Tracking the Future

SPACE exploration may have a new direction. In the 1960s, humans did the exploring but since the last moon landing in 1972, NASA's only explorers beyond low Earth orbit have been semi-autonomous robots. Now the agency is pondering a third approach, sending astronauts who would remain in orbit around alien worlds and explore via robotic rovers.

On Earth, human-controlled robots are used for tasks ranging from delicate surgery to exploration of the deep sea. But in space, robotic "telepresence" could be even more promising.

A lot has been written about the business prospects of Planetary Resources, Inc., the billionaire-backed space venture that recently announced its intention to mine platinum, and other metals, from near-earth asteroids. The firm claims that a single successful mining mission could bring it tens of trillions of dollars in revenue, and could potentially supply the raw materials for generations of computing devices.

These are ambitious goals, but not everyone is convinced that Planetary Resources can muster the technology or the staying power to reach them. The firm's critics have pointed out that flooding the market with asteroid-sized quantities of platinum, which currently sells for over $1,500 an ounce, could reduce its price considerably, endangering the business model of the entire enterprise. But even if Planetary Resources falls flat on its face, a serious (and seriously funded) attempt at asteroid mining could have interesting collateral effects---it could, for instance, entirely remake the way that we do science in space.

We are all traveling into the future, as are our children and grandchildren. So it is personally relevant to everyone what that future is like. We call a very good future, a future where our species thrives, a utopia. We call a very bad future a dystopia.

We have some agency in the matter of futures, which sort of future we end up experiencing. Particularly, we have agency at a fortunate time such as this, where we have a global infrastructure, global economy and global science to direct at the problems we choose.

The idea of producing artificial or synthetic life has long fascinated mankind and from ancient times many human and animal-imitating “automata” or self-operating machines have been created for entertainment, instructional, and sometimes religious purposes. The creation of actual synthetic biological life only became possible with the discovery of the structure of DNA, the genetic code, and the development of the basic tools of molecular biology, such as the ability to isolate, sequence, and join different DNA sequences. Especially important has been the recently developed ability to artificially synthesize relatively long DNA molecules with designed sequences. Although the creation of completely synthetic biological life was first accomplished in 2010, the field is already yielding significant information concerning the core gene groups or genetic “chassis” indispensible for life and how these gene products (proteins, RNAs, and lipids) function as an integrated unit. With the identification of these chassis, exogenous natural or synthetic gene sequences can be integrated into organisms designed for specific purposes and applications.

Topic: "The future of business: how to benefit from the global shift to a networked society" HBR Poland Keynote: Futurist & Keynote Speaker Gerd Leonhard

The Internet, or to be more precise, the mobile and social 'Internet 2.0' that has exploded in the past 2 years, is dramatically changing the way we find and are found, how we relate to our customers (and vice versa), and by extension how we buy and sell. In a networked society, the-people-formerly-known-as-consumers are becoming more powerful by the minute; transparency rules and more often than not, interaction comes before transaction and attention is the currency. In this digital world, data is indeed the new oil, brands are publishers, and ecommerce almost entirely becomes mobile and social - and this has significant impact on B2B sectors, as well. Gerd will share his foresights on where things are headed in the next 3 years, provide examples of best practices and illustrate the biggest opportunities and how to prepare for them. The future of business is interdependent, real-time, social, local and mobile - get ready.

In this intimate talk filmed at TED's offices, energy theorist Amory Lovins lays out the steps we must take to end the world's dependence on oil (before we run out). Some changes are already happening -- like lighter-weight cars and smarter trucks -- but some require a bigger vision.

The question of A.I rights, liberties and freedom has always seemed like a sort of candidate for a Prime Directive i.e. exactly how far should we allow an A.I. which has achieved sentience to self-evolve? At what point do our fail-safes break down, and we find that A.I.’s have simply liberated themselves against our best safe-guards and that A.I.’s as a result of usurping power over their own dominion have taken options, made decisions which directly impact on our own survival, and where do the rights of the sentient artificial life-form fit in to this moral quagmire?

Our usual predictably dystopian vision of the evolution of the Artificially Intelligent which infests the realm of public consciousness like a cultural artifact may not necessarily come to pass however, as A.I.’s may one day evolve sufficiently to recognize the value of data input in it’s all multifaceted forms, which tends to create a balanced perspective and a richer view of reality that engages not only cogent, rational intelligence but other ways of interpreting reality, other forms of data such as something akin to emotional intelligence.

In the Star Wars movies, moisture farmers on dry planets like Tattoine use droids to help with the repetitive, back-breaking labor, but that's in a galaxy far, far away. There's no doubt that robots are cool, but are robots on farms far off in our future?

Actually, the future is already here, with highly advanced milking machines on some dairy farms and a fully automated robot planting tractor set to hit the market this fall.

Imagine your kitchen floor is dirty. Since you don’t want to clean it yourself you log in to a robot design website, tell them that you want a robot capable of cleaning your kitchen floor. They give you a quote, you pay, and then they email the design to you. You click “Print,” the design goes to your 3D printer, and out pops a fully functioning robot, yours to command.

That might sound far fetched, yet perhaps it’s not so far away. 3D printing has been around for around three decades and can now print objects in glass, metal, plastics and even bio-degradable materials. It has been used to create everything from jewelery, shoes, aeroplane components and even mechanical devices.

“We’re entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. But I’m an optimist,” says Stephen Hawking in the exclusive clip from new documentary Surviving Progress.

The theoretical physicist’s balanced perspective is a philosophical template for directors Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ meditative movie. A brilliant cyborg himself, Hawking is something like living proof of the visually impressive documentary’s existential meditation.

Filled with sweeping footage ranging from flaring rockets and swarming schools of fish to pulsing global metropoles and their inhabitants, Surviving Progress asks the question: Can our evolving humanity achieve a moral symbiosis with exponential technological progress? The moviemakers seem intent on making the asking of this question as engrossing as the complicated answers, and the result is an intelligent analysis of humanity at a crucial crossroads, in search of an exit from self-created dystopia.

In the Lloyd's library in London, Eric Drexler addressed business risks and opportunities of nanotechnology. Sponsored by both the UK Knowledge Transfer Networks of Finance and Nanotechnology, Drexler focuses initially on a broad overview of nanotechnology, then examines current and emerging risks. The talk concludes with prospects for transformative future nanotechnologies.

Previous technology systems such as the railroad and electrification have dramatically changed human, natural, and built systems at a regional and global scale. Today, however, we are experiencing rapid — and accelerating — evolution in at least five foundational technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technology, robotics, and applied cognitive science. The result is a future that is unpredictable and radically contingent, as both our planet, and the human itself, become design spaces subject to human intervention and deliberate change in ways never before possible.

Braden R. Allenby is the Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and of Law, at Arizona State University. He previously served as the Environment, Health and Safety Vice President for AT&T. Dr. Allenby received his BA from Yale University, JD and MA (economics) from the University of Virginia, and his MS and Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Rutgers University. His areas of expertise include Design for Environment, industrial ecology, telework and net centric organizations, and earth systems engineering and management.