What awaits us in 2045? ● DARPA, the government military technology development agency that likes to do things outside the box - answers
Last December, like every year, was filled with hopeful but expected predictions for 2016. So maybe it's worth relying on those who are considered exceptional, or in the more likely case, crazy. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which has the catchy name: the Agency for Research on Advanced Defense Projects - deals with technological developments for the military, is responsible for many technological developments, in the world's armies and for civilian uses.
In many ways, the agency is building the future. In a video series, "Forward to the Future", three of its researchers explained how the technologies they are working on may change the world - within a generation.
Pam Mallory, an aerospace engineer and former astronaut, is the Deputy Director of the Tactical Technologies Unit. This department, along with others, develops drones. The military ones are becoming more and more frightening, with one of the projects being called a "vampire" - a drone almost invisible in sunlight, which leaves no traces of its activity.
Mallory takes the field one step further: "Advanced artificial intelligence will allow us to work as partners with the machines - drones, planes, and even a spaceship - that will understand our intentions regarding much more complex tasks." Instead of voice recognition systems and keyboards - the machines will respond to our commands dynamically and control multiple systems at the same time.
Robots recognize emotions
The agency is engaged in the development of an "empathic" system, which will allow the robot soldiers on the battlefield to recognize and analyze our emotional and physical state in real time. This ability will allow them to predict our needs - even before we need them.
Stephanie Tompkins, a geologist and director of the Agency's Office of Science Protection, believes that the world in 2045 will be dominated by nanotechnology. It will manipulate materials at the atomic level, and this is how we will create amazing materials: prosthetic limbs with the ability to "feel", and contact lenses for night vision, only a few atoms thick. "The future will be characterized by strong and lightweight materials," she said. "Now we can begin to control material properties that we always thought were impossible for them to exist. We force their existence, by building them at the atomic level."
Justin Sanchez, a neuroscientist and one of the program managers in the agency's Office of Biotechnology, is convinced that thought-powered technology will become commonplace by 2045. Neuroscientists are already working on brain-controlled prosthetic limbs, and a prototype thought-controlled car already exists. Sanchez thinks that in 2045 "we will be able to communicate with friends and family members only through neural activity from our brains."
The first project assigned to her, in the 50s, was to find a technological solution that would allow maintaining active communications inside and outside the land, in the event of an atomic missile attack from the Soviet enemy. The solution found - created the internet network.
DARPA is known for the independent and non-conformist opinions of its people and the fact that its employees like to do things "outside the box". Its budget is large, billions of dollars, and the feasibility of its projects is extremely low, less than 10%. Most of her projects are confidential and go against the main technological trends. At the same time as the successful projects, many projects failed, or initially had a controversial logic - including the attempt to create an artificial elephant, which could carry people and equipment in the forests of Vietnam.
Self-destruct command
Already in the 70s, the agency was dealing with speech recognition technologies, 30 years before Siri. The agency produced the first computer mouse, was a partner in the development of the GPS, came up with plans to clean space from old satellites, developed bionic prostheses and more, as you can imagine.
Two years ago, the agency announced a competition to build a system that would automatically analyze lines of code, find their weak points and fix them so that they would be immune to attack. The value of the prizes was set at millions of dollars. DARPA wanted to change the way security companies work, not to develop solutions to problems after they are discovered, but to reach a situation where the security problem is discovered before it becomes a problem.
About four years ago, the agency announced that it would increase the development of advanced means for online warfare. Two and a half years ago, she revealed the Plan X project, which aims to bring about that the participants in the online war will also be relatively simple network users - novice hackers or those with no attack experience at all, "those who can manage the online battlefield intuitively, as if they were playing Angry Birds". explained the researchers.
Two years ago, the agency signed a contract with IBM for the development of CMOS chips, capable of remotely receiving a self-destruct command and turning the silicon into dust. The purpose of the project is to prevent classified military systems from falling into the hands of the enemy.
DARPA's experimental projects often resemble startups combined with science fiction movies: robots, brain chips and self-repairing defense systems. But they also point to some of the real-world challenges and problems it is trying to solve.
One response
History shows that the prophets and covenants were always wrong.
Instead of the technological improvements that all the science fiction writers thought of such as robots and cyborgs and cars without fuel that travel in the air, encounters with aliens, holograms, etc.
We have flat screen TVs, personal computers, the Internet, smartphones and XNUMXD printers and communication satellites... things that no prophet or fiction writer ever thought of before.