The Fate of Tech
It all started with a man who was so lazy to hunt barehanded that he had to develop a stone weapon to help him do the job. And here we are, some 2.5 million years later, stroking into the touch-screens of iPhone 6s and Samsung S7 Edge.
Man was either made a curious being or evolved into one. Whichever the case, curiosity has made this cat do unthinkables. It is hard to point out where exactly in time “real tech” came into existence, but if we were to talk about computers, it probably started with the invention of abacus and throughout the years, man has tried to quench his insatiable thirst for more.
We all know how it started and how it evolved; jotting down the history of computers is not my intention either.
The graph of technological growth has extended steeply skywards in the past few decades and has shown no signs of subsiding. With this trend in growth, one can not help but wonder if we will reach to a point of technological saturation sometime soon or in distant future.
In 1989, Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents had said, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Now that we have seen the advent of quantum computers, we can definitely say that he was wrong in what he said; technology has evolved in an even faster pace since then.
Bulky TV screens are slowly evolving into screen-less displays and virtual reality has taken over the world of smartphones. Everything man had ever dreamt of is being actualized, but his thoughts and quests are ever-spanning. Despite that, there is only so much one can think of and the rate at which they are being realized is so high that this could end up in a state of technological saturation.
However, transhumanist Frank J. Tipler has proposed that it is possible for intelligent beings to process and store an infinite amount of information at the state of Omega Manifold: too complex for me to understand. This would imply that ideas are limitless and hence technological advancement can never saturate.
Ray Kurzweil, in his essay, “The Law of Accelerating Returns,” mentions how the exponential rate of growth of an evolutionary process grows at an exponential rate itself. According to him, the rate of rate of growth increases unless the method exhausts its potential, following which, a paradigm shift takes place in order to give continuity to the exponential rate of growth. In this essence, a specific paradigm can saturate but will shift to something better should that happen, as a result of which, tech-saturation could be impossible.
Another interesting theory about the fate of tech, mostly fueled by Sci-Fis, is that of a future in which mankind struggles to survive in a “dystopian futuristic society” as upgradable intelligent agents attain superintelligence by self-improvement cycles and force human race to servitude. This idea of tech-singularity seems absurd as of now, but so did the thought of aeroplanes before the (Wright) brothers made their first flight in the early 1900s. Tech-singularity is definitely a possibility that technological advancement could lead to.
Curiosity could also kill the cat. Tech-elevation could come to a halt if humans cease to exist as a result of the very tech they develop. While speaking of the dangers inherent in progress, Stephen Hawking said to BBC, “The human race faces one its most dangerous centuries yet as progress in science and technology becomes an ever greater threat to our existence.” This existential-risk is eminent as tech growth could lead to global nuclear annihilation, dysgenics, overpopulation, biological warfare, accidental pandemic, ecological collapse, and acute global warming. Technology has its downside and these possibilities can not be neglected.
We have lived in the golden era of tech and witnessed phenomenal changes in a small time. Today’s impossibilities are tomorrow’s miracles. Hence, wheresoever the fate of tech is headed, we can say that this trend is not going to dwindle anytime soon. So, tech-saturation, human extinction or tech-singularity could definitely be the intrinsic cause of end to tech.
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