Summary
Life in 2050 will be revolutionized by the growing effect of multidisciplinary technology across all dimensions of life: social, economic, political, and personal. Biotechnology will enable us to identify, understand, manipulate, improve, and control living organisms (including ourselves). The revolution of information availability and utility will continue to profoundly affect the world in all these dimensions. Smart materials, agile manufacturing, and nanotechnology will change the way we produce devices while expanding their capabilities. These technologies may also be joined by “wild cards” in 2050 if barriers to their development are resolved in time.
The results could be astonishing. Effects may include significant improvements in human quality of life and life span, high rates of industrial turnover, lifetime worker training, continued globalization, reshuffling of wealth, cultural amalgamation or invasion with potential for increased tension and conflict, shifts in power from nation states to non-governmental organizations and individuals, mixed environmental effects, improvements in quality of life with accompanying prosperity and reduced tension, and the possibility of human eugenics and cloning. The actual realization of these possibilities will depend on a number of factors, including local acceptance of technological change, levels of technology and infrastructure investments, market drivers and limitations, and technology breakthroughs and advancements. Since these factors vary across the globe, the implementation and effects of technology will also vary, especially in developing countries. Nevertheless, the overall revolution and trends will continue through much of the developed world. The fast pace of technological development and breakthroughs makes foresight difficult, but the technology revolution seems globally significant and quite likely. Interacting trends in biotechnology, materials technology, and nanotechnology as well as their facilitations with information technology are discussed in this report. Additional research and coverage specific to information technology can be found in Hundley et al., 2000, and Anderson et al., 2000 [212, 213].1
1Bracketed numbers indicate the position of the reference in the bibliography. xii Infova’s Global Technology Revolution THE REVOLUTION OF LIVING THINGS Biotechnology will begin to revolutionize life itself by 2050. Disease, malnutrition, food production, pollution, life expectancy, quality of life, crime, and security will be significantly addressed, improved, or augmented. Some advances could be viewed as accelerations of human-engineered evolution of plants, animals, and in some ways even humans with accompanying changes in the ecosystem. Research is also under way to create new, free-living organisms. The following appear to be the most significant effects and issues: • Increased quantity and quality of human life. A marked acceleration is likely by 2050 in the expansion of human life spans along with significant improvements in the quality of human life. Better disease control, custom drugs, gene therapy, age mitigation and reversal, memory drugs, prosthetics, bionic implants, animal transplants, and many other advances may continue to increase human life span and improve the quality of life. Some of these advances may even improve human performance beyond current levels (e.g., through artificial sensors). We anticipate that the developed world will lead the developing world in reaping these benefits as it has in the past. • Eugenics and cloning. By 2050 we may have the capability to use genetic engineering techniques to “improve” the human species and clone humans. These will be very controversial developments—among the most controversial in the entire history of mankind. It is unclear whether wide-scale efforts will be initiated by 2050, and cloning of humans may not be technically feasible by 2050. However, we will probably see at least some narrow attempts such as gene therapy for genetic diseases and cloning by rogue experimenters. The controversy will be in full swing by 2050 (if not sooner). Thus, the revolution of biology will not come without issue and unforeseen redirections. Significant ethical, moral, religious, privacy, and environmental debates and protests are already being raised in such areas as genetically modified foods, cloning, and genomic profiling. These issues should not halt this revolution, but they will modify its course over the next 15 years as the population comes to grips with the new powers enabled by biotechnology. The revolution of biology relies heavily on technological trends not only in the biological sciences and technology but also in microelectromechanical systems, materials, imaging, sensor, and information technology. The fast pace of technological development and breakthroughs makes foresight difficult, but advances in genomic profiling, cloning, genetic modification, biomedical engineering, disease therapy, and drug developments are accelerating.
XV
a fraction of the cost of current macroscale systems, revolutionizing the sensing and processing of information in a variety of civilian and military applications. Advances might also enable the proliferation of some currently controlled processing capabilities (e.g., nuclear isotope separation).
XVII
Latent lateral penetration. Older, established technologies will trickle into new markets and applications through 2050, often providing the means for the developing world to reap the benefits of technology (albeit after those countries that invest heavily in infrastructure and acquisition early on). Such penetration may involve innovation to make existing technology appropriate to new conditions and needs rather than the development of fundamentally new technology. Concerns and Tensions Concerns and tensions regarding the following issues already exist in many nations today and will grow over the next 15 years: • Class disparities. As technology brings benefits and prosperity to its users, it may leave others behind and create new class disparities. Although technology will help alleviate some severe hardships (e.g., food shortages and nutritional problems in the developing world), it will create real economic disparities both between and within the developed and developing worlds. Those not willing or able to retrain and adapt to new business opportunities may fall further behind. Moreover, given the market weakness of poor populations in developing countries, economic incentives often will be insufficient to drive the acquisition of new technology artifacts or skills. • Reduced privacy. Various threats to individual privacy include the construction of Internet-accessible databases, increased sensor capability, DNA testing, and genetic profiles that indicate disease predispositions. There is some ambivalence about privacy because of the potential benefits from these technologies (e.g.,personalized products and services). Since legislation has often lagged behind the pace of technology, privacy may be addressed in reactive rather than proactive fashion with interleaving gaps in protection. • Cultural threats. Many people feel that their culture’s continued vitality and possibly even long-term existence may be threatened by new ways of living brought about by technology. As the benefits of technology are seen (especially by younger generations), it may be more difficult to prevent such changes even though some technologies can preserve certain cultural artifacts and values and cultural values can have an impact on guiding regulations and protections that affect technological development.
