Techno-Evolution

Technology is being developed at ever faster rates. Back in 1981 the first homecomputer was released - the ZX81 with just 1KB of memory. Then our future perception of technology had little to indicate mobile phones, internet, multi-media and realistic gaming. Yet now such technology is commonplace. It is possible 5-10 years in the future to have intelligent robots that approach human intelligence, machines that build smarter machines (Von Neumann plus) and virtual realities that are indistinguishable from the real world.

It is also possible in that timescale to have a planet on the verge of ecological collapse and yet lack the co-operation to repair it. It is also possible that techno-terrorism is rife and AIs may be used to destroy other AIs and humans just as humans can kill humans. If Moore's law continues then our technology would be everywhere at home, work and about but also inside us, monitoring everyone and interfacing with our lives and extracting money from us without us knowing about it (as is the state of future virus AI). Ever smaller and smarter.

Its not all doom and gloom. Think about mechanising the construction of orbital solar panels and mining of asteroids for raw materials. Also, there will be science fiction energy sources around the corner: nuclear fusion, zero point energy, higgs energy and other exotic and cleaner forms of energy production. Cloning a baby may cause simultaneous quantum neural pathways resulting in sharing of thoughts and memories (already likely in identical twins) and downloading a consciousness to computer form may eventually be feasable as would teleportation (even if it is downloading and uploading mind to and from remote holographic or cloned bodies).

It is possible that human beings could colonise the galaxy given enough time but the lack of alien contact is of concern. If no other aliens then either we are the first (unlikely), aliens are so unlike us in design and advancement (possible) or we are hoodwinked into this reality and the actual situation is far stranger and possibly more dangerous (though we may not necessarily be an alien lab experiment). It is interesting to think that the creator may have stamped a message within the cosmic microwave background. Unfortunately it will take us a lot more than a pair of glasses to read.