Posted on 02/16/2014 11:26:26 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Dubai: At a conference in Dubai this week, an American futurist painted an intriguing, at times unsettling, picture of the coming world.
As Dr Peter Diamandis went over his presentation slides at The Government Summit on Tuesday, there were plenty of raised eyebrows.
In the future, the slides suggested, privacy will be a thing of the past, robots will take over our jobs, 3D printers will pop out everything from human organs to houses, and man will mine asteroids in deep space for unfathomable mineral wealth.
The 58-year-old said hyper-tech breakthroughs are already hurtling us towards that future, today.
“The world’s no longer changing every 100 years, it’s changing year by year,” he said on Tuesday.
“Right now the only constant is change, and change is moving at an increasing rate.”
Gulf News obtained a copy of the presentation by Dr Diamandis, the scientist CEO of XPRIZE, best known for its $10 million (around Dh36.7 million) Ansari XPRIZE for private space flight.
Dr Diamandis was addressing a Summit session titled ‘The World in 2050’. That world, he conjured, will have one overarching trait — abundance.
He has dwelled deeper on the subject in a New York Times bestseller – Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think – which he co-authored.
Tuesday’s slideshow summarised just how abundant abundance can get.
“We are growing to a world of more than one trillion sensors. We can know anything, anytime, anywhere. Privacy is ending… [or is it already] dead? This will drive significant changes in government and social systems,” the presentation said.
Highlighting a US media report, Dr Diamandis touched upon how American government experts are trying to build a supercomputer that could break security codes protecting records in virtually every industry or organisation, from banking to health care.
In fact, computers are now building computers that are smarter, faster, and smaller. Indications are, his presentation suggests, we will see by 2032 the first “infinite” data memory and processing technologies.
Subsequent generations will yield Artificial Intelligence (AI) machines.
“AI can already do most tasks better than humans. 50 per cent of service jobs could be lost in 10 years,” one slide said.
And that is a good thing, Dr Diamandis maintains. He believes AI will become our “best physicians, best teachers.
“They can think better than humans, they can translate and understand 85 languages… The whole world will have the answers to every question at anytime and anywhere.”
The CEO said iPhone’s interactive Siri feature is an example of AI today that people have warmed up to and found useful.
“Robots will enter every aspect of our daily life and we are not talking about ‘in 45 to 50 years.’ We are talking about now, they already exist now and they are being used now,” he said.
And powering the transformations will be creative individuals, not world superpowers or global corporations.
“Today’s ‘exponential entrepreneurs’ are more capable, past governments and large corporations.”
Dr Diamandis said we have already entered an era where change is unstoppable. His book explorers the impact of human ingenuity at length, and seems to bestow on technology a consciousness of its own.
“But the short version is that for the first time in history, our capabilities have begun to catch up to our ambitions,” reads an excerpt.
“Humanity is now entering a period of radical transformation in which technology has the potential to significantly raise the basic standards of living for every man, woman, and child on the planet… Abundance for all is actually within our grasp.”
I guess he doesn’t see flying cars just yet.
If there was ever going to be a signal for the imminent collapse of human civilization, this is it.
It's going to take someone to make all of the power to run those robots and 3-D printers.
It's going to take someone to service all of those robots and 3-D printers.
It's going to take someone to source, transport, and refined the resources used by those robots and 3-D printers.
And someone's still going to need to produce food and drink. And handle waste processing. And negotiate real estate (through barter, purchase, or lease agreement) to find room to live.
Then there are the matters of policing the violent, exploitive, and thieves in society.
The more things change, the more they will stay the same.
Ping!
Robot hamburger factory makes 360 Gourmet Burgers every hour...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3100817/posts
Been that way since the end of WWII. Governments have consistently thwarted it. I see no reason not to believe they will continue to do so...or worse!
The technological door of opportunity is huge. We just have to pry it open.
How big is the 3-D printer it takes to make that?
Progressives, socialists, communists, democrats..et.al. These people don’t want a world where every man has all that he needs.
How can they rule a population that needs nothing from government?
They will kick and scream all the way to the future.
They don’t really want cheap and clean power at low cost. They want global warming hysteria and a public made destitute trying to pay the fuel and electric bill.
Anything that makes men free and self sufficient is like garlic to a vampire for them.... they want everyone dependent upon government so they can be in control.
Democrats are really gonna hate the future.
I foresee infinite boredom. . . Man is meant to accomplish things and the vast majority are not cut out for creative work, sad to say. When work is gone, they will have to create make work jobs. . . or non-creative types will find something destructive to do.
Some of the lyrics from my screen name:
Prologue:
..’The massive grey walls of the Temples rise from the heart of every Federation city. I
Have always been awed by them, to think that every single facet of every life is regulated
And directed from within! Our books, our music, our work and play are all looked after by
The benevolent wisdom of the priests...’
**********
We’ve taken care of everything
The words you hear, the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes
It’s one for all and all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or why
We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls
We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx
All the gifts of life are held within our walls
And someone to design the AI’s and make the computers they run on . . .
Electronics introduced a world where we would use significantly less paper than ever before.
Yet, over the last 30 years and at this point today, the world consumes 50% more paper than we imagined we would.
At that so called apogee of utilization of trees, 4 trees were felled, today nearly 6 trees are destroyed.
We will consume 10% more paper than we today in just the next decade.
Fix that Mr. TED intellect.
Howard Mumford Jones
Print tens of thousands of these.
“It’s going to take someone to make all of the power to run those robots and 3-D printers.
It’s going to take someone to service all of those robots and 3-D printers.
It’s going to take someone to source, transport, and refined the resources used by those robots and 3-D printers.”
Without potent new energy sources, there will be no future. The last 40 years in the US alone has seen no congruent, consistent and rational energy policy. How will asteroids and the like be mined and the goods transported? Who/Which nation will claim ownership of said asteroids?
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