I dream of painting and then I paint my dream

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? It would be a blank canvas. No color. No inspiration. I dream of painting and then I paint my dream."

 (Vincent van Gogh)

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Tomorrowland

"In every moment, there is a possibility of a better future. But you people won't believe it and because you won't believe it, you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality."

(Tomorrowland -2015)

Image by Alizee

Transhumans, Homo Digitas and Rise of the Hybrids

It was probably 6,000 years ago in the present day Iraq when humans first started to store knowledge outside their brains in any meaningful way. Sumerian cuneiform was written on wet clay tablets and then baked with fire. Before that all human wisdom, experiences, stories and myths were mainly transferred by the word of mouth, person to person. This new invention made it possible for us to speak beyond the bounds of time and space. Other writing systems of the day like Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Chinese Pictographs also used materials at hand. These were either etched on stone or written on animal hides and tree barks (papyrus, bamboo). Then in the 2^nd century A.D. paper was invented in China. Transmission of knowledge became much simpler with that as paper was quite easier to produce and transport. Next breakthrough came in 1440 AD Germany. The foundations of our modern era rest upon the mass production of books through Gutenberg’s printing press.

The creation of World Wide Web in 1990 is considered fourth such great leap forward in human history. Availability of knowledge at the touch of a button is hallmark of this era. This transformation is barely 25 years old and the next revolution is already on the horizon.  Some experts believe that the coming convergence of our mobile and social data with AI and big data technologies will evolve us into Homo digitas. Humans, who will heavily rely upon digital networks and augmented intelligence through wearable and implanted devices. Others envision a future in which human intellectual and physical capacities will be greatly enhanced using novel technologies. They prefer the term of Transhumans for that. After all, we are already using Cochlear implants to restore hearing to the deaf, retinal implants to restore sight, heart pacemakers; technology laced functional limbs and artificial joints. Gamers are using tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) to score higher. Students are using memory enhancing drugs to concentrate better. Experiments to decode brainwaves into recognizable visual fields have already been done.

Fast forward to the future and neural interfaces, targeted gene editing and brain implants are not unthinkable. Most of us would feel anxiety and alarm towards such outlandish visions and would prefer to remain natural and unaltered. But the temptations of perfect memory recall, seamless access to the internet and instant mastery of skills would be too hard to ignore for some. Newer generations would be much more comfortable with tomorrow’s technologies. Most of our education is about memorizing basic facts. Actual learning and creativity comes much later. Imagine what can be achieved if we can skip that first part and jump straight into ingenuity and originality.

Artificial Intelligence programs are also becoming smarter with each passing year. Today’s personal digital assistants like Cortana, Siri and Echo are going to evolve into Iron man's JARVIS like partners. Ordinary human beings would be having hard time functioning in that kind of world. Perhaps future belongs to the super smart machines and hybrids human or post humans. Perhaps such developments would be deemed too dangerous for the fear of hostile AI and dystopian future. Complete ban on such technologies is also possible. We clearly don’t know about these things at this point in time. Future is in the flux and it will take a course that our collective wisdom would decide for us.

Darkness and Light

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when an adult is afraid of the light."

Image by Dania

(The above quote is usually attributed to the great Greek philosopher Plato 428-348 B.C.E., but it is probably from the book 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari' by Robin Sharma)

2040

Twenty-five years ago, the world was technologically quite simple as compared to the present day. It was a place without the widespread use of PCs, the internet, mobile phones, satellite TV, social networking and all things related.  Politically, it was a very segmented, divided and fractured extent due to the existence of different blocks, curtains, and walls. Now it seems quite hard to believe that at that time there was a rival superpower to the US; the mighty Soviet Union. For half a century after WWII, all global affairs were being governed through the interactions between these rival powers. Then within a span of a few years, the Berlin wall came down, the Soviet Union collapsed and the iron curtain was lifted. Consequently, China opened up and decided to pursue a mixed economy. Coupled with the above mentioned technological changes in the 1990s, the whole world became accessible to everyone. Smart nations and organizations took advantage of this changed scenario and forged ahead. In the words of Thomas L Friedman, ‘the world became flat’. 

So can we predict the shape of things 25 years from now? It is difficult to tell for certain. Perhaps it was Niels Bohr who said that “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future”. The future slowly creeps over us in small increments and it is hard to discern its course. But it has not deterred anyone to prophesize about such matters. I am equally amazed by the human capacity to assimilate new technologies and embrace new ideas. The things that are once the domain of science fiction; can easily become everyday stuff within a span of few years. Here is my take on the next 25 years.

In my view, the fields are Robotics and AI, Space Technology, Synthetic Biology, 3D Printing, Nanotechnology, and Clean Energy are going to shape our future. I would like to speculate on a few of these. By 2040, there should be permanent or semi-permanent human settlements on Moon and Mars. Perhaps commercial asteroid mining would propel us deeper into the solar system. The bulk of this new age of exploration is expected to come from private enterprises. If technologies like EmDrive hold some promise, then the whole solar system can virtually become a human playground.  However, going beyond our solar neighborhood is not possible by any reasonable timescale through today’s technologies. Interstellar travel will require something above and beyond our present knowledge. There are also a number of places within our solar system that have huge reservoirs of liquid water. There is a chance that we might find some kind of extraterrestrial life within our solar system. Places like Jovian and Saturn Moons of Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus, and Titan hold a lot of potentials.

The robotic revolution is upon us and with the passing of each year, it is going to infiltrate more and more spheres of life. Driverless cars are going to be commercially available in the next 2 to 4 years. By 2040, it is possible that human driving might become prohibited in the parts of the developed world. Similarly, driving, cleaning, cooking, care-takers and companions robots might become as numerous as today’s personal computers and mobile phones. Virtual and Augmented realities are in their infancy at present. By 2040, a fully immersive Star Trek like Holodeck is within the realm of possibility. 

There is also a consensus around the world to adopt cleaner sources of energy. In the next 25 years, the era of fossil fuels should be coming to an end. This is not a promising forecast for the oil export dependent monarchies and dictatorships around the world. The adaptation of these newer and cleaner sources would sound the death knell for them.

The years to come are going to witness space tourism, space-based Solar Power, genomic medicine, 3D printed organs, anti-aging drugs, reading minds and photographing dreams, digital brain downloads, the resurrection of extinct life-forms and creating new ones, implantable communication devices, universal translators, vertical Farms, robotic armies, quantum computers, fusion reactors, space elevators and much more. Seeds of all these technologies have already been planted. It seems that an era of explosive innovations is just ahead. It is going to lead us towards a new age of wonder where everything seems plausible.

But not all the future scenarios are rosy ones. There are a number of things that can go wrong. Things like global financial meltdown, severe ecological consequences, a global pandemic, new cold and hot wars including cyber warfare can halt and may even reverse the march of technology and development. Still, I am an optimist and I believe that human ingenuity can surpass these hurdles and built us a better future. 2040 would be a year worth living for.