Living on the Curve

Chances are that if you are reading this, you will be alive when we first transfer the contents of a human brain to a computer. You’ll be around when most cars drive themselves, and there will be a cure for cancer. That’s not all — you will witness the formation of a new culture, the true International Person.

The point is, you had better get used to change. There are two major forces changing the face of the world right now, technology and globalization, and one is driving the other. No longer will we be able to count on the type of stability that we have experienced in the last century or so of culture and transformation, we will be living in the curve.

It might seem strange to use the word “stability” to describe the last century of life, but the next century will make it look positively stagnant. If you look at a graph of exponential growth, let’s say 2^x power, you’ll see there’s a point in the graph where the curve gets very steep. I believe this is where we are right now.

Yes, there’s math!

In America, I believe that many of us have gotten used to our generic “white American culture.” (This is not a judgment on whether it is good or bad, it just is.) This will become a thing of the past. People are traveling more than ever before between countries and races and cultures are mixing. We cannot hold on to the strict cultural boundaries of the past. We can try to fight change, but as we know, change is inevitable, and it is occurring at a faster speed now.

The technologies that we are just scratching the surface of will soon be reality and much sooner than we could have thought. In fact, things we used to view as magical will likely occur while we yet live. Force fields, invisibility, and levitation are just a few concepts that will become commonplace. The way we interact and interface with computers will change.

Soon we will be able to control our computers with simple eye movements, and not far beyond that, with our thoughts. These are both technologies that are being pursued at this moment. We’ve already mapped the human genome, something that was predicted to take years longer than it actually required. Cameras on computers are so sophisticated they can actually read our pulse rate from the minor (invisible to humans) changes in color of our skin.

Virtual reality is becoming a mainstream technology that is advancing to previously unknown levels. Doctors can simulate surgery, or operate on a real patient remotely via simulation. Simple devices will allow us to walk around in a virtual world. New devices are already in development that project 3-D images directly on to our retinas which will seem just as real or even more real than actual objects that we see. In the near future what we see every day may be virtually enhanced by a tiny wearable device that barely causes us any notice.

We will be able to extend our minds by controlling objects miles away, and extend our bodies by replacing organic parts with biologically engineered ones. The technologies already exist they only need to be perfected.

These technologies will change sex forever. There will be super realistic virtual reality sex simulation, as well as ways to stimulate orgasms that require no physical touching. Partners could have virtual sex from miles away. Not only that, but sex robots will be inevitable — and once they get more sophisticated, some will choose them as companions. It will transform the very idea of what sex is.

How am I so sure of this? When I was studying computer science as an undergrad, I took a course on Artificial Intelligence. At the time, the concept was still a bit novel and many ideas were theoretical. Now most of those ideas are in practice. Computers can recognize speech and objects. They can recognize faces and even emotions. They can carry on nearly human level conversations, and solve many problems humans cannot. Artificial intelligences can now beat any human in existence in the game of chess.

Another thing we all were taught in computer science was Moore’s law. Starting around 1970, Moore observed that computer power doubled every two years. That’s exponential growth. It has continued up until today. Currently we are reaching limitations on the number of transistors we can fit on a chip and the “law” might finally fail, yet in the past humans have come up with ways around physical limitations and we have kept going. But something will be different very soon: a human won’t have to come up with a way around the next obstacle.

We are nearly at the point where computers design themselves. Once computers are completely able to do so, we won’t have to innovate any more, the machines will. Much like Douglas Adams’Deep Thought computer, the intelligent machine will design its successor. It won’t take too much longer for this to happen; it could be as soon as ten years from now.

Technology has already changed how we do nearly everything, and in the future it may even change what it means to be human. The world is changing to a new entity — no longer defined by these lines of separation we have drawn, and technology is accelerating these changes. Barring a major world disaster that sets us back a few centuries — life as we know it is going to be about change. We can either accept it or resist it, but we cannot stop it. However, you, my friends, by knowing about it can try to be ahead of the curve.