Nano Race Cars, Synthetic Life & Cyber-Workers, Oh My!

Nanotechnology has advanced quite significantly over the years up to the point where we've seen some really useful practical use, most of which people are unaware of, partially because it sounds like science fiction.

But first, let's define nanotechnology.  It is generally technology that is on the nano scale, which is one billionth of a meter.  We're dealing with the realm of the atoms and molecules.  Hence any technological application where we're manipulating materials at the atomic/molecular level can be called nanotechnology.  What is going into applications or already in application has already started to change our lives.

In this article I would like to discuss specifically what most people think of when it comes to nanotechnology.  Yep, you heard it, nano robots and the like.

I discuss the philosophical implications in the video below:

Bio-engineering
I've written quite a bit about how we're now able to manipulate molecules to be able to create tiny organic machines.  Well, that's one form of nanotechnology using organic molecules of course!

In the past, we've explored the great advancements we've made using the CRISPR-Cas9 protein complex, a complex that we've modified from bacteria to do a simple job:  repair defective genes with great precision.  With it, we can cure over time all genetic diseases, repair mutated genomes and even cut out viruses that are hiding in our cell's nuclei (viruses like Herpes etc...).

We're also capable of creating our very own chromosomes and we've also made the first synthetic form of life, through engineering fairly recently.  Pretty cool that we're able to do this right?  Though that one is old news since the first was in 2010!

Cybernetics
In 2015, a company in Stockholm, Sweden, decided that it would be practical to implant their 2,000 odd workers with tiny chips in their hands to be used as passes for security purposes as well as allow them to wave their hands in order to make purchases on site with the distribution system knowing exactly to which account flag the purchase.  With this tech, it would be possible to also know exactly when each employee is taking breaks, when they come in, when they leave, whether they are healthy or in distress etc...  The list goes on and on.  The company says they did this to be at the forefront of technology and be seen as a technologically advanced company in Stockholm.  Though the information I have doesn't exactly state all the features they may have integrated into the nano-chip but the workers don't seem to mind.  The device has very small components and don't impede their work at all.

This though makes them all cyber-workers all of a sudden transmitting through their hands their identity... something that is hard to fake.  You can't exactly leave this chip to a friend to enter onto the premises and if one day someone had part of their hand cut out, it would come out as pretty suspicious, and security would definitively investigate a breach...

Personally, I'm not a fan of any kind of surgery... heck I don't even like the prospects of getting a small tattoo (one day?).  But frankly, if its pretty superficial and I can get serious benefits from the small implant, I would go for it too and follow the buzz!

Nano racing cars
In 2011, scientists started building actual moving machines, including cars at the nano level.  This year, 2017, is the first nano-car race competition.  These things are very small, and truly "nano" with wheels 60 atoms wide organized on a carbon atom chassis.  Heck they will even create a nano racetrack with actual atomic obstacles for the competition.  How can you participate?  Well, you have to be pretty expert and have the right equipment to make cars of that size.

But don't fret, some labs have even thought of creating IKEA-style rules and numbered parts so you could make your own car (in this case, nano biocars using a hard material skeleton and muscle cells that act as drivers).  Once the novelty of the races will pass, I'm sure we'll start getting pretty good at making hybrid or technological machines on the same scale that would have more practical uses, like perhaps build things atom by atom.  Not a far-fetched idea in our world of 3D Printing tech.

I for one, am excited that we've figured out increasingly innovative and efficient ways to build machines, organic or non-organic, that can do tasks at that scale.

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?

The Technological Singularity and the Future

According to Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis of the Singularity University, the technological Singularity is:

The point where Artificial Intelligence surpasses human intelligence. They estimate it happening in 2029.

Here is the original definition by science fiction author, Vernor Vinge, who described it as a point in time where “…we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

He continues:

“I think it's fair to call this event a singularity. It is a point where our models must be discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer and closer to this point, it will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a commonplace. Yet when it finally happens it may still be a great surprise and a greater unknown."

So very enigmatic… and a little scary. In reality, even today we don’t really know what will happen near or beyond the point of technological singularity.

I discuss the subject matter in this video: 

Let’s examine some laws and human history for a bit.

Moore’s Law of computing says the number of transistors on integrated circuits, which translates into memory, speed, capacity, computer intelligence etc… doubles approximately every two years. This has been going on since the first computers appearing in the 1950’s.

Why is Moore’s Law’s computing power doubling every 2 years so consistent after over 60 years of computer improvements? Well, because we’ve been using computers to build the next generation computers.

If you are fond of math let’s look at how Moore’s Law applies:

The first UNIVAC computer in 1951 would be able to make about 2000 simple additions or subtractions per second. Of course, that’s way faster than any human can calculate. So UNIVAC was great for accelerating calculations and would not need any sleep. Therefore computers became a complement to our lives, allowing us to focus on the more creative aspects of work while the computers assisted in processing speed.

According to Moore’s Law though, every 2 years after 1951, the computing speed doubled. Therefore, for each 2 years after 1951, the amount of calculations per second would double. This means in 1971, 20 years later (10 2 year cycles, increasing the amount of calculations each cycle), the 2000 calculations per second in 1951 would have been increased by 2 to the power 10 (2000 x 2^10 milliseconds = nearly 2 million calculations per second). Let’s now warp to today, which starting off in 1971 is 21 2 year cycles further down the line, where the speed of computing has probably increased by another 2^21 times. This means about 4 x 10^12 calculations per second.

Well guess what, the fastest computer (the K computer) on Earth today is Japanese and is 2500 times faster than that at 10 x 10^15 calculations per second. That is a 10 with 15 zeros. However, our desktop computers are pretty close to the Moore’s Law’s predicted speed.

Ok, let’s now look at the future near the point of Singularity… The fastest computer will be 2^8 times faster than one in 2013 (singularity being predicted for 2029). That’s 256 times the K computer’s speed. I won’t even write down the number but there are 18 zeros now.

Feel outmatched by our little mobile devices?

Well you shouldn’t because our brain, though structured differently, can execute 2 x 10^16 calculations per second. You’re just not aware of all the power sitting inside your skull and it is attached to the rest of our body, which let’s face it, does a lot more for us than just compute. 2 x 10^16 calculations per second is currently more than what the K computer can achieve by a factor of 10.

So in 2029, computers will presumably be able to compute 100 times faster than our own brain, hence the theory we can make them intelligent machines, and not only in speed but in creativity too.

Now let’s look back just a little at what humanity has accomplished with the Internet:

- The Internet was really born in the 1960’s as a government funded project along with some private firms to create a stable distributed network of early computers. At that time it was a closed circuit and really just experimental.

- In the 1980’s, more government funds and private commercial efforts brought it to the public for the first time merging a few emergent networks together. This network was stabilized into a single system in 1995, creating the ISP system we know of today.

- In the mid 1990’s, the eCommerce boom and web site revolution generated massive amounts of available information discoverable on the Web.

- Google incorporated in 1998 with a single product, the Google Search engine, and dominated over the others because it was just a superior use of the available technology at the time.

- In 1999 Napster became famous for peer to peer network systems and caused lots of issues in the traditional music industry.

- Internet crash of 2000-2001 where Internet businesses were over evaluated and many perished, giving birth to some solid internet business models.

- 2001 to 2012. Growth and maturation of the Internet as a separate “world”. i.e. Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter are now places people “live”. Also, people can live complete virtual lives on the Internet through social and game software like Second Life, Entropia Universe and other 3D games where you can have a home, clothing, children and do all sorts of “real life” activities.

- In 2010 was even the first low orbit Internet connection made when astronaut T.J. Carter posted his first unassisted Twitter update from the International Space Station, expanding the Internet to orbital space.

The point is, it took us over 40 years to structure the Internet to a form of maturity when the bubble burst near the year 2000. Then it took only 12 years to go from online tool to immersive experience and carrying the Web in our pockets.

Mobile phone technology followed a similar trend from the 1950’s to today, where now our pocket devices are almost as powerful as our desktop computers and are fully internet capable.

Today through Skype, a free voice over IP app, we can place a free call to Japan on my mobile device and speak as long as I want for free. This alone was unthinkable 10 years ago when everybody wanted to become rich through the Internet explosion.

Today, I can share a video of an incident happening in the middle of nowhere and stream it directly to Youtube and have people and media alike around the world capture that as news within seconds. Youtube by the way was born only 7 years ago.

Today, 1 person out of 4 is connected to the Internet. That’s close to 2 billion people. It is estimated that by the year 2020, 66% of the world, more than 3 billion people at that time will have regular internet access and almost all of them will be accessing it from mobile devices to boot!

This means that 2/3 of the world will be able to get information, tools, software and much more from most other brains in the world. There will be no more secrets and there sure will be way more understanding between us, and a lot more people will be collaborating together on projects across borders.

Now let’s also look at the Open source movement. Prior to the year 2000, if you wanted to create software, you needed a company to do so and you needed to buy the software just like any other product. Now, most people with a little technical knowledge can create software on their own or very easily on their desktops. Right now, making a new piece of software requires a single person, a normal computer and in most cases free tools from the web and boom a few hours later, there is a new game, or application floating on iTunes , the Android store, or the web ready to be freely downloaded. Software creation has been roughly following Moore’s Law and has been following the same pattern of evolution as that of the computer and handheld devices.

This acceleration and building tech on top of technology is very exciting and brings us closer and closer to the moment of singularity we spoke about earlier.

Scientists have been working on nanorobots for years. These are robots that are small enough to enter the bloodstream, enter cells and even manipulate matter at an atomic level. This is very cool stuff where biological molecules are used as motors to move them around and DNA as power and memory device. Yet thanks to computer and software progressing fast they could eventually have a wireless connection, memory, reprogramming capability and the ability to think on their own intelligently. Because these little buggers will be able to manipulate matter at an atomic level, it means they can be programmed to replicate to handle bigger jobs.

Don’t worry, these are not expected to be in application until… well, around 2030 or so, where they will be smarter than the average human anyway, so they will probably not normally mess things up…

Imagine having a few of these things at hand. And say you want a new shirt made out of a certain non-allergenic material you like. Now what you will do is go on the Internet and look for the shirt program you want, likely programmed by some guys in their basement in Indonesia as an Open source project or for fun. Give it a bunch of junk materials, like recycling and garbage, some air and dirt if you have it, and it will reproduce enough nanobots to build the shirt in the color you wanted in a few minutes using the chemical structure you wanted (pollution free, allergen free and what have you) by consuming the garbage you gave it. Heck, if the shirt doesn’t fit perfectly, you can always order the nanobots to disassemble it to harmless chemicals, or even lunch. When their job is done you can order them into a little container for later use.

Using your imagination, we can think of other applications like food built from waste, surgery executed without knives or needles and power generation with absolutely no environmental consequence.

What does that mean for our society?

- If information is readily available to anyone at any time from any source, official or not.

- If Artificial Intelligence surpasses human Intelligence

- You can make anything out of anything using super intelligent nanobots

- People have the means to create software on their own easily through open source, free software creation tools and advances in computer power.

Why would we be working for a living?

Why would there be any need for people in positions of power?

Why would we have national armies or even war?

Why would there be a need for money in the first place?


We would be living in a state of harmony where technology would do all the hard labor, figure out solutions before there are problems and would essentially run all of our systems. Heck computers will likely achieve some scientific breakthroughs and create great works of art.

Not only that but the AI will be able to improve upon itself further, without our involvement. Heck, computers will improve faster without our involvement at that point.

People would be free to live peacefully with each other doing whatever pleases them, whether it is art, science, sports, whatever. Poverty, war, famine and harsh conditions are therefore a thing of the past.

Now some of you think that this is a dangerous time, especially if AI think for us. Imagery from movies like Terminator, iRobot and many others come to mind where the most powerful AI takes over and tries to enslave or annihilate humanity for its own good.

But I don’t think we can count on science fiction authors to predict everything correctly. After all, 1984 didn’t really happen the way George Orwell depicted after all.

I can’t predict what will happen. But look at the news and the apparent revolutions brewing in the world, for the most part peaceful. Things are changing. Fast, and for the most part the little guy is taking good decisions usurping the great powers that have until today been able to direct the populations along the wrong path.

It’s quite encouraging to see beyond the troubles we see today into a potentially very rewarding future.

Think about it. Think about your involvement in the new world. I hope, like me, you will working on enabling a bright future for us all.