Computing, communications, artificial intelligence, and a host of other technologies have enabled numerous advances. But they also have “resulted in a truly existential societal vulnerability due to the utter reliance upon electrons,” warns NASA scientist Dennis Bushnell in his latest article for the Foresight Signals blog.
Submitted by Dennis Bushnell on
by Dennis M. Bushnell
The tech-related futures literature primarily concerns specific technologies and their societal impacts. This discussion is an attempt to provide a precis of the major emerging technologies and their impacts upon societal lifestyles and upon the increasing numbers of serious to existential societal issues. The discussion is based upon Bostrom’s Technological Completion Conjecture,1 wherein technologies are carried forward to produce useful capabilities.
In 2021, futurists around the world kept us all informed, inspired, forward-looking, and well-prepared for what The Economist has called the “era of predictable unpredictability.” Below are a few highlights of the foresight community’s work in 2021 (plus some previews of 2022 activities).
Consulting and Research
reported by Tim Mack, managing principal, tcmack333@gmail.com
Many of the same industries conducted on Earth—mining, manufacturing, construction, tourism, services—also have the potential, or even the necessity, to be conducted in deep space, says NASA scientist Dennis Bushnell in his latest article for AAI Foresight Signal’s blog.
Submitted by Dennis Bushnell on
Space business is currently approaching $500 billion a year and is composed of space science, national security space, humans in space, satellite communications, and imaging from space. These efforts are almost wholly “space for Earth” programs with strong business cases, becoming ever more capable and affordable due to the large ongoing decreases in costs of space access and to miniaturization.
Solar energy made up 43% of new energy capacity in the United States in 2020, reports AAI Foresight managing principal Tim Mack in his latest article for the AAI Foresight Signals blog. Among the new installations of solar power are those on reclaimed brownfields in places like Texas and California, he notes.
Tim Mack
Submitted by Tim Mack on
Once a year I try to check in on renewable power issues, and I believe that solar has the most potential but faces the most challenges.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reports that 43% of new energy capacity added in the United States in 2020 came from solar—the greatest annual increase to date. This additional capacity added up to 19.2 gigawatts (GW), and new installations coming over the next decade will be close to 325 GW, SEIA estimates.
A related element in this expansion is the repurposing of brownfields:
The planet will continue to warm through at least the middle of this century unless we can effect deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, warns the recently released report “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Summary for Policymakers” from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
David N. Bengston
Submitted by David N. Bengston on
In Washington Irving’s classic short story, Colonial era slacker Rip Van Winkle wanders off into the Catskill Mountains and falls asleep under mysterious circumstances. He awakens twenty years later to a changed world. Most significantly, the British colonies experienced a dramatic political and military revolution during Mr. Van Winkle’s long nap. In place of the portrait of King George III on the sign of ye olde village inn—which is now a hotel—is an image of George Washington. This transformative wild card event would have been unimaginable twenty years earlier.
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