Which of these future technologies will be the one to rise up and destroy us?
This week’s entry: List of emerging technologies
What it’s about: The future! Even as new technological marvels arrive with each passing year, science is always looking forward to the next breakthrough. Some have long been the purview of science fiction and are only now becoming practical; some are the logical next step in recent inventions; and some, like nuclear fusion or the male birth control pill, have been 10 years away for decades. Taken together, the list lets us glimpse dimly into the near future. Will it be a sparkling utopia where we have slightly bigger phones and slightly smaller tablets, or a shadowy dystopia where we have slightly smaller phones and slightly bigger tablets? Time will tell.
Strangest fact: Science is working on a molecular assembler, a machine that can assemble things on an atomic scale, much the way a ribosome operates within a living cell. The Wikipedia page on the subject has some useful information, but devotes more space to talking about what a molecular assembler isn’t, and whether building one is even possible. As a ribosome exists, it stands to reason science could one day imitate it. But it’s unknown whether it’s possible to build something as versatile as Star Trek’s replicator. The page also covers the “gray goo” theory, a nightmare scenario in which self-replicating nanobots use all of the Earth’s matter to make more of themselves.
Biggest controversy: Most of the technologies on the list name one or more older technologies that may be displaced by the new. While one can make a strong argument that CGI is an already emerged technology, it still made the list, and among its “potentially marginalized technologies,” Wikipedia casually slips “child porn” in between music videos and commercials. And you thought Jar Jar Binks was the worst thing to be associated with CGI.