| by | Ray Kurzweil |
Published on Edge
on January 2007. Reprinted with permission.
Optimism exists on a continuum in between confidence and hope.
Let me take these in order.
I am confident that the acceleration and expanding purview of information
technology will solve within twenty years the problems that now
preoccupy us.
Consider energy. We are awash in energy (10,000 times more than
required to meet all our needs falls on Earth) but we are not very
good at capturing it. That will change with the full nanotechnology-based
assembly of macro objects at the nano scale, controlled by massively
parallel information processes, which will be feasible within twenty
years. Even though our energy needs are projected to triple within
that time, we'll capture that .0003 of the sunlight needed to meet
our energy needs with no use of fossil fuels, using extremely inexpensive,
highly efficient, lightweight, nano-engineered solar panels, and
we'll store the energy in highly distributed (and therefore safe)
nanotechnology-based fuel cells. Solar power is now providing 1
part in 1,000 of our needs, but that percentage is doubling every
two years, which means multiplying by 1,000 in twenty years.
Almost all the discussions I've seen about energy and its consequences
(such as global warming) fail to consider the ability of future
nanotechnology-based solutions to solve this problem. This development
will be motivated not just by concern for the environment but also
by the $2 trillion we spend annually on energy. This is already
a major area of venture funding.
Consider health. As of just recently, we have the tools to reprogram
biology. This is also at an early stage but is progressing through
the same exponential growth of information technology, which we
see in every aspect of biological progress. The amount of genetic
data we have sequenced has doubled every year, and the price per
base pair has come down commensurately. The first genome cost a
billion dollars. The National Institutes of Health is now starting
a project to collect a million genomes at $1,000 apiece. We can
turn genes off with RNA interference, add new genes (to adults)
with new reliable forms of gene therapy, and turn on and off proteins
and enzymes at critical stages of disease progression. We are gaining
the means to model, simulate, and reprogram disease and aging processes
as information processes. In ten years, these technologies will
be 1,000 times more powerful than they are today, and it will be
a very different world, in terms of our ability to turn off disease
and aging.
Consider prosperity. The 50-percent deflation rate inherent in
information technology and its growing purview is causing the decline
of poverty. The poverty rate in Asia, according to the World Bank,
declined by 50 percent over the past ten years due to information
technology and will decline at current rates by 90 percent in the
next ten years. All areas of the world are affected, including Africa,
which is now undergoing a rapid invasion of the Internet. Even sub-Saharan
Africa has had an average annual 5 percent economic growth rate
in the last few years.
OK, so what am I optimistic (but not necessarily confident) about?
All of these technologies have existential downsides. We are already
living with enough thermonuclear weapons to destroy all mammalian
life on this planet-weapons that are still on a hair-trigger. Remember
these? They're still there, and they represent an existential threat.
We have a new existential threat, which is the ability of a destructively
minded group or individual to reprogram a biological virus to be
more deadly, more communicable, or (most daunting of all) more stealthy
(that is, having a longer incubation period, so that the early spread
is undetected). The good news is that we have the tools to set up
a rapid-response system like the one we have for software viruses.
It took us five years to sequence HIV, but we can now sequence a
virus in a day or two. RNA interference can turn viruses off, since
viruses are genes, albeit pathological ones. Sun Microsystems founder
Bill Joy and I have proposed setting up a rapid-response system
that could detect a new virus, sequence it, design an RNAi (RNA-mediated
interference) medication, or a safe antigen-based vaccine, and gear
up production in a matter of days. The methods exist, but as yet
a working rapid-response system does not. We need to put one in
place quickly.
So I'm optimistic that we will make it through without suffering
an existential catastrophe. It would be helpful if we gave the two
aforementioned existential threats a higher priority.
And, finally, what am I hopeful, but not necessarily optimistic,
about?
Who would have thought right after September 11, 2001, that we
would go five years without another destructive incident at that
or greater scale? That seemed unlikely at the time, but despite
all the subsequent turmoil in the world, it has happened. I am hopeful
that this respite will continue.
© Ray Kurzweil 2007
If you liked this article by Ray Kurzweil, I recommend you watch this remarkable 23-minute video of Ray's presentation at the TED conference in Feb. 2005. I did and it's had a deep impact on my personal framework for thinking about our emerging future.
How technology's accelerating power will transform us
~ ronjon
The whole thing is professionally very well done, the author exuding confidence in his formulation, clear, vivid, perfect, that I could follow his English pronunciation. It is also quite optimistic which is good. But I think it is a bit outdated now, coming almost after three years, particularly when there is the exponential growth in technology, things falling on a straight line in a semi-log representation. Has that growth rate being sustained during these three years? And there are other aspects too. We have been hearing a good deal of nanotechnology as the panacea for several problems of ours, but it is also breeding suspicion. As an example, let me draw the attention to the following, a report from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1221261620071114?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews
Unknown health impact of nanotech worries some
Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:48pm EST By Amanda Beck
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Nanotechnology has been hailed as the science of the future, with micro-particles already powering innovations that remove lines from faces, strengthen beer bottles and clean clothing without water.
Yet early studies also indicate some of these particles, enabled by the latest in engineering science, can cause cancer.
“We should recognize that there will be mistakes, and there will be hazards,” said Professor Harry Kroto, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of a nanoparticle called the Buckminsterfullerene. “On the other had, there's a possibility that the value of nanotechnology will be overwhelming. For me, it is the science of the 21st century.”
Nanotechnology is the science of creating and working with materials about one nanometer wide, or one-billionth of a meter. A human hair, by contrast, is about 80,000 nanometers across.
Scientists say working with these particles holds the promise of building miniature machines atom by atom, just as every living thing begins with one cell.
“The big deal here is that we're domesticating atoms. We're trying to make the basic building blocks of our world do our bidding,” said Patrick Lin, director of the Nanoethics Group at California Polytechnic State University.
Some scientists are already using nanotechnology to add small particles of silver, long-known as an antibacterial, to razors, food-storage containers, and “anti-fungal” socks.
Others are exploiting unusual properties that appear at the nano-scale. In the laboratory, for example, normal carbon atoms can be fixed into tube-like shapes, called nanotubes, which are 100 times stronger than steel and only one-sixth its weight. Such tampering can bring new lighter power to a golf club.
The Human Impact
The problem is that these particles may be harmful to the human body, and scientists say it will be years before they fully understand their effects. Nanoparticles are small enough to slip unnoticed through a cell membrane but large enough to carry foreign material between strands of DNA.
There are no long-term health studies on the issue, but researchers have seen brain cancer develop in fish that ingest a small number of carbon nanoparticles. Rats that inhale carbon nanotubes have lung problems similar to those caused by asbestos.
“There's no reason to think that all of these things are going to be harmful,” said John Balbus, chief health scientist at Environmental Defense, a public policy group. “But we should be prudent because of their ability to get into the body and access parts of it that normal chemicals don't.”
Federal funding for nanotechnology research has tripled since 2001, but environmental groups complain that regulations have not kept pace.
“We're calling on government to invest more money in health, safety, and environmental research so that we can make sure these products are safe,” said Ian Illuminato, health and environment campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
The Food and Drug Administration announced in July that drugs, cosmetics, or other products manufactured with nanotechnology do not require special regulations or labeling because it said there was no scientific evidence they pose any major safety risks.
Some companies are taking their own steps however.
This year, materials company DuPont agreed to a system — developed with Environmental Defense — for evaluating whether to proceed with projects involving nanoparticles.
Terry Medley, the DuPont lead on the project, described the step as “not only common sense but also good business.”
(Editing by Adam Tanner and Eric Beech)
RYD