杏吧原创

WHEN it comes to technological revolution, we ain鈥檛 seen nothing yet. In , , editor of the science-fiction magazine , goes beyond this truism and attempts to anticipate the revolutions of the future by studying those of the past.

The key, says Schmidt, is to look at how disparate technologies have converged in unexpected ways. This may seem self-evident, but generations of science-fiction writers have nevertheless missed it. Their stories invariably examine the societal effects of a single technological change, such as the ability to travel in time.

Schmidt does an excellent job of highlighting how all sorts of technologies have historically converged to create new and unanticipated possibilities. The convergence of X-rays and computers, for instance, spawned 3D medical scanners, while computers in combination with phone networks gave us the internet.

But convergence can also lead to disaster. The ability to construct tall buildings in which large numbers of people are concentrated, plus the technology behind mass air transport, which packs a large amount of chemical and kinetic energy in a passenger plane, could be said to have paved the way for the tragedies of 9/11.

Future convergence, however, will be even more dramatic. Schmidt鈥檚 central thesis is that scores of technologies are poised to merge all at once. Some, such as nanotechnology, with its promise of machines the size of human cells, have the potential to interact with almost every other technology. And there may be technologies we have not anticipated at all. Every science-fiction writer missed what some argue was the key technological development of all time: the advent of miniaturised solid-state electronics.

The coming mega-convergence could be good or catastrophic. Schmidt urges people to be educated in multiple disciplines so that we can take control of the converging technologies, instead of letting them take control of us. The latter is a scary thought. Schmidt speculates on the : if the probability that extraterrestrials have developed in our galaxy is as high as scientists believe, why haven鈥檛 we met them yet? He wonders whether the increasing capacity for technology to harm large numbers of people means that every alien society will inevitably be wiped out. Could the same thing happen to us? The spread of technologies 鈥渋ndistinguishable from magic鈥� 鈥� mobile phones, computers, etc 鈥� combined with the shrinking pool of people who understand how they work may be a recipe for disaster.

鈥淲ill technology inevitably wipe out every alien society?鈥�

The convergence of multiple technologies may not be our biggest worry. There鈥檚 also the convergence of individual technologies with human greed and stupidity. We may be undone simply by the fact that we wield technologies of awesome power, yet are ruled by evolutionary impulses more suited to the African savannah of our forebears than to the high-tech playground of the 21st century.