Future Concepts

The future will be much different than it is today, and if we were to fast forward 100-years, you wouldn’t believe what you see. Today, we have centurions living amongst us, those that were born around the turn of the century between 1905 in 1910. Imagine how life has changed since they’ve been alive. There was no Internet, we didn’t have cell phones, and there was such thing as a fax machine. When they were born the first automobiles were a novelty in their town. Only the rich could afford them.

The first airplane flew when they were only children. They saw the great flu, they saw World War I and II, they saw the first landing on the moon, and they had no idea there was still more, much more to come. Today, we sit here and look at all of the things that were created in the past 100 years, and that history is truly incredible. But it’s nothing compared to the future and next 100 years.

We will be able to send messages back in time; we will be able to send people to the other side of the planet in just over an hour. We will see private space flight, colonies on the moon and Mars. We will see the first electronic devices attached to the brain for communication. We will see the cure of cancer, and we will solve the longevity problem. If you can live for another 30 years, you may in fact live forever, or for however long you choose.

You will be able to download your brain into a computer as a backup, and the virtual reality living room and video gaming will be just as real, as real life. Everything will change, and there will even be peace in the world amongst all of humanity, all this will take place in the next hundred years. Imagine that.

We need a new long-term information storage strategy, and if we do not find one we will not be able to enjoy the future promises before us. If we are to store everyone’s DNA, every world transaction, and all the data from all the objects connected to the Internet of things, and all the NASA data, particle physics experiments, and all the information that’s created by 7 billion plus people on the planet each and every day we are going to need a better way. Okay so, let’s talk shall we?

What if we could store data using a quantum physics strategy, encoding magnetic tape, but tape unlike the old mainframe IBM tape, a new type of nearly invincible tape that could last a 1,000 years at room temperature? Yes, I am serious.

What if we borrowed an idea by that Russian Scientist using tape to capture carbon atoms one-atom thick to get graphene? Then encode the grapheme and store it on your tape, or something like this. If we coated it with sulfur atoms on the other side of a very thin porous tap, we’d store the data even if the tape dissolved in the future, because it could hold the imperfections of the graphene, or inadvertent folds of the grapheme in place.

What about if we could store information in DNA strands?

DNA might be a better option still, as we can work with four components, Letters. How about small slivers of DNA encoded and then encapsulated in carbon nanotubes. You can store a boat load of information in DNA, even dual codes on the same, as biotech scientists have recently discovered, codes within codes.

How about adding dimensions?

How about storing and computing with information through time? How about taking a Rydberg Atom and playing with the spins of electrons and chase information through the vortex of the spin. Reading through time, on another trajectory on the walls of the vortex or inside the walls for multidimensional computing? All you have to do is be able to manipulate it precisely, and read it, as you go.

Back to the DNA concept, consider this:

You could take the DNA from a Dinosaur egg which grows 50-times faster than a chicken egg, and use a benign virus which would replicate incredibly fast and calculate on its RNA, once the calculations are complete freeze it. We can read the DNA from Dinosaur eggs now, what 450 million years of storage? See that point. I just think we need to think outside the box.

It is not that I am not against IBM tape storage – many corporation have data on tape sitting in Salt Mines, Iron Mountain facilities. But we can store better now, and once in a salt mine, you don’t have to worry about EMP for instance. Dig down, bury it, then it is only a matter of how much data you can store on the smallest known device.

If we wanted to store all the data of life on Earth, we could even send that data on light waves and someday duplicate life on Earth by sending the instructions elsewhere – like a seed, zip-file, or program (algorithmic style). Find a host planet with the proper needs for life, send the plan, a little at a time as it evolves. Terraforming + life + species level DNA + information about everything. A slower process than Star Trek transporter but within our current technology plus or minus 10-15 years of research from right now today? Think about it.

Steve Jobs is reported as saying that “if you want to predict the future, the best way is to create it.” Now he probably isn’t the first person to say that, as it is a quote that goes back many decades. However, I can tell you as a futurist, and as the founder of a think tank, I’ve uttered those similar words, not because I heard them, because it’s the reality in the world we live in today. Steve Jobs was right. Now then, I’d like to talk to you about something very serious along these lines.

In the future it will be artificially intelligent computers which are designing our future cars, aircraft, buildings, computer networking systems, social networks, personal technologies, and even our education system, and the way we live our lives. You think it won’t happen, or perhaps you do, but I would submit to you that; this is our future. The question is; what about the creative geniuses of our time, will they be needed? Will we need great artists, designers, engineers, and prototype makers – perhaps not.

Consider someone designing a car, or even an aircraft. If the computer knows everything there is about wind tunnels, coefficient of drag, lift, and airflow, it will design the most efficient transportation device. It will just know how to do it. It won’t matter that you’re the greatest designer in the world, the computer software will build something more efficient than you can. Therefore, how do you beat an artificially intelligent computer which is busy designing new and future concepts? Now you might think that because you are human and you have certain types of creative thought that and understand people, that you can create something that other humans will like, and the computer will not be able to do that.

But that’s where you’re wrong because a computer can look at the very best movies which sold the most tickets, the cars that people buy the most, and rate them highest, and it can put all that information into its artificial intelligent database, and it can take from all the designs of all the products whether they be personal tech or a new building that were “Liked” on Facebook. In fact, if everyone likes your designs, the artificial intelligent computer may make variations of exactly what you’re designing, so how you keep up with it, and keep your job, will you not be needed anymore?

Competing with the computer design machine in the future will not be easy, but there is something inherently creative about the human mind, and if you will step up the pace, work a little harder, and standard creative flow, you will be able to keep up, at least in the near future, as those computers design our long-term future, I just hope there is a place for you in it. Please think on this.

It is normally reckoned that people who make predictions regarding technology into the future are perceived as potential mental cases. You can take the example of the aircraft. Before their invention had anybody talked about landing on the moon they were probably ridiculed and laughed at. The people who make such forecasts are known as the futurists. Normally they do not go astray and look into the very distant future owing to the explained reason.

Many scientists and writers warn against looking too far ahead into the future as the predictions are normally not backed by scientific evidence and leave the predictors in an odd and embarrassing situation. Gazing into the near future is not considered very foolish. But several writers are giving future concepts much significance in the fiction category. Many inventions once just a future concept are either underway or are close to completion. But where considering future concepts fifty years into the future may not prove beneficial for say a website or an individual, it bears fruits in the long run for the entire human race.

Let’s take the example of a phone. A phonies a household commodity nowadays and has been in use for almost forever. Today we have VoIP phones. Though they are also phones but are digital ones and back the advancements in technology. The point is that future concepts should be considered and should be worked on for making the advancement of humanity certain. Hence these concepts should be openly talked about without criticism and ridicule and people should start thinking put of the box. Anything fewer than this is going to mark the process of slow innovation which is deplorable and should be offensive.

The future concepts are definitely worth a thought and it is high time that any justifications regarding abstinence from talking about it should be abolished.

Sarfaraz was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, surrounded by traffic and technology. He writes mostly about diseases, the storybooks, futuristic columns, mysteries, as he likes to call it. He enjoys writing for web.

As a futurist, and a member of the World Future Society I read their online newsletter and magazine each and every month. They have seminars, and articles from various futurists explaining how other futurists might write articles to the public on future topics. Now then, that doesn’t mean that you need to follow all their methodology. After all, there are hundreds of people in the group, and if everyone wrote the same way, they would only be reaching the same audience. Okay so let’s talk about this for second if we might.

You see, you might be in a unique position or you might have a different audience, one that perhaps doesn’t think a lot about the future, but should. If you can reach those people you are doing a service for all of mankind, and that’s a good thing, I respect that, and I wish you all the best. Nevertheless, if you are going to write articles about future concepts you must have your facts straight. And let me explain why.

Let’s say you are writing a topic about the future of airline travel, and you are talking about new futuristic aerospace designs with new materials which weigh less, and perform better. Let’s say you’re talking about carbon Nanotubes, Graphene coatings, and new carbon composite wing components. Before you write about things like this you need to study up on the science, and understand it. No, you don’t have to understand it as much as a researcher or those in the R&D department of let’s say the Boeing Company, IBM, Dupont, GE, Intel, DOE, NASA, or 3M for instance, however you do need to know what you’re talking about.

Also, by reading this material you will also have a good chance of citing the best work, and that makes your articles look more informative, and it ensures the reader that you know what you’re talking about. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t write about it until you do, there’s no sense in wrecking your credibility or ruining the integrity of your article. Lastly, and this is something that I wish more futurists would think about. You should not interject your opinions, your political views, or your wishes for the future, unless you state that they are your opinion.

Why do I say this, because if you start predicting the future, and interjecting what you hope that future might be, all you’re doing is laying a bunch of Joker cards on the table, and eventually the reader will know that all you do is flip a coin, and that you have no crystal ball, and you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to future concepts, and that’s how you’ll destroy your credibility. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

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