Emerging technologies
History of technology |
---|
Transhumanism |
---|
Concepts |
|
Subsets of Transhumanism |
|
Political ideologies |
|
Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include older technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies are often perceived as capable of changing the status quo.
Emerging technologies are characterized by radical novelty (in application even if not in origins), relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, an emerging technology can be defined as "a radically novel and relatively fast growing technology characterised by a certain degree of coherence persisting over time and with the potential to exert a considerable impact on the socio-economic domain(s) which is observed in terms of the composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interactions among those, along with the associated knowledge production processes. Its most prominent impact, however, lies in the future and so in the emergence phase is still somewhat uncertain and ambiguous."[1]
Emerging technologies include a variety of technologies such as educational technology, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.[note 1]
New technological fields may result from the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence brings previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video together so that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies.
Emerging technologies are those technical innovations which represent progressive developments within a field for
History of emerging technologies
In the history of technology, emerging technologies[3][4] are contemporary advances and innovation in various fields of technology.
Over centuries innovative methods and new technologies have been developed and opened up. Some of these technologies are due to theoretical research, and others from commercial research and development.
Technological growth includes incremental developments and
Emerging technology debates
Many writers, including computer scientist Bill Joy,[5] have identified clusters of technologies that they consider critical to humanity's future. Joy warns that the technology could be used by elites for good or evil. They could use it as "good shepherds" for the rest of humanity or decide everyone else is superfluous and push for the mass extinction of those made unnecessary by technology.[6]
Advocates of the benefits of
Much
Some analysts such as Martin Ford, author of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future,[12] argue that as information technology advances, robots and other forms of automation will ultimately result in significant unemployment as machines and software begin to match and exceed the capability of workers to perform most routine jobs.
As robotics and artificial intelligence develop further, even many skilled jobs may be threatened. Technologies such as machine learning[13] may ultimately allow computers to do many knowledge-based jobs that require significant education. This may result in substantial unemployment at all skill levels, stagnant or falling wages for most workers, and increased concentration of income and wealth as the owners of capital capture an ever-larger fraction of the economy. This in turn could lead to depressed consumer spending and economic growth as the bulk of the population lacks sufficient discretionary income to purchase the products and services produced by the economy.[14]
Emerging technologies |
|
|
|
|
|
Examples of emerging technologies
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the sub intelligence exhibited by machines or software, and the branch of computer science that develops machines and software with animal-like intelligence. Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the study of making intelligent machines".
The central functions (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge,
3D printing
- See also: Ai CAD libraries
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has been posited by
Combined with Internet technology, 3D printing would allow for digital blueprints of virtually any material product to be sent instantly to another person to be produced on the spot, making purchasing a product online almost instantaneous.
Although this technology is still too crude to produce most products, it is rapidly developing and created a controversy in 2013 around the issue of
Gene therapy
Gene therapy was first successfully demonstrated in late 1990/early 1991 for
Between September 1990 and January 2014, there were around 2,000 gene therapy trials conducted or approved.[19]
Cancer vaccines
A cancer vaccine is a vaccine that treats existing cancer or prevents the development of cancer in certain high-risk individuals. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines. There are currently no vaccines able to prevent cancer in general.
On April 14, 2009, The
Cultured meat
Cultured meat, also called in vitro meat, clean meat, cruelty-free meat, shmeat, and test-tube meat, is an animal-flesh product that has never been part of a living animal with exception of the
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology (sometimes shortened to nanotech) is the manipulation of matter on an
Robotics
Robotics is the branch of
Stem-cell therapy
Stem cell therapy is an intervention strategy that introduces new adult stem cells into damaged tissue in order to treat disease or injury. Many medical researchers believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering.[30] The ability of stem cells to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations with variable degrees of differentiation capacities[31] offers significant potential for generation of tissues that can potentially replace diseased and damaged areas in the body, with minimal risk of rejection and side effects.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells have raised among other immunotherapies for cancer treatment, being implemented against B-cell malignancies. Despite the promising outcomes of this innovative technology, CAR-T cells are not exempt from limitations that must yet to be overcome in order to provide reliable and more efficient treatments against other types of cancer.[32]
Distributed ledger technology
Distributed ledger or blockchain technology provides a transparent and immutable list of transactions. A wide range of uses has been proposed for where an open, decentralised database is required, ranging from
Smart contracts are self-executing transactions which occur when pre-defined conditions are met. The aim is to provide security that is superior to traditional contract law, and to reduce transaction costs and delays. The original idea was conceived by Nick Szabo in 1994,[33] but remained unrealised until the development of blockchains.[34][35]
Augmented reality
This type of technology where digital graphics are loaded onto live footage has been around since the 20th century, but thanks to the arrival of more powerful computing hardware and the implementation of open source, this technology has been able to do things that we never thought were possible. Some ways in which we have used this technology can be through apps such as Pokémon Go, Snapchat and Instagram filters and other apps that create fictional things in real objects.[36]
Multi-use rockets
This section is missing information about about anything other than Elon Musk.(February 2023) |
This technology can be attributed to Elon Musk and the space company SpaceX, where instead of creating single use rockets that have no purpose after their launch, they are now able to land safely in a pre-specified place where they can recover them and use them again in later launches.[36] This technology is believed to be one of the most important factors for the future of space travel, making it more accessible and also less polluting for the environment.[dubious ].
Development of emerging technologies
As innovation drives economic growth, and large economic rewards come from new inventions, a great deal of resources (funding and effort) go into the development of emerging technologies. Some of the sources of these resources are described below.
Research and development
Science policy is the area of public policy which is concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the science and research enterprise, including the funding of science, often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring.
Patents
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
DARPA was created in 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Its purpose was to formulate and execute research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science, with the aim to reach beyond immediate military requirements.
Projects funded by DARPA have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as the Internet and Global Positioning System technology.
Technology competitions and awards
There are awards that provide incentive to push the limits of technology (generally synonymous with emerging technologies). Note that while some of these awards reward achievement after-the-fact via analysis of the merits of technological breakthroughs, others provide incentive via competitions for awards offered for goals yet to be achieved.
The Orteig Prize was a $25,000 award offered in 1919 by French hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. In 1927, underdog Charles Lindbergh won the prize in a modified single-engine Ryan aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. In total, nine teams spent $400,000 in pursuit of the Orteig Prize.
The XPRIZE series of awards, public competitions designed and managed by the non-profit organization called the
The Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community." It is stipulated that the contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field. The Turing Award is generally recognized as the highest distinction in computer science, and in 2014 grew to $1,000,000.
The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland, an independent fund established by Finnish industry and the Finnish state in partnership. The first recipient was Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.
In 2003,
Role of science fiction
Science fiction has often affected innovation and new technology by presenting creative, intriguing possibilities for technological advancement. For example, many rocketry pioneers were inspired by science fiction.[40] The documentary How William Shatner Changed the World describes a number of examples of imagined technologies that became real.
In the media
The term bleeding edge has been used to refer to some new technologies, formed as an
See also
- List of emerging technologies
- Foresight
- Futures studies
- Future of Humanity Institute
- Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
- Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future
- Technological change
- Transhumanism
- Upcoming software
Notes
References
- Citations
- SSRN 2564094.
- ^ International Congress Innovation and Technology XXI: Strategies and Policies Towards the XXI Century, & Soares, O. D. D. (1997). Innovation and technology: Strategies and policies. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.[page needed]
- ISBN 978-0-7748-5865-6.
- ^ Emerging technologies: where is the federal government on the high tech curve? : hearing before the Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology of the Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixth Congress, second session, April 24, 2000
- Why the future doesn't need us",
- ^ Joy, Bill (2000). "Why the future doesn't need us". Wired. Retrieved November 14, 2005.
- ISBN 978-9187173240.
- ^ Bostrom, Nick (2002). "Existential risks: analyzing human extinction scenarios". Journal of Evolution and Technology. 9 (1). Retrieved February 21, 2006.
- ^ Warwick, K: “March of the Machines”, University of Illinois Press, 2004
- ISBN 978-0-8050-7096-5.
- ISBN 978-0-670-03384-3.
- ISBN 978-1448659814.
- ^ Ford, Martin (April 14, 2011). "Machine Learning: A job killer?". econfuture. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- ^ Saenz, Aaron (December 15, 2009). "Martin Ford Asks: Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse?". singularityhub.com. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- Chip Stack MCM
- ^ This conceptual drawing measures in diameter 200+ m (660 ft.+).
- ^ "Home – Office of Jeremy Rifkin". Office of Jeremy Rifkin. Archived from the original on February 25, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- ^ Estes, Adam Clark (January 6, 2015). "3D-Printed Guns Are Only Getting Better, and Scarier". Gizmodo. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- ^ "Gene Therapy Clinical Trials Worldwide". www.wiley.com. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- ^ "Approval Letter – Provenge". Food and Drug Administration. April 29, 2010. Archived from the original on July 23, 2017.
- ^ Dimond, Patricia Fitzpatrick (October 18, 2010). "What Comes After Dendreon's Provenge?". genengnews.com. Archived from the original on August 14, 2016.
- ^ Siegelbaum, D.J. (April 23, 2008). "In Search of a Test-Tube Hamburger". Time. Archived from the original on January 22, 2010. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
- ^ "World's first lab-grown burger is eaten in London". BBC News. August 5, 2013. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- ^ Fountain, Henry (May 12, 2013). "Engineering the $325,000 In Vitro Burger". The New York Times. Retrieved May 28, 2017.
- ^ Temple, James (February 23, 2009). "The Future of Food: The No-kill Carnivore". Portfolio.com. Retrieved August 7, 2009.
- ^ Preliminary Economics Study of Cultured Meat Archived October 3, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, eXmoor Pharma Concepts, 2008
- ISBN 978-0-385-19973-5.
- ISBN 978-0-471-57547-4.
- ^ "robotics". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on May 18, 2011. Retrieved February 4, 2011.
- S2CID 4425363.
- PMID 17076602.
- PMID 31844895.
- ^ Szabo, Nick (1996). "Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets". www.fon.hum.uva.nl. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
- ^ How blockchain technology could change our lives - European Parliamentary Research Service
- ^ Vincenzo, Morabito (2017). Business Innovation Through Blockchain: The B3 Perspective. pp. 101–124.
- ^ a b Angelo Young and Michael B. Sauter, Technology: 21 of the most important inventions in the 21st century so far, USA Today: Money, retrieved 11 February 2023.
- ^ S. Cadogan, Marsha. "Relationships, Issues Around Intellectual Property, Emerging Technologies". The Lawyer's Daily.
- ^ "Intellectual Property and Frontier Technologies". WIPO.
- ^ "WIPO Technology Trends 2019 - Artificial Intelligence" (PDF). WIPO. 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
- ISBN 978-0-470-68270-8.
- ^ Hayes, Thomas C. (March 21, 1983). "Hope at Storage Technology". The New York Times. Retrieved September 10, 2013.
Further reading
- General
- Giersch, H. (1982). Emerging technologies: Consequences for economic growth, structural change, and employment : symposium 1981. Tübingen: Mohr.
- Jones-Garmil, K. (1997). The wired museum: Emerging technology and changing paradigms. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums.
- Kaldis, Byron (2010). "Converging Technologies". Sage Encyclopedia of Nanotechnology and Society, Thousand Oaks: CA, Sage
- Rotolo D.; Hicks D.; Martin B. R. (2015). "What is an emerging technology?". Research Policy. 44 (10): 1827–1843. S2CID 15234961.
- Law and policy
- Branscomb, L. M. (1993). Empowering technology: Implementing a U.S. strategy. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
- Raysman, R., & Raysman, R. (2002). Emerging technologies and the law: Forms and analysis. Commercial law intellectual property series. New York, N.Y.: Law Journal Press.
- Information and learning
- Hung, D., & Khine, M. S. (2006). Engaged learning with emerging technologies. Dordrecht: Springer.
- Kendall, K. E. (1999). Emerging information technologies: Improving decisions, cooperation, and infrastructure. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.
- Illustrated
- Weinersmith, Kelly; Weinersmith, Zach (2017). Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-0399563829.
- Other
- Cavin, R. K., & Liu, W. (1996). Emerging technologies: Designing low power digital systems. [New York]: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.