CHANGES in PROCESS, as of Oct/2020
(in no particular order)
Since last year or so, I have been scratching these various notes to myself as I read about stuff and thought about it. I’ve gathered them together here.
I have sent this paper to a few people and have been encouraged to ‘put it out there’. So I am resurrecting my blog and making it available to all.
I appreciate any comments you may have.
These changes are NOT about the Future…
Any single one of these new technologies will drastically change human life and conditions.
The changes are deeper and more far-reaching than moving from horses to cars and having instantaneous radio communications of a century ago.
COVID has accelerated these changes.
AND they all have already started or are in late stages of development.
CRSPR
– New medicines, genetic diseases and disorders eliminated
– Continued and evolving experimenting with synthetic biology, not just on animals but on humans and in petri dishes. Government, business, and personal – inside home labs
– i.e. changing our DNA and RNA for medical cures; adding electrical circuits i.e. chips into our bodies; integrating DNA sections from other species into ours …
– Stem cells are also being manipulated to create organoids of real tissue to replace/substitute for organs. Perhaps a lab pancreas soon
– Integration of human body, and therefore mind/awareness with IoT and AI (artificial intelligence)
– germ line editing!
– This will lead to programmable DNA… hmmmm Security becomes an issue lol… Do you really want an Afghan freedom fighter diddling your DNA over the internet?
– This goes much farther. We can create cells with DNA such that they can be factories and manufactures all sorts of things and products. Designer materials made by designed cells.
– We have already experimented with a 6-base DNA and created new life forms (see TED talk) …
– Certainly, vehicle manufacturers will have bio-tech departments. When you buy your new car, some of it will be you. Stolen cars will be a thing of the past.
If you haven’t read Rendez-vous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke, do so. He wrote it in the ‘70’s. This will give you an idea of what will happen.
BLOCKCHAIN
– Cryptocurrency, end of banking and financial system as we know it. All financial transactions trackable by governments. Cash? What’s that?
– Early adopters will become wealthy on capital gains. (Hurrah!)
– Corporations making their own cryptocoins and having b/millions of users, eg Libra from Facebook. Amazon will make it easy to use their ‘coin’ AND keep the money within Amazon. Of course convertible to an e-$ in case you want to buy something outside Amazon. Who needs a bank? How will the gov’t track all this?
– Blockchain is much more than a way to create a cryptocurrency. Legal documents, eg real estate contracts are already being done with Blockchain. Google how it’s being used already. When I buy your property using a blockchain contract, not only is it 100% secure, this doc is a computer program. So, it will track all payments and interest rate changes and so on. Lawyers will be just reviewing the parameters entered into the program by the party.
– Country barriers will become more and more transparent and less relevant.
– Where else do we need high security in this inter-connectedness age? ID docs? …
5G
– Already here. Being installed in major US population centres now. Apple introduces its 5G phone this fall. I think China has already started implementation
– Enormous increase in communications speed.
– Think of the transition from 3G to 4G. No one could even imagine at 3G having an application like Uber where you can order and pay for a cab AND see the location of the cab in real time as it comes to pick you up. That came with 4G. 5G – who knows? It will be fantastic
– Avatars at meetings. More and more remote interaction at instantaneous speeds
– Surgery across continents is not science fiction
– And 6G is already being designed
AUGMENTED REALITY/VIRTUAL REALITY (AR/VR)
– You’re at a meeting but your neighbour clearly ‘visible and there’ is not. The person sitting beside you is an avatar and is sitting in New Delhi
– AR glasses allow info and images from the cloud to be present in your field of vision along with “regular” reality, superimposed. This is already here
– Your selected information/news fed to you immediately and instantaneously
TRANSITION OF POWER FROM NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS TO CORPORATIONS
– Already taking place. The revenues of co’s like Amazon, FBook, Google etc. are larger today than most countries’ GDP.
– Their customers transcend national boundaries. Decline of nationalism…
– Changes the implication and balance of citizenship and nationalism and customer/user.
– These corporations can influence elections, and …
– The Catholic church used to be very important in politics and power some hundreds of years ago. It is still there. Who cares?
– Many people will soon be out of jobs, need retraining. Other social changes are happening. Is your government talking now about free and subsidized training for the new jobs markets in the next 10 years? Corporations can give jobs, governments can’t.
– What will your new job be?
– What will the masses of unemployed do? Sit quietly in a park and starve? Nope.
– What are governments doing to absorb and capitalize on these developments.
– US decline, China rise, Europe fragmented island … NATO???
– The Arctic is melting. Hello! Critical causeway for world shipping…
– Massive human migration already started due to climate change. Everywhere more land will be lost, tho’ some will be gained. Where will people move to? What is new expected shoreline in 50+ years? World temperatures? Agriculture, food and food source changes
– Don’t buy real estate in New York, Halifax, Vancouver or Shanghai… Coastal cities???
– Northern Canada is looking good…
– National/corporate defense vs capitalizing on new situation and boundaries…
– Russia and the Chinese will move into the Arctic. Canada has an unprotected border. Look at what China has accomplished in the S. China sea… Do you really think these countries have no plans?
– Also, the decline of cities everywhere due to the mass unemployment, combined with increasing virtual connection/communication/work online and transcending national boundaries
– Declining and transforming personal contact and relationships. Increased isolation and psychosis
MASSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT
– Driverless cars – buses, taxis, deliveries, trains, and jobs like waiters, packers, (QR codes instead), cashiers etc. (see Amazon’s stores – no employees, robots), … all these people out of work. (Waymo (google) has announced it will be introducing driverless cars, no safety driver, in Oct/Nov 2020 in Phoenix Ariz.) And TESLA is offering this everywhere, not just Phoenix, by the end of the year. All this is being accelerated by COVID. Who wants to come in unnecessary contact with a human?
– Robot cars and drones will deliver groceries and packages to your door from a local hub. Amazon has already started doing this
– 3 and 4D printing, robots – how many people will actually be working in factories soon. Factories will be smaller and closer to markets too. Post offices will have ‘3-D’ printers…
– Further, 3-D printing makes warehouses redundant – just print a part or whatever on demand. No warehousing staff. AND major change in real estate market
– What will these former employees do? how will they receive money?
– What retraining has been put in place?
– Social upheaval maybe?
– Increased social stratification
– AND people will make money from their cars. Most people are not in their cars 24/7. Some work or watch tv for example. So, their driverless car is sitting idle and can be rented! No more taxis. You book a car near you like Uber, with facial recognition it unlocks the door to you and charges your credit card (on file) when you get out. Nifty eh? I understand TESLA cars can already or this year do this. btw, TESLA’s are already cheaper than gas cars to own and maintain because of very low maintenance and upgrade costs.
– How about driverless planes and ships? …
– Education and services will grow. New developments and opportunities, as well as riots and violence…
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
– Ever noticed when you buy something on Amazon you soon get ads for similar articles
– How about the impressive ability of google translate, keeps getting better
– One of the largest users of AI is driverless cars
– AI can read Xrays better than doctors now, and so on
– AI reduces costs, which means what happens to the previous providers? Check this example: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-54486039
– Forecasting, security, facial recognition, new drugs research …
– See: “A Machine Learning‐Assisted Nanoparticle‐Printed Biochip for Real‐Time Single Cancer Cell Analysis” published in Advanced Biosystems, the researchers describe how they combined artificial intelligence, microfluidics, and nanoparticle inkjet printing in a device that enables the examination and differentiation of cancers and healthy tissues at the single-cell level. The group overcame these challenges by combining machine learning techniques with accessible inkjet printing and microfluidics technology to develop low-cost, miniaturized biochips that are simple to prototype and capable of classifying various cell types.
– Robotics. Robots connected to the cloud and …. other things
– I think it was Google’s Deep Mind that beat the world champion of Go.
– Another use of AI is natural language production. Read up on GPT-3. Owned now by MicroSoft, there are still versions ‘out there’. Here is a quote from my investing newsletter:
“Someone deployed GPT-3 on a popular subreddit board consisting of 30 million users, each interacting with each other through the forum. GPT-3 was instructed to engage with people by posting on the bulletin board once per minute. So it did. This went on for an entire week. And people were interacting with GPT-3 and its posts without realizing it was an AI. They talked to GPT-3 as if it were human. And it talked back. This is mind-blowing. The fact that GPT-3 can “hang out” on a tech-savvy site, interacting with potentially millions of people is remarkable.”
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IoT INTERNET OF THINGS
– Your fridge will automatically order milk or whatever when you get low, and have it delivered. Your house will set the heat, A/C, cleaning etc. without you/on its own. You will tell it when you are going on vacation and what measures to take. Of course you can check in anytime anywhere. When intruders arrive police will arrive shortly after – or at least they’ll know about it…
– Everything will have a chip
– Including YOU.
– Your first chip to connect you to the internet will be embedded. I assume you have read where Elon Musk inserted a chip into a pig’s brain recently. How long before this is hacked??
– [I think we already have (medicine) removable e-tattoos to interface with machines. And soon robots ]
– Somewhat later your own DNA will make a personal bio-chip thanks to CRSPR
– Stanford created a wet transistor in 2012… This year or last year people were able to get a cell to create a polymer (plastic) on its surface…
SMART CLOTHING
– Not just smart cars and houses…
– They are already working on making conductive fibres for clothes and integrating wiring so the fabric will be ‘sensitive and intelligent’. Heart rate goes up? Don’t worry your undies will tell your doctor
– Later, medicine may be incorporated into your clothes too
The CLOUD
– YOU are now part of the cloud
– Literally – human integration
– Btw a couple of years ago one of my English students from S. America was doing his PhD at UOttawa. He was working on the driverless cars technology, specifically when there was a car accident and the neighbouring cars communicating among themselves to figure out the most efficient way to exit the mess without causing more problems. Further, he was working on the cars sharing computing power. That is, the cars communicating with each other – “Hey I’m only using 37% of my computing ability for the next 583.27 msec. Anyone want to use some of mine?”
DNA DATA STORAGE
– We know incredible amounts of data can be stored in DNA. Each human will be able to have many encyclopedias and more integrated into their body
– AND passed to their offspring…
DRONES
– Deliveries yes, so less cars, and no drivers. Quick and anywhere. Live in the boondocks – no problem.
– What else can a flying computer with cargo space do?
3-D PRINTING
– Why manufacture a widget in China, or anywhere? Order a set of screwdrivers from Scandinavia and pick it up tomorrow at your local post office which has one of those 3-D printers. Scandinavia will just email the manufacturing instructions and your address to the post office near you. Less big factories, less ships on the ocean, much less pollution. Maybe a few less jobs…
– See: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/printing-out-world/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=recently_posted_documentaries&utm_term=2020-07-05
– I think 4-D printing includes the time dimension. In other words as conditions change over time, the printed object changes, eg with temperature or light. The object can then fold or otherwise change shape according to its design. So the roof and windows of your 3D printed house will change according to the time of day and the season.
– We are now able to print with human cell “ink”. In other words, lose a limb? No problem, we’ll just print out a replacement while you wait… This IS coming. Read this: https://www.genengnews.com/news/3d-printing-of-biological-tissues-advanced-with-yield-stress-gels/?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=GEN+Daily+News+Highlights&utm_content=01&utm_campaign=GEN+Daily+News+Highlights_20201019&oly_enc_id=1572G3123845C7U
–
ROBOTICS and MACHINE LEARNING
– We already have humanistic robots for people care and companions. They will become more and more human like. They will do many tasks for us, not just at home but in factories and industry, and in society.
– Robotics are already commonplace in manufacturing and other businesses – read up on Flippy by Miso Robtics. And I won’t mention the cuddly sex partners who don’t make demands…
– The line between robotics and intelligent machines will blur
– NANOBOTS working inside our body to clean arteries for eg, or deliver medicine(team at Cornell developed them in silicon, in 2020, using origami techniques). Plus, they and have some intelligence, think AI…
ENERGY
– Nuclear fusion is just around the corner. AI (artificial intelligence) is sufficiently advanced now and fast enough to control the reaction. Limitless, pollution free energy before 2030 I think
– Also, energy from space. I have read about this – solar collectors in orbit and beaming it down to stations on the surface.
– Someone may implement Nikola Tesla’s ‘Wardenclyffe Tower’ which he never completed because of lack of funds. Check it out.
QUANTUM COMPUTING
– Quantum computing has already surpassed traditional computing. Last year a quantum computer solved a massive problem in a short time that a massive supercomputer would take 10000 years to solve. Already here.
Quote from my investing newsletter of March 2/20:
As regular readers know, we reached the point of quantum supremacy last September. That’s the point at which a quantum computer can outperform the most powerful classical supercomputer on earth. Here’s what happened…
Google ran tests on its 53-qubit quantum computer. In those tests, it gave the quantum computer a task that would take the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Summit, 10,000 years to complete.
The quantum computer finished in three minutes and 20 seconds. Beyond amazing.
– By next year all passwords will be obsolete. They are working on this item…
CLIMATE CHANGE
– Global warming is already here. Severe weather for a while. Ice free Arctic and concomitant changes in geopolitics.
– Coastal cities largely underwater
– Mass population changes and movements – as I said, don’t buy a house in New York or Halifax…
MOON, MARS AND BEYOND
– Elon Musk is already putting this into place. He’s already demonstrated re-usable rockets.
– Limitless natural resources. Wealth for all possible. Nature and purpose of work transformed
– This will take a few years lol. Not just to get it here but to get out there and get it. But it is coming. This century I hope
DATA GATHERING and PERSONAL MONITORING
– Most of these items can gather data into the cloud and elsewhere, as well as produce and use data
– Who is using this data?
– How much are you paid for your personal data?
– How about your phone? Anyone use Android smartphones? (87% or so of the world community) Who owns Android OS? – Google, which sells YOUR personal data to businesses and _________, … -> you fill in the blanks.
– IoT and “smart devices” like speakers in your home that listen to you and your family
– Also see above re GPT-3. DO you really know who you’re talking to??
– Cambridge Analytics and Facebook anyone?
AND when you think of combining one or more of these new realities with each other – as will happen of course, it gets pretty amazing
For example, it is clear there will be human integration with AI. Can’t wait!
Did I forget anything? Any additions or objections are welcome. Agree or disagree, these developments are all here, I read about them…
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