Intelligence Council Predicts 3D Printed Organs, Megacities, Brain Chips by 2030
wired.com
wired.com
I can't remember any of the others, but all of the predictions for around now (other then the smartphone one) are completely and totally off. All of these prediction things are bullshit, as most futurist ideas generally are. There's no accountability, because no one will remember the reports. It's ridiculous that the government pays people to write these things, and just as ridiculous that Wired publishes them.
I think SMBC put it best:
Beyond that, a medical history that can't be updated is pretty useless, but our fragmented healthcare system isn't able to agree on standards for electronic medical records or how to synchronize them across different providers. Actually, getting doctors to use EMRs will probably be the work of a generation.
Then the problem becomes, how do you get doctors and hospitals to use something like this? Creating a private database that providers could optionally use seems doable. The hard part would be creating a large enough percentage of adoption at first. After that, more and more providers would see the benefit of using the system, and patients might even start asking for it, or preferring hospitals that have it.
Reluctance to change, for two. You have to convince most hospitals to change from whatever they have installed now to your system, or you have to make your system 100% compatible with the current hospital systems, with minimal changes.
+ People don't know how good it would be until it's actually used, so adaption would be slow.
+ No real financial gain- health providers just add the cost of bureaucracy into the bill.
So yes, it would be cool/useful, but there's not exactly a huge need for it (and many potential problems).
For people with serious medical conditions that need to communicate that to EMS, we have physical medalert bracelets that can tell healthcare providers that you have diabetes or epelipsy. That technology works even if your provider doesn't have power or reliable internet.
Most patient provider interactions don't require history transmission because you're at a scheduled office visit or your in emergency care at a facility that is part of your giant local health network. In those cases, providers can look up your name (that they can get from your wallet even if you're not conscious) in their database and find all they need. They don't have to worry about synchronizing data with arbitrary providers and trying to remap their ontologies or deal with lossy translations.
The number of cases where providers need fine grained history information for people that they've never treated before and they need it right NOW and can't afford to wait is...very small relative to the volume of patients treated. I mean, if you've been shot in the chest, the ER is going to focus on keeping you from bleeding to death rather than poring through a history to note that you're allergic to ragweed pollen, have slightly elevated blood pressure and fractured your tibia 8 years ago.
This is a much much better way round, but two things hold it back - well three.
1. Key sign? PKi? Wtf?
2. Doctors actually don't want many records to be available to the patient - it frankly compromises medical care (heard the phrase GOMER - Get Out Of My ER. Much diagnosis is still hunch and guesswork - and needs to be carefully phrased If patient will read it
3. We still think something centralised should track all our medical care when really something decentralised is much much better
While I don't doubt there'll be printable organs and brain-integrated silicon by 2030, the majority of people will not benefit, and the tensions brought about by escalating inequality will set progress back by years.
Worldwide poverty has been declining for decades. Costs of technology is declining at an ever rapid pace.
Income equality between the top bracket and the bottom != less access to technology for everyone
World wide (outside of my native US), I have less of an idea.
Also, the part about biohacks and bio-weapons, reminded me of the movie Prometheus.
- After toying with 3D printers for a while, they will go back to vat-grown organs
- With widespread Internet access, remote work being a reality and local energy generation, people will leave the big cities seeking better life quality in smaller, country-side cities
- There won't be brain chips
I mean, it's almost 2013 and a majority of the population has general computers connected to the internet in their pockets, through which we can watch almost any movie or listen to any song. Try explaining that to someone from the early 80's.
Too bad the head of wired is a pessimist when it comes to the singularity; I think he's just as deluded as everyone else when it comes to accepting what exponential means.
Sure about that?
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/142797-brain-pacemaker-he...
I think the only real question is will the economics of the implants permit "casual" usage.
Just in the past 100 years, my country (Brazil) has seen people move from rural to urban to rural again.
"quality of life" is subjective. I've lived in the countryside, and while it's nice to sit on your porch and sip wine and watch the sunset, it's also nice to have a wide selection of nightlife.
Regardless of the accuracy of the predictions.
Compared to all of human history, we are already superhuman.
Apple, 1990: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlfTDlgAl_A
http://web.archive.org/web/20110519014210/http://www.dni.gov...
Surprisingly, the direct link no longer works, so I had to go through archive.org
Yeh, right. I think around as much homes have it today, as there were in 2000.
"First, European governments will be absorbed by the need to renegotiate the social contract, i.e., the entitlement programs of the social welfare state hammered out in the post-1945 period. This is not a choice but a necessity: a large, aging population sits atop a shrinking labor pool and declining birth rates, unemployment remains chronic, and growth rates are projected at 2-3 percent per year at best--acceptable by historical standards (as well as the standards of other countries) but short of public expectations. Labor market rigidities and lack of productivity growth will strengthen protectionist tendencies."
That's totally off. There's no renegotiation going on of the social contract.