Charlie Strauss: in 2027, the year of human life will fit on a flash drive
Science fiction writer Charlie Strauss was invited to a technology conference organized by TNG Technology Consulting in Munich. There he gave a lecture on technological development in the next 10-25 years. This lecture contains a number of interesting thoughts. The full text is available in English, and we publish some interesting pieces.
Information
In the 1950s, everyone tended to discuss the future from the point of view of vehicle acceleration. But, as we know now, the main changes did not occur there, but in the field of automation of computing devices. Now the progress of computing devices from the side looks exactly the same as vehicle technology looked like in the 1930s - everything is accelerating, tomorrow everything will be faster than today. Progress continues long enough to get into the mass consciousness. Just as in the 1920s, boys wanted to grow up and become train drivers, then pilots, and now they want to become programmers.
All this does not make sense. Because computers and microprocessors are not the future. This is yesterday's future, and tomorrow we will talk about something else.
Bandwidth
Increased throughput is similar to advances in vehicle technology and in the information industry. The capacity of communication channels has been growing exponentially since the 18th century. That it is the catalyst that accelerates the progress of computing devices. Now in Europe we have more mobile phones than people, and each phone is a small computer, and the next generation of 4G communications will provide speeds of up to 100 Mbit / s. The massive use of such technologies will clearly lead to social consequences, which are not easily foreseen, even if the technologies themselves are known.
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Random effects
It usually takes at least one generation for the social consequences of the massive use of new technology to become apparent. Even now we have not yet figured out the consequences of car ownership and continue to rebuild the surrounding landscape and build the infrastructure for a new technological tool, fearing the consequences for the environment, which are still unclear. However, motorization had social consequences. It is because of her that children now rarely live with their parents or near work. Such unexpected consequences carry a mobile connection, and we are just now beginning to understand how sometimes some social phenomena change unpredictably under the influence of mobile phones.
Convergence
It is even more difficult to predict the consequences of the second order, when new technologies begin to merge with each other. On the example of a mobile phone, we see that now it is no longer just a voice terminal, but a much more functional device.
Putting it all together
Let's look at the endpoint where the IT revolution will lead us - look as far as possible without taking into account possible breakthroughs and new technologies, such as cheap quantum computing, pocket-sized cold fusion reactors and artificial intelligence. So, you can extrapolate for 25-50 years ahead.
First, the storage of data. What container can I buy, say, for ten euros? Now you can buy a flash drive for 1 GB, and in twenty years it will be about 100 terabytes.
One hundred terabytes is an interesting figure. This is megabits per second of the year - about 10 million seconds per year. This is enough to record a DivX video stream containing absolutely everything I saw during the year, including in my sleep and in the bathroom. Three or four video channels can be added to the sync, as well as telemetry: heart rhythm, GPS information, all digital documents that appeared on the monitor screen, and all texts that were read and written, all spoken and heard sounds. Everything is constantly recorded on a miniature microcircuit for ten euros per year and is synchronized with friends via Twitter. This is a collective live blogging in real time.
Naturally, all the spoken sounds and the texts seen should be automatically recognized and indexed for subsequent full-text search.
Perhaps, in the future, the constant maintenance of such a blog will even be a mandatory requirement of the authorities, as they now require the presence of surveillance cameras. For example, in the UK without such a camera you can not open a store.
Rethought singularity
If we proceed from the theory that as a result of the singularity, Artificial Intelligence may appear, superior to human intelligence, then it is obvious that we cannot predict the consequences of his actions. Although, there are theories that the singularity is unattainable even with the appearance of AI. That is, it means that there is a theoretical limit to scientific and technical progress.
Conclusion
There will be many changes in the future, most of which are completely unpredictable. Some things can be predicted, but the situation still remains incomprehensible. For example, it is clear that GPS navigation devices will be built into all mobile devices, and every citizen will have a mobile phone that will work anywhere in the habitable space. In such a world, the concept of “lost” will disappear. This is a fundamental concept of human psychology, which has led to the development of hominids since our ancestors descended from African trees. What happens if it disappears? How will this affect individual psychology and the existence of groups? Completely incomprehensible. This is unpredictable.
We can also lose the concept of privacy. In the future, people just may not understand what it means. They also will not be able to understand what oblivion is, how to forget something. Imagine all the information that you and your ancestors received, all that you have seen and heard in your entire life, is available at the touch of a button. Our descendants who grow up in such a culture and such a civilization will be completely alien to us, because we will be for them people living in the "dark age" before the beginning of history. Neanderthals, who hid their lives and from which there is nothing left but a miserable handful of files.
Information
In the 1950s, everyone tended to discuss the future from the point of view of vehicle acceleration. But, as we know now, the main changes did not occur there, but in the field of automation of computing devices. Now the progress of computing devices from the side looks exactly the same as vehicle technology looked like in the 1930s - everything is accelerating, tomorrow everything will be faster than today. Progress continues long enough to get into the mass consciousness. Just as in the 1920s, boys wanted to grow up and become train drivers, then pilots, and now they want to become programmers.
All this does not make sense. Because computers and microprocessors are not the future. This is yesterday's future, and tomorrow we will talk about something else.
Bandwidth
Increased throughput is similar to advances in vehicle technology and in the information industry. The capacity of communication channels has been growing exponentially since the 18th century. That it is the catalyst that accelerates the progress of computing devices. Now in Europe we have more mobile phones than people, and each phone is a small computer, and the next generation of 4G communications will provide speeds of up to 100 Mbit / s. The massive use of such technologies will clearly lead to social consequences, which are not easily foreseen, even if the technologies themselves are known.
')
Random effects
It usually takes at least one generation for the social consequences of the massive use of new technology to become apparent. Even now we have not yet figured out the consequences of car ownership and continue to rebuild the surrounding landscape and build the infrastructure for a new technological tool, fearing the consequences for the environment, which are still unclear. However, motorization had social consequences. It is because of her that children now rarely live with their parents or near work. Such unexpected consequences carry a mobile connection, and we are just now beginning to understand how sometimes some social phenomena change unpredictably under the influence of mobile phones.
Convergence
It is even more difficult to predict the consequences of the second order, when new technologies begin to merge with each other. On the example of a mobile phone, we see that now it is no longer just a voice terminal, but a much more functional device.
Putting it all together
Let's look at the endpoint where the IT revolution will lead us - look as far as possible without taking into account possible breakthroughs and new technologies, such as cheap quantum computing, pocket-sized cold fusion reactors and artificial intelligence. So, you can extrapolate for 25-50 years ahead.
First, the storage of data. What container can I buy, say, for ten euros? Now you can buy a flash drive for 1 GB, and in twenty years it will be about 100 terabytes.
One hundred terabytes is an interesting figure. This is megabits per second of the year - about 10 million seconds per year. This is enough to record a DivX video stream containing absolutely everything I saw during the year, including in my sleep and in the bathroom. Three or four video channels can be added to the sync, as well as telemetry: heart rhythm, GPS information, all digital documents that appeared on the monitor screen, and all texts that were read and written, all spoken and heard sounds. Everything is constantly recorded on a miniature microcircuit for ten euros per year and is synchronized with friends via Twitter. This is a collective live blogging in real time.
Naturally, all the spoken sounds and the texts seen should be automatically recognized and indexed for subsequent full-text search.
Perhaps, in the future, the constant maintenance of such a blog will even be a mandatory requirement of the authorities, as they now require the presence of surveillance cameras. For example, in the UK without such a camera you can not open a store.
Rethought singularity
If we proceed from the theory that as a result of the singularity, Artificial Intelligence may appear, superior to human intelligence, then it is obvious that we cannot predict the consequences of his actions. Although, there are theories that the singularity is unattainable even with the appearance of AI. That is, it means that there is a theoretical limit to scientific and technical progress.
Conclusion
There will be many changes in the future, most of which are completely unpredictable. Some things can be predicted, but the situation still remains incomprehensible. For example, it is clear that GPS navigation devices will be built into all mobile devices, and every citizen will have a mobile phone that will work anywhere in the habitable space. In such a world, the concept of “lost” will disappear. This is a fundamental concept of human psychology, which has led to the development of hominids since our ancestors descended from African trees. What happens if it disappears? How will this affect individual psychology and the existence of groups? Completely incomprehensible. This is unpredictable.
We can also lose the concept of privacy. In the future, people just may not understand what it means. They also will not be able to understand what oblivion is, how to forget something. Imagine all the information that you and your ancestors received, all that you have seen and heard in your entire life, is available at the touch of a button. Our descendants who grow up in such a culture and such a civilization will be completely alien to us, because we will be for them people living in the "dark age" before the beginning of history. Neanderthals, who hid their lives and from which there is nothing left but a miserable handful of files.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/31036/
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