You know that feeling when you try to do a good thing and then accidentally scorch the entire planet? Yeah, the future can be terrifying.
Lasers. Artificial intelligence. Nanotechnology. Soon, science will become so advanced that you could move objects with the power of your mind.
1. ORBITAL LASERS
Imagine a massive satellite in low Earth orbit, equipped with a kind of laser that can turn incoming asteroids into dust. Sound epic. But there’s one problem. The bigger the target is, the bigger the laser we’d need to destroy it.
That’s right. We would launch special satellites equipped with reflectors and laser power transmitters. These satellites would capture solar power, convert this power into laser beams, and then transmit it down to Earth, where we could use that energy through our power grid.
Lasers are awesome. But we’ve seen enough sci-fi movies to know they can also destroy humanity as we know it.
If Earth had a system of lasers around it, imagine what it could do in the hands of a country or corporation on a path of war. Or a kind of havoc that even a simple targeting error could cause.
2. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The second technology that comes with truly incredible power to save the human race – or to destroy it – is artificial intelligence.
When it comes to writing, ChatGPT can draft something in seconds. Sure, it won’t be perfect yet, but it can really get your own creativity going. And then there’s the ultimate threat of an intelligent AI becoming fully autonomous and taking over humanity.
3. NANOTECHNOLOGY
This third technology is straight out of a sci-fi movie. But it is very real. Nanoparticles are incredibly small. They’re so tiny that a million of them can fit into one cell. And of course, cells themselves are microscopic. Thousands of cells would fit into a single grain of rice. Those nanobots? It’s safe to say they’re super microscopic.
In a few decades, nanobots will swim all around our bodies, making small repairs to our cells and basically making us immortal.
The same nanoparticles designed to target cancer cells could be reprogrammed to destroy healthy tissue instead. Remember that nanobots are tiny, you can’t even see them. They’d slip into your body without a trace. By the time you realized something was wrong, nanobots would already be attacking your cells.
In the wrong hands, nanotech could become the most silent and deadly weapon ever created.
4. GEOENGINEERING
So let’s look at another technology that can save us. Or wipe us out. This time, let’s look at the technology that can control the climate.
Our world is heating up – and fast. In the last century and a half, all our factories, farming and pollution have pushed the global temperature up by 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). And it’s only going to get hotter.
We could try to cool Earth down by reflecting some of the Sun’s energy back into space. If our planet reflected more sunlight, it would mean fewer greenhouse gases and less global warming. To do that, we’d have to inject millions of tons of aerosols into the atmosphere over the next 100 years.
Even a tiny miscalculation could have terrible consequences for life on Earth. Extreme climate events could worsen and kill millions of people. Even more frightening, we could cause overcooling and set off another ice age. Then, instead of overheating, we could freeze to death.
5. BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE
Geoengineering may hold great promise but it seems like right now, it’s more likely to kill us. But how about a technology that enhances your own brain? Let me introduce you to a brain-computer interface.
Brain-computer interfaces can power the most amazing changes in our human bodies. New innovations may help blind people see. Even those born blind, as long as their visual cortex is not damaged – that’s the part of the brain that processes sight.
Even using today’s brain-computer interface, scientists have shown they can get a person to move their hand by transmitting a neural signal. Imagine being remote-controlled, like a toy. That’s my worst nightmare.
It could also be the end of privacy as we know it. Governments could get a readout from the computer interface and know exactly what you were thinking and when. It could end crime, but it’ll also end your freedoms.
