Final Presentation: Science Fiction and Prediction

[As mentioned in some of my previous blog posts, my group's final presentation will be focused on science fiction and its ability to predict future technologies. My specific part of the presentation will focus on more recent predictions of technologies that are expected within the next century.]

Assuming that science fiction is, in fact, an accurate indicator of future technology (which we believe to be true, as supported by my group members, Chris and Rolland), what fun innovations should we expect to be seeing within the duration of our lifetimes? Here are a few examples of predictions, mostly taken from Trivia-Library, made by the likes of Brian Aldiss, James Blish, D.G. Compton, Hugo Gernsback, Joe Haldeman, Robert A. Heinlein, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells:

• Automatic clothes-making machines, which obtain the user's measurements and produce on the spot
• Gene therapy as preventive medicine
• Weather Control
• Temperature-controlled couches
• Moving conveyor roadways
  
• DNA repair/replacement
• Sound bombs
• Electromagnetic tube elevators, no cables
  
• Computers that translate 10 languages simultaneously
• Computers hook directly into students' minds for accelerated learning
• Suspended animation for extended spaceflight
  
• Human life-span predicting machine
• The cosmiflyer, a 6-in. cosmic power generator strapped to one's back, is used for short-distance aerial transit
• Sound waves employed to expand vegetable cells (and man's food supply) a thousand times over
• Thought recorders
• Nuclear satellite bombs
• Iridium wire spirals at street corners, change night into day
• Ultrahigh-frequency electronic baths to remove dirt and other foreign particles from the human body
• Underwater air guns using glass electric shells that shock their prey
• The "stasis field," a special kind of force field, renders all radiation, electricity, light, and magnetism inert (including the atom bomb) and makes conventional weapons obsolete
• Manipulation of matter at the atomic scale, combining elements to build custom molecules and providing the world with new materials and medicines
• Electronic glass pane air-conditioning units
• Wireless and synthesized 3D viewers, allowing individuals to interact and conduct business with people not really there (but seem to be)
• Anticrime devices, which render felons rigid and helpless for 15 minutes
• Amplifiers that will pick up sounds in a house 20 mi. away
• Individual force fields enable the adventurous to sleep nude in snowstorms
• Faster-than-light spaceships
• Laser weapons
• 3D tape recorders
  
• Total absorption of radar waves, a radar cloaking device
  
• Amputated limbs and damaged organs can be regrown from their stumps
• Transatlantic rocket flights and commercial rocket travel
• Permanent settlements on the moon
  

Exciting, is it not? While I expect that some of these concepts will take decades to become reality (weather control, commercial rocket travel, iridium wire spirals that turn night into day), several hardly seem unrealistic (automatic clothes-making machines, gene therapy, sound bombs, human life-span predicting machines). As suggested by the article "Where Has All the Sci-Fi Gone?", it's becoming more and more difficult for writers to make incredibly futuristic claims. Because information technology grows at an exponential rate (see video below - it's long, but informative), the more we advance, the harder it becomes for writers/futurists to keep pace. To add insult to their injury, we (the audience) have become accustomed to this accelerated rate of development, so the bar for shocking/impressing us has also risen. Despite these disadvantages, though, we still feel that science fiction is a legitimate tool for predicting future technologies for some time.


While there are certainly no shortage of predictions to explore, I find the most interesting area of future technology to be that of singularity...

According to Arthur C. Clarke, a famous science fiction author, inventor and futurist (whose works have foreshadowed technologies such as video phones, e-mail, space travel, laptops, and cloning), artificial intelligence will reach human levels by the year 2020, marking the existence of two intelligent species on earth - one biological, one non-biological. Another renowned inventor and futurist, Raymond Kurzweil, who has his own extensive list of predictions and was featured in the above video, estimates the following timeline (courtesy of Wikipedia):

• 2010 - Supercomputers will have the same power as human brains
• 2020 - Personal computers will have the same processing power as human brains
• 2030 - Mind uploading becomes possible - Nano-machines could be directly inserted into the brain and could interact with brain cells to totally control incoming and outgoing signals. As a result, truly full-immersion virtual reality could be generated without the need for any external equipment
• 2040 - Human body 3.0 comes into existence. It lacks a fixed, corporeal form and can alter its shape and external appearance at will via foglet-like nano-technology. Organs are also replaced by superior cybernetic implants.
• 2045 - The Singularity
• $1000 buys a computer a billion times more intelligent than every human combined. This means that average and even low-end computers are infinitely smarter than even highly intelligent, unenhanced humans.
• The Singularity occurs as artificial intelligences surpass human beings as the smartest and most capable life forms on the Earth. Technological development is taken over by the machines, who can think, act and communicate so quickly that normal humans cannot even comprehend what is going on. The machines enter into a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new generation of A.I.s appearing faster and faster. From this point onwards, technological advancement is explosive, under the control of the machines, and thus cannot be accurately predicted.
• The Singularity is an extremely disruptive, world-altering event that forever changes the course of human history. The extermination of humanity by violent machines is unlikely (though not impossible) because sharp distinctions between man and machine will no longer exist thanks to the existence of cybernetically enhanced humans and uploaded humans.
• Post-2045 - "Waking Up" the Universe
• The physical bottom limit to how small computer transistors can be shrunk is reached. From this moment onwards, computers can only be made more powerful if they are made larger in size.
• Because of this, A.I.s convert more and more of the Earth's matter into engineered, computational substrate capable of supporting more A.I.s. until the whole Earth is one, gigantic computer.
• At this point, the only possible way to increase the intelligence of the machines any farther is to begin converting all of the matter in the universe into similar massive computers. A.I.s radiate out into space in all directions from the Earth, breaking down whole planets, moons and meteoroids and reassembling them into giant computers. This, in effect, "wakes up" the universe as all the inanimate "dumb" matter (rocks, dust, gases, etc.) is converted into structured matter capable of supporting life (albeit synthetic life).
• Kurzweil predicts that machines might have the ability to make planet-sized computers by 2099, which underscores how enormously technology will advance after the Singularity.
• The process of "waking up" the universe could be complete as early as 2199, or might take billions of years depending on whether or not machines could figure out a way to circumvent the speed of light for the purposes of space travel.
• With the entire universe made into a giant, highly efficient supercomputer, A.I./human hybrids (so integrated that, in truth it is a new category of "life") would have both supreme intelligence and physical control over the universe. Kurzweil suggests that this would open up all sorts of new possibilities, including abrogation of the laws of Physics, interdimensional travel, and a possible infinite extension of existence (true immortality).

Pretty heavy stuff, right? And the scary part is that these futurists have exceptional track records when it comes to predicting future technologies. Could singularity really be just around the corner? And is this how the events following will unfold? Is this what we want? Do we even have the ability to change the outcome? Is it a matter of technological determinism or social constructivism?

I don't have the answers to these questions, but I do believe that these predictions are momentous (and probable) enough that we should be taking them seriously. These are technologies that may very well be irreversible. Once we cross the line of singularity, there could be no turning back. And before we cross the Rubicon, we should be prepared to face the consequences, which we might already be aware of, or then again maybe not.