2012-04-25 - The Future

We live in interesting times. On the one hand we seem to be making advances in just about every industry, especially information technology, and on the other hand we seem to be on the brink of economic, environmental and political breakdown. In the next century we are you going to face some major challenges as oil runs out and climate change becomes a serious problem, but enough about that. I want to talk positively about the technology side of the world and things I’d really like to see.

The first thing I’d like to see is Artificial Intelligence or AI. It doesn’t even have to be a functional robot, just some program with the ability to learn and to make decisions by itself. I’d love to see a fully autonomous robotic life. Even more I want to watch a computer solve problems. I think it would be very interesting to watch them examine things, make choices, attempt solutions, and then examine the outcome of those solutions and measure their success. Then you get all the interesting questions about morality and ethics and is it alive and does it have a “Soul” and is it a crime to kill it? Interesting possibilities that I’d like to see happen. That is as long as it doesn’t become Skynet.

The other thing I’d like to see is space travel. We’ve made a start on this with rockets to the moon and robots on mars but there’s still a lot we can do. I would like to be able to jump on a ship and travel to any part of the solar system as easily as we travel from one city to another in a plane. I’d be really happy if I could take a trip to Titian and just walk around. I’d be even happier if I could see other systems, especially if they had alien life there, but I’m not greedy. I would settle for in-system travel just so long as I can say I’ve been to space. This would also mean developing engine and power technology that could make it possible to travel to other planets and moons in a reasonable amount of time and maintain a stable and comfortable environment while they do so. That would also be interesting to see.

So there you have it, I want to be able to take robots to Pluto.