How far into the future can anyone actually see?
Most of us reject things like the prophecies of Nostradamus, or the psychic predictions of Jean Dixon. However, you’re probably not reading this blog unless you’re interested in understanding the future, like we are.
So, which predictions can we trust? (Our friend David Brin has recommended the establishment of a predictions registry. We like that idea.)
One good rule of thumb is that the further out the future is predicted, the less you should trust the prediction—which becomes more true each year in this age of accelerating change.
The Long Now Foundation was established in “01996” to “creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.” Sounds good, if awfully ambitious.
Similarly, the Foundation for the Future has good intentions for helping humanity make our way successfully through the next millennium.
Considering how much more change is expected in the next one thousand years than in the previous thousand, can we really expect to be better at forecasting the year 3000 than someone in 1006 would have been at seeing our time?
But never mind a thousand years. How about just predicting the biggest breakthroughs of the next 50 years? As part of their 50th anniversary celebration, NewScientist asked 70 of the “world’s most brilliant scientists” for their ideas.
In coming decades will we: Discover that we are not alone in the universe? Unravel the physiological basis for consciousness? Routinely have false memories implanted in our minds? Begin to evolve in new directions? And will physicists finally hit upon a universal theory of everything? In fact, if the revelations of the last 50 years are anything to go on—the Internet and the human genome for example—we probably have not even thought up the exciting advances that lay ahead of us.
That last sentence is the most important point. Even trying to look just 50 years ahead, it is very likely that the most significant change is something no one has even conceived of yet.
Where does this put CRN, and our projections for the development of molecular manufacturing as “likely by 2015, and almost certainly by 2020”?
We think we have solid grounds for making that estimate, although some people will disagree with us. We also note that mainstream rejections of rapid development toward productive nanosystems are gradually falling away and being replaced by cautious if still extraordinary claims for fourth generation nanotechnology.
CRN doesn’t claim to predict the future, of course. In fact, we’ll readily say that by the time personal nanofactories are actually produced, they may be quite different in appearance and function from today’s expectations. Rather than trying to get all the specifics exactly right, our focus is on raising awareness of the probability that general-purpose precise exponential manufacturing will have astounding and potentially disruptive impacts on society and the environment, and on trying to stimulate effective and responsible preparation.
Mike Treder is a fellow of the IEET, and the Executive Director of the non-profit
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, an organization working to raise awareness of the issues presented by advanced nanotechnology.
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