Do you think we will have libraries in the future, since technology is taking over?
80375
Maybe... Or online libraries where we check out e-books...
870254
we already have...\n\nits called nanotechnology...they ahvei nfused carbon nanotubes onto silicon substrates and used DNA and its complex functionality to solve problems..this has been done to a limited scope...but it is very well established that larger scale systems will be availabe in 20 years...to the functionality you describe...the first intelligent machine is expected to appear around 2025-2030.\n\nThis will take time and engineering...(these are projections based on current average rate of economic growth and research)...research is based on curretn glboal computing power, research education and lab power...which is at its most powerful form ever---but that is ONLY---if the economy doesn't, colapse for example...\n\nhowever, another alternative, taht is faster--there is a faster way to do it than yours...\n\nwe an simply get rat brain cells...and organize them on substrates so that they resemble the human brain...we make a brain out of rat cells and then we just teach it like a new born..this can be done...\n\nor we could get brains of people and just turn them into subconcious zombies and take them out of the bodie...by which we then plug them into an itnerface and we can make them do computations...\n\nhowever, that would be amoral...so we cannot do this...you will ahve to wait 25 years from now for nanotechnology and computer chips to be integrated with carbon nanotubes/DNA to see that type of functionality.\n\nI beleive at such times...we would have perfected the machine-human interfaces and will become "part" of these intelligent machines..through neural implants--.... we will be the same identity...say your computer jsut becoems you but with greater intelligence and functionality--\n\nwe can also develope identities that are INDEPENDENT of humans that can think for themselves...but for them to have a "termintator" mentality they would have to differentiate between "human" and machine...and since intelligence is just intelligence...I don't think there will be such mentality...\n\nits as if you one day woke up one day and learned your a robot...you would not want to nuke the entire human race right?\nin fact, you would identify with humans...you wouldn't care if you were a robot...just don't tell anybody.\n\nbut even if you did want to nuke all humans, that would imply you had more resources than humans, able to get their civilization from undertheir feet right?\n\nbutas I said, insuch a society, humans would plug into "machines" which were their slave.s..and gave them mroe intelligence...but the machines themselves were not "concious" themselves...\n\nso the humans...knowing how to be "cyberntically" avid...just as regular concious machines...\n\nthe machines would "loose" their edge..\nin other words...the intelligent machines would not be "smarter" than the 2025 human because that human would have also become smarter with machiens that are tied to their brain...and whih they controla nd know how to operate just as well as an intellgienct computer...\n\nthus, placing computer intelligence and human intelligence on the same level...and thus making US similar...making it less likely for any "confrontation'...\nbesdies...if ar obot was "jealous" of the extra senses of thehuman body....after acheiving such tehcnology...we could easily develope synthetic bodies made of biological /nanotech grown tissue...and thatwould make them more equal...and thus---not view us, nor we them as "different"\n\nto a point...that a "synthetic human" and a "machine enhanced human" would be almost viewed the same...\n\nthe synthetic human...just has a robotic mind....whith a human like body....the enhacned humans (probably most humans by 2045) are just human brain...with enhanced features that make it the same as a robotic mind...\n\nso in essence, they are same...\n\nyou see? its only our primit
6345
Till technology take us over, lets enjoy
1091019
I think we will always have books, but I would bet someone will figure out another way to make them in a very different form.  I also think that high school textbooks are doomed, since they are way too heavy and can be offered in CD-ROM form already.  The classes I teach are going to be giving everyone the CD of the textbook and just keep the regular books in the classroom next year, so that students don't have as much weight in their backpacks.
193191
There is no doubt that medical technology will continue to advance. But it is likely that the law of diminishing returns will (or maybe has) limit the improvements that such technology will bring to any patient or humankind overall.\n\nWhilst we still have rampant infective diseases such as Malaria and Tuberculosis decimating 3rd world countries and entire generations dying from malnutrition, we need to ask ourselves if gadgets that bring a little bit of extra function to a small number of people are really progress, or perhaps just ignorance?
1045981
I think we will eventually be doing that. There's a huge amount of work required in order to do that. Plus, the terms of generating revenue need to be established. \n\nBut, the way I see it, we soon will have all books and all articles ever published online for everyone to access.
980858
Interesting questions. Since technology seems to be evolving alongside of us, I tend to suspect out bodies will adapt to deal with this. As most technology appears to be making our lives easier, or lasier (which will be more critical as I explain my theory), there is no doubt in my mind we will loose alot of our mobility. Since there is a large push towards working at home and automating everything, I think it is potentially possible we may loose the function of our legs and arms and the moving parts of out bodies. Having said that, it will be interesting to see how we will feed ourselves and reproduce. I suspect the theory discussed in the story, "The Time Machine", is not to far from the truth. It could be possible that we evolve into two different types of humans, similar to termites. We will have the workers; those that will grow our food and carry out the pysical tasks, The general populous which will be home bound and in control of mental actvities. Whether this happens in the next 1000 years seems unlikely since evolution takes much longer than this. But in reflection, considering the environmental change the globe is going through, other changes in the human form will need to be taken into consideration. Could it be possible that humanity will not evolve in the next 1000 years, but simply die out and a new species takes its place? This seems more likely since it has happened to many species throughtout the earths history.
378621
Our technology and communications is changing at a rapid rate.\n\nThink about the fact that when I was 3 years old, we had a black and white TV, a rotary dial telephone, a washing machine, an oven and a refrigerator.  We had a car and a truck.  I grew up on a farm.\n\nMy grandparents did not have TV, they had radio.  They had no cars.  \n\nMy first grade teacher graduated college - called normal school - in 1919.  Her father made saddles for a living.  When she started teaching, there were only a few cars on the road.\n\nOur society is changing because we are changing.  How many people do you know who make their living on a farm?\n\nIn 1996 how many people had personal computers?  How many people do not have them now?  Ten years ago, a computer was not a necessity in a home.  We haven't even touched on TV, satellites, and all of the choices available in how we use them.
224776
Highly electronic!  They are putting computer microchips in everything already, and I expect that trend to continue.  I suspect privacy will be a thing of the past, except perhaps for the top bureaucrats, who have the privileges once accorded to the top bureaucrats in the Soviet Union.  There will be much less transportation, because many if not most people will either not have jobs in the conventional sense, or work on-line.  Automation will have made most low-end jobs obsolete.  Transportation will be mostly for recreation and shipping.  Small personal air cars are likely.  Language will have fragmented into specialized subcultures, almost indecipherable to one another.  (You see that already in these questions and answers, with the "newspeak" created for cell phone text messages.)  Hand-made goods will be rare and expensive, but mass produced materials will be much more customized.  You will be able to order to your specifications over the internet, and receive the finished goods by UPS or its successor within a day or two.
567987
No we dont have the technology yet
898472
Not yet.  We will be once our demands outstrip our resources.  Then it will be like the Dark Ages in Europe when many will die from pestilence and war.  After that, there will be more resources available per person than there has been in a long time.  There will be what can only be considered a new Renaissance.
553256
Sure they are and they will make more advances. There's the MRI, CAT Scan, PET, EEG, etc... without computers hospitals and any health care facilities will be disabled. So much depends on computers that life itselt cannot work without it.
591532
All be the same-doubtful. we are, and will always be different. However, i do think everyone will hear of mcdonalds or famous people one day. Technology is expanding. Anyone who lives in developed countries or has acces to the internet will have. Progress economically will match peoples knowledge. One day, everyone won't be able to drive for a few hours without passing fast food restaurants
795757
Maybe not, just try getting a job in IT these days; the field is overloaded with qualified graduates who flocked to IT programs and now there's too many of them. I'd imagine that IT will eventually be replaced by newer technology that requires more advanced and different knowledge and skills.
720766
Probably somewhat different, but not TOO much different than today.\n\nTechnology moves fast, big big things that completely change things (such as a human-computer bio interface) won't probably be around for 50+ years.\n\nOur computers will work faster, be smaller, and do more than they do now, but unfortunately, in 20 years, you probably won't be able to clip your computer to your ear as you're walking out the door.\n\nIf computers changed rapidly like that, the price would also go WAY up, to accommodate the highly changed technology.  So the tech companies will probably phase this technology in slowly.\n\nPretty sad.  But right now, I'd be happy with a 6 hour laptop battery that comes standard.
1057196
I believe they are being surrounded by lots of technology but they are definitely not in a bubble in the sense that, the technology we see today bring real benefits to it's users and our reliance and our children's reliance on it will only continue to grow. Technology and it's evolution is here to stay :-)
252061
Yes, the techonological advances are going to be mind blowing by the end of the decade computers will be 1000 faster than they are today.