Ray Kurzweil, one of the smartest guys in any room, gave a great TED talk this June, discussing the impacts of exponential efficiency growth (in computing, nanotechnology, and communications), and the converging singularity (and pumping "Singularity University," which to my sadness isn't what I'd hoped it was).
Because of a project I've been working on for two years (documenting and humoring the horror of converging emergencies), I tend to be a pessimist, except when my natural sunny optimism breaks through the facts on the ground.
So it was really nice to have Ray give me a little reason for optimism.
My favorite part of this talk (which is worth watching in its entirety), is the exponential photovoltaic efficiency increase (starting around 5:43), where he shows a graph and says we're "eight doublings away from providing 100 percent of our energy needs."
Currently PV is doubling in efficiency:price ratio every two years; now that nanotechnology is being applied, doubling could increase dramatically, he implies.
Would it not be fabulous if this trend holds true?
We could then have the free energy to de-carbonize and de-methanize our atmosphere, and possibly de-acidify the ocean with floating solar-powered smartboats. We could build solar-powered nanobots to find and harvest toxins from the rivers, like immune systems inside our bodies. We could repair, over five years, what we took a century to put asunder.
Eight to sixteen years? If, as Kurzweil posits, the other developments in computing, nanotechnology, information interpretation, and general progress grows exponentially..., then in eight years, a radically different world awaits.
And then I ask: how will we make it?
Not only "what will be left to save," but "in what image will we make that world," and "who will decide," and "who will own it"? What will be democratizing, and what restricting?
How will an electorate that can't seem to understand that for-profit insurance will always be your enemy, understand exponential change? How will such simplistic thinking intersect with exponential technological change in the body politic? How will Republicans use it? How should Democrats?
Future predictions are always tricky -- science fiction gets dated too -- but Kurzweil has been pretty good, historically.
We who care about society would be wise to try to think through the coming complexities of possibility.
Kurzweil was making the talk to announce "Singularity University," which I thought sounded great, till I saw the $15,000 price tag for a three-day seminar.
This community probably could do with some attention focused on the politics of exponential technology and efficiency growth. If, in three years, we'll have seen three more doublings of personal communications power, what kind of social networking will be possible? If solar has halved in price, what should the policies be?
Further on, if nanotechnology allows us to de-age our DNA, who will control that "intellectual property"? How do we ensure fairness and justice when any dustmote could be one of few trillion solar-powered nanocameras, watching and reporting on everyone?
I'll save the "what will be left to save" for another time...
For now, let's think about planning for a dramatically different landscape, when technologies will likely be veering wildly upward around 2012.
What will we be saying then? What will the other side do with it?