Lars Jaeger: «What Will Drive Technology in Future?»

Capitalism plays an important role in the transformation of our world, as it drives scientific progress and innovation. Lars Jaeger examines whether this will continue in future in his finews.first article.

This article has been published on finews.first, a forum for authors specializing in economic and financial topics.

In the 1950s and 1980s, the famous quantum physicist Richard Feynman gave two lectures, which are still widely cited today and can be seen as a vision and program for entirely new technologies in the 21st century. In 1959, under the title «There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom», he described how future technologies could function on a micro- and nanoscopic level.

The ideas of his lecture became the basis of today’s nanotechnology. In his second visionary speech in 1981, Feynman developed the idea of a quantum computer, equally a technology we are possibly about to experience. Such a computer, in which subatomic particles are used for data storage and processing, is based at its core on bizarre quantum properties of the particles involved which enables an unimaginably higher computing speed compared to conventional computers.

«Before we have even understood the scientific upheavals we are today already exposed to»

With the change in science’s character due to US leadership, some amazing technological advances have appeared in the last 80 years, ultimately creating our modern age. The speed at which this has happened is amazing. Yet, technological progress will, even more, increase their speed in the future, as will likely the scientific one.

The world has already changed by technologies so much more dramatically between 1990 and today than between 1958 and 1990, technologies that are the results of scientific insights from many years before. It is hard to imagine what the world will look like in 2054 driven by entirely new technologies. At the same time, we will surely penetrate even deeper into the secrets of nature due to scientific insights in the coming years and recognize more and more what holds the world together at its core.

Before we have even understood the scientific upheavals we are today already exposed to, the scientific progress of the next years and decades will once again dramatically reshape many supposed certainties – about the world and the universe, about space and time, about matter and substance, about man and nature and not least about ourselves and our mind.

«The following list outlines the likely most likely potential key future technologies»

However, it is the technological progress – which is likely to significantly depend on today’s and tomorrow’s science – that will ultimately determine our all’s future. Obviously, we will, even more, have to meet challenges, not only scientific and technological ones but also philosophical ones, i.e. how to socially deal with the implications of science and technology that are also raising significant ethical issues.

The current status of the different sciences and possibly, even more, their future status will provide new technologies that will most likely be even more important for our lives than the ones today. The following list outlines the likely most likely potential key future technologies – which often have already started to appear today. They have unbelievable significance to any future human individual, but also for the entire human civilization

1. Artificial Intelligence – Controlling our lives or improving them forever?
2. Quantum Computers – The future of millions of times faster computation or just a dream of physicists?
3. CO2-Neutrality – Can we create enough alternative energies in the next few years to prevent a climate catastrophe?
4. Nuclear Fusion – The solution to our energy problems or just a subject of a century of dreaming?
5. Genetics – The victory over cancer or manipulation of mankind?
6. Internet of Things – New powerful industrial technologies and smart fabrication or an entire invasion of privacy?
7. Neuro-enhancements – Improving our thinking and acting or moving from today’s reality into a new and fictive world?
8. Understanding our minds – Finding our Ego or is it unfindable for scientists?
9. Digital Algorithms and Big Data – New enhanced profiles for our lives or controlling humans’ thinking and acting?
10. Nanotechnology – Creation of useful things from «nothing» or destruction of our bodies?
11. Stem cells – Using cells that can do everything, also for our entire body and mind?
12. Biotechnology – From frogs for pharmacists to nano-robots in our bodies, a dream or reality?
13. Food Technology –Provide food for 10 billion people or just a science dream story?
14. Synthetic Life – Can humans play God(?)
15. Life Prolongation – Can humans play God(?)

Fact is: Our world is changing faster and faster with technological progress. In this rapid change, capitalism plays a significant role in pushing and picking up on scientific progress. In fact, since around 1820 and more and more since 1960 – when science became even more technologically productive – capitalism and science have played a powerful joint and very productive role together to produce new high-tech progress.

«But can we keep up?»

Scientific research (and knowledge) has thus become a crucial factor for running a company in today’s capitalism. Today’s tighter and tighter interaction of capitalism and science makes the changes of the technological landscape significantly faster than ever. In the future, it will likely move at a speed unimaginable today. Will we even be able to accompany technological changes by also progressing respectively politically and socially and developing appropriate philosophical insights and doings? We will have to address and control the risk and dangers of the new technologies as well as their consequences on social relationships and interactions. But can we keep up?

In his 1932 novel «Brave New World», Aldous Huxley describes a society in which people are sorted into different castes already at birth by means of biotechnological manipulation, and at the same time have all their desires, cravings and appetites immediately satisfied by permanent consumption, sex and the happiness drug soma.

«Is the interaction of science and capitalism still hopeful for that?»

The novel will be familiar to most readers in its basic outline. Less well known is the year in which Huxley sets his action. It is the year 2540 A.D., more than 600 years after the novel was published! Even the visionary Huxley could not have imagined that the real technological possibilities could not only reach this scenario after only one century but could far outshine it.

The applications are coming at a rapid pace, the social, philosophical and ethical challenges must be met at the same speed if mankind does not want to end up in the dystopian world described by Aldous Huxley. Is the interaction of science and capitalism still hopeful for that?

Lars Jaeger is a Swiss-German author and investment manager. He writes on the history and philosophy of science and technology and has in the past been an author on hedge funds, quantitative investing, and risk management.

Previous contributions: Rudi Bogni, Peter Kurer, Rolf Banz, Dieter Ruloff, Werner Vogt, Walter Wittmann, Alfred Mettler, Robert Holzach, Craig Murray, David Zollinger, Arthur Bolliger, Beat Kappeler, Chris Rowe, Stefan Gerlach, Marc Lussy, Nuno Fernandes, Richard Egger, Maurice Pedergnana, Marco Bargel, Steve Hanke, Urs Schoettli, Ursula Finsterwald, Stefan Kreuzkamp, Oliver Bussmann, Michael Benz, Albert Steck, Martin Dahinden, Thomas Fedier, Alfred Mettler, Brigitte Strebel, Mirjam Staub-Bisang, Nicolas Roth, Thorsten Polleit, Kim Iskyan, Stephen Dover, Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez, Christian Dreyer, Kinan Khadam-Al-Jame, Robert Hemmi, Anton Affentranger, Yves Mirabaud, Katharina Bart, Frédéric Papp, Hans-Martin Kraus, Gerard Guerdat, Mario Bassi, Stephen Thariyan, Dan Steinbock, Rino Borini, Bert Flossbach, Michael Hasenstab, Guido Schilling, Werner E. Rutsch, Dorte Bech Vizard, Adriano B. Lucatelli, Katharina Bart, Maya Bhandari, Jean Tirole, Hans Jakob Roth, Marco Martinelli, Thomas Sutter, Tom King, Werner Peyer, Thomas Kupfer, Peter Kurer, Arturo Bris, Frederic Papp, James Syme, Dennis Larsen, Bernd Kramer, Armin Jans, Nicolas Roth, Hans Ulrich Jost, Patrick Hunger, Fabrizio Quirighetti, Claire Shaw, Peter Fanconi, Alex Wolf, Dan Steinbock, Patrick Scheurle, Sandro Occhilupo, Will Ballard, Nicholas Yeo, Claude-Alain Margelisch, Jean-François Hirschel, Jens Pongratz, Samuel Gerber, Philipp Weckherlin, Anne Richards, Antoni Trenchev, Benoit Barbereau, Pascal R. Bersier, Shaul Lifshitz, Klaus Breiner, Ana Botín, Martin Gilbert, Jesper Koll, Ingo Rauser, Carlo Capaul, Markus Winkler, Konrad Hummler, Thomas Steinemann, Christina Boeck, Guillaume Compeyron, Miro Zivkovic, Alexander F. Wagner, Eric Heymann, Christoph Sax, Felix Brem, Jochen Moebert, Jacques-Aurélien Marcireau, Ursula Finsterwald, Michel Longhini, Stefan Blum, Zsolt Kohalmi, Karin M. Klossek, Nicolas Ramelet, Søren Bjønness, Gilles Prince, Salman Ahmed, Peter van der Welle, Ken Orchard, Christian Gast, Jeffrey Bohn, Juergen Braunstein, Jeff Voegeli, Fiona Frick, Stefan Schneider, Matthias Hunn, Andreas Vetsch, Fabiana Fedeli, Marionna Wegenstein,  Kim Fournais, Carole Millet, Swetha Ramachandran, Thomas Stucki, Neil Shearing, Tom Naratil, Oliver Berger, Robert Sharps, Tobias Mueller, Florian Wicki, Jean Keller, Niels Lan Doky, Karin M. Klossek, Johnny El Hachem, Judith Basad, Katharina Bart, Thorsten Polleit, Bernardo Brunschwiler, Peter Schmid, Karam Hinduja, Zsolt Kohalmi, Raphaël Surber, Santosh Brivio, Mark Urquhart, Olivier Kessler, Bruno Capone, Peter Hody, Andrew Isbester, Florin Baeriswyl, Michael Bornhaeusser, Agnieszka Walorska, Thomas Mueller, Ebrahim Attarzadeh, Marcel Hostettler, Hui Zhang, Michael Bornhaeusser, Reto Jauch, Angela Agostini, Guy de Blonay, Tatjana Greil Castro, Jean-Baptiste Berthon, Marc Saint John Webb, Dietrich Goenemeyer, Mobeen Tahir, Didier Saint-Georges, Serge Tabachnik, Vega Ibanez, David Folkerts-Landau, Andreas Ita, Teodoro Cocca, Michael Welti, Mihkel Vitsur, Fabrizio Pagani, Roman Balzan, Todd Saligman, Christian Kaelin, Stuart Dunbar, Carina Schaurte, Birte Orth-Freese, Gun Woo, Lamara von Albertini, Philip Adler, Ramon Vogt, Andrea Hoffmann, Niccolò Garzelli, Darren Williams, Benjamin Böhner, Mike Judith, Jared Cook, Henk Grootveld, Roman Gaus, Nicolas Faller, Anna Stünzi, Thomas Höhne-Sparborth, Fabrizio Pagani, Guy de Blonay, Jan Boudewijns, Beat Wittmann, Sean Hagerty, Alina Donets, Sébastien Galy, Roman von Ah, Fernando Fernández, Georg von Wyss, Stefan Bannwart, Andreas Britt, Frédéric Leroux, Nick Platjouw, Rolando Grandi, Philipp Kaupke, Gérard Piasko, Brad Slingerlend, Dieter Wermuth, Grégoire Bordier, Thomas Signer, Brigitte Kaps, Gianluca Gerosa, Lars Jaeger, Christine Houston, Manuel Romera Robles, Fabian Käslin, Claudia Kraaz, Marco Huwiler, Lukas Zihlmann, Nadège Lesueur-Pène, Sherif Mamdouh, Harald Preissler, Claude Baumann, Taimur Hyat, Philipp Cottier, Andreas Herrmann, Camille Vial, Marcus Hüttinger, Ralph Ebert, Serge Beck, Teodoro Cocca, Alannah Beer, Stéphane Monier, and Ashley Simmons.