ON TECHNOLOGICAL STAGNATION

Guessing the roots of economic crisis

In 2013 the world is crossing through lots of uncertainty, economic difficulties and fear of environmental collapse. In a previous document I had suggested a few reasons to this state of things: oil price, disappearance of some industries, automation, shift of popular interest in cars and some other. But maybe there are other problems like the worldwide conflict between keeping contaminating technologies such as oil fuels and the need of more environmentally friendly ones. Another cause for economic downgrade might be that the private sector just reduced personnel to an optimum. I mean, maybe there was some sort of employment boom, in which there were many job positions not being really necessary. Perhaps outsourcing to less developed countries killed many work positions in the developed world. This should have led to better living standards in poor countries where the outsourcing economy created jobs. But it seems it did not happen. I guess one essential cause for economic difficulties is technological stagnation, I mean not searching for revolutionary options but only improving what already exists.

Cutting edge tech

Up until now technology and perhaps science, have been only refining what had been under development from the beginnings of twentieth century: airplanes, engines, computers, rockets, etc. Reaching the sky is a very expensive endeavor that prevents humanity from conquering new worlds or make use of minerals in the moon or somewhere else. Oil price rises every passing day, which reduces the chances to transportation, commerce and recreational travel. But reducing its cost would lead to higher atmospheric contamination. Renewable resources are reaching exhaustion limits which is a threat to human success on earth. Mineral reserves are decreasing. All of these issues require a true revolution in technology and science in order to guarantee humanity's sustainability and our expansion to new worlds.

What does it take

So far the only motor to technological revolutions has been worldwide war. The US financial crash of early twentieth century was resolved by entering World War II. Atomic technology came out of the war with a great financial cost. After the war all those German engineers and scientists were recruited by the USA and Soviet Union. As a result from this, rockets took people to the moon, airplanes evolved from wooden bodied ones to metallic jets capable of beating the sound barrier. But now planetary war does not seem likely due to nuclear weaponry and its devastating menace. There is a theoretical vision developed by The Club of Rome, which states that human race will collapse by 2040. Now we are experiencing depletion of sea-fishing resources, air pollution, metals shortage and climate change that seem to be confirmations of that doomsday scenario. A nuclear worldwide war is possible when economic crisis deepens to unmanageable. Maybe the world will not end, but atomic weapons apparently model a war to last just days or weeks, until parties at conflict negotiate a truce or someone just loses the fight. This would not allow time enough for a revolution in science and technology. So maybe the engine to this foundational shift will come after reaching the doomsday scenario suggested by the Club of Rome.

A final clarification

I decided to write this document without any Internet research. This is because I think when being too methodical, one misses creativity and our own biases are usually corrected without trace. So maybe I will develop a second document with data gathered from the web so I can check how close to reality I was.

ROBOTS AREN'T TAKING OVER, YET

It's a common idea that robots will take most jobs and people won't work anymore. This would lead us to either fall into misery or enjoy a life of abundance, according to different views of the future. But this is an oversimplification of robotics. We assume robots are almost-human-machines with emotions and moral thought. That's far distant from reality. Currently robots are just tools with very limited capabilities and lots of technical issues. Except for drones, robots can't get freely around. They are like trees, stuck to a fixed place or requiring human supervision to move between locations. And there is another major problem: machine-understanding of visual content (watching things) is just at its beginnings. For now any image or video, is just a bunch of pixels that no computer can see as we humans do. So there is no way for a robot to process its surroundings in a human-like way. Finally, I think machines with some kind of consciousness will be ready in at least 30 years. Then, The Judgment Day is away. But robotics will have overcome most of current challenges when conscious machines arise. Therefore, perhaps robots will be ready to beat humanity when that day comes.

In 2013 the world economy is going through a crisis that could worsen. Automation is blamed for this and robots are perceived as a close danger for employment. How much of that is true? I searched the Internet and found the opposite: robotics boosts job creation! There is a double explanation for this. First, as I already explained, robots are unable to behave or move like humans. This means any job that requires understanding what's around, walking or simply casually interacting with people, needs human workers. The second reason is that robotics (broadly automation) at factories dramatically increases production. This leads to more distribution and sales forces that only can be met by humans (more jobs.) New technology usually leads to lower prices which allows people to buy other things, which leads to new companies and new jobs. Automation in general does not affect highly and lowly paid jobs but middle level ones seem to be decreasing either in manufacture or services. Then, maybe this is the big concern for most.

After all these marvelous ideas were written, the world economy remains in great turmoil. I searched for causes and found that everything started with banks uncontrolledly lending money in the US, for real state acquisitions that led to a financial crash when people failed to pay their debt. But why did banks follow this trend? Something is still missing. My next suspect was oil price, but I found that in the 80s it was even relatively higher than today. Then come all those gone industries: music-records, film-photography and even the current publishing-books industry victimized by the Internet and people like me at blogging. Have all those gone jobs not recovered? My last suspect is the car industry. The developed world has been spinning around cars and parts factories. But it seems production reached its peak and now people are not so interested in buying more of them. Maybe the technological shift to a more automated world is taking its toll.

More links:

On automation
On technological unemployment
What is a robot
On robotics and job creation
On tech evolution
Future's workers
On middle class shrinking
The Luddite Fallacy I
The Luddite Fallacy II

WHY STAY ON OIL?

INTRO

Let's imagine a world in which there is no more oil for internal combustion engines, but a cheap recyclable fuel that only needs a first load and lasts until the engine ends its life cycle. ¿Is it possible? I found the hypothetical answer some twenty years ago and I am a lawyer, not an engineer nor a scientist. I cannot test it because financially I live just at minimal human acceptable condition. But I am sure the core idea is running everywhere and already has been tried by powerful corporations and maybe it is under patent protection so noboby can use it. In my simplistic view, it can be adapted to current engines with a few tweaks, except for jet engines that would require an important new approach. But maybe jet fuel could be based on alcohol with new environmentally improving technologies.

WHY REMAIN ON PETROLEUM?

• Oil is still abundant and more profitable as it becomes harder to extract
• It makes a few Middle East countries powerful and rich
• There are many oil byproducts that are still useful and fortune making, such as plastics, lubricant oils and other which are environmentally poisonous too but very profitable
• The most important reason for oil to stay as the blood of current civilization: The United States is the main oil-technologician and keeps its own in-ground reserve well protected. This guarantees their true world power in case of crisis or planetary war. US reserves are estimated so huge that could keep the world running on gasoline for centuries.

OUTCOMES
One result from this is that the world will keep emitting carbon to the atmosphere and changing our environment into something less oxygenated and more vegetation-oriented by favoring photosynthesis, yet the true effect on plants is uncertain. Will humans easily adapt to a less oxygenated air? Another outcome is that oil derivatives are going to remain expensive so the world will keep growing slowly. Is this good or bad? If the whole planet's economic growth raises a lot, there will be more consumption and waste, but at the same time, better developed countries become more environmentally efficient. So the net outcome of a slowly growing world could be renewable resources exhaustion, at least in poor countries, while non-renewables might expand their availability.

CORE REASONS

I made the assumption that high oil price is leading the world economics to a slowdown. But the true cause for this might be more difficult to attain. Perhaps oil price is part of the answer but automation and robotics, big corporations' over-accumulation of wealth, rich countries too focused on making cars while the market could have reached its limits or people just shifted desire from cars to other things (maybe because of gas prices) or even rich countries might have peaked their enthusiasm for growth and are just bored and not wanting to keep on leading the world. Scarcity of commodities (renewable or not) other than oil could be part of the problem. The economy of information and fun seems not to be creating as many jobs as needed to boost a depressed planetary economy.

More links:
CO2 on plants

http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/why_plants_cant_sequester_excess_co2

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2002/december11/jasperplots-124.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Increasing-Carbon-Dioxide-is-not-good-for-plants.html

Oxygen decrease

http://survivalacres.com/blog/oxygen-levels-are-dropping/

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_looming_oxygen_crisis_and_its_impact_on_worlds_oceans/2301/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/09/30/carbon-emissions-threaten-the-fishing-industry-by-shrinking-fish-sizes/

On oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_product

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2012/12/03/what-happens-when-america-no-longer-needs-middle-east-oil/

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/index.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery

Aviation fuel

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123308337

On economic growth
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-23/business/36496291_1_olivier-blanchard-euro-zone-imf-chief-economist

UBERMACHINES

DISRUPTIVE DRIVES

Solid state drives that are more like huge usb-stick memories are going to disrupt all the computing world, when they replace the conventional hard disk. From operating systems to main processors, nothing will be the same within the next five years. Until now, disk drives have been passive receivers of data waiting for a database update, software configuration change, a new program to install or some other input/output task. All the software development has been conceived in the way of open/close files or  read/write data from the disk to main memory. Computers are turned on and off. These new memories, when fast and cheap enough will eliminate the need for the famous RAM memory and maybe letting just some memory space within the processor itself for a more quickly processing (buffering or whatever). Turning on and off will disappear, and the processor will be designed to function in wake-sleep modes only. The sleep state will serve to process some chores that do not require user's participation and maybe help them solve some kind of internet-search problem, prepare the next session with interesting stuff according to user tastes. The most interesting feature of these drives is that their whole space could be used as main memory. So very complex software will be able of performing intelligent activities such as better user-machine interface with audio and video interaction and more intuitive human-machine connection. The input/output or read/write logic might be discarded from programming languages. I think that processors won't be a single chip anymore but distributed ones (embedded into the main memory drive) with more simplistic tasks and maybe one main processor to guide the general operation.

ISSUES

I read somewhere that solid state drives are prone to fail when intensely used, so perhaps they should be developed to last longer for the prior ideas to be implemented. But it would be more interesting if those new memory drives were able of automatically replacing their own hardware, such as living tissue does, so they can live for many years. This could allow the development of personalized computers suited for each one's particular needs.
A link to a possible solution:
Phase change memory
Self repairing hardware

A FEW CONJECTURES

Maybe bigger platforms carrying SSDs could be based upon artificial intelligence. Then a few questions come out. Will the conventional directory tree and file system be replaced by an associative data storage? What kinds of associations? What could be the minimum data unit? Perhaps an idea could be that minimum. And what is an idea? Would these techniques mimic the chaotic human brain way of thinking? Could machine memories be as dynamical as human ones, being rebuilt every time one recovers them?

Interesting link from a comment on G+:

Phase change memory

FUTURELAND

Here are some ideas on how I see the next hundred years.

THE END OF GAS

There will be no more gasoline internal combustion engines. A simple and wasteless fuel will take over. Powerlines will not be necessary anymore. You will have your own power station at home. Cars won't need refueling. The price of traveling and transport  will decrease dramatically so people will mix a lot with diseases spreading worlwide and goods being produced anywhere on earth.

AUTOMATION AND THE EXPIRATION OF DEMOCRACY

Automation and robotics are a current revolution. The world will be very different in some 30 years due to the economic shift of a majority of people not working but plenty of goods being produced by machines. Maybe there will be less democracy because governments will rule the economy in order to distribute the welfare generated by self-driven machines. This automated society will behave very differently than we currently do. Maybe poor countries will stop working at all and accommodate to receive full help from the robotised rich world; therefore the gap between developed countries and the third world is going to magnify.

PLENTY OF WATER AND FOOD

I guess there will be an important discovery on how to process salt water from the sea into drinking liquid on a very cheap way. Biotechnology will increase productivity at the top and instead of farms, food will be harvested in many floors(*) buildings inside cities (levitating towns).
Link (Dec-27-2012):
Water purifying technique.

THE OPEN SOURCE PARADISE

At some point, when abundance in rich countries assures all life conditions for everybody, technology and science will be released by companies and governments or at least there will be a great share of knowlegde-exchange because current rules of competition are not going to be a need to survive. There will be no more struggle to overcome the other one, so knowlegde-secrets will not be an advantage anymore. As a result from this, human evolution is going to accelerate and more advancements and discoveries will take place. Link: Open Source Initiative.

ON FILMS

I think movies are going to be developed entirely by software, even from the script. So very few people will be in charge barely on the most refined work or minor shifts. But since nobody wants imaginary artists -people want real blood- there will be true people holographed in files that will be used for making films. These persons are going to true-film the dangerous scenes, or at least pretend they are. They will be forced to lead lives that resemble their movie characters and maybe even participate in dangerous situations in real life, or fake them. Maybe some of this is already happening, I am not too much a movies man.

FLIGHT AND LEVITATION

My last guessed revolution has to do with flight or levitation. I think there will be a major breakthrough on how to keep things floating in the air or escaping the gravity attraction. So flying will not require wings and maybe there will be floating cities. Perhaps space flight will be easy and humanity will settle on the moon, mars and other worlds, creating new countries and political problems.

Biotechnology, genetical engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence will complete this new world that comes.

WORKERS OF THE FUTURE

I think there will always be jobs for the less educated but very little. Most of the workers in this new world will be scientists, philosophers, inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, entertainers, judges, managers, social carers, teachers, motivational trainers, law enforcement, planners, politicians,  religious leaders and everything related to automation that cannot be performed by machines.

(*) I had used the word "stories" but I think it is wrong. My Englis is not really good.

UBERWEB

Current access to the Internet poses a series of problems to individual rights such as privacy issues, intelectual property threats coming from the terms of use (the contract). It seems the internet has evolved into a national security tool for the United States. Yet the whole world makes use of it. For US people some irruption into their cyberlives might be acceptable as long as it ensures their security and freedom. To the rest of us there is no benefit. I do not know if in the United States there are means to prevent other people from breaking into one's web connections. I guess there are, since it looks like they trust the internet for business. In my case that is not possible. I am outside the United States and I have never felt secure on the internet. Attacks to any of my web accounts have been common. Breaking passwords appears to be really easy. So it is hard for me to pass a credit card into any web service. One last and devastating issue on internet terms of use is that providers determine what you can upload or not. They define political correctness rules for anything you upload, even if it is a simple letter to a close friend. So the internet has become some kind of big brother that molds even your thoughts.

I think there is a lot of room for a new and very different electronic network. One that guarantees privacy, security, freedom, property and which should be world-wide dispersed so it does not become a national security instrument for a particular country. If it can happen it will come true. American corporations are surely going to refuse it. Are american individuals going to take it?

Links

The web 2.0

The web 3.0

THE JUDGMENT DAY

Terminator film throws a warning on robots taking over and wiping all of us out. It is not a new idea. It appears to be running around since XIX century. It brings some worry on the future. But there are many other concerns that can lead human race to self destruction much sooner than this robotic-artificial-intelligence-doom. Genetical engineering can lead to out of control mutations or diseases. Automation seems to be driving developed countries into a collapse. Even current nuclear weapons might kill most human population. People live huddled in cities. This exacts a sea of oil flowing to multimillion humans towns. If this black blood begins running short, the whole civilisation of cities would quickly die.

For machines to take over it is required two curious abilities that humans do not master yet: Self replication and self repairing. No device can rule humans if not carrying these skills. No single robot will decide our destiny if it is not self-aware and capable of desire. The only out-of-control-technology threat to mankind might be the grey goo. It is a nanotech hell of tiny machines replicating uncontrollably until they destroy all life on earth. When nuclear weapons were only a project it was suspected that a single detonation was going to spread through the whole universe and bring it all to an end. It did not happen. So even the grey goo is perhaps just too much fear. And same as nuclear bombs no grey goo or tech-doom will prevent people from trying new things.

THE FIFTY YEARS TO COME

I remember an article from the 1970's on the negative impact of automation in economics. No solution was found and things were left as they came. Now most developed countries are hitting the ground and becoming economically slow. More and more people are jobless. My guess is that not only automation is involved in the current economy's downfall. It seems World War II years were the last important techno-scientific revolution span. That happened long ago. On current time humankind is drowning in cars. To me, this is half the problem. Car factories cannot grow anymore or even survive. Building cars and parts appear to be an important segment of global economy. Some kind of tech-revolution should burst from somewhere. If not, a worldwide war might force the change with the risk of returning to past centuries after destroying the current civilization.

Automation and an economy focused on cars are the combination that leads to a failing economy from my viewpoint.

What to do with automation? There are four choices:

• Letting things flow on their own
• Stopping the automation progress (not likely as I see it)
• Developing some kind of welfare-economy led by corporations
• An unexpected correction devised by governments, companies or both

If nothing is done, the world's economy is going to deteriorate every day. A global war might arise or some kind of civilizations-collision could happen. My bet is that a sort of free income will be given to jobless people only by big corporations in the beginning. Then it should  spread to almost every company either big or small. It does not seem a good solution since nobody wants to give money away. So this free emolument should be very short if determined exclusively by the private sector. Therefore it would not boost any economical growth.

Perhaps the impulse to a change is coming from developing countries which are more free to experiment. So this means a different world with the power moving from Europe and The United States to China, India, Brazil and some other. It is already in course...

Forgive some misspelling. English is second language to me. By the way, this is not a translation from Spanish. There is no Spanish document similar to this.