Future world entertainment systems, may allow the general
public access to
holodeck
type technology (don’t laugh it is already being worked on) and so hopefully
most people should be happy with that level of entertainment. Holodeck
technology should allow any individual to try out any scenario, in an immersive
VR type environment. This may allow people to see the consequences of any action
that they maybe thinking of taking. (See
Pax Wrarrior a start down
this path to enlightenment). The computing power by this stage should be able to
understand how to model any situation we ask it to. This would be a great tool
to educate most people, but then again by this stage most people will not be the
same as they are today. Most people will be either genetically altered or probably have some sort
of enhancement, (wet
ware) or some other type of
implant to help improve themselves, well that’s one way of looking at it.
Nanotechnology should allow people to literally plug in or
more likely, wirelessly connect to the global net and then God knows what will
happen after that, I mean that’s a pretty awesome set up. People will have to
get used to it because the youth will go nuts for it, as most of them have
already been brought up by television, science fiction and MTV. This would be
just like being rebellious when you were a teenager, just like smoking or
getting a tattoo because it was supposed to be cool. There is
bound to be an element within youth culture that will go nuts for it, so
trying to stop it will be very difficult. I can Imagine exams of the future,
with teachers asking students if they could please shut down their neural net
implants and stop using any
smart devices they may have about their person. Companies and
advertisers may come to love it, imagine targeted marketers of the future,
plugging directly into your mind? This future worlds view, is just one of the
many possibilities, the human race - may soon face.
When you think about it in those terms, with this type of
technology, then exams etc, will become meaningless. Students being taught by
teachers also becomes a slightly strange concept, when you can
think or say the
question into your smart device and a couple of milliseconds later, the answer
is downloaded to you along with any additional information, including
hyperlinks, interactive VR simulations etc, all direct from the global grid.
I can also imagine the student at the back saying, hey miss,
I can't switch off
my implant, because if I do, I will die?. These types of problems
would obviously make any testing system pointless, we could all become
intellectual equals, to some extent. So the question is, who will work in the
burger joint, oh yeah sorry, that would be the
robots, nope hang on, the high street
no longer exists and nanotech produces all of our food, so there are no more
burger joints and McDonalds goes pop?
Life as we know it today is rapidly going to descend into the
history books or more likely the genetically enhanced, cyborg and possibly
immortal student of the future, may well ask, so what was it like to live
back then. The A.I. / VR history teachers reply, is ok, if you really want to
know, then we will upload the
experience to your neural net
implant, but the experience is best, when you are unaware of it.
Could explain a lot if you know what I mean,
am I really here or am I already inside some type of simulation, being
beamed directly into my brain, by the Sony corporation? (see Sony patent
ultrasound technology, to beam images, sounds etc, directly into the human
brain).
The recent suggestion that you can commercialise
nanotechnology is, at least in my estimation, a complete misunderstanding of
this technologies true potential. Nanofabrication
is a different matter, but if Drexler is right, then
commercialising
nanotechnology will not be possible and anybody who thinks they can, is in
for a rude awakening. It is as I said before, an enabling technology, but once
you see it's true potential, then concepts such as money, make no sense.
Imagine a future in which a scanning device could map out the
exact atomic structure of any object, this scan would then be stored within a
computer systems memory, then via the use of universal nano-assemblers, we could
then recreate that object. Food, clothes, goods of almost any description, if we
can imagine it to some extent, build it, grow it etc, then with nanotech, we
could copy it, cheaply efficiently and with no waste. Once this technology is up
to speed, then it should literally be a case of pulling up the design of
whatever we wish to recreate, in our VR holodeck of the future and then hitting
the copy button.
So who will have to work, when you have a
universal nano assembler and the truth is nobody.
Crimes based around the acquisition of material goods or money should almost
completely disappear. I mean what’s the point in stealing something when you can
perfectly recreate or copy almost any object from the atom up. Logically this
situation will result in having to maintain a smaller police force. The knock on
effects that these technological changes will bring, are incalculable, but most
people won’t care as long as they get what they want.
Man has a short time to live, this is very true, we also,
have a very short time in which to absorb all the information available and it’s
very hard for most people to keep up with everything that is going on in the
world.
The consumer revolution is still providing most of us with
the illusion of a prosperous society, but if you care to look closely, then you
can see the problems. The world is now changing faster than it ever has and all
of us are now being carried along on the back of these new technologies, so
knowing where it is all leading and trying to plan for it, should be seen as a
good idea, otherwise commercial pressures could kill us all.
The way its shaping up is like this, we will all have to
become cyborgs
or genetically enhanced to compete in the job market against are own
A.I. and robotic creations, so
how mad is that. The ideology of capitalism will have to go, if this technology
is to realise it's true potential.
