Vivek Wadhwa: The Future is Bright, if We're Cautious
- 6 years ago
Vivek Wadhwa describes the advancements we'll have as a society in the next few decades. He also warns that these advancements are going to require ethical considerations.
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Transcript: You know, when I was young I grew up watching Star Trek. I used to dream about tricorders, replicators, these transporters, all these amazing advances we saw. I also imagined I would be using communicators, that I’d have a replicator reproducing all the ice cream and chocolate that I wanted. So I used to imagine a world of amazing things and we had solved the problems of humanity and we were shooting for the stars, and we were exploring new worlds. That's how I thought it would be when I grew up. Look at the world I grew up into, poverty, hunger, despair, where we put each other down, where we're worried about scarcity running out of resources. It's the exact opposite of what I thought we would have when I grew up when I was young. So I, like the rest of the world, became pessimistic. I mean two or three years ago I too was worried about shortages of energy, food, hunger, overpopulation, the world coming apart because of all of the battles we're fighting.
If you read my writing right now I'm the greatest optimist there is. I talk about this being the most innovative decade in human history when we'll solve the grand challenges of humanity. I talk about the Star Trek future we're headed into. What changed over there? What changed was that I started learning about the advances that are happening in technology. In hanging out with people like Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil at Singularity University, I started learning about the fact that computing is moving exponentially and it's causing many other fields to go exponential. We all know about Moore's Law and we've seen how computers advance in capabilities. Indeed our smartphones are more powerful than the greatest supercomputers of yesteryear.
The same advances are now happening in 3-D printing, in artificial intelligence, robotics, synthetic biology, and in medicine. And what they're making possible is for us to solve the grand challenges of humanity. I now believe that within the next ten to 20 to 30 years we're going to have unlimited energy. Solar is advancing most predictably but there will be many other technologies that become viable over the next five or ten years, which means that in the 2025, 2030 timeframe we should be in an era of almost unlimited energy. We'll have solar cells or other technologies, which generate energy locally, which lets us power electric cars, which are clean. They let us now produce unlimited clean water. We can grow unlimited food. We can 3-D print meat. So we're headed into an era where technology is going to make it possible for us to get out of this shortage mode we've been in, as well with lots of advances in healthcare.
We already now have sensory-based devices that we carry in our pockets, they're called smartphones. They track where we go, when we sleep, they track our activity levels. We'll also have wearable devices that monitor our internals and monitor our vital signs. They'll all be connected to the cloud. We'll have AI based physicians, which monitor us on a 24/7 basis and tell us when we're about to get sick. They'll advise us on how to eat better, how to live healthier lifestyles. So we'll be living longer, we'll be living a healthier, we'll be having an abundance of the basics we need. We'll be able to 3-D print buildings. This is an era we're headed into. And when I finish giving my talks, people start looking more closely at the things that are happening, reading up. And I had most people coming to me later on weeks after they've heard my talk about advancing technologies and say, you know Vivek, you really opened our eyes. It does indeed seem that the world is headed in the right direction. There's all these amazing technology advances happening, which are going to better mankind. [TRANSCRIPT TRUNCATED]
Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler, Elizabeth Rodd, and Dillon Fitton
Read more at BigThink.com: http://goo.gl/O8uR
Follow Big Think here:
YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom
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Transcript: You know, when I was young I grew up watching Star Trek. I used to dream about tricorders, replicators, these transporters, all these amazing advances we saw. I also imagined I would be using communicators, that I’d have a replicator reproducing all the ice cream and chocolate that I wanted. So I used to imagine a world of amazing things and we had solved the problems of humanity and we were shooting for the stars, and we were exploring new worlds. That's how I thought it would be when I grew up. Look at the world I grew up into, poverty, hunger, despair, where we put each other down, where we're worried about scarcity running out of resources. It's the exact opposite of what I thought we would have when I grew up when I was young. So I, like the rest of the world, became pessimistic. I mean two or three years ago I too was worried about shortages of energy, food, hunger, overpopulation, the world coming apart because of all of the battles we're fighting.
If you read my writing right now I'm the greatest optimist there is. I talk about this being the most innovative decade in human history when we'll solve the grand challenges of humanity. I talk about the Star Trek future we're headed into. What changed over there? What changed was that I started learning about the advances that are happening in technology. In hanging out with people like Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil at Singularity University, I started learning about the fact that computing is moving exponentially and it's causing many other fields to go exponential. We all know about Moore's Law and we've seen how computers advance in capabilities. Indeed our smartphones are more powerful than the greatest supercomputers of yesteryear.
The same advances are now happening in 3-D printing, in artificial intelligence, robotics, synthetic biology, and in medicine. And what they're making possible is for us to solve the grand challenges of humanity. I now believe that within the next ten to 20 to 30 years we're going to have unlimited energy. Solar is advancing most predictably but there will be many other technologies that become viable over the next five or ten years, which means that in the 2025, 2030 timeframe we should be in an era of almost unlimited energy. We'll have solar cells or other technologies, which generate energy locally, which lets us power electric cars, which are clean. They let us now produce unlimited clean water. We can grow unlimited food. We can 3-D print meat. So we're headed into an era where technology is going to make it possible for us to get out of this shortage mode we've been in, as well with lots of advances in healthcare.
We already now have sensory-based devices that we carry in our pockets, they're called smartphones. They track where we go, when we sleep, they track our activity levels. We'll also have wearable devices that monitor our internals and monitor our vital signs. They'll all be connected to the cloud. We'll have AI based physicians, which monitor us on a 24/7 basis and tell us when we're about to get sick. They'll advise us on how to eat better, how to live healthier lifestyles. So we'll be living longer, we'll be living a healthier, we'll be having an abundance of the basics we need. We'll be able to 3-D print buildings. This is an era we're headed into. And when I finish giving my talks, people start looking more closely at the things that are happening, reading up. And I had most people coming to me later on weeks after they've heard my talk about advancing technologies and say, you know Vivek, you really opened our eyes. It does indeed seem that the world is headed in the right direction. There's all these amazing technology advances happening, which are going to better mankind. [TRANSCRIPT TRUNCATED]
Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler, Elizabeth Rodd, and Dillon Fitton