The Future

As technology progresses more and more rapidly, several key developments will determine how we move into the future. These are a few of the technologies that I think will drive innovation and expand our horizons in the next 20-50 years.

1. Nanotech.

The creation of tiny machines has advanced exponentially in the past 10 years. In the near future, I can see this picking up even more speed. These tiny robots will be able to enhance our immune system, find and repair damage in both machines and people, and even recombine materials at the atomic level to instantly create an object from a stored image of it's molecular structure. Once it reaches this point, stores as we know them will become completely obsolete and everything will become instantly available to anyone. This will probably represent the single greatest shift in the way our society functions of all time.

2. Artificial IntelligenceDespite our recent achievements in the realm of A.I., we're still a long way from the kind of thing we've seen in movies. What is currently known as A.I. is typically just an illusion of intelligence as a program reacts to inputs and determines a response based on pre-programmed code that prioritizes goals from an existing list. These A.I.s are usually designed to exist within a specific environment and the illusion is destroyed as soon as they are removed from it. Once we break through and create a program that can learn the same way a human does, a whole range of developments will emerge as a result; ranging from more intelligent software that learns and grows over time to androids that can perform dangerous or unwanted tasks instead of people.

3. Connectivity

The internet is only the beginning. As it develops, the world will become increasingly connected. Knowledge will become more accessible and shared freely. As our understanding of the human mind develops, it may even become possible to add memories and knowledge to our minds directly from another source, resulting in a widespread and instantaneous burst in global productivity and innovation. When everyone knows everything, anything is possible and probable.






The downside is that any one of these developments, or one of a hundred more,
could potentially throw our society into chaos and result in a massive collapse of government and economy. This looming danger is why all of these technologies will undoubtedly take much longer to arrive than otherwise, as multiple failsafes and other protective measures are put into place. Only time will tell what the outcome is going to be.