Technologies That Need To Go Exponential

 Exponential Technology

Look around your day-to-day life.  How much of what you do has not really changed since the 1970's or earlier?  In this examination we look at technologies outside of Genetics, Robotics and Nanotechnology (GNR) and ask how we can get these areas to start following Moore's Law-type improvements as well. Specifically we evaluate automotive and transportation, around the home, food, and education.

A t 33rd Square we aim to track exponential technologies path towards the Singularity. For the most part we look at the GNR technologies—Genetics, Robotics and Nanotechnology, but in order to get the most out of all our technologies, are there other areas that can be dramatically improved by jumping onto Moore's Law curves?

If you were born in the 1970's or earlier, take any industry or technology that is operating the same and consider for a moment; with all the progress made in information-based technologies, how come some processes seem to have not changed at all.

The things we use day-to-day seem to be almost unchanging over this period.  As our parents and grandparents did, we generally sleep in a home, get up, eat breakfast and commute to work.  We then spend the day at some task and then reverse the order for the evening.  In all of these interactions, our surroundings and the technologies we use are little different from previous generations.

Economist Tyler Cowen has documented this in his, The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will(Eventually) Feel Better. During the last forty years, that low-hanging technology fruit started disappearing and we started pretending it was still there according to Cowen. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau and the trees are barer than we would like to think.  We simply have to recognize the underlying causes of our past prosperity—low hanging fruit—and how we will come upon more of it.

As Cowen writes, our technological stagnation has ancillary effects on our economy as well.  Our lack of technological improvement in the day-to-day world is not just about our perceptions and feelings about our progress — they are some of the sources of our economic malaise as well.

What is some of the new fruit we can look to to not only improve our economic situation, but better our lives?  Is there any of Cowen's low-hanging fruit staring us in the face that we have not recognized?

Automotive and Transportation Industries

We have documented, for instance how the automotive industry is about to experience dramatic change as automated self-driving car systems begin to take hold.  Brad Templeton has said recently that the impact of Moore's Law on the automobile industry will be the most dramatic technological change for people in the next 10 - 20 years.

What if we look at what the cars are driving on?  Road construction technology has been essentially unchanged since the days of Macadam.  Improving road safety, quality and efficiency, as well as reducing the environmental negative effects should be the push of governments and industries involved.   With smarter vehicles, smarter roads should also be developed.  Artificial intelligence systems have already been shown to be superior at managing traffic flows and avoiding the formation of congestion.

The carbon dioxide generated on our roadways should be considered a resource, not a pollutant. New catalysts, based on nanotechnology materials, can potentially transform carbon dioxide to high value hydrocarbons and other carbon-containing molecules, which could be used as new building blocks for the chemical industry as cleaner and more sustainable alternatives to petrochemicals.

Around The Home

The water and heating and cooling of homes are other day-to-day technologies we give little thought to except when utility rates increase dramatically.  Part of the situation is the systems are relatively reliable and maintenance free and do are not costed at an exorbitant rate.  Much of what goes on in the boiler rooms and basements has not seen major innovation for the better part of a century.  North American standards are probably the best for consumers in the world when it comes to home heating and cooling, however the economic and environmental cost of our systems is expensive.

Most of the talk of improving the conservation and efficiency of our HVAC systems is little more than lip-service by the existing companies involved.

More than just on an engineering level, it should be a design problem as well.  Consider the recent success of the Nest Learning Thermostat (pictured above).  Using a Nest, homeowners can control about 50% of their home's energy bill.  Traditional thermostats tend to waste a lot of energy, mainly heating and cooling your home when no one's there.  The Nest demonstrates what can happen when a seemingly entrenched technology is investigated with fresh eyes and design sensibilities.

Solar energy use for the home is another area that has not yet caught on in a mainstream level, but as Peter Diamandis and Steven Cotler note in Abundance, returns from solar power are now on an exponential curve.  Potential nanotechnology advances in solar power generation using graphene and other methods could mean wider distribution of clean power to rich and poor alike.

Housing construction has countless opportunities to develop and improve, both in terms of the quality and accessibility of the product.

Food

Food storage and preparation is another area that has seen some changes, mainly in terms of availability and globalization of products available.  At our local grocery stores and restaurants today, we can sample the exotic and mundane from all over the world.  What is the carbon footprint of a saltine cracker from Madagascar being sold in Canada? or Fijian water sold in Moscow?

While food availability has exploded, nutritional values of food have not been a positive technology in the last few decades.  Furthermore our millions of years of evolution depended on our ancestors   Our Fast Food Nation habits have left the developing world dealing with an obesity epidemic.  With everything, there are some positive exceptions, like our access to fresh fruits and vegetables year round, but if clearly our bodies are telling us we have to improve our food situation.

Why are we still using tin cans to distribute food?  Forget build a better mousetrap, someone needs to build a better tin can.  Can't we have our can and eat it too?

Education

Perhaps no greater area requires an exponential boost than education. Americans spend 6% of GDP on education, however there have been no improvements in student reading or math performance since mid 1970's. Furthermore the US is spending (in constant dollars) twice a much now per student as they did then.  The high school graduation rate peaked at 80% in late 60's.

Via: MAT@USC | Master’s of Arts in Teaching

Education in the future needs to be widely distributed and highly personalized.  Programs like Sebastian Thrun's Udacity and open couseware at MIT are a start, but dramatic new approaches are needed to meet the challenge of educating a growing young population and providing the skills that are essential to the hyper-knowledge economy. 


This is especially the case when artificial intelligence is considered.  Our education systems still rely on 18th century methods of memorization and formulaic learning too heavily.  Already today many like David Chalmers consider that humans have already begun to extend our minds use of memory to our devices.  His extended mind hypothesis needs to be considered in terms of our outdated education methods.


Personalized IT-based approaches to education are emerging that allow learner-centred education, critical thinking development and creativity. Rapid developments in social media, open courseware and ubiquitous access to the Internet are facilitating outside classroom and continuous education.

Our world was once local and linear, but is now global and exponential according to Peter Diamandis.  It would seem that there are still areas outside of GNR where the local and linear seem to be a sufficient status quo, however in all areas we should look to the power of innovation, improvement and make this world better—all of it.


This examination was admittedly a shotgun-type exploration of our technological shortcomings.  In so many areas we have so far to go.  Like Cowen, we should look upon these flaws as opportunities.  

By 33rd Square

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