KEY CONCLUSIONS
The Internet will radically change all areas of human existence
«The natural state of a human is hunger and life of 30 years. In its natural state, human life is rather short. How far do we want to walk away from this natural state?» Michio Kaku, Professor of Physics, Co-founder of String Field Theory, Futurologist.
«The Internet is going to change everything in the coming decades. It will eventually become a ’brainnet’. This is going to change entertainment, education, politics and our way of life, as soon as we are able to mentally communicate with the rest of the world. And then I go 500 years into the future, where we might even have perhaps time machines and teleportation, things right out of science fiction,» Michio Kaku.
PROBLEMS
Robots will eliminate many professions
«Certain jobs will be eliminated. The jobs to be eliminated first are the repetitive jobs that require the same motions over and over again. Second, middlemen jobs such as brokers and low level accountants. But a lawyer cannot be replaced. So there are limitations to artificial intelligence. The first one, as I said, is interacting with humans, any jobs that require interaction with humans, where it is important to convey emotions, friendship. Second, pattern recognition, which the robots are very bad at. <...> The United States Pentagon set up a study group that does advanced science projects and sponsored a challenge to create a robot to clean up Fukushima. A robot had to pick up garbage, turn a valve... A two-year old child can do a lot of these things. Every challenge entry failed,» Michio Kaku.
«In the future garbage men, plumbers and policemen will have jobs. And the second group is intellectual capital that possesses experience, know-how, creativity,» Michio Kaku.
Computer technology potential is topping off
«The age of silicone is gradually coming to an end, Silicone valley has its days numbered. The principle of the computer revolution is simple: you get a template, shoot in ultraviolet radiation on a piece of silicone, and — boom —we have a chip. In the end, year after year the number of transistors on the crystal doubles, and the distance between them shrinks. Eventually, the spacing between these layers becomes about five atoms across,» Michio Kaku.
SOLUTIONS
The future is in quantum computing and molecular technologies
«The next step is molecular transistors and atomic transistors. <...> You can do a lot more computation on a quantum computer. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the secret services of the world are trying to learn quantum computers, because they can crack any known computer code almost for free,» Michio Kaku.
Digitalization of medicine opens new opportunities for the treatment of complex diseases
«Today we can put a chip in the computer inside a tablet that you can swallow like an aspirin pill. It can diagnose. This gives a new meaning to the expression „Intel Inside“. <...> By analysing blood we can now detect one cancer cell in the blood out of a billion. And this technology is going to be commercialized this year. These are called Liquid Biopsies. The cells can be identified years before a tumour forms. In fact, in the future the word ‘tumour’ may disappear from your language,» Michio Kaku.
«Organs can gradually be replaced. Today we can replace skin, bone, cartilage, noses, ears, blood vessels, heart valves, bladders, also wind pipes. And the next organ to be grown is the liver,» Michio Kaku.
«There were a few major projects in science: the Manhattan Project, which gave us nuclear energy; in the 80ies it was a genome project, which deciphered the human genome; many people today think that the third great initiative called a Human Connectome Project. The Connectome Project is to map the entire brain. And already, using the MRI scans, looking at the blood flow in the human brain we’ve been able to prove or disprove many theories of the brain. <...> The United States Pentagon and DARPA are now funding exoskeletons for GIs from Iraq and Afghanistan with injured spinal cords, no arms, no legs,» Michio Kaku.
Digitization of the human brain is a step towards immortality
«MRI scan power makes a lot of things possible. We can now take the brain and pictorialize what it is thinking about, and have a 3D printer print it out. Every new technology gives us a new art form», Michio Kaku.
«Two years ago there was a man who kicked the football initiating the World Cup games in Brazil. That man was totally paralyzed, he was a quadriplegic. At Duke University they put a chip in his brain, connected the chip to a complete exoskeleton, and he became like superman. So we are talking about a new era in brain-computer interface. <...> If we can digitalize the human brain we have a chance for digital immortality,» Michio Kaku.
More detailed information is available on the website of the Roscongress Foundation information and analytical system.
