future in five years?

Question

who thinks this is a correct assessment of the future.
in the past 50-100 years ago people used to think about what the future would bring in 100 years but now its hard to think about what the future will bring in five years or even one year because the technological advancements are increasing at such a fast rate.

for example. some biologists made a breakthrough that they thought would take 50 years but instead took only 10 years due to the invention of the computer

the last answer was not valid seeing that a computer is only as smart as the person who makes it and cannot be any smarter

Answer 1

Indeed.

For instance, many technologies are banking on the cheap and efficient production of nanotubes, which could be utilized in building all sorts of incredible products (space elevators, massive solar sails).

Example:
With an appropriately sized solar sail (1000km), a massive farnese lens (1000km), and a very powerful laser (10 million gigawatt), it would take ONLY 10 years to reach the closest star.

The only limitation is power. We simply don't have the ability, as of now, to produce that kind of power, nor do we have the ability to produce a 1000km lens and sail. But with the right technology, IT'S POSSIBLE!

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/ideaknow.html

Answer 2

I think this is true in some ways and not true in others.

Information technology at least since the 1960's has been changing rapidly, with processors doubling in power every two years or so. That means that we can predict with a fair degree of certainty that in five years computers will be four to eight times more powerful.

Advances in other areas are harder to quantify, though. Medicine is more advanced than it was five years ago, but I couldn't put a number on how much more advanced. The prognosis for a cancer patient, for example, may be somewhat better now, but whether it is worlds better or not at all better depends on which disease you mean. Cars are in some details greatly different than they were five years ago, but on the whole they are really almost the same. I feel safe in predicting that in five years almost all cars will still drive in the same way on the same roads using basically the same technology.

Of course, changes in general have become faster because of the multiplying effects of changes in information systems. New cars are easier to design in some ways now because of computers, for example. Suppose instead of simply using a desktop computer an engineer could actually attach her brain to a computer, and the computer could help her think more quickly. Or, suppose that computers advance to the point where they can actually do more real thinking, instead of just processing data for human beings? Either of those things could make change much faster.

So, while I wouldn't predict that the world will be unimaginably different in five years, I'm less sure about twenty years from now. But one thing about that: people have been feeling that way for quite a while, at least since World War II. Consider how the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" imagined we'd have hotels in orbit and scheduled flights to take us there. And we still don't even have video phones.

Answer 3

You are correct. I think that, unfortunately, humans will allocate most of their technological abilities to develop more destructive weapons. However, I think that very soon, computers will be much more advanced, people might use their voice or hand motions to control computers. Also, I think that the medical field will develop more sophisticated alternative medical equipment, look at it now, we now have the ability to heal wounds with a laser, inject medicine without needles, and can scan individual parts of the body. However, I think that space exploration innovations will take at least 20 years or so to develop the technology we should have today (like a moon base)

Answer 4

2012 is sometimes claimed to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse). Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B'ak'tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.

Answer 5

COMTUTERS WILL BE ANOTHER10 TIMES FASTER.

IN 2045 COMPUTERS WILL BE MORE INTELLIGENT THAT HUMANS. AND THAT'S NOT JUST THE ONES ON YAHOO ANSWERS