/ News
Air Force Video Compares Facebook, iPhone to Atom Bombs
The world of tomorrow is going to be a dark and sinister place, according to a group of Air Force futurists. One reason why it’ll be so scary: Facebook.
In an foreboding web video entitled “Welcome to 2035…the Age of Surprise,” produced by the U.S. Air Force’s Center for Strategy and Technology, the pace of human advancement races forward ever faster until the distinction between man and machine all but disappears and the dangers to those cyborgs are omnipresent. Social media, apparently, is a major step on the road to this dystopia.
The video is part of a USAF-led effort called “Blue Horizons,” which is tasked with producing a series of annual reports to attempt to predict the future’s technology. Blue Horizons tries to determine what air, space and cyberspace will look like in the next 20 years or so. It seeks to anticipate how the technology will change and who will have access to emerging technologies. But given their predictions, you’d be forgiven if you came away from the video with an impulsive need to burn your iPhone, deactivate your Facebook account and soberly promise never to go on YouTube again — wait, can I fit all that in a tweet?
The video sets the mood with a rather somber Einstein quote: “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” Then it charts the development of ever more sophisticated and terrifying technology along a curve, which begins with da Vinci in the 1500s and continues into the era of the Wright Brothers.
As the curve rises, it reaches a turning point in 1945 with the dawning of the atomic age. The A-bomb doesn’t just level cities; it increases the pace of change goes from gradual to geometric.
As it passes over the space race, the technology becomes more complex. Stealth planes fly in, cyber conflict takes its place, bio-warfare too, the curve is reaching its apex and becoming vertical. Technology is now advancing as fast as possible, the tension is palpable, what human-life-destroying technology is next on the curve? Facebook.
Wait, what? Facebook? OK, seems strange to put that in there, but we’ll let it slide as a nod to today’s technological fashion. Next on the curve we have the Chinese computer hackers that wreaked havoc in the U.S. and Europe with the “Titan Rain” online attacks. Then comes Twitter and YouTube, the iPhone and iPad — this is getting awkward now. What’s wrong with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube? This video seems to be the ramblings of an irate Luddite reminiscing of a childhood where milk was delivered each morning, wars were fought in trenches, and no one felt the need to update their friends and followers about it.
But where’s the curve going? What does Blue Horizons predict? The Air Force futurists don’t say exactly. But let’s just say there are some pictures of chips implanted into brains glowing green and red.
In fact, the group the future is ultimately kind of unknowable. “We can predict broad outlines,” the video says, “but we don’t know the ramifications.” They’re merely foreseeing that they won’t be able to foresee.
So don’t go burning your smartphones just yet (at least wait until iPhone 5 comes on sale) — 2035 is set to be an age of surprise and for us “super empowered individuals with domains” — it’s very much up for grabs. As the Futurist Thomas Frey said, “our greatest motivation in life comes from not knowing the future.”
Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/usaf-predicts-the-future-welcome-to-the-age-of-surprise/
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru