Downloaded 3,250 times
Uploaded byMelanie Swan
Future Of Technology
The document discusses future technological advancements, emphasizing that growth and change can occur in linear, exponential, and discontinuous paradigms. It highlights the ongoing improvements in hardware under Moore's Law while noting challenges in software development. The potential for significant future innovations, such as artificial intelligence, molecular nanotechnology, and personal medicine, could lead to changes more impactful than the internet.
More Related Content
Future Of Technology
- 1. The Future ofTechnology Melanie Swan Futurist MS Futures Group Palo Alto, CA 650-681-9482 m@melanieswan.com http//www.melanieswan.com Christine Peterson Vice President and Founder Foresight Nanotech Institute Menlo Park, CA 650-289-0860 peterson@foresight.org http://www.foresight.org Liana Holmberg and Tess Chu OS Wrangler & IP Gadfly and Developer Linden Lab San Francisco, CA 415-243-9000 liana@lindenlab.com tess@lindenlab.com http//www.lindenlab.com
- 2. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 2 Summary We think about growth and change in linear, exponential and discontinuous paradigms, history is a chain of discontinuities The realm of technology is no longer discrete, technology is imbuing traditional linear phenomena with exponential and discontinuous change Computation (hardware and software) overview: Moore’s Law improvements will likely continue unabated in hardware; software however is stuck Not only will there be linear and exponential growth in the next 50 years but probably also discontinuous change, possibly a change with greater impact than the Internet in our (current) lifetimes
- 3. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 3 Paradigms of growth and change Linear Economic, demographic, biological phenomena Exponential Technology: processors, memory, storage, communications, Internet communities Discontinuous Plane, car, radio, wars, radar, nuclear weapons, satellites, computers, Internet, globalization Impossible to predict • Evaluate rapid transition time and doubling capability • Market mechanisms Exponential Discontinuous Linear
- 4. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 4 The future depends on which coming revolution occurs first What will be the next Internet? Artificial Intelligence Molecular Nanotechnology Anti-agingVirtual Reality 2.0 Quantum Computing Robotics Intelligence Augmentation Personal Medicine Affordable Space LaunchFab Labs
- 5. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 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 ofTechnology October 2007 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 ofTechnology October 2007 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 ofTechnology October 2007 8 Semiconductor industry roadmap visibility Source: http://download.intel.com/technology/silicon/Paolo_Semicon_West_071904.pdf 2007 32 nm in 2008, 22 nm in 2010 Molecular manufacturing needed for 10 nm
- 9. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 9 Software remains challenging Abstract, difficult to measure Doubling each 6-10 years Wirth’s law: “Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster” Large complex projects (FAA, CIA) failure 19 m programmers worldwide in 20101 Solutions? Distributed ecologies of software programmers Open source vs. proprietary systems Standards, reusable modules Web-based software • Aggregating collective intelligence (tagging, RSS, presence), community platforms as the back end (FB, LinkedIn, MySpace) Software that programs software 1 Source: http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P8481 Lady Ada Lovelace
- 10. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 10 Arms race for the future of intelligence Machine Human Blue Gene/L 360 teraFLOPS (≈.36+ trillion IPS) and 32 TiB memory1 Unlimited operational/build knowledge Quick upgrade cycles: performance capability doubling every 18 months Linear, Von Neumann architecture Understands rigid language Special purpose solving (Deep Blue, Chinook, ATMs, fraud detection) Metal chassis, easy to backup Estimated 2,000 trillion IPS and 1000 TB memory2 Limited operational/build knowledge Slow upgrade cycles: 10,000 yr 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, June 2007, http://www.top500.org/system/7747 2 Source: http://paula.univ.gda.pl/~dokgrk/bre01.html
- 11. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 11 Artificial intelligence: current status Approaches Symbolic, statistical, learning algorithms, physical/mechanistic, hybrid Current initiatives and funding Narrow AI: DARPA, corporate Strong AI: startup efforts Near-term applications Auditory: speech recognition Visual: security camera (crowbar/gift) Physical: buildings and transportation Format Robotic (Roomba, mower, vehicles) Distributed physical presence Non-corporeal Kismet Stanley
- 12. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 12 Molecular nanotechnology Definition: not work at the nano scale or with atoms in 2D but 3D molecular placement in atomically correct structures Scale Human hair: 80,000 nm Limit of human vision: 10,000 nm Virus: 50 nm, DNA: 2 nm Microscopy tools Sources: http://www.imm.org, http://www.foresight.org, http://www.e-drexler.org, http://www.rfreitas.com
- 13. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 13 Personal fab labs and 3D printing Community fabs, o/s designs MIT Fab Labs Make, TechShop (Menlo Park) 3d printing Fab@Home, RepRap, Evil Personal manufacturing Ponoko (platform) Fabjectory http://reprap.org http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about MIT Fab Labs 3D printed plastic avatars http://www.fabathome.org Fab@Home RepRap Evil Labs http://www.evilmadscientist.com/
- 14. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 14 Biotechnology, hacking biology Biology: an information science Genomics, proteomics, metabolomics Faster than Moore’s Law Sequencing and synthesizing X Prize for Genomics • $10M to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days Personalized medicine RNAi, protein folding Cure vs. enhancement Sources: http://www.economist.com/background/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854314, http://www.molsci.org/%7Ercarlson/Carlson_Pace_and_Prolif.pdf
- 15. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 15 Anti-aging, life extension and immortality Aging is a pathology Immortality is not hubristic and unnatural Aubrey de Grey Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) and escape velocity 1. Cancer-causing nuclear mutations 2. Mitochondrial mutations 3. Intracellular junk 4. Extracellular junk 5. Cell loss 6. Cell senescence 7. Extracellular crosslinks Life expectancy test http://gosset.wharton.upenn.edu/mortality/perl/CalcForm.html 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 http://www.methuselahmouse.org/ 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
- 16. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 16 Human body 2.0, 3.0 Redesign: the digestive system is rebuilt Auto-nourishment via clothing Nanobots go in and out of the skin cycling nutrients and waste Digestive system and blood based nanobots supply precise nutrients Eating becomes like sex, no biological impact, just for fun Redesign: the heart is optional Obsolete organs, heart, lungs, blood; nanobots delivering oxygen to the cells, don’t require liquid-based medium Two systems left Upper esophagus, mouth and brain Skin, muscle, skeleton and their parts of the nervous system Sources: Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near, http://lifeboat.com/ex/human.body.version.2.0
- 17. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 17 Virtual worlds, 3D and simulation Increasing demand for streaming video, data visualization and 3D data display: learning, work and play Simulation and augmented reality Increasingly detailed capture of reality Geospatialization: Google Earth, Nasa World Wind Life capture, life logging Virtual worlds explosion MMORPG video games and interactive worlds Participants: enterprise, education, government Activities: interacting, collaborating, prototyping Virtual reality 2.0: biofeedback, touch, taste, smell Wild Divine
- 18. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 18 Affordable space launch Commercial payload launch Space elevator Sub-orbital human flight Spaceport development Extra-orbital robotic missions International participation Agency partnership Prizes stimulate development Peggy Whitson Pam Melroy
- 19. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 19 The future depends on which coming revolution occurs first What will be the next Internet? Artificial Intelligence Molecular Nanotechnology Anti-agingVirtual Reality 2.0 Quantum Computing Robotics Intelligence Augmentation Personal Medicine Affordable Space LaunchFab Labs
- 20. The Future ofTechnology October 2007 20 Summary We think about growth and change in linear, exponential and discontinuous paradigms, history is a chain of discontinuities The realm of technology is no longer discrete, technology is imbuing traditional linear phenomena with exponential and discontinuous change Computation (hardware and software) overview: Moore’s Law improvements will likely continue unabated in hardware; software however is stuck Not only will there be linear and exponential growth in the next 50 years but probably also discontinuous change, possibly a change with greater impact than the Internet in our (current) lifetimes
- 21. Thank you Melanie Swan Futurist MSFutures Group Palo Alto, CA m@melanieswan.com http//www.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/
- 22. The Future ofTechnology Melanie Swan Futurist MS Futures Group Palo Alto, CA 650-681-9482 m@melanieswan.com http//www.melanieswan.com Christine Peterson Vice President and Founder Foresight Nanotech Institute Menlo Park, CA 650-289-0860 peterson@foresight.org http://www.foresight.org Liana Holmberg and Tess Chu OS Wrangler & IP Gadfly and Developer Linden Lab San Francisco, CA 415-243-9000 liana@lindenlab.com tess@lindenlab.com http//www.lindenlab.com
Editor's Notes
- #2 51, 51, 153
- #3 Moore’s Law improvements will likely continue unabated in hardware, even with substrate changes
- #4 How the Internet has changed everything example: Efficiency – economics shifting – more resource allocation by market mechanism than by pecking order Tech & comms = exponential/acc chg – for ex: Internet traffic in a new exponentiation with video traffic – YouTube = 7% Comcast traffic
- #5 The next mainstream Challenge b/c we can see several possible discontinuities but right now it is hard to predict which will occur first… Also whatever revolution happens first changes a) everything and b) the path to further discontinuities including obviation Convergence Perhaps at no time have we had so many possible coming revolutions – Catch 22 tautology – by definition discontinuous change cannot be predicted, so perhaps the next Internet-like revolution will not be one of these things at all, or maybe it will be some part of these areas that we aren’t able to think about now, ex: at some point cars/computers were predicted, but not for mass everyday use – quantum computing now seems like a gov’t encryption preserve – we aren’t thinking of the wristwatch model or human embedded possibilities VR: phermones, culture and communication occurs at increasing levels of abstraction: desktop/files; 100 IM windows, video gaming, VR worlds, younger generations find less need for true physical presence Nanomedicine – several diseases involve molecular damage inside the cell, such as from free radicals and radiation. Osteoporosis involves calcium loss from bones and is likely treatable by placing chemical and electrical props at the right places in the body Nanotech (molecular mfg atomically correct from bottom up) Nano – pathways biotech, high precision machining, chemical synthesis Many imply a substantial shift in economics: robotics, AI, nano-mfg
- #6 Whatever the next Internet or coming revolutions are going to be, they are going to be computation-dependent Next, let’s look at an overview of the current status of computation - HW and SW since this is driving realization of all other technology Information Technologies (of all kinds) double their power (price performance, capacity, bandwidth) each 1-2 years Do we need the exponentially growing hw power? Yes MRO mars reconnaissance orbiter sends back more than 1 TB / week, hi res photos, more than most planetary missions in whole life Visualization Zillionics (kevin kelly) massive info avail; changing science previously hypoth: measurement, now tons of meas. ST: persistence of ICs with new materials, molecular mfg and 3d circuits LT: quantum computers, Analog Quantum computers introduction in 2007 from Dwave Systems. In ten years, possibly quantum computers with multiple thousands to millions of qubits. QC: lots of govt and corporate sponsored research, conferences, papers, activity, early commercialization – ROADMAP
- #7 Managing Moore’s Law limitations: Penryn definition changes, 3D molecular ICs; 9/18/07 – Moore says only 10 years left…implicit: in current paradigm
- #8 Otellini: http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3700336 Gate closed is 0, current doesn’t flow through Intel’s move to 45nm process technology for its Core microarchitecture Penryn, made possible with the use of high-k and metal transistors "the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s." The new breakthrough involves the use of hafnium, an unstable silvery metallic element chemically related to zirconium. It is currently used mostly for control rods in nuclear reactors. Hafnium is far denser than silicon and can be etched to even greater degrees of precision, meaning chips can be made still more dense and more powerful.
- #9 Trend: graphics built onto the chip, not separately, enables the gaming and 3d simulation and virtual worlds Nehalem, which will succeed Intel's Core microprocessor architecture, will have up to eight cores and each core will be able to process two threads simultaneously, giving each processor the capacity to process up to 16 threads at the same time. http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3700336 Looking even farther down the road, Otellini said Intel will begin production using 32-nanometer process technology in 2009. He proudly showed attendees what he called the world's first 32-nanometer product, a 291-megabit array die with more than 1.9 billion transistors. "This gives us the confidence to build a mainstream microprocessor in two years on this technology," he said, adding that 32-nanometer products will be designed using the second generation of its high-k metal gate transistor technology which replaces silicon dioxide with hafnium as an insulator to produce faster and more energy-efficient chips.
- #10 For a seemingly advanced society, we have not been doing a good job on SW Diversity of claims regarding improvement Large project failure No reusable modules (like building and construction industry) Open source ability to maintain and extend dominance over proprietary standards Ada Lovelace is popularly credited as history's first programmer. She was the first to express an algorithm intended for implementation on a computer, Charles Babbage’s analytical engine, in Oct 1842
- #11 A SW PROB: Need qqch re: the internal mechanism building new concepts, new machinery and new skills to create new understanding AI/human will be equivalent; transfer our software from meat-based processor to more capacious hardware Some assumptions in the calcs; also since not 100% human brain focused on any task, only need 1/1000 the capacity to simulate which we do have Important point is that the HW is not there yet; SW lagging even farther behind but with another few cycles could have adequate simulation power Most think ~2015; ccortex The 360-teraFLOPS machine handles many challenging scientific simulations, including ab initio molecular dynamics; three-dimensional (3D) dislocation dynamics; and turbulence, shock, and instability phenomena in hydrodynamics. It is also a computational science research machine for evaluating advanced computer architectures. Will we have intelligent machines that can solve any problem or will we hack the brain to improve human intell; prob combo both
- #12 intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximizes its chances of success Applications: pattern recognition, robotics Problems: the lack of raw computer power, the intractable combinatorial explosion of algorithms, the difficulty of representing commonsense knowledge and doing commonsense reasoning, the incredible difficulty of perception and motion and the failings of logic.
- #13 Definition: not conducting work at nanoscale or even 2d atom placing, 3d molecular/atomic specific placement from the bottom up; manipulating atoms as we do bits Water bridge: http://www.physorg.com/news110191847.html Manipulating atoms as we do bits: Discrete entities handled rapidly with digital control to reliably form new patterns Molecule, Atom? Atomic precision about one angstrom, 1/10 nm Molecular mill: www.e-drexler.com/p/04/04/0512molMills.html
- #14 Lots of plastic 3-d printing at the moment Public health improves or degrades? Consumerism increases/decreases; matter as entertainment; period decorations and events; SL b/c RL Regulation re: production of weapons, disease, genetic material, etc.
- #15 Personalized medicine is the use of detailed information about a patient's genotype or level of gene expression and a patient's clinical data in order to select a medication, therapy or preventative measure that is particularly suited to that patient Hall: Patching up/fixing genetic deficiency vs. augmentation, the same thing depending on where you are on the scale of human variation; Intelligence, ‘beauty’/symmetry, height; Susceptibility to sunburn; Oxygen in cells: anemic vs. super-athletic capability. Enhancement rationale matters? (e.g.; help Mt. Everest rescue workers (respirocytes) vs. beauty (vanity) Digital People: from Bionic humans to androids by Sidney Perkowitz 2004 - 10%? Americans are augmented w. non-biological machinery embedded – terminology: cyborg/robosapien (scary) or pacemaker, diabetic pump, hip replacement, corneal implant, hearing aid, cochlear implant, prosthetic limbs, etc. Augmenting intelligence-it’s a wonder what paper & pencil will do for multiplying 10 digit numbers
- #16 Human life is arbitrarily limited at present
- #17 bioMEMS blood-borne devices that deliver hormones such as insulin have been demonstrated in animals Dr. Ron Kahn, Joslin Diabetes Center, id the fat insulin receptor (FIR) gene – controls accumulation of fat by the fat cells
- #18 Increasing demand for data display visually and in 3D, already seen in ubiquity of streaming video 3rd annual American Cancer Society Relay For Life - $90,000 raised – 40 teams Video games (9m World of Warcraft players), Second Life (9 million residents 40,000 concurrency, $1m daily economy) Science 2.0 – simulation replaces experiment, hypothesis post-facto BCI – brain computer interface with SL; headpiece with electrodes sensing motor cortex movement; think about walking Geospatialization of data, Google earth KML, nasa world view, VIS demand; aug reality Virtual reality 2.0: more immersive, incorporating biofeedback, touch, taste, smell
- #19 Spaceport America (near Las Cruces NM, 2008-2010 construction), UAE Earth is just an 8000 mi wide space ship with 10,000 feet of life support; get out of diapers and colonize other parts of spaces X Prize Foundation announcing automotive prize in early 2008; clean fuel car that can reach 100 mpg Elevator climbing (power beaming) & tether strength competition– used to have the cranes for tether climbing at the air show, but 400 foot crane not a good idea… Virgin Galactic has sold 100 of its $200,000 sub-orbital flight slots NASA says they spend $6,000 per pound but other estimates suggest real cost is $20,000-$35,000/pound, needs to be about $500/pound NASA Centennial Challenges
- #20 The next mainstream Challenge b/c we can see several possible discontinuities but right now it is hard to predict which will occur first… Also whatever revolution happens first changes a) everything and b) the path to further discontinuities including obviation Convergence Perhaps at no time have we had so many possible coming revolutions – Catch 22 tautology – by definition discontinuous change cannot be predicted, so perhaps the next Internet-like revolution will not be one of these things at all, or maybe it will be some part of these areas that we aren’t able to think about now, ex: at some point cars/computers were predicted, but not for mass everyday use – quantum computing now seems like a gov’t encryption preserve – we aren’t thinking of the wristwatch model or human embedded possibilities VR: phermpnes, culture and communication occurs at increasing levels of abstraction: desktop/files; 100 IM windows, video gaming, VR worlds, younger generations find less need for true physical presence Nanomedicine – several diseases involve molecular damage inside the cell, such as from free radicals and radiation. Osteoporosis involves calcium loss from bones and is likely treatable by placing chemical and electrical props at the right places in the body Nanotech (molecular mfg atomically correct from bottom up) Nano – pathways biotech, high precision machining, chemical synthesis Many imply a substantial shift in economics: robotics, AI, nano-mfg
- #21 Moore’s Law improvements will likely continue unabated in hardware, even with substrate changes
- #23 51, 51, 153