Future of Technology - Jan 2008 update

The Future of Technology

January 2008

Melanie SwanMS Futures Group

Palo Alto, CA415-505-4426

[email protected]//www.melanieswan.com

2 The Future of Technology

Summary

Growth paradigms are not just linear and exponential, most importantly they are discontinuous

The realm of technology is no longer discrete, technology is imbuing other areas with exponential and discontinuous change

Computation (hardware and software) outlook: Moore’s Law improvements likely to continue unabated in hardware; software faces challenges

Next fifty years: linear and exponential growth and possibly a discontinuous change with greater impact than the Internet

Image: Fausto de Martini


Paradigms of growth and change

Linear Economic, demographic, life span phenomena

Exponential Technology: processors, memory, storage,

communications, Facebook applications

Discontinuous Plane, car, radio, wars, radar, nuclear weapons,

satellites, computers, Internet, globalization Impossible to predict

• Evaluate rapid transition time and doubling capability• Cascading technology advances from adjacent areas

Exponential

Discontinuous

Linear


The future depends on which coming revolution occurs first

What will be the next Internet?

Artificial Intelligence

Molecular Nanotechnology

Anti-agingTherapies

Metaverse Technologies

Quantum Computing

Robotics

IntelligenceAugmentation

Personalized Medicine Affordable

Space Launch

Fabbing

Synthetic Biology


Evolution of computation

Future of computing New materials 3d circuits Quantum computing Molecular electronics Optical computing DNA computing

Electro-mechanical

Relay Vacuum tube

Transistor Integrated circuit

?

Source: Ray Kurzweil, http://www.KurzweilAI.net/pps/ACC2005/


Extensibility of Moore’s Law

Source: Ray Kurzweil, http://www.KurzweilAI.net/pps/ACC2005/

Transistors per microprocessorPenryn

45 nm, 410-800m transistors

Core 2 65 nm, 291m transistors


Current semiconductor advancements

Source: http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2007/01/a_look_inside_i.html

Standard Silicon Transistor

High-k + Metal Gate Transistor

Historical semiconductors 65nm+

Intel Penryn 45nm chip, shipping fall 2007

MetalGate

High-kInsulator

Silicon substrate

DrainDrain SourceSource

Silicon substrate

SiO2

Insulator


ITRS semiconductor roadmap leads the way

Source: http://download.intel.com/technology/silicon/Paolo_Semicon_West_071904.pdf

2009

32 nm 2009, 22 nm 2011, molecular manufacturing needed for 10 nm


Software remains challenging

Abstract, difficult to measure Doubling each 6-10 years Wirth’s law: “Software gets slower faster than

hardware gets faster”

Failure of large projects (FAA, CIA) 19 m programmers worldwide in 20101

Possible improvements Open source vs. proprietary systems Interoperability testing Standards, reusable modules Web 2.0 software for the enterprise Software to write software

1Source: http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P8481

Lady Ada Lovelace


Arms race for the future of intelligence

Machine Human Blue Gene/L 596 teraFLOPS (>596 trillion

IPS) and 74 TB memory1

Unlimited operational/build knowledge Quick upgrade cycles: performance

capability doubling every 18 months Linear, Von Neumann architecture Understands rigid language Special purpose problem solving (Deep

Blue, Chinook, ATMs, fraud detection) Metal chassis, easy to backup

An estimated 20,000 trillion IPS and 1,000 TB memory2

Limited operational/build knowledge Slow upgrade cycles: 10,000 year

evolutionary adaptations Massively parallel architecture Understands flexible, fuzzy language General purpose problem solving,

works fine in new situations Nucleotide chassis, no backup possible

1Source: Fastest Supercomputer, November 2007, http://www.top500.org/system/89682Source: http://paula.univ.gda.pl/~dokgrk/bre01.html


Artificial intelligence: current status

Approaches Symbolic, statistical, evolutionary algorithms, learning

algorithms, mechanistic, hybrid

Current initiatives Narrow AI: DARPA, corporate Strong AI: startups

Nearer-term applications Auditory, visual, transportation

Format Robotic Distributed Virtual Non-corporeal

DGC: Boss, 2007


Molecular nanotechnology

Definition 3D atomically precise placement

Scale Human hair: 80,000 nm Limit of human vision: 10,000 nm Virus: 50 nm, DNA: 2 nm Atom 0.1 nm

Tools Microscopy Mills, motors

Image sources: http://www.imm.org, http://www.rfreitas.com,http://www.foresight.org, http://www.e-drexler.org


Fabbing

Community fabs MIT Fab Labs Make, TechShop

Personal 3d printing Fab@Home, RepRap, Evil

Personal manufacturing Ponoko Fabjectory

Cornell Fab@Home

RepRap

Evil LabsFabjectory


Biotechnology

Biology: information science Genomics

DNA Sequencing DNA Synthesizing Variation: SNPs

Proteomics, other “-omics”

Sources: http://www.economist.com/background/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854314, http://www.molsci.org/%7Ercarlson/Carlson_Pace_and_Prolif.pdf

DNA SynthesizerVariation: SNP


Anti-aging and radical life extension

Aging is a pathology Immortality is not hubristic and unnatural

Aubrey de Grey: Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) Nucleic and mitochondrial mutations Intracellular and extracellular junk Cell loss and senescence Extracellular crosslinks

Solutions and escape velocity Mutation anti-suppressors Bioremediation Cell strengthening

Real age estimation tests0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1850 1900 1950 2000 2050

U.S. Life Expectancy, 1850 – 2050e83

7769

50

39

Research to repair and reverse the damage of aging

The Methuselah Foundation

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

Source: http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/population-health/variable-379.htmlhttp://www.realage.com http://gosset.wharton.upenn.edu/mortality/perl/CalcForm.html


Metaverse technologies

Demand for streaming video, data visualization, simulation and 3D data display

Detailed reality capture Augmented reality Blended reality Alternate reality Virtual worlds Virtual reality 2.0

Wild Divine NTT’s Aromatic Display

IBM’s Virtual NOC LAX Air Traffic Data 3D Stock Charts

Heads-up Display Data Overlay Blended Reality Conference

Google Earth GPS Life-logging rig


Affordable space launch

Government Regular missions New participants Spaceport development

Commercial Rocket launch Space elevator

Prizes NASA Centennial Challenges X Prize Foundation

China’s Chang’e-1

Space Elevator and Climber Competition

SpaceX

Spaceport America, NM

Google Lunar X Prize

Space-based Solar Power

Virgin Galactic


The future depends on which coming revolution occurs first

What will be the next Internet?

Artificial Intelligence

Molecular Nanotechnology

Anti-agingTherapies

Metaverse Technologies

Quantum Computing

Robotics

IntelligenceAugmentation

Personalized Medicine Affordable

Space Launch

Fabbing

Synthetic Biology


Summary

Growth paradigms are not just linear and exponential, most importantly they are discontinuous

The realm of technology is no longer discrete, technology is imbuing other areas with exponential and discontinuous change

Computation (hardware and software) outlook: Moore’s Law improvements likely to continue unabated in hardware; software faces challenges

Next fifty years: linear and exponential growth and possibly a discontinuous change with greater impact than the Internet

Thank you

Melanie SwanMS Futures Group

Palo Alto, CA415-505-4426

[email protected]//www.melanieswan.com

Slides: http//www.melanieswan.com/presentations

Provided under an open source Creative Commons 3.0 licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/