Meta-Trends and Implications
Taken together, the revolution of information, biology, materials, devices, and manufacturing will create wide-ranging trends, concerns, and tensions across the globe by 2050 .
- Accelerating pace of technological change. The accelerating pace of technological change combined with “creative destruction”2 of industries will increase the importance of continued education and training. Distance learning and other alternative mechanisms will help, but such change will make it difficult for societies reluctant to change. Cultural adaptation, economic necessity, social demands , and resource availabilities will affect the scope and pace of technological adoption in each industry and society over the next 15 years. The pace and scope of such change could in turn have profound effects on the economy, society, and politics of most countries. The degree to which science and technology can accomplish such change and achieve its benefits will very much continue to depend on the will of those who create, promote, and implement it.
- Increasingly multidisciplinary nature of technology. Many of these technology trends are enabled by multidisciplinary contributions and interactions. Biotechnology will rely heavily on laboratory equipment providing lab-on-a-chip analysis as well as progress in bioinformatics. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and smart and novel materials will enable small, ubiquitous sensors. Also, engineers are increasingly turning to biologists to understand how living organisms solve problems in dealing with a natural environment; such “biomimetic” endeavors combine the best solutions from nature with artificially engineered components to develop systems that are better than existing organisms.
- Competition for technology development leadership. Leadership and participation in development in each technical area will depend on a number of factors, including future regional economic arrangements (e.g., the European Union), international intellectual property rights and protections, the character of future multi-national corporations, and the role and amount of public- and privatesector research and development (R&D) investments. Currently, there are moves toward competition among regional (as opposed to national) economic alliances, increased support for a global intellectual property protection regime, more globalization, and a division of responsibilities for R&D funding (e.g., public-sector research funding with private-sector development funding).
- Continued globalization. Information technology, combined with its influence on other technologies (e.g., agile manufacturing), should continue to drive globalization. 2Creative destruction can be defined as “the continuous process by which emerging technologies push out the old” (Greenspan, 1999 [10]. The original use of the phrase came from Joseph A. Schumpeter’s work Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1942, pp. 81–86).
