Grand Projects
Mankind has come a long way in the last 100 years or so from steam powered engines to car and the Jet powered plane. The television and the internet, the nuclear reactor and the PET scanner.
There are few inventions that have directly affected pretty much everyone in the same way as the internal combustion engine. some may say the computer has but in reality it didn’t really have much effect until the internet came of age and that is when everyone started to want one. Before that it was still used mainly for games and word processing and not everyone had one. The internet would be second on my list of disruptive inventions that had an impact on a major proportion of our population. By disruptive I mean it changed the way we do things.
Now the nuclear reactor was a massive move forward for mankind but didn’t change the way joe public did things. However the car and the internet have. You send an email instead of walking to the post office the post office is suffering directly because of this. An increasing percentage of music is now bought online and record shops are closing down as a result. It has changed the way people organise for protests and support movements. Your free news via bbc.co.uk is having a direct affect on newspapers and magazines. Our politics are being changed due to internet activism. Nothing in the last 100 years has been as disruptive except the car.
Now the point of this post is to look for new Grand projects that will be disruptive in the same way.
I would like to say the commercialisation of space would be the next big one but I think even if the pace picks up it is going to be another 100 years before it is affecting most of us that are earth bound. One potential candidate is the spiNNaker project at Manchester University. They are putting together a million low power processors into a network to simulate a section of the brain. I am not going into too much detail in this article as it would be covering ground that has already been talked about. The point is we have little to no real understanding of how the brain works currently but if we were to gain a substantial understanding the results would be phenomenal. The results of this research could give us silicon brains that are as fast as silicon but as flexible as the human brain. Here are a couple of examples of how it could affect you in day to day life.
- At the cash point (ATM) no need for a card the computer will recognise you, and would also tell you if there is anyone suspicious hanging around
- You wouldn’t need to learn how to do things on your computer, it would learn how you want it to do things for you.
- Media customised to you, the silicon brain would learn what you like in films and by interacting with the broadcaster could modify the film on the fly to make it more suitable to you. It would be aware at what point your suspension of belief happens and stop short of this. No more unbelievable details in films ruining them for you. With the technology advances in cgi such as Avatar this 2 way communication and your personal preferences would make the studio the story teller and the prop provider but you would direct the details of the story without even trying to maximise your enjoyment.
- It would make suppliers work harder, your silicon brain would know what you want to buy. It would scan or call all the suppliers in your area for the best price and negotiate on your behalf so all you have to do is authorise the transaction when you are ready. Suppliers would then have to provide the best price no matter what. I think this could damage the advertising industry badly as no amount of advertising would influence your silicon brain.
- The same would go for your work but in reverse. You would put out a base price for your service which would automatically increase and decrease in relation to demand. It would also negotiate higher prices if someone wanted your services quicker and it would do this intelligently to maximise your returns for your time spent. The silicon brain would realise that you liked knocking off early on a friday and increase the prices slightly for working on a Friday to either put off the buyer till a later date or gain your fair recompense for working later on a Friday.
- Automatic pilots for cars would be more easily achievable, you could walk to the pub and decide you didn’t want to walk home. Send a message to your car and it will come and collect you and take you home. Send the car to take the kids to school and return back to you after. The options here are endless.
- Intelligent personal and property security systems. If you get attacked the silicon brain can call the police on your behalf and give accurate location details and situation. In an accident it can communicate on your behalf with the emergency services, this would be especially useful for the elderly in fall or heart attack situations. Your house security system could call the police if it is getting burgled or the fire service if it is burning.
The list goes on. I think the silicon brain will happen in the next 20-30 years and I think it has the potential to be the most disruptive tech since the internet.
What do you think?
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