The Hindu : National : BT shares future techno-vision

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 05, 2005

National

National

BT shares future techno-vision

Anand Parthasarathy

50-year timeline predicts robotic football teams, surgery by computer, `smelly' television and a war over water supply An artificial intelligence entity will get a Ph.D. degree in the 2020s and robots will be mentally and physically superior to humans in the 2030s. By the 2040s, the first artificial brain will be created in a jar and the first e-babies will be born

BANGALORE: It ranges from the predictable to the mind boggling; from scary to seemingly silly — and almost all it is based on a hardnosed extrapolation of technical trends today. British Telecomunications (BT) the UK-based global telecom player has just unveiled a technology timeline for the next 50 years — results of a study by its futurology department.

The timeline covers all areas of life impacted by technology today: health and medicine, business, education, energy, transport, space and robotics. Authors Ian Neild and Ian Pearson remind us that human technology has moved from the first flight — to routine flying to the moon, within a span of 60 years; from a code-cracking "Colossus" computer, the size of a room, during World War II, to kids' gaming computers like XBox and PlayStation that can create virtual war in the living room.

Not startling

So it may not be all that startling, if a pop band will all-synthetic voices makes it to the Top Twenty any time after 2006 — and one fourth of all TV celebrities are `synthespians' or synthetic thespians (actors) between 2001 and 2015. The timeline predicts that an artificial intelligence entity will get a Ph.D. degree in the 2020s and robots will be mentally and physically superior to humans in the 2030s. By the 2040s, the first artificial brain will be created in a jar and the first e-babies will be born. On the medical front, the BT boffins see computers performing surgery between 2008 and 2012. In the same time span, they say, bacteria will be added to toothpaste to attack plaque; a diabetes cure will be found via stem research and use will be made of one's own tissues to grow replacement organs. Between 2001 and 2015, pleasure will be electronically produced — leading to `orgasm by email.'

Downsides too

There are some downsides, we are warned. As early as 2006- 2010, professional email will have to be paid for — so get ready to say goodbye to gmail, hotmail, yahoomail, for your business communication. All government services could be delivered electronically in the 2008-2012 span, but (let's hope P. Chidambaram is not reading this!) personal taxation will be deducted at the point of sale anytime between 2011 and 2015. The techno-soothsayers expect a decline in language teaching between 2016 and 2020 because machine translation will be so pervasive. By 2008, we will have a single address for emails and phones and will be interacting with computer almost wholly by voice. In some countries at least, the last call on the good old land telephone system will be made between 2006 and 2010; while by 2011, all voice-based telephone calls might be free. The authors expect Internet users to exceed one billion between 2006 and 2010 and half the world's population to have Internet access by 2017. The global population itself will peak at 10 billion in the 2040s. On the energy front, a home fuel cell will generate 7 kilowatts of power soon after 2008 and space solar power stations can be expected in the 2030s.

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