3 Technologies That Are Making Individuals More And More Powerful
Most of the exciting technological developments we’re going to see over the next 5–10 years have the interesting property that they are going to democratize power and tip the scales more in favor of the individual.
It’s already happening, actually. 3D printing, for instance, is giving individuals in their own homes the power of factories and large corporations. Wearable health sensors are giving individuals around the world the power of docotrs and hospitals. Advancements in synthetic biology are enabling people to hack genetic code in their garages.
It’s important to reflect for a moment on what this all means. I just got back from giving the keynote presentation at the 3D Printer World Expo in Seattle, and afterwards there was a lot of excitment about what 3D printing is going to do for the world. And by putting 3D printers in space, we’re doing our part by giving people cheap, fast access to space. But I think there needs to be more reflection on the bigger picture. What is going to happen when the power of the individual increases?
In their 2012 forecast, The United States National Intelligence Council predicted that one of the biggest shifts we’re going to see by 2030 is that “for the first time, a majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world.” To explain this shift, the National Intelligence Council cited reasons such as poverty reduction, better education, and better health care. And while these reasons are correct, there is absolutely no doubt that exponentially advancing technologies will play a majorly disruptive role.
Power Enabler #1: 3D Printing
The excitement around 3D printing is hitting a fever pitch right now. You can practically taste it if you go to any of the industry events. And the reason is because it’s finally becoming clear to the average person that the technology is good enough to print some high-quality stuff. And it’s getting cheaper, too. You can pick up a decent 3D printer for just a few hundred bucks.
I think what most people don’t realize, though, is that the biggest global impact of 3D printing isn’t that it will let you print out household items with the click of a button (although that is pretty cool).
The biggest global impact of 3D printing is that it is giving individuals the power of large corporations and governments.
This is major. What used to take tremendous amounts of infrastructure now takes a desktop machine that is becoming available to everyone. Even in the West African country of Togo, a place where you might not expect it, 3D printing is quickly becoming a key disruptive technology. In Togo recently, a man by the name of Kodjo Afate Gnikou figured out a way to create an incredibly cheap 3D printer by harvesting electronic waste from the trash.
This is very real, and it’s happening now. We’re seeing children start successful robotics companies using 3D printing. And at Made In Space, when our 3D printers are available on the International Space Station, we’re going to be enabling people around the world to put hardware in space. People that never dreamed they would have access to space will be able to send us files that represent objects and we’ll be able to print those objects in space on demand.
3D printing is giving more power to the individual, and it’s doing it quickly. By making it faster and cheaper to create physical objects, individuals around the world are gaining access to entire industries (including space), that were previously completely out of reach.
Power Enabler #2: Wearable Sensors
The healthcare industry, to put it lightly, is rather problematic. Billions of people around the world simply don’t have access to the healthcare that they need. And even in countries that are supposedly relatively well off, like America, terribly large segments of the population either don’t have healthcare or don’t have good healthcare.
Even people with good healthcare often aren’t healthy. Which really brings me to the heart of the problem. The problem isn’t actually healthcare, it’s health. The entire setup is wrong. Our bodies and minds are constantly breaking down and the only way to fix themis to pay exorbitant sums of money to highly trained professionals and large health organizations.
It’s all really unpleasant, too. Even if you do have a good doctor, and you can afford it, it’s still really not very much fun to go.
We’re finally starting to see the solution now, and it lies in the revolution that is quietly growing in the wearable technology space. Yes, FitBits have been around for a few years now, and we haven’t seen that much of a paradigm shift in people’s heath…yet. But that’s only because we’re just getting started. Sensor technology wil improve rapidly, and along with it, the impact.
What wearable sensors really are going to do, is enable individual humans around the world to have the power of the world’s best doctors, hospitals, and universities at their fingertips.
As mobile health sensing technology gets better and better, the number of times you’re going to have to go the doctor or hospital is going to go down and down. It’s that simple. Not only will you be able to manage your health better and avoid more problems, but when the problems come up, you won’t need a hospital to solve them.
Wearable sensors are the key to giving individuals control over their own health. This is because they represent the link between our bodies (an analog data source) and information technology (digital).
By enabling computers to automatically harvest important health data directly from our bodies, we dramatically increase the amount if knowledge and information that we have about our bodies, and we start getting power over our own health immediately. Combine this with advancements in AI and algorithms, and individuals begin to finally gain control over their own bodies and minds.
Just like 3D printing, what mobile health sensing does is it gives individuals control and power. With 3D printing, power over the external physical world is granted. With wearable sensors, power is granted over the world inside of our own bodies and minds.
Power Enabler #3: Synthetic Biology
Synthetic biology is, as its name indicates, the artificial creation and modification of biological elements for a specific purpose. Craig Venter booted up the first “synthetic life form” in 2010, and since then there has been a lot of buzz about what’s possible with synthetic biology.
What a lot of people don’t realize, though, is that synbio is not limited to Ph.D.s like Craig Venter. There’s an entire “do-it-yourself” movement brewing really fast around hacking biology, and it’s all because it’s possible to hack biology right from your own basement or garage.
Our genetic code is, to a large extent, what defines us as humans. And the idea that our genetic code could be edited at all gets a lot of people excited. Some are excited because they’re optimistic, and some because they’re scared.
But it’s not just human genetic code that we’ll be editing. What about the genetic code of bacteria and viruses? If you look at what’s going on in the bio-hacking field, with organizations like iGEM (the International Genetically Engineered Machine Foundation) are literally making it possisble right now for individuals and students to edit living organisms and create new and altered kinds of life.
Again, here, we see the power pushed to the individual. This time, individuals aren’t taking over what large corporations or hospitals have been doing, but they are starting to shape life and lifeforms.
And yes, there are potentially scary possibilities here. If a college student can reprogram a virus in her dorm room, there is a reason to believe that we need appropriate safeguards in place.
Pessimistic scenarios aside though, synthetic biology is giving indivduals that power to create and shape living organisms in new positive directions.
We’ll be able to use synthetically created organisms to develop and manufacture new drugs, to clean up our environment, and to detect and cure diseases. These organisms will be created by individuals around the world, just as iPhone apps and websites are today.
And that’s just the beginning.
Should we be excited or afraid?
Any time there is a power shift, there is a reason to take a step back and evaluate what will change. Because, make no mistake about it, a power shift of any sort means big changes.
The big question is, are those changes positive or are they something we should be concerned about? Human history is littered with power shifts that have have been for the better and for the worse, and sometimes both.
When it comes to technology bringing more power to the individual, I suggest an attitude of healthy caution, but overall optimism.
Perhaps paradoxically, the reason that I am not afraid is precisely because we, as a species, are afraid. Our fear will keep us in check, and it will motivate us to develop solutions that protect us. For instance, while advances in technology will enable individuals to be able to create harmful biotechnology, at the same time other technological advances will enable us to track, measure, and diffuse these risks.
We will make mistakes, but hopefully they will be mistakes we can recover from. We have to have faith in that. We have to press forward. The benefits of technology like 3D printing, wearable sensors, and synthetic biology are far too great to be sacrificed out of fear that we might mess up.
The reality is that we live in a time where emerging technology has the ability to solve some of humanity’s most serious longstanding challenges. If anything, we have a moral obligation to develop these technoloiges as quickly as we can, so that we can right economic imbalances, and eliminate needless pain and deaths. If anything, there is a moral obligation to develop these technologies faster, not slower.
In my opinion though, the best long-term solution to ensuring humanity’s safety is to diversify our existence beyond planet Earth, into space. There is too much at stake to keep every single thing that has ever mattered to humanity on one tiny pale blue dot.
While it has seemed like science fiction for as long as we can remember, it is important to note that in the grand scheme of things, we’re really just getting started with space exploration.
It’s easy to be disappointed and think, “why haven’t we created cities in space yet?”, when we only started going to space a matter of decades ago. Modern humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. We are going to get off this planet, and we are going to diversify our existence into the solar system and beyond.
Space exploration is a necessity for the safety of the human race.
That’s one of the main reasons I’m so excited about the 3D printer that we’re sending to the space station next month at Made In Space. It’s going to drop the cost and time necessary to put hardware in space, which is a key step towards finally bringing humanity to the stars.
About The Author
Mike Chen co-founded Made In Space and Plus Labs, and is a software engineer, an entrepreneur, and a futurist (and on occassion, a photographer, a pilot and and a DJ). Made In Space designed and built the first 3D printer for use in space, and is launching it to the International Space Station this year. Plus Labs is leveraging disruptive mobile technology to improve health outcomes in several key areas. Mike also recently founded Chen Ventures, a venture company to support businesses like Made In Space and Plus Labs that apply disruptive technology towards a better future for humanity.
Follow Mike on Twitter: @mikechen
