How Does One Engineer a Paradise?

I finished my first book, Engineering Paradise:  Are You Ready?, a book that illustrates how current trends in social thinking and technology is changing our society in a fundamental way, recently.  After I finished writing it, I had an interesting thought:  though I described the many technologies that are already affecting change, I didn’t give readers a clear idea of what an ideal world may looks like.  The reason why our world is still full of inequalities and violence is because we are currently mired in obsolete infrastructures, social systems, traditions and ideologies that hold us back.  These systems have been around for hundreds of years, slowly changing to adapt to different social, political and economical movements.  These are hard to change because they are all embedded into our society and into each other.  Not to mention most people are employed and depend on the survival of each one of those systems for their welfare and livelihoods.  Any significant change in social structures are therefore scary to most, because individuals are afraid of what they cannot understand or predict.

Under these conditions, suggesting how our world may function in 10 or 20 years would be incredibly naive and speculative.

However, I was thinking about the following:  what if, strictly as an intellectual exercise, we imagined that all traditions, social resistance to change, social systems and institutions were just swept out of the way and we just build something better.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  It’s nice to dream about some sort of perfect world where we don’t need to care about how things really are.  That’s what science fiction is for, right?

That was the initial conclusion I had with the idea too.  But then it dawned on me.  Even though what paradisiac world we may build would be fantasy, at least it would be something we could shoot for.

 

One thing that I have learned as a serial entrepreneur is that if we want to achieve a project that seems too big to be doable, we still have a shot of achieving it if we have 3 things:

• A well-defined plan.
• Strong motivation.     
• A dedicated team of individuals that believe in the project and are willing to work towards it step by step.

So, I decided to write this book to paint a picture of how we could build the ideal future for ourselves.  Thus, I’ll prepare point #1 for us all.  At least I’ll be producing my version of it, supported by proper studies and professional knowledge from experts. 

Then, by publishing the book and directing other activities aligned with the goal of engineering a paradise, I hope to gather a large enough group of motivated people that believe in building an ideal world.  There are already several organizations that are working towards making the world a better place and I’m sure millions of individuals in the world wish they could contribute to such a great project. 

Are you one of these people?

Finally, with those two pieces in place, together, we can figure out a plan to engineer our current world and ultimately transform it to fit the end goal:  the ideal world.

I’m sure most of you have very different ideas of what the ideal world would look like and that’s fine, but in this case, we’ll want to build based on proper evidence.  Using proper research sociologists and other scientists have already documented over the years, I’ll illustrate what is fundamentally best for human beings.  Starting from that basis, I’ll elaborate on how nations could be ideally governed to ensure the people are in the best possible position to thrive.  After all, we have over 3,000 years of experimentation and trial and error under our belt as a society and now we’re supported by artificial intelligence to assist us, the Internet to connect us and sufficient comfort levels for at least half the world’s population to collaborate on our common goal.

Then, I’ll go into a full section detailing how such a governing system can be managed by the people and finally I’ll elaborate on how an ideal economy would work within this new innovative system.

I’m hoping this detailed plan on reformulating our society leveraging advanced technologies, will inspire many to work together, as a team, with me or in independent groups.  It’s all good.

Fundamental technologies 

If you haven’t read my first book, you may be a little bit lost in the next few chapters so here’s a bit of an update on certain technologies that will support most of what I’ll be discussing.

We have been playing around with artificial intelligence (AI) for the past couple years.  AI is not new.  In fact, it has been around for over 30 years but only recently has AI applications become part of our daily lives.  Not only toys used by large companies, research laboratories and governments but in our living rooms and on our smartphones.

It is like it was for computers in the 80’s.  For the first time families started buying them for their homes even though transistor computers had been around for at least 30 years.  Computers had become a commodity after years of companies improving the basis of the technology and finding ways to reduce costs enough to make the technology useful, small enough and cheap enough to be purchased by families.

Now, we have AI like Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Watson and Google Assistant, to name just the most popular AI in North-America, available to consumers.  They can understand native language and can connect to our smartphones, security systems, our digital information, home appliances, heating, lights and so on.  We can control these systems through our AI assistants, or by using our smartphones.  The AI assistants are intelligent enough to search the web for us, add items to our grocery lists, and learn who are proper family members or strangers in our homes or front doors. 

Today’s AI are learning AI, which means the more we use them, the better they can perform.  They are just like children learning about their environment and after a while, they don’t need as many explanations to achieve their tasks.

We’re also running automated devices and robots with AI brains.  The most obvious automated devices that will take the world by storm will be self-driven electric cars.  Most car manufacturers will start selling those on or around the year 2020[1], which is very, very soon.  These can be considered robots with an AI brain since they will recognize passenger voices, understand instructions and then be able to drive themselves on real roads, dealing with unpredictable road conditions and the public.  They just have wheels instead of limbs.

Self-driving cars will also likely be connected to the Internet, just like AI personal assistants, so they can access useful information and share with other AI-enabled robots and software in a networked fashion.  That will make them even more efficient and instantly learn from other self-driving cars on the roads, making them very good drivers and very safe faster than we can blink.  At the very least, they will be better drivers than any human can and keep improving 24-7 as we use them.

In the midst of these technologies supporting all industries from education, health, economy, government, manufacturing, and others, it is easier to imagine novel ways to structure our society than every before.  I think it’s a good time to give it a try.

Exponential thinking 

Here is something else to consider moving forward:  we must stop thinking in a linear way.  It is quite natural to do so since we are built to experience the world through our senses and our bodies are designed to seek balance (what biologists call homeostasis).  We are built to change, but change in our brain and bodies creates imbalances that our own biochemistry constantly tries to balance out.  The body’s rebalancing process takes time.  It never gets faster from generation to generation, so there are hard limits in how fast we can change our minds or adapt to physical situations. 

Socially, there are even more pressures towards linear thinking because everyone around us, ourselves included, measure time in the same small increments and we balance each other out at similar rates.  It is all tied into our biology as described above.

It’s no wonder when we start thinking about the future, we tend to see progress in a straight line, ergo if it took one generation to go from cell phones to smartphones, the natural thought is that it will take one generation to go from smartphone to the next generation of pocket communication device.

Unfortunately, technology is built following the Law of Accelerating Returns[2], a term coined by renowned futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil.  The law describes how progress not only depends on our linear creative selves, but it also depends on the body of previously developed technologies.  This creates an exponential growth curve.

Kurzweil wrote in his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, “Technology goes beyond mere tool making; it is a process of creating ever more powerful technology using the tools from the previous round of innovation.”  Kurzweil studied different tools in different industries and the trend in each industry is exponential because every industry is using better and better tools leveraging the previous generation and tools from other industries.

Thus, productivity keeps increasing exponentially in each industry[3].

If we look at high tech innovation on its own, people work on different aspects, namely software (AI, smart systems, application tools), computer hardware (smaller microprocessors, quantum computing, organic computing) and robotics (more efficient servo motors, new materials, gyroscopes, miniaturization).  Then each one of those aspects are used by people to develop the other in a cyclical manner.  Better hardware allows us to use create more sophisticated software leveraging more information that achieves results faster (see Moore’s Law)[4].  This software is used by engineers to design better robotics.  Then engineers use the improved robotics to create smaller transistors at a faster pace and integrate them into new better computer hardware. 

The advancement of each component, hardware, software and robotics, are then used in other industries where we could illustrate other similar cycles.

The truth is, the world we’re living in is changing at an exponential rate.  We must then learn to think exponentially.

So, if you think it is impossible to engineer a paradise in our society within a single generation, you may be surprised.  Methods of communication, production and collaboration have never been faster and better suited for massive change.  And they too will become better and allow connectivity at an accelerated rate.

In some ways, since human beings are biologically linear, we must get ourselves out of the way by allowing this accelerated ace of change to occur, supported by intelligent technologies that are in fact improving at an exponential rate:  artificial intelligence.

So, I suggest we expect things will change faster than we can possibly imagine.  It takes a measure of trust but I’m hoping you will continue to read this book and perhaps contact me to collaborate on projects that will help move things along.

Check my website for some projects that I have started or some that are already underway.  

I’m also available for any engagement that would allow me to educate.  I’m leaving it to you.

---

[1] Moore’s Law.  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

[2] The Law of Accelerating Returns.  Ray Kurzweil - http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

[3] Technology Feels Like It’s Accelerating – Because It Actually Is.  Alison E. Berman and Jason Dorrier - https://singularityhub.com/2016/03/22/technology-feels-like-its-accelerating-because-it-actually-is/

[4] Self-Driving car timeline for 11 top automakers.  Dan Fagella - https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/04/self-driving-car-timeline-for-11-top-automakers/

3D Printed Food, Automated Farms & Lab-Grown Meat

Food and drinking water are still a serious problem for a large portion of the world's population.  For the rest of us that have easy access to both, the growth, processing and delivery of both are not very cost-effective.

In fact, just livestock production consumes 26 percent of ice-free land on Earth and each year 13 billion acres of forest is converted into new pastures and farmlands every year.

Some people have responded to this problem by becoming vegetarian.  Some do it just on the premise that animals in captivity or going to slaughter often suffer or have inadequate quality of life.

As far as water is concerned, the current issue lies with recycling wastewater back into usable water, in particular in areas of the world where drinkable water is sparse.

Thankfully, private funding and advanced scientific minds come to us with some very nice solutions.

I speak about the repercussions of the technologies mentioned below a bit further in the video below:

Water
First things to consider with water is its availability.  In many countries, drinkable water is available directly from nature.  In some other locations, it needs to be filtered or treated before we can safely drink it. 

Using Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF), scientists from the University of California, Berkeley were able to extract decent amount of drinkable water from the air.  The only thing their process needs is the MOFs, which are not used up in the process, and solar energy.  They were able to extract 2.8 liters of water in 12 hours from air with only 20-30% humidity.  That's pretty impressive.  The process required about 1 kg of MOF.  The process needs to be refined with different MOF combinations to increase the speed or efficiency of the process, enough to allow every single home on the planet to extract its own drinkable water directly from the air, without the need for any sort of treatment.  You only need the MOF component and the sun after all.  Easy peasy.

And how about our wastewater?  Well, an experimental team in Spain has designed a very easy process using electroactive bacteria that loves the organic matter in wastewater to very quickly and efficiently clean the wastewater and fuel it's own energy needs on its own.  The bacteria does that by creating electricity as they consume the waste matter in the water.  The purified water can then be sent to a pool where it can be redistributed to irrigate or be recycled to other uses.  The water is not suited for drinking but it could be reused in many ways through its reintroduction to nature's water cycle.  The current process by the team at iMETLand can convert 25,000 liters per day, enough for a small community.  This can likely be scaled up for larger communities or scaled down for individual houses with further research and testing.

Here is the process described in video:

Meat
Lab-grown meat has become pretty real these days with investors like Richard Branson endorsing the process and investing significant amounts in one of the companies that are developing such things, Memphis Meats.  Don't forget guys, humans are omnivores.  We're supposed to largely eat fruit and vegetables, but we're supposed to eat animal muscle too.

Believe it or not but 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas is attributed to livestock.  If we grew our meats in vats, we could reduce that amount by 90 percent and reduce land usage for livestock by 99%.  That's huge.  That land can then be used for lots of other things instead and we would only need animals to sample interesting cell cultures, which doesn't require us to hurt or kill the animals.  In fact, one turkey has enough cells to cultivate enough vat meat to replace several trillion turkey nuggets.  That's a lot.

Here is how it works:

The cost of a burger has already gone down from $350,000 to $11 using lab grown meats in the past 4 years and it is estimated by the investors in companies that are interested in such things that the cost of lab-grown meat will be equal to that of real meat in approximately 3 years. 

I'm pretty sure the meat won't taste as good as the real thing to start with, but we'll have full control over flavor at that point, therefore it can only get cheaper and better tasting with time.  Not to mention way more ecological.

The Chinese have also made significant investments in the technologies, promising soon we'll be seeing this type of foodstuff in supermarkets and restaurants all over the world soon enough!

3D Printed food
This is another beauty.  We already have processed foods but that food is not very healthy as most people know.  But what about 3D printed food?  Well, in principle, companies have been able to do it using core materials like calorie-free fibers to create artisanal food items that look like the real thing.  This technique can become quite popular when people need to make their own food at home at some point with full knowledge of what is exactly in the food item.  So in principle, this should be better than fast-food but just as fast, and better than processed foods as well since no preservatives or odd chemicals are needed.  Though, make no mistake, this method of making food is not as good and nutrient-rich as the real thing.  Still, very interesting way to create neat food items from designs and very interesting edible materials!

Automated Farms
Not much to say about that, but several companies, including this one, Hands Free Hectare, have started selling their solution of fully automated farms to the public.  These farms can resolve another issue we're having around food:  30% food waste.  Automated farms, connected to data based on demand from people, can possibly sow, grow and pick fruit and vegetables in exactly the right time to provide the market with what it needs based on exact demand.  We can therefore significantly reduce waste in production, shelving and transportation of food grown from these farms in the future.  Something to support and develop for sure!

I'm incredibly enthusiastic about our future as a society.  Our population increases constantly, but innovative individuals are constantly coming up with amazing solutions that resolve big issues while considering others and the technology's environmental impact.

My goal is to educate people that these technologies exist and I encourage every single person that is reading this to use these technologies and products.  Demand creates market drive.  Let's keep it going guys!

Autonomous Vehicles Taking Flight

You may have heard a lot about major companies producing and testing self-driven cars over the past year or so.  In fact most car major manufacturers are planning to sell autonomous cars of some form by 2020.  We also have companies such as Uber and Google who famously have released plans to do the same by the same deadlines.

It is thought that by 2020, there will be approximately 10 million autonomous vehicles on the road in the world.

Now don't get all super excited just yet.  The first self-driven cars will likely not be completely driver-less.  For security reasons and legal reasons, in the first few years of these going to market, the cars will still require drivers to interact with the car fairly regularly or at the very least supervise the self-driving AI that is doing the driving.   After a while and when statistics show that it is safe or safer to let the AI drive the vehicles, then we'll have fully automated vehicles on our streets and so on.

Now, because the world knows how to make cars pretty well, and the challenge is mostly on the software and the sensors necessary for automated vehicles to navigate their way safely through populated areas and busy streets, many technology startups and established companies have decided to enter this game as well.

German company Continental are looking at selling automated multi-seat taxis in the Frankfurt area in the next couple years with spacious interior space as a prime selling point.

Continental Urban Experience (CUbE) vehicle

Popular Uber competitor Lyft has created a partnership with Disney Parks to eventually have autonated mini vans (called Minnie Vans at Disney) taxiing people from park outskirts to within their parks.

Intel even bought an automated vehicle startup called Mobileye for huge bucks so they could deploy about 100 self-driven cars (level 4 automation, which means the cars will need to be driven by humans on occasion but not all the time.  Level 5 automation is fully driver-less.)

Heck, many companies are thinking about cargo transportation too, like Einride from Sweden, who thought up a concept cube truck that has absolutely no driver.  Fully loaded, it would weigh in at 20 tons and would be able to ride for 200 km on a single charge.  The truck would either travel fully automated or would be remote-controlled by a company employee.

Einride T-Pod cargo transportation vehicle

All of these planned vehicles are, of course, 100% electric.

What I think is even more exciting though, is that many companies, including some familiar ones are prototyping flying taxis as well.  These would be either autonomous or remote-controlled, just like the transportation vehicle from Einride mentioned above.

Why no actual driver in the vehicle?  Well, there aren't enough pilots to go around and we can't really ask anyone to go through an expensive piloting training program just to ferry oneself around.  These would be more than likely just remote-control operators until the time people are fully vested in the idea of fully automated flying vehicles.

I discuss the implications of this a bit further in the video below:

There seems to be two kinds of automated flying vehicles in development.  All are electric:

1. Drones:  basically what you would expect.  They have fans all around them for stability and generally always fly like a helicopter would.  We're talking about 50 km ranges on a charge an speeds of about 100 km/hr.   Daimler's Volocopter and China's Ehang flying taxis are designed for 2 passengers and have both been approved for trial in Dubai by the end of 2017.  Dubai wishes for their city to bet 25% vehicle automated by 2030.



Daimler's Volocopter (2 seater)

2. VTOL Airplanes:  Vertical TakeOff and Landing airplanes.  These have fans or propellers that either change orientation from vertical for takeoff and landing to horizontal for flying aspect, or their have both types of propellers that activate as needed.  These can fly much faster in a distance but are less maneuverable when going in a line versus the drone types.  The vehicles by Lilium and Uber are meant to carry between 2 and 5 passengers up to 300 km on a single charge at speeds around 300 km/hr.

Lilium electric aircraft (2 seater)

Just like the ground versions of automated vehicles, these are designed to be called by apps on our smartphones for convenience.  It is anticipated that at first, some of these vehicles will be purchased by car owners looking forward to have their own.  However, most will agree that in the future, automated vehicles will be rented or subscribed to by passengers, avoiding the whole situation of parking.  In some cities parking spaces take up more than 20% of the land area.  Imagine what we could do with all that space in cities if cars don't need to be parked all the time!

Expect to see automated flying vehicles in a city near you by 2025, definitively.

Self-Driven eVTOL Taxis In Our Near Future

I've written several times about self-driven cars being introduced into the market around the year 2020 by most large international car manufacturers (and a few other companies like NVidia...), but what I have discussed yet is the plans by several governments and companies to deploy self-driven air taxis.

It's pretty logical really.  Normally, we wouldn't consider letting anyone except licensed pilots to pilot a vehicle that could crash onto our heads, but in the world of self-driven vehicles, letting the computer drive an airplane is just as logical as letting it drive a car or a truck.  I mean, passenger jetliners are already mostly automated anyway and with the advent of excellent AI (Artificial Intelligence), it's easy to go from letting ourselves being driven around safely on the streets to letting ourselves get flown around.

Uber, among others, have thought of this in order to alleviate further the transportation problems we have in general:  traffic and transit time.  Using roads to go from point A to B is good, but what if you could go faster and "as the crow flies" when using their upcoming fleet of self-driven vehicles?  You could get where you need to go much faster and you aren't encountering any traffic since you're flying over everyone else.  Bonus is that you can go from building to building without even touching the Earth itself!  This of course, is possible due to VTOL (Vertical TakeOff and Landing) technologies.

In the video below I talk a little bit about the implications of such transportation systems further if you are interested:

Of course, in order for these air taxis to work, we'd need to be able to ensure the vehicle is at the 5th level of automation, which necessitates absolutely no input from a pilot or driver.  So it is possible that the first ones may be piloted by remote or at least there is a way for a designated "pilot" to take the controls in some special cases to ensure the air taxi gets people down safely (which is the 4th level of automation).

But as I mentioned before, this is not that far off.  In fact, Google's self-driven cars have been operating at level 4 of the automation chart for years already.  It excites me to think that we could finally remove some of the congestion from our streets by finally using the air above our heads to move around.  It just allows for so much more freedom of movement and more options for city planners to allow traffic to flow.  But what about noise?

Well, Uber's design is electric with propellers to push air around, so that's pretty quiet...quieter than our regular gasoline guzzling cars at least.  Lilium, a German company, is proposing their own eVTOL design which uses ducted fans instead of propellers.  Generally the same concept.

Though it is unclear what Uber's timeline looks like regarding their eVTOL concept, it is safe to assume that these bad boys will only be deployed after the deployment of their fleets of self-driven cars near 2020.  Chinese company EHang already has an agreement to deploy their 2 seater drones in Dubai in the next couple years (those presumably are guided by a controller, not self-driven, but details are not clear on that).  In the meantime, Lilium wishes to conduct manned flights of their entirely self-driven eVTOL air taxis in 2019.

Just to give you an idea of specs, Lilium's model will likely be able to carry up to 5 people up to 300 km distance at a speed of 300 km / h.  In perspective that's a 5 minute ride from JFK Airport to Manhattan, instead of the current 55 minute drive. Not too shabby indeed!

All I can say is that offering different ways to commute and move around using the area above our head, all using electricity, no emissions, making it all quiet, and self-driven, is like looking back on so many science fiction movies asking myself "What were they thinking!  We're doing so much better with this!"

Yep.  Looks like we can engineer better systems than what science fiction writers can imagine.

A World Without Poverty? Universal Basic Income

It's been an idea that has been circulating since the 1970's as a replacement for social support systems such as Employment Insurance & Welfare as well as a way to increase adult individual's motivations to contribute constructively to societal structures.

Universal Basic Income.

In a nutshell, the concept is if a basal amount of currency is distributed to all families and individuals, enough for them to live plus a little extra, then people are less likely to fall into criminal activity, have significant health issues or to quit school earlier than they should.

To many, it kinda sounds like a form of communism and in some respects, it is and we have heard about how communism has destroyed innovation and business growth in communist countries over history.

So why is Universal Basic Income a good thing now?

Well, right now, as I mentioned in previous blogs, we are approaching a time when computer systems and artificial intelligence can do most of our jobs better than we can, and be creative enough to continue scientific progress and improve technologies (and themselves) better than us.  We're not quite there yet, but Ray Kurzweil's Singularity event is expected to arrive in about 10 years or so, and our world is already abuzz about self-driving cars, personable and intelligent chatbots and smart anticipatory virtual assistants now in 2017.

We'll definitively hit a wall as far as an economy without most adults actually working for a living...

I talk about some of the impacts of all this in the video below:

Governments are quite aware of the dilemma and some more progressive governments have started trials of Basic Income already.

In Finland, 2,000 unemployed Fins will receive in 2017 a monthly amount of $580 USD, replacing their social security payments.  Contrary to social security though, there is minimal administration around the amount since there are no conditions attached.  This means if the unemployed individuals do find work, of any kind, they continue to receive the amount.  This is a two year pilot.

In Ontario, Canada, the  people of the cities of Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay are participating in a three year pilot project where each individual would receive approximately $1,000 USD per month for living, replacing social programs if any of them were receiving any.  This pilot is limited to individuals aged between 25 and 64, the age at which people receive "old age security" income however.  But on a total population of close to 1,000,000 between the three cities, that's quite a lot of money dispensed in exchange for much less saved (payments in social security systems etc..).

Following suit, Quebec, Canada wishes to introduce a similar program starting in the next few years but in this case, if it is approved, it would not be a pilot project, but go directly live in the Canadian province.

Other countries in Europe are also considering this.

Why now though?  Governments and politicians are not that farsighted are they?  Well, not really.  The increase in automation and the investments in A.I. just tipped things over really.  It has been well known for years that social systems were really not working out for people and thanks to past pilots on basic income, they already knew that long term, it is a financial win, even though in the short term it is very, very expensive to get started.

Based on specialists, the installation of Universal Basic Income into modern society will not only save loads of money and stress in our economy but also encourage creativity and business innovation too.  Just a small reduction in state costs in health and education plus the advantage of having healthier, better educated, happier people with proper resources to reach for the stars is enough, long term to offset the cost of such a program.

In a very real way, we're looking at a potential way to end poverty quite entirely this is great!

The articles below discuss the details of how it all works in the economy and socially way better than I.  Hope you enjoy the read as much as I did.  Suffice to say, Basic Income is not there yet, but with so many countries around the world doing serious budgeted pilots, and technology moving forwards at breakneck speeds, there is no doubt in my mind that we'll all stop worrying about basic monthly bills very soon.

Must read articles:

• Robot Tax or Universal Basic Income:  How do we manage our automated future?
• Could Universal Basic Income Be The "Social Vaccine" of the 21st Century?
• The Era of Ownership is Ending
• This is Why Experts Think All People Should Have a Universal Basic Income

Enjoy the reads.

Super-Intelligent "Robots will outnumber Humans in 30 years"

Don't take my word for it.  This comes straight from Japan's SoftBank Group CEO, Masayoshi Son.

If you've been following along my blog and videos, that statement shouldn't be very surprising.  For those of you just tuning in or reading these lines, here is the jist of it:

• Around 10 years from now, one of our computers will be able to do as many computations per second as a human brain.
• By then, there should be over 20 times the amount of smart devices as there are people on the planet, all interconnected (what we call the Internet of Things (IoT) nowadays).
• A few years later than that, there would be more devices, in more parts of our lives, and each one of those devices could potentially be as powerful as a human brain (though most would not need to be to assume their role).
• 29% of the 140 acquisitions of Artificial Intelligence companies in the world in the last 5 years were made in 2016 alone.  It is anticipated that there will be 300% more acquisitions than that in 2017.
• This year, China has already started using the first autonomous Security Robot, beyond the facier industrial robots, that can track bombs, criminals and other stuff as well as identify potential criminal intent on the fly.  I think it can give out directions too, like any good beat cop can.  It's the first robot that I know of that is in actual use in public.
• Autonomous self-driven cars are on the way by all major manufacturers along with outliers like Tesla Motors, NVidia,, Google, Intel and several others.  There are already self-driven vehicles on the road in England and other European countries as well as many self-driven trucks in the mining industry etc....  Major manufacturers for privately owned-vehicles still plan to start selling their personal self-driven vehicles on our around 2020.
• And of course you are aware of autonomous delivery systems being tested by several large companies (Amazon included) around the world.  UPS has joined the list of companies in this game.  A bunch of other entrants are giving a shot at the delivery game too, such as LastMileRobotics.  Of course, they likely would get acquired or become suppliers for larger firms if their designs hold up.

So with all that activity and integration of really smart devices and sensors running about... in 30 years, robots will be in fact everywhere in our lives, and they will likely be in larger numbers than human beings, and those robots will be severely outnumbered by smart devices embedded into most of our home devices and infrastructure.  Not everything smarter than us will actually look like a robot and vice versa.

I talk about how this will look like in the video below:

In a nutshell though, in 30 years, it is very reasonable to assume that we'll be surrounded with robots of varying intelligence, size, purpose, including possibly nano-robots in our bloodstream.

What does it mean for us simple dumb humans?

Well, it means we can enjoy life then because all that interaction between super-smart robots means they can basically take care of running everything we don't want to run, more efficiently, and with more competence than all the experts of the planet combined.

It means, sharing space with these robots and enjoying ourselves.  We no longer speak of work.  We speak of having occupations because believe it or not many humans want to be involved as a driving force behind our art, culture, science and society.  Humans will be basically fully integrated into a network of intelligence and robots.  

And don't think we won't have robotic lovers (mechanical or organic in nature).  Even today we've figured out how to give robots "senses".  It is thus quite reasonable to assume in 30 years, we'll have mechanical robots fully capable to feel and even be sensual just like a real human lover would.  

And why not?

Future Farms & Future Foods

You, my readers, know best that I enjoy talking about technology, educating people about what is here and announcing what is to yet to come.

So why farming?  Isn't that super low tech?

Well, it turns out that it isn't as low tech as people think.  Current farms are actually already equipped with plenty of sensors and automated systems today, at least in the developed part of the world.  Tomatoes and other fruit or vegetables are already commonly picked through fully automated systems.

With the technology we have, we can do much better right now through technology developed by Internet of Things, automation and artificial intelligence companies.  

Since food production is pretty central to everybody's needs, it is no surprise that there is significant interest in bringing more tech to farming.

But interestingly enough, it doesn't stop at fruits and veggies.  We're making some very interesting progress in providing purified water as well as meat to the table through innovation and some cool twists and turns.

In fact some companies are pushing forward to total automation of farms, taking the human worker out of the equation altogether.  This is all well and good in the West, but in developing countries, where employment is a need, it may not be such a good idea to automate farms.  Or at least, there is a different kind of thought that needs to be put to it.

On the other hand, startups like Farm in a Box have developed a very cool way to both modernize and make accessible farming for communities in any area of the world, by literally putting all you need to feed a 150 person community in a converted shipping container and selling those to organizations, communities or individuals.  All you need is access to about 2 acres of arable land and the Box covers all the other bases.

So, technology and smart thinking wins again for the little guy.

Problem with unclean water?  Pretty important for your health to have some.  Well, once again, you're covered by innovative research like the guys at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  They figured out a way to purify water using only sunlight and about a square meter of a material they invented.  The material costs $1.60  per square meter so it's super cheap, therefore even people in very poor countries could potentially generate 3-10 liters of water a day using that surface area.

Science can solve real problems and we see it here, especially since 10% of the world population doesn't have access to water safe to drink.... 

Finally, let's talk about meat.  Many people think that the meat production industry is cruel and in some cases, kind of unsanitary despite the regulations.  Well since meat comes from animals (and fish), there is little choice but to kill the animals to access the meat is there..  Or is there?

How about growing our own tasty meat using cell cultures and a keg?  A lot of people would be even more displeased at the prospect of eating meat that was grown in a tub at home, but what if the meat is safe, tastes great, cheap, devoid of harmful chemicals and hormones etc.....  Would you even try it?

I would.  Why not?  Heck if I can even control the very flavor of the meat at home, just like making your own wine, and on top of it all, I'm sparing animals some necessary labor or suffering?  No problem.  I'll taste you meat.

Well, growing your own meat is not a new thing but new advances in cell research have brought us closer to the realization of exactly what I just described above.  

Heck, if in 2013, the first lab-grown meat burger was eaten after a year of growth, and at a cost of 300,000 Euros, I can imagine we can do better, faster, and cheaper in 2017.

Paul Mozdziak of North Carolina State University says that we may be able to see mass-produced meat (probably avian to start) in markets in 3-5 years based on the experiments he's running.

In 3-5 years, for sure, I'll be strapping on my shirt protector and ready to dig into some vat-grown chicken if given any opportunity, and I'll see for myself!

Bon appetit!