11 reasons to be excited about the future of technology

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Celebrated investor and entrepreneur Chris Dixon has written an insightful text about technologies that will soon change the life of humanity for the better. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with his opinion and arguments in this regard.

The rapid development and widespread diffusion of technology is the most powerful force driving human progress.

The Economist

In 1820, the average human life span was 35 years Max Roser. …, 94% Max Roser. … of the world population lived in deep poverty and less than 20% were literate. Today people live more than 70 years on average, less than 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of the world's population is considered literate. The OECD. … …

We owe these improvements mainly to the technological development that began in the industrial age and continues now in the information age.

Many exciting new technologies will continue to transform the world and improve the quality of human life. Here are 11 of them.

1. Unmanned vehicles

Self-driving cars that exist today outperform traditional ones in most road conditions. Over the next 3-5 years, they will become even more reliable and truly popular.

According to estimates by WHO. … World Health Organization, as a result of road accidents, 1.25 million people die every year.

Half of them are pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists hit by cars. Automobiles are considered the leading cause of death for people aged 15-29.

In the same way that traditional cars changed the world in the 20th century, their unmanned counterparts will transform reality in the current century. Most cities have 20-30% Charlie Gardner. … the territory is occupied by parking spaces, and most of the cars are idle 95% of the time. Self-driving cars will almost always be used (they can be called using mobile applications), which will reduce the need for parking.

Cars will exchange data with each other to avoid accidents and traffic jams. And former drivers will be able to spend their time on the road at work, education, communication and other matters.

2. Environmentally friendly forms of energy

Attempts to reduce energy consumption to halt climate change have been unsuccessful. Fortunately, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are working hard to make clean energy convenient and cost effective.

Due to the constant improvement of technologies and manufacturing approaches, since 1977 the price of solar panels has dropped by 99.5% SaskWind. … …

Solar energy will soon surpass fossil fuels in economic efficiency. The cost of wind power has also dropped to historic lows. And, for example, in the last decade, this resource was more than a third of all energy generated by new plants in the United States.

Forward-thinking organizations take advantage of clean energy sources. For example, India has an initiative to equip airports with solar panels. Tesla develops high-performance and relatively affordable electric vehicles and installs charging stations around the world.

Some facts give hope that the development of the clean energy field is approaching a tipping point. For example, in Japan, the number of power stations for charging cars already exceeds the number of traditional gas stations. And Germany produces more renewable energy than it can spend.

3. Virtual and augmented reality

Computers have only recently become powerful enough to provide comfortable and compelling experiences with virtual and augmented reality. Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and others are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, user-friendly, and accessible.

Contrary to popular belief, these developments will be used not only for games. They will find application in a wide variety of areas of activity. For example, we will manage 3D objects of interfaces and see remote interlocutors in augmented reality. And virtual reality is already helping to treat phobias and paralyzed people.

Science fiction fans have dreamed of VR and AR for decades. The coming years will turn their dreams into ubiquitous reality.

4. Flying cars and drones

Roads? Where we go, roads are not needed.

Dr. Emmett Brown film "Back to the Future"

GPS started out as a military technology, but now it is used to call taxis, get directions and hunt Pokémon. The history of drones began in exactly the same way, and now they are used in a long list of consumer and commercial tasks.

For example, drones help inspect disaster sites and critical infrastructure such as power lines and bridges. With their help, poachers are calculated. Amazon and Google are developing drones for delivering parcels. Startup Zipline is using drones to provide medical supplies to villages far from the roads.

Among the new wave of startups, there are also those working on flying cars. Among them is Larry Page. Flying cars use the same advanced technologies as drones, but with the expectation of transporting people.

Thanks to breakthroughs in materials, batteries and software, such machines will be much more affordable and convenient than modern airplanes and helicopters.

5. Artificial intelligence

It must be another hundred years before a computer can beat a human at Go, if not more.

New York Times 1997

Google's computer program crushed the go board game champion.

New York Times 2016

New algorithms, the growing power of computers and fast data collection have dramatically improved artificial intelligence over the past 10 years. AI can be applied in almost any field. For example, he gives photographs features that are characteristic of the styles of famous artists. And Google is using artificial intelligence to manage the power supply of its data centers. This way the company saves hundreds of millions of dollars.

AI is expected to free us from the same type of intellectual tasks, in the same way that the industrial revolution freed people from routine physical work.

If artificial intelligence teaches people to play chess better, then it can help us become better pilots, doctors, judges and teachers.

Kevin Kelly futurist

Some people worry that AI will take their jobs. As history shows, technology does make professions unnecessary, but at the same time creates new jobs. For example, the invention of the personal computer reduced the need for typographers, but more than offset the demand for graphic designers.

It is much easier to imagine professions doomed to disappear than those that will appear in the future. Today, millions of people work as app developers, ridesharing service drivers, drone operators and SMM managers. Ten years ago, these professions did not exist, it was difficult even to imagine them.

6. Publicly available mobile supercomputers

By 2020, 80% of the world's adult population will have smartphones connected to the Internet. The iPhone 6 contains 2 billion transistors, approximately 625 times the size of a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Smartphones today are what are considered to be supercomputers.

Internet-connected smartphones provide ordinary people with opportunities that were only recently available to a select few.

Now the Maasai warrior from Kenya with a mobile phone in his hands has more opportunities for communication than the president of the same country 25 years ago. And if his smartphone has access to Google, then this person has more information at his disposal than the President of the United States had just 15 years ago.

Peter Diamandis engineer and entrepreneur

7. Cryptocurrency and blockchain

If in 1989 people were asked what could make their life better, they would hardly be talking about a decentralized network of information nodes connected by hypertext.

Farmer & farmer

Protocols are the pipeline of the internet. Most of them were created by the government and scientific communities decades ago. Then the focus of development shifted towards private systems like social networks and instant messengers - and almost no one was involved in protocols.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain are changing the situation by creating a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, various innovative projects in this area have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.

Blockchain-based protocols can do things that were not available to their predecessors. For example, the new blockchain protocol allows the design of services for secure transactions and database storage, protected from corruption and censorship.

8. High quality online education

As long as the cost of higher education continues to rise, anyone with a smartphone can learn almost any topic online. The Internet contains a ton of free educational content, the quality of which is getting better.

The famous Encyclopedia Britannica cost $ 1,400. Now it is enough to have a smartphone to access even more information from Wikipedia for free.

Once upon a time, the study of programming was limited to schoolwork and reading literature. Now you can learn from the 40 million community of programmers at. YouTube hosts millions of hours of free video tutorials, many of which are created with contributions from top professors and universities.

The quality of online education is growing steadily. Over the past 15 years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) has been videotaping 2,000 courses.

The idea is simple: publish all course materials online and make them available to everyone.

Dick Yu MIT professor

As arguably the largest research university in the world, MIT has always stood out from the crowd. Over the next 10 years, other research organizations will follow suit.

9. Improved food production

The area of fertile areas and the amount of clean water are decreasing. This is partly due to the extremely low efficiency of the food industry.

The production of 1 kg of beef takes as much as 15 tons of water.

Fortunately, there are many technologies in development that should improve the current situation. For example, entrepreneurs are pursuing new products - palatable, nutritious substitutes for traditional foods that are less damaging to the environment.

The startup creates products from plants with a meaty flavor and distinctive appearance. Their burger requires 95% less land, 74% less water, and the process emits 87% less greenhouse gases than traditional burgers.

Other startups are working on substitutes for other commonly consumed products. is a harmless and inexpensive meat substitute made from complex ingredients with minimal damage to the environment.

Some of the new products are the results of genetic modification. This technology is often unreasonably considered dangerous.

According to Jon Entine, Rebecca Randall. … Research Center Pew Organization (USA), 88% of the scientists surveyed consider genetically modified foods harmless.

Another impressive trend in the food industry is automated. With advances in solar power, sensors, lighting, artificial intelligence and robotics, indoor farms are becoming an alternative to traditional ones.

Unlike ordinary farms, indoor counterparts use about 10 times less water and territory. Plants in the latter are much more likely to yield, do not depend on the weather and do not require pesticide treatment.

10. Computerized medicine

Until recently, computers were on the fringes of medicine. They were used only for research and data storage. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to breakthroughs in healthcare.

Genome sequencing (determining the structure of RNA and DNA) 15 years ago cost $ 3 billion. Today that figure has dropped to $ 1,000 and continues to decline.

Sequencing is about to become a routine medical procedure. It generates huge amounts of data that can be analyzed using powerful software. This process checks blood samples for early signs of cancer and determines the optimal treatment.

Another result of the use of computers in medicine is the emergence of high-tech prostheses.

Modern artificial limbs can be controlled by muscle contractions. And in the future, neurocomputer interfaces will make it possible to control prostheses with just the power of thought.

In addition, computers are highly effective in diagnosing diseases. Recently, the artificial intelligence system IBM Watson discovered signs of leukemia that doctors did not notice. This is because the machine found hidden patterns in 20 million cancer records.

11. New space technologies

Since the beginning of the space age, which fell on the 1950s, flights have been carried out mainly at government expense. And over time, their funding has dropped markedly. So, from the 1960s to the present day, NASA's monetary resources from 4.5% of the state budget to 0.5%.

The good news is that private space companies have taken the lead.

They provide a wide range of products and services, including communications and observation satellites, rocket launches, scientific research, and speculative business models such as mining on asteroids.

The most famous private space company is SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. Its reusable rockets are returning to Earth for repeated launches.

And the most intriguing of these companies is Planetary Resources. It could pioneer a new industry focused on asteroid mining. If successful, a new gold rush in outer space awaits us. Even if the costs do not bring the desired results, as has happened with gold mining, funding will ensure the development of technology and infrastructure.

These are just some of the amazing technologies that will evolve over the next decades. 2016 is just the beginning of a wonderful new century.