Thoughts

(Work in Progress) Computers Improvements in silicon have already slowed down since 2005-2007, and are coming to an end sometime around 2020-2022. Already, the 2010 update to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors predicted that growth would slow at the end of 2013, with transistor counts and densities doubling only every three years instead of two years. Successor technologies (graphene, etc) won't be ready for commercialization until the 2030s at the earliest, so there will be a gap. Already large tech companies are pushing cloud computing as a way to fill that gap, but it's only an increase in services not raw processing. Past Present Early 21st Century Late 21st Century Likely: * Healthspan * Mars Colony * Asteroid Mining * Thorium * Solar Panels * Graphene and other nanomaterials * Cognitive Science * Improvements to task-specific AI * Improved Batteries * Improved Robotics Hopeful: * Longevity (could be soon, could be later) * Fusion (we'll have it late century, but near future is a long shot) * Weak AGI (despite AI improvements, there has been little progress towards AGI) * Warp Drive (but we wouldn't have the energy to use it for at least a century) * Robotic limbs (relies on batteries) * Electric cars (relies on batteries) I'm not sure what else, lots of corporate PR hype to sift through, hard to tell what's serious and what's just marketing anymore. ===== Technology comes from people, not from itself. Technological progress multiplied 30 fold along with 1st world population growth, and especially numbe r of people working in R&D. The population of 1st world countries will not grow exponentially in the n ext century, so while progress will continue from the 1st world it will not increase noticeably. As other populous countries (china, india, brazil, indonesia) increase their R&D investment, they are becoming new drivers of technological progress. The effect on economies may cause a power shift later this century, with major geopolitical consequences. Technology follows logistic curves, not exponentials. The cost of pharmaceutical research has increased over the last 50 years. link If Wirth's Law outlives Moore's Law, expect computers to actually get slower. 3D printers are changing a lot of industries, but will never beat conventional manufacturing for cost-effectiveness. Other fields haven't seen the exponential portion of their logistic curve yet. Biotech in particlar is going to boom over the next few decades, the same way computers boomed since the 80s. Driverless cars will be available by 2025, affordable by 2035, and will be the majority of motor vehicles by 2050. AI, robotics, and automation will continue to improve, but there is a long way to go to replace everything humans can do. Fusion power and Mars colonization are both expected to happen around 2030-2050. Graphene will take longer, but may see some early applications in the next decade, and will be huge (like plastic and silicon combined) when it booms. Nanobots will be important in medicine and pharmaceuticals, but like 3D printers they will not beat conventional manufacturing for cost-effectiveness on large objects. There will be limitations due to size, energy sources, etc. No cameras, no wifi, no utility fog. Not sure what else.