A Technological Stampede!

See that dust cloud off in the distance? That's the future stampeding toward us at a furious rate.

:: Universal quantum computing perhaps a few years away

:: Man-made substances harder than diamonds

:: DNA buckyballs for drug delivery

:: A well-funded project to map a path to molecular manufacturing

:: Transparent sheets of carbon nanotubes

:: Serious talk about a space elevator

With progress coming faster and faster, the need to prepare for what lies ahead becomes more urgent -- and also more difficult. Effects of new technologies may arrive sooner than expected and before effective policy can be devised and implemented.

"This is a trillion-dollar moneymaker for a ten billion dollar investment," said Bradley Edwards, whose work with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts has made him a go-to expert on space elevators. "Some of the largest companies in the world are just waiting for the word that this is possible."

If a space elevator is a trillion-dollar moneymaker for a ten billion dollar investment, then how valuable would exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing be? Think there are some large companies -- and countries -- waiting for the right time to jump in and make it happen?

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Comments

[michael v]

How well funded is Foresight's "Nanotech roadmap"? It looks much less funded than Zyvex to me. Of the other items, only quantum computing is relevant to MNT, unless I'm missing something.

[Marc_Geddes]

Yeah, the Singularity has been sighted and is within range on the horizon Mike. It's coming up on us fast now. Quoting Kurzweil:

"We are now in the early stages of this transition. The acceleration of paradigm shift (the rate at which we change fundamental technical approaches) as well as the exponential growth of the capacity of information technology are both beginning to reach the knee of the curve, which is the stage at which
an exponential trend becomes noticeable. Shortly after this stage, the trend quickly becomes explosive."

So he's saying if transhumanist projections are on track, we should just around now be reaching the point in that Spike curve where it suddenly steepens. Projections for a 2030 Singularity are holding firm.

Don't expect a bunch of obnoxious prats on internet mailing lists (like the SL4 bozos for instance) to do anything to help us.

Rather I admire people like you guys at CRN who are listening to arguments and actually getting things done.