
 Scale
 Human hair: 80,000 nm
 Limit of human vision: 10,000 nm
 Virus: 50 nm, DNA: 2 nm
 Atom 0.1 nm
 Tools
 Microscopy
 Mills, motors
Image sources: http://www.imm.org, http://www.rfreitas.com,
http://www.foresight.org, http://www.e-drexler.org

13. The Future of Technology
13
Fabbing
 Community fabs
 MIT Fab Labs
 Make, TechShop
 Personal 3d printing
 Fab@Home, RepRap, Evil
 Personal manufacturing
 Ponoko
 Fabjectory
Cornell Fab@Home
RepRap
Evil LabsFabjectory

14. The Future of Technology
14
Biotechnology
 Biology: information science
 Genomics
 DNA Sequencing
 DNA Synthesizing
 Variation: SNPs
 Proteomics, other “-omics”
Sources: http://www.economist.com/background/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854314,
http://www.molsci.org/%7Ercarlson/Carlson_Pace_and_Prolif.pdf
DNA SynthesizerVariation: SNP

15. The Future of Technology
15
Anti-aging and radical life extension
 Aging is a pathology
 Immortality is not hubristic and unnatural
 Aubrey de Grey: Strategies for Engineered
Negligible Senescence (SENS)
 Nucleic and mitochondrial mutations
 Intracellular and extracellular junk
 Cell loss and senescence
 Extracellular crosslinks
 Solutions and escape velocity
 Mutation anti-suppressors
 Bioremediation
 Cell strengthening
 Real age estimation tests
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
U.S. Life Expectancy, 1850 – 2050e
83
77
69
50
39
Research to repair and
reverse the damage of aging
The Methuselah Foundation
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html
Source: http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/population-health/variable-379.html
http://www.realage.com
http://gosset.wharton.upenn.edu/mortality/perl/CalcForm.html

16. The Future of Technology
16
Metaverse technologies
 Demand for streaming video, data visualization, simulation
and 3D data display
 Detailed reality capture
 Augmented reality
 Blended reality
 Alternate reality
 Virtual worlds
 Virtual reality 2.0
Wild Divine NTT’s Aromatic Display
IBM’s Virtual NOC LAX Air Traffic Data 3D Stock Charts
Heads-up Display Data Overlay Blended Reality Conference
Google Earth GPS Life-logging rig

17. The Future of Technology
17
Affordable space launch
 Government
 Regular missions
 New participants
 Spaceport development
 Commercial
 Rocket launch
 Space elevator
 Prizes
 NASA Centennial Challenges
 X Prize Foundation
China’s Chang’e-1
Space Elevator and Climber Competition
SpaceX
Spaceport America, NM
Google Lunar X Prize
Space-based Solar Power
Virgin Galactic

18. The Future of Technology
18
 The future depends on which coming revolution
occurs first
What will be the next Internet?
Artificial
Intelligence
Molecular
Nanotechnology
Anti-aging
Therapies
Metaverse
Technologies
Quantum
Computing
Robotics
Intelligence
Augmentation
Personalized
Medicine
Affordable
Space Launch
Fabbing
Synthetic
Biology

19. The Future of Technology
19
Summary
 Growth paradigms are not just linear and
exponential, most importantly they are
discontinuous
 The realm of technology is no longer discrete, technology is
imbuing other areas with exponential and discontinuous change
 Computation (hardware and software) outlook: Moore’s Law
improvements likely to continue unabated in hardware; software
faces challenges
 Next fifty years: linear and exponential growth and possibly a
discontinuous change with greater impact than the Internet

20. Thank you
Melanie Swan
MS Futures Group
melanieswan.com
Slides: http//www.melanieswan.com/presentations
Provided under an open source Creative Commons 3.0 license
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/