Innovation is exploding in nearly every field of technology, and the public has gotten so used to change that we barely notice announcements that would have made worldwide headlines a few decades ago. I remembre as a kid when Life Magazine had an issue largely dedicated to nylon and polymers and had the world talking about something that wouldn’t even get noticed today. People seem to accept miracle materials, gene splicing, and self-driving cars as normal technical advances. People now give DNA test kits as Christmas presents. Nobody blinks an eye when big data is used to profile and track us all. We accept cloud computing as just another computer technology. In our little broadband corner of the technology world, the general public has learned that fiber and gigabit speeds are the desired broadband technology.
What I find perhaps particularly interesting is that we don’t talk much about upcoming technologies that will completely change the world. A few technologies get talked to death such as 5G and self-driving cars. But technologists now understand that 5G is, in itself, not a disruptive technology – although it might unleash other disruptive technologies such as ubiquitous sensors throughout our environment. The idea of self-driving cars no longer seems disruptive since I can already achieve the same outcome by calling an Uber. The advent of self-driving semi trucks will be far more disruptive and will lower the cost of the nationwide supply chain when we use fleets of self-driving electric trucks.
I’ve always been intrigued about those who peer into the future and I read everything I can find about upcoming technologies. From the things I read there are a few truly disruptive technologies on the horizon. Consider the following innovations that aren’t too far in the future:
Talking to Computers. This will be the most important breakthrough in history in terms of the interface between humans and technology. In a few short generations, we’ve gone from typing on keyboards, to using a mouse, to using cellphones – but the end game will be talking directly to our computers using natural conversational language. We’ve already seen significant progress with natural language processing and are on a path to be able to converse with computers in the same way we communicate with other people. That will trigger a huge transition in society. Computers will fade into the background since we’ll have the full power of the cloud anywhere that we’re connected to the cloud. Today we get a tiny inkling by seeing how people use Apple Siri or Amazon Alexa – but these are rudimentary voice recognition systems. It’s nearly impossible to predict how mankind will react to having the full power of the web with us all of the time.
Space Elevator. In 2012 the Japanese announced a nationwide goal of building a space elevator by 2050. That goal has now been pulled forward to 2045. A space elevator will be transformational since it will free mankind from the confines of the planet earth. With a space elevator we can cheaply and safely move people and materials to and from space. We can drag up the raw materials needed to build huge space factories that can then take advantage of the mineral riches in the asteroid belt. From there we can colonize the moon and mars, build huge space cities and build spaceships to explore nearby stars. The cost of the space elevator is still estimated to only be around $90 billion, the same as the cost of the high-speed rail system between Osaka and Tokyo.
Alternate Energy. We are in the process of weaning mankind from fossil fuel energy sources. While there is a long way to go, several countries in Europe have the goal to be off carbon fuels within the coming decade. The EU already gets 30% of electricity from alternate energy sources. The big breakthrough might finally come from fusion power. This is something that has been 30 years away my whole adult life, but scientists at MIT and other places have developed the needed magnets that can contain the plasma necessary for a fusion reaction and some scientists are now predicting fusion power is now only 15 years away. Fusion power would supply unlimited non-polluting energy, which would transform the whole world, particularly the third world.
An argument can be made that there are other equally disruptive technologies on the horizon like artificial intelligence, robotics, gene-editing, virtual reality, battery storage, and big data processing. Nothing on the list would be as significant as a self-aware computer – but many scientists still think that’s likely to be far into the future. What we can be sure of is that breakthroughs in technology and science will continue to come at us rapidly from all directions. I wonder if the general public will even notice the mosts important breakthroughs or if change has gotten so ho hum that it’s just an expected part of life.
