A Brave New World

In many ways, it is difficult to predict just how technology will change. While we can try to predict where the next inventive trends are going, it might be easier to look from the point of view of how humanity will change in the face of new knowledge and technologies becoming available. There are three possible paths of technology that humanity will encounter in the near future, and they will each have the capacity to drastically alter other technology and the human race.

Technology 1: The Artificial Brain and a New You

Starting off big, we can look at the potential for an entirely artificial brain. In his new book, The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil mentions current research in brain scanning technology. Psychologists are getting better at understanding how the parts of the brain interact, while also developing computer models that respond and react just as a normal, human brain does to various stimuli. Advances in this technology have given some individuals the ability to post Twitter messages with a thought. It has been noted that a 500 terabyte human brain would take roughly eighty minutes to transfer from one data storage to another.

It will soon be entirely possible to upload a person’s stored brain data onto an electronic storage device. Such a device would not be tethered to biological needs and restrictions as the current models are. As degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s become more common, this could become a popular avenue to escape future brain troubles. The longevity such a device would allow would certainly be another powerful draw to it, as greater numbers in society each year transcend the flesh to a permanent, digitized home.

They would not be locked up alone, either. Microphone technology exists to mimic an ear, and a new artificial eye could allow individuals to continue seeing the world around them. Only the senses of taste, touch and smell would be difficult to mimic, but it would not be a far leap to assume that psychologists could use memories of those senses to determine how the data would be interpreted by a new, computerized brain.

Though this world is beginning to look a little much like The Matrix, it could be a positive step for humanity. Agriculture and urban planning would quickly fade as fewer human beings needed more than a few cubic feet of space and kilowatt hours of energy each day.

Humans being humans, however, being limited to just one space won’t be enough. We might be able to create new bodies with all sorts of prosthetic limbs, but we still have the internet to work with. There is a very distinct possibility that it could quickly become better than reality.

Having entire cultures of uploaded-personalities would quickly create a need for a massive, organized forum for exchanging information. Movies like The Matrix and novels like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash have shown that humanity is a very visual race. Even existing on a hard drive, people will likely want a visual representation of their world to interact with. Unfortunately, trying to keep track of so many virtual people could remain incredibly confusing, which would lead to the creation of incredible technology #2.
 

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