A Scientist Predicts the Future - The New York Times 4/15/17, 12:16 AM

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The Opinion Pages | TURNING POINTS | CRYSTAL BALL

A Scientist Predicts the Future

By MICHIO KAKU NOV. 28, 2013

When making predictions, I have two criteria: the laws of physics must be
obeyed and prototypes must exist that demonstrate proof of principle. Ive
interviewed more than 300 of the worlds top scientists, and many allowed me
into laboratories where they are inventing the future. Their accomplishments
and dreams are eye-opening. From my conversations with them, heres a
glimpse of what to expect in the coming decades:

1. Computers Will Disappear

According to Moores Law, computer power doubles every 18 months. That

means in a decade or so, chips will cost about a penny, the cost of scrap paper.
Computers as we now know them will disappear; they will be everywhere and
nowhere, ubiquitous yet hidden, just like electricity and running water. The
cloud will follow us silently and seamlessly, carrying out our wishes anytime,
anywhere.

2. Augmented Reality Will Be Everyday Reality

Remember the movie The Matrix, where virtual information popped up to

help inform physical day-to-day reality? Such things wont always be the stuff of
Hollywood. If the Internet is accessible via contact lenses, biographies will
appear next to the faces of the people we talk to, and we will see subtitles if they

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speak a foreign language. (College students taking final exams will be among the
first to buy Internet contact lenses.) These lenses would revolutionize the lives
of actors, politicians, surgeons, tourists, soldiers and astronauts by delivering
maps, scripts, speeches, translations, biographies and charts with the blink of
an eye.

3. The Brain-Net Will Augment the Internet

In decades to come, we will control computers with our minds, not a

mouse.The European Union and the United States are committing hundreds of
millions of dollars to map the neural pathways of the brain, the next big project
in science. This could alleviate the misery of those suffering from mental illness
and allow paralyzed people to control computers, video games, appliances,
wheelchairs and mechanical arms and legs with sheer thought.

As in science fiction, via the Internet we will be able to experience telepathy

(mind-to-mind contact) and telekinesis (mind controlling matter), to upload
memories, create a brain-net (memories and emotions sent over the Internet),
and record thoughts and even dreams. Basic proofs of principle for all of this
have been demonstrated.

This could have an enormous social impact. If memories can be uploaded,

unemployed workers might one day be retrained to learn new skills. Students
could take college courses while sleeping. Facebook will be full of emotions and
memories. Movies may offer emotions, feelings, sensations and memories, not
just images and sound.

4. Capitalism Will Be Perfected

We are headed toward perfect capitalism, when the laws of supply and
demand become exact, because everyone knows everything about a product,
service or customer. We will know precisely where the supply curve meets the
demand curve, which will make the marketplace vastly more efficient.

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One by one, multibillion-dollar industries are being digitized. The first was
music, where digitization drove down costs and increased efficiency and
competition. To its misfortune, the music industry thought people would
continue buying music the old-fashioned way. As a result, Apple Inc. controls
much of the music industry. The lesson is that companies are free to ignore
digitization; they are also free to go bankrupt. Adapt and surf the rising digital
tide, or drown.

Now, media is being digitized. In the coming decade, education, medicine

and transportation will make the change.

5. Robots Will Be Commonplace

After false starts, artificial intelligence is slowly entering every day life.
Robodoc and robolawyer, animated doctors or lawyers, will soon give
instant, reliable advice any time of day in simple language.

As transportation is digitized in the next decade, driverless cars, guided by

GPS and radar, will share our highways. Traffic accidents and traffic jams
will become archaic terms. Thousands of lives will be saved every year.

The robotic industry could grow bigger than todays auto industry. Japan,
which makes 30 percent of all robots, is already building robot nurses to
prepare for an aging population. Not just nurses, but mechanical maids, cooks,
musicians and assistants could be part of our homes.

Humanoid robots that can think, however, have been a disappointment.

Robots today, and for the near future, will not exercise creativity, imagination,
experience, analysis, talent, common sense or leadership. Those traits will likely
remain fully in the human sphere for decades to come.

6. Aged Body Parts Will Be Replaced

Diseased and old body parts will be replaced just as we now replace auto

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parts. Already from your own cells scientists can grow skin, cartilage, noses,
blood vessels, bladders and windpipes. In the future, scientists will grow more
complex organs, like livers and kidneys. The phrase organ failure will
disappear.

7. Parents Will Design Their Offspring

In a few decades, parents may be able to choose many genetic

characteristics of their children. Our genes will be sequenced and recorded at a
cost of less than $100. Many damaged and dysfunctional genes in our genome
may be cured using gene therapy, possibly leading to genetic enhancement.
Already, smart mouse and mighty mouse genes have been isolated that can
create mice with superior memory and strength, and these genes have human
counterparts.

This amounts to tinkering with the genetic heritage of the human race, so
there must be a vigorous ethical debate about how far to push this technology.

8. Cybermedicine Will Extend Lives

The aging process may be slowed. We now roughly know what aging is: the
buildup of errors, at the genetic and cellular level. Our life span might be
extended if we can repair error-correcting mechanisms naturally found in cells.
For example, we are 98.5 percent genetically identical to chimps, yet we live
decades longer. Among a handful of genes are those that increase life spans. We
will find these age genes soon.

In the meantime, DNA chips, perhaps placed in our toilets and bathroom
mirrors, may detect telltale traces of cancer proteins and individual cancer
colonies years before a tumor forms. With these tiny sensors constantly and
silently analyzing our bodily fluids, the word tumor may be excised from our
vocabulary.

With nanotechnology, scientists can target individual cancer cells and kill

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them, one by one, which may one day render chemotherapy obsolete. (Because
there are hundreds of different types of cancer, however, we may never have a
total cure for all cancers. Cancer may come to be viewed like the common cold,
not totally curable, but tolerable.)

MRI machines that once filled entire rooms have been miniaturized to the
size of briefcases. Eventually they will be the size of cellphones, becoming
similar to the tricorders in Star Trek, capable of analyzing diseases with a
simple wave over a body.

9. Dictators Will Be Big Losers

The digital revolution empowers the disenfranchised, especially people

living under dictatorships. The Internet frees people to realize they dont have to
live like slaves. Dictators, who fear the Internet, and their own people, will be
big losers.

Democracies usually do not go to war with other democracies. Think of the

wars we memorized in grade school all were between kings, queens,
dictatorships, but never between two major democracies. Democracies are slow
to anger and hesitant to go to war: Voters dont want to sacrifice their children
for the glory of a selfish king. We will still have wars, but nations will mean less
in the future, and there will be fewer wars.

10. Intellectual Capitalism Will Replace Commodity Capitalism

A historic shift is underway from commodity capitalism, where goods are

primarily exchanged, to knowledge-based intellectual capitalism. The cost of
food relative to income, for example, has dropped steadily for 150 years.
Centuries ago the king of England probably could not afford the dinner you had
last night. Nations that invest solely in agriculture will most likely find their
economies shrinking.

Nations that use commodity capitalism as a stepping-stone to a mixed

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economy based on commodity/intellectual capitalism will most likely become

rich.

Toward the Future

How will we reach such a future? The key is to grasp the importance of
science and science education. Science is the engine of prosperity.

Leaders in China and India realize that science and technology lead to
success and wealth. But many countries in the West graduate students into the
unemployment line by teaching skills that were necessary to live in 1950.

Years ago, pundits worried about a digital divide. It never happened,

because access to computers became cheaper and cheaper. The real problem,
however, is not access; it is jobs. Plenty of jobs are begging to be filled today, but
those jobs require workers with a technical and scientific education. As Winston
Churchill once said, the empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York, is
the author of the forthcoming book The Future of the Mind: the Scientific Quest to
Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind.

2017 The New York Times Company

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