Why does the future not need us?

• Technology is changing our world at an overwhelming pace. Most people are deeply involved with technology. They tend to be ever optimistic about its prospects and persistently eager to adopt and promote it.
• C.S.Lewis argued that humanity, so —called power over nature “turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument’.
• C.S.Lewis feared that modernism and its ability to explain away everything but “nature “would leave us emptied of humanity. All that would be left is our animal instincts. The choice is to see humanity as a complex combination of both material and spiritual components or else to be reduced to machines made of meat ruled by other machines with nothing other than natural impulses to guide them.
• C.S.Lewis also warned us of a society that has explained away every mystery, and the danger of what he calls “man-molders which will be armed with the powers of an Omni-competent state and irresistible scientific technique.
• Francis Fukuyama, there are three possible scenarios for the near future. First, the genetically enhanced intelligence or the prospect of living longer lives free from genetic disease.
• • Jacques Ellul warns that as technological capabilities grow, they results in countless means to accomplish tasks than ever before. The more dependent we become on technology, the more it conforms our behavior to its requirements rather than vice versa.
• • William Gibson, who coined the term “cyberspace”, has said “the future is here”- it’s just not evenly distributed”. Some of the important changes in the future will come not from a new technology, but from a large number of people having access to something that already exists (Scharre, 2017).

   
• Genetic engineering

  • is the process by which an organisms’ genetic material is  altered or manipulated so that the organism will have specific characteristics.
  • It has been applied in numerous fields including research, medicine, industrial biotechnology and agriculture.
  • It can be used in Cloning, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Gene therapy.
• Robotics

  •  Is an interdisciplinary research area at the interface of computer science and engineering. It involves the conception, design, manufacture and operation of robots. (Wikipedia).
• • Characteristics of Robots: Robots all consist of some sort of mechanical construction, Robots need electrical components that control and power the machinery.
• Types of Robots:

  • Pre-Programmed Robots (operate in a controlled environment where they do simple, monotonous tasks)
  • Humanoid robots (robots that look like and/ or mimic human behavior - Sophia)
  • Autonomous Robots (operate independently of human operators)
  • Teleoperated Robots (mechanical robots controlled by humans)
  • Augmenting Robots (either enhance current human capabilities or replace the capabilities a human may have lost).
• Applications of Robots

  • Military robots (to search, rescue and attack)
  • Industrial robots (IBM keyboard manufacturing factory in Texas)
  • Collaborative robots or cobots (intended for direct human robot interaction within shared space)
  • Construction robots (robotic arm and robotic exoskeleton)
  • Agricultural robots (closely linked to the concept of AI-assisted precision agriculture and drone usage)
  • Medical robots (da Vinci Surgical System and Hospi)
  • Kitchen automation (Rotimatic, flatbreads baking, Frobot, frozen yogurts)
  • Robot combat for sport
  • Domestic robots (Roomba vacuums the carpets)
  • Nanobots (Kinesin uses protein domain dynamics in nanoscales to walk along a microtubule)
  • Swarm robotics (disaster rescue missions, target localization and tracking, simultaneous localization and mapping, cooperative environment monitoring and convoy protection)
• Nanotechnology is the study and manipulation of atomic or molecular scale to improve or even revolutionize many technology and industry sectors.
• Artificial Intelligence - Refers to “machines” that respond to stimulation consistent with traditional responses from humans, given the capacity for contemplation, judgment and intention.
• • Alan Turing established the fundamental goal and vision of artificial intelligence. It is the attempt to replicate or simulate human intelligence in machines.
• Norvig and Russell defined Artificial Intelligence in four approaches: Thinking rationally, thinking humanly, acting rationally and acting humanly.
• Artificial Intelligence

  • It is being used in health care, energy development, finance, transportation, aviation and telecommunications.
  • It includes autonomous vehicles such as drones and self-driving cars, playing games such as chess or Go, search engines such as Google search, online assistants such as Siri, image recognition in photographs, predicting flight delays and medical diagnosis.
• Potential Risks to Society

  • Devaluation of humanity
  • Decrease in demand of human labor
  • High costs of creation
  • Ethical issues
  • Social isolation
  • Environmental Problems 
• List of Emerging Technologies that will shape our Future

  1.  Electric/ self-driving cars
  2. Robot butlers
  3. Flying cars
  4. Space tourism
  5. Colonization of other planets
  6. Wearable screens
  7. 3D printed Food and Metal
  8. 5G-6G connectivity
  9. Re-engineering and Recycling
  10. High-rise farms
  11. Lab-grown meats
  12. Robot soldiers
  13. Roads over rivers and seas
  14. Holography
  15. Body implants prosthesis
• Post-humanity is a theory/ concept that is of an advanced level of technological or economic development that would involve a radical change in the human condition, whether the change was brought by biological enhancement or other cause.
• • GNR - Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics
• • KMD - knowledge and enabled mass destruction
• WMD - Weapon of Mass Destruction
• • NBC - Nuclear, Biological and Chemical
• “Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master.” - Christian Lous Lange
• Artificial Intelligence - simulation of human intelligence in machines   that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.
• Technology 

  • is a double-edged sword, like most human beings, involving gain and loss, also merit and demerit.
  • it links us to those far away, but confuses us from those that are close, and hospitals save lives, but takes them to battlegrounds.
• • Social change is taking place at an ever  increasing rate. 
  • One of the issues in this current debate is  the quality-of-life in modern society. 
  • Progress optimists have confidence that  we live better now than earlier  generations, while pessimists question that life is getting worse.
• Technology and  Humanity: A Positive Side

  • Human history with a kind of directionality was provided  by technological development. 
  • As technology advances, it hacks the characteristics of  every situation over and over again. The age of  automation is going to be the age of “Do it yourself.”
• Technology and  Humanity: A Positive Side

  (1) Material Standard of Living

  • Several  achievements of modern society draw through  the idea that life is getting better. 
  • One is the  unparalleled rise in the material standard of  living; the average citizen lives more easily now  than kings did centuries ago.
• Technology and  Humanity: A Positive Side

  (2) Untimely death is reduced

  • fewer people die in accidents, epidemics and murders. A number of social evils have been decreased, such as poverty, inequality, ignorance and oppression. 
  • A recent statement of this view can be found in “it's getting better all the time.” by Moore and Simon (2000.)
• Technology and  Humanity: A Positive Side

  (3) Improvement in Evolutionary View

  • This view of  development is typically part of an evolutionary view, in  which society is seen as a human tool that is gradually  perfected. This idea was established during the enlightenment  period (18th century). 
  • The idea that we can progress society by ‘social  engineering’ is part of this belief and forms the ideological  foundation of many major contemporary institutions such  as the welfare state, and development aid organizations
• Technology and  Humanity: A Positive Side

  (4) Reduced Suffering

  • This is a traditional  religious view of earthly life as a phase of penance  awaiting paradise in the afterlife breaks the  knowledge of life is getting better. 
  • It deems the possibility to reduce suffering by  creating a better world and societal development 
• Technology and  Humanity: A Negative Side

  (1) Contemporary Social Problems

  • One of the kinds of problems is deviant behavior, such as criminality, drug use, and school refusal. Another group of problems seen to lessen the quality of life such as social conflicts, labor disputes, ethnic troubles, and political terrorism.
  • A recent statement of this view  is found in Easterbrook (2003) “The Progress Paradox,” The decline of the influence of the church, family and  local community are also seen to deprive the quality  of life of modern people.
• Technology and  Humanity: A Negative Side

  (2) Society drifting away from  Human Nature

  • This view of deterioration is often part of the idea of society drifting away from human nature, because society has changed a lot, while human nature has not. 
  • Not a piece of equipment but rather an uncontrollable force that presses humans into a way of life that does not really fit them in society view.
  • The idea that life is getting poorer fits a long tradition of social criticism and apocalyptic prophecies. In this view,  paradise is lost and doubtful to be restored.
• Relevance of the Issue

  • If modernization makes society less livable, we should  try to stop the process, or atleast to slow it down. 
  • Conservatives have a strong point in this case and can convincingly argue for restorative policies.
  • However, if modernization tends to improve the quality-of- life, we better go along, which would rather fit the liberal political agenda.
• Societal Collapse

  • There are several attempts to explain the collapse of society. This includes the following words; Gibbons’ classic Decline and Fall of the  Roman Empire also Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of  Complex Societies, and Jared Diamond’s more  recent Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or  Succeed.
• • Tainter (1990), notes that  societies need to protect certain  resources such as food, energy,  and natural resources in order to  sustain their populations.
• • Attempt to solve this supply problem, societies may  grow in complexity in the form of  bureaucracy, infrastructure, social  class distinction, military operations, and colonies.
  • Marginal returns on these  investments in social complexity become unfavorable, and societies that do not manage to  scale back when their organizational overheads  become too large finally face breakdown.
• • Jared Diamond says that many  past cases of societal collapse  have elaborate environmental  factors such as deforestation and  habitat destruction, soil problems,  water management problems,  overhunting, and overfishing, the  effects of introduced species,  human population growth, and  increased per-capita impact of  people.