This document discusses several emerging technologies that could potentially be weaponized and become weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) between 2010-2075. These include smart dust, smart clothing, smart bacteria, gel computing, conscious botnets, information waves, optical brain computers, and a solar wind deflection gun. The document warns that advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science could enable new types of extremism, terrorism and pose catastrophic risks if not developed and applied carefully and ethically. Overall the document presents a vision of rapidly advancing future technologies and their potential for both benefit and misuse unless precautions are taken to guide their development responsibly.

1. Dr Ian Pearson
Technology for mad scientists

2. 1950-2050: Ongoing IT miniaturisation
getting more out of less
And it isn’t
over yet!!!

3. 2010: Electronic jewellery
Social status
Medical Networking
monitoring,
alarms
Digital image
augmentation
Communication, Any
data distribution
form Digital bubble
Sensing Location/navigation
Mobile
website Identification, Tribal signalling
security

4. 2011: Surveillance-free nets
Direct inter-device networking using extremely short
range radio or IR will become an alternative internet
Perfect for illicit file-sharing and terrorist coordination

5. 2012: Espionage
35nm tech means 200M transistors/mm2.
Small specks of smart dust can be concealed anywhere
e.g. sand or dirt, passed on by handshake, or dust settling from the air,
in food, seeds, gravel or in clothes, stick to shoes
Use ants to carry food with embedded bugs into caves
Coins or banknotes could be used to hide devices to monitor and
locate miscreants
Exploding smart coins could detonate themselves on hearing certain
keywords in certain locations
Ant: 10mm Apple 2 computers: 0.015mm

6. 2015: Smart yarns
•Clothing can already be made using yarns with various
electronic properties, e.g. touch sensitive
•Optical fibres can be used as microphones – develop this
further to make microphone yarns
•If fabrics incorporating smart yarns (mix of microphone,
storage and transmission) are infiltrated into
manufacturing/distribution, then enemy will sometimes
unknowingly buy smart clothes
•Can then easily monitor enemy

7. 2025: Smart bacteria WMD
Uses for AI, enslavement or terraforming. Exist in both real and virtual world.
Custom
DNA
Molecular circuitry
1 micron assembled by cell
Bacteria linked together via infrared, to make complex self organising circuits.
Could be present in air or on any surface. Could breathe them in. Security is
almost impossible if bacteria are used because they can get almost anywhere.
Could be used as a WMD by blanket attack on corporate security

8. Display evolution
2015
2010
2005
No-one can see you are even wearing an active
lens, and certainly not what you are seeing.

9. 2015-2020: Active lens
laser
focusing
retina
Processing Laser
micromirror Laser
Micromirror Inductive
power
lasers supply
Comm
Gaze s & ctrl
Diamond
direction Laser substrate
sensor
 Resolution ultimately only limited by the eye
 Allows natural distance perception
 Ideal for augmented reality & field instructions
 Could also be used to capture images/video

10. 2015-2020: Active skin
Wearable layer
Detachable layer
Transfer layer
Epidermis
Mid-term layer
Permanent layer Skin
Dermis
Skin-based electronics can link blood
chemistry and nerve signals to
external computers and systems
10

11. 2020: Wireless skin capsules
for super-soldiers
Antenna
Antenna for comms to external systems
Higher layer device LED Rx
Higher layer device Higher layer device
LED Rx Comms electronics
comms
Data
Storage
Sensor
Battery Processing
Sensor
Large number of capsules linked together, making
very sophisticated capability in an invisible form.
Could greatly improve reaction time and sensitivity

12. 2020: Adding extra senses and
sensory enhancement
Magnetic field
Radiation (EM or nuclear)
Magnetic field
Audio
External sensors
Temperature
Sensory Video
Wearable sensors Location Input translation Output
unit Heat or vibration
Proximity
Detachable sensors
Sound Pain or pleasure
Implanted sensors
Chemical or
microbiological presence Alarms
Telemetry
Data Monitors
Logs
Pollutants
Control
systems
Messaging

13. LED Rx
2017: Gel computing comms
Single core Storage
Processing Sensor
Power
Dual core Sensing
Self-organisation used with
D AI-controlled evolution to
Quad core i build circuit/function Sensor
g libraries and eventually
i strong AI
48 core
t
a
l
Digital &
Massively multiple Analog
core-multiple chip
Large number of capsules suspended in gel using
free-space comms to link up to form ad-hoc circuitry

14. NBIC Convergence
(nano-bio-info-cogno)
Nanotech gives Biotech and IT advances
us tiny devices make body and machine
connectable
Tiny sensors help
neuroscience figure
out how the mind
works
Insights from Improving machine
neuroscience feed into intelligence
machine intelligence accelerates R&D in
every sphere

15. 2010: Information waves - WMD
30µs 90µs 120µs Hijack millions of machines
Experiment with network
resonance to map network
properties
155µs 200µs 320µs Synchronised huge number of
calls to cause network overload
Wave of calls can reach very
high magnitude and vanish all in
a millisecond
380µs 440µs 800µs Network likely to crash
repeatedly! And trash economy
Precision targeting possible
Infinite class of correlated traffic
Computer power and data rates high attacks possible
compared to speed of signals

16. 2012-2015: Conscious botnets WMD
Games machines and phones have high processing power and lots of sensor
capability, but low security. Good platform for decryption engines and network
resonance attacks.
Students might attempt to realise consciousness networks just for fun, but it
could get out of hand. Aggregated power compares well with brain so even an
extremely inefficient algorithm might still be feasible.
Others might attempt to do so deliberately with varying motivation
As analog processing devices start to make an impact, danger will increase fast
Would cause great damage to networks as the AI attempts to survive

17. 2017-2020: OB1 - optical brain mk1
Ultra-smart conscious computer, & WMD
1 trillion neurons in 100ml gel
1 billion times more powerful than brain, with up to
2 million emotions & unlimited senses
Could be fully sentient
Gel Could be benign or malicious
Can be linked to other devices via the net
Optical ‘hormone’
playback Sensory stimulus
Sensory
echo Internal sensing Neural
response
Neural interference sensory neural vortex
processing vortex encoding generation

18. 2026: Smart yogurt: Self-organising
smart bacteria, WMD x 2
Can use chemical gradients to self-organise components
into very complex structures
Smart bacteria could use cloud computing to re-design
their offspring, thereby adapting to any environment,
destroying all life and terraforming Earth
Smart bacteria could control minds of people infected,
enslaving them and making them into zombies

19. AI evolution 2015-2075
 AIs will have their own
cultures and civilisation that
will cross fertilise with ours
 Sims will get much smarter!
 Some may become nasty
 Some AIs will migrate from
cyberspace into the real world
 Some people might move into
cyberspace – retirement or
suicide? The Sims, EA Games
 Cyberspace fauna and flora

20. Avoiding the Terminator scenario
V
If we create smarter-than-man machines, we risk extinction.
Even if they are not malign, we may end up in the same
bargaining position as ants on a building site.
If we can enhance or link human brain to the same level of
intelligence, then such a capability gap will not occur.
We need a good brain-machine link before we can safely make
smarter-than-man machines

21. IQ and sensory enhancement
(and the pursuit of electronic immortality)
Risk of zombie WMD
Billions of tiny sensors linked to every Billions of smart bacteria with synthetic
synapse, signalling activity to external neurons replicating behaviour of every
replica and able to recreate signals individual neuron but able to run at much
generated by external replica higher speeds and with connectivity to
net and other brains.

22. The Borg, 2075-2200
A global environment linking together
all the minds of people and
sentient machines in a global
consciousness
Shared consciousness & awareness
Medium
Shared personalities
Link nervous systems together
Body sharing
Fuzzy boundaries between people

23. Human-machine Convergence
homo erectus
homo sapiens homo sapiens ludditus
Homo
habilis homo
homo sapiens optimus
neanderthalensis
homo homo hybridus
cyberneticus
homo
machinus
robotus robotus Gaia
primus multitudinus sapiens
Sims sapiens
Bacteria sapiens
- 1.5M years - 125,000 years Today 50 years 150 years
- 750,000 years - 40,000 years 100 years

24. Solar wind deflector gun - WMD
Ionospheric lens Solar storm
Ionospheric mirror
City
100GW concentrated on 1km2 = Laser heating
100kW/m2, destroying it quickly of small region

25. Summary of new WMDs
Decryption engines using games consoles and phones used
to wreck security across economy
Information waves and network resonance attacks
Conscious botnets
Smart bacteria used to invalidate security across economy
Destruction of all life via adaptive smart bacteria
Grey goo terraforming via smart bacteria
Enslavement of people via smart bacteria - zombies
Gel computing based strong AI terminator scenario
Evolution of The Borg
Solar wind deflection gun

26. What about the singularity?
(critical level positive feedback in technology development)
Invention curve can
Tech level go almost vertical Implementation
rate is limited
Exponent increases rapidly
as tech improves,
especially as AI kicks in
Normal tech progress
0
2000 2020 2040

27. Increasing danger from technology
Probability of
extinction-
level event per
year ETA for tech-enabled extinction is
2085
1%
Via Pandemics, NBIC accidents or
weapons, AI, climatic instability, or
0.5% 100s of variants
1M BC 1950 today 2050
Perhaps we don’t see aliens because they all wipe themselves out within 300 years of discovering radio!

28. Thank you
idpearson@gmail.com
www.futurizon.com