Phil and I spent some time Sunday night talking about various technogies that we think will have a profound impact on the future. We mentioned the space elevator, nuclear fusion, a universal assembler, cure for aging, and friendly artificial general intelligence.
Seemingly endless possibilities make predicting the future a fool’s game. But we play the game anyway here at the Speculist and on FastForward Radio because its just that fun.
With all the possibilities and uncertainty about the future it is surprising that there is a broad consensus amoung futurists about what technologies will be most important in shaping the future:
- Nanotechnology,
- Biotechnology,
- Information technology, and
- Cognitive science
Each of these four areas have the potential to cause a profound disruption in the way we do things today. And all four areas interact and build on one another in an exponential process I’ve called “Spock’s Chessboard.”
The combination of these emerging and converging technologies really should have a single accepted name. But as of right now, there are at least five competing acronyms. The prosaic “NBIC” (the four technologies listed in the above order) seems to have some official standing because it was used in a report sponsored by the US National Science Foundation.
Joel Garreau used “GRIN” (genetics, robotics, information tech, and nanotechnology) in his book Radical Evolution. Douglas Mulhall used the similar word “GRAIN” (genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, and Nanotechnology). Ray Kurzweil, I think, used GNR (genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics) in his books.
But I prefer the acronym that’s being popularized by the ETC Group – “BANG.”
- Bits,
- Atoms,
- Neurons, and
- Genes.
It’s easy to remember and the word invokes the potential of these technologies to explode upon the world in ways that are both scary and exciting.