The importance of imagining the future
Nanotechnology will make space elevators viable in a few years
If you’re in technology and you don’t think about the future – like *all* the time – then something’s probably wrong with you. The future is coming at us fast. And I don’t mean that in the sense of the Sardarji who wasn’t worried about his 14 year prison sentence since, “Koi gal naieen, 14 saal tey do mintaa’n ich guzar jaan gey“. I mean it in the sense that innovation in many important and varied areas is unfolding at a far more rapid pace than ever before. You’ll understand this well if you’re up to speed with any of Ray Kurzweil‘s writings, are a Hans Moravec aficionado, an Eric Drexler fan, or even a student of the wider consequences of Moore’s law.
Many of the things that will exist in future will result from parallel technological paths merging to form unique devices, technologies and environments. For instance, nano applications in battery, CPU and screen technology, combined with a software mastery of vision and speech recognition, strung together with gesture based interfaces and large-format interactive displays. What does the fusion of these imminent developments look like?
I imagine the future all the time, and I often use my conclusions about the future to make decisions in the present. Is a new product in a particular area of technology worth funding and building? It’ll take us a year to get to a stable product and another year to get the word out, but due to expected enhancements in commercial off the shelf, stock technology, 24 months down the road there’ll likely be a standardized, cheap alternative. Why even bother? If software compression is going to be good enough in two years because 80 core Intel CPUs will be available, why even go down the path of creating a compression ASIC? The examples go on and on… but the point is, thinking about the future seriously and in a “deep” way is absolutely critical to effective decision making. And frankly, even to engendering a sense of balance in yourself about larger issues concerning life, the world and humanity. In fact, the reason why I believe Pakistan has already won the “battle” it’s been waging for the past 3 years and is now on an inalterable trajectory towards greatness – a revolutionary improvement in its development indicators, economy, technology and the standard of living of its people – has to do with how I see the future materializing… not based on gut, but rather on an analysis of dozens if not hunderds of well understood and well documented variables, each with their own trajectory, all moving together in synch, pointing to a future that is almost unavoidable.
But that’s another post. And it’ll have to be a multi-parter probably.
For now, I just want to share with you some “third-party” visions of the future. Take a look and be amazed, because this is all coming to pass. Soon. Don’t let it catch you by surprise!
Microsoft’s Vision 2019
Future landscapes, energy generation, robotics and more
Nokia’s Nanotech inspired future
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