Computer Advances
 

Firstly, read this article. The first few sections will give you the gist of it, if you don't feel like reading the whole thing (though I do recommend doing so).

Then, if you are unfamiliar with the concept of Moore's Law, read the introduction to this wiki.

And now, my remarks:

As computers become smaller and smaller (ala the memristors and the increasingly small processors being pumped out by Intel), I think what we'll begin to see is a sort of fusion of computers and our own bodies. It's already started with netbooks and the more expensive ultramobile notebooks. They're small enough to sling into a backpack or briefcase with the rest of your stuff and take everywhere.

Next up, we hit the wearable stage. Wrist computers, like all good science fiction, will likely become reality. Then, they'll be integrated into the rest of our clothing, with displays mounted in the fabric of our clothes (look up flexible displays).

Pretty soon after that, we'll be seeing things like computers more powerful than the top of the line stuff today, mounted in contact lenses, augmenting our primary perception of reality with GUI's relating and reacting to our surroundings.

Finally, someone will think, "Well, hell, let's just put 'em in babies when they're born." At that point, we will have reached the first step in becoming a truly technological race, with computer components slowly overtaking their biological analogues, and what's left of our biology adapting to best take advantage of the technology.

And, you know what? That's a good thing. Communication, even today, is a painfully difficult affair. Ideas and emotions lose their purity in the transition to language, in the room for interpretation, and in the fundamental discord of our individual experiences. When people can communicate exactly what they think and feel, instantaneously and flawlessly... I think we will have eliminated the main reason for the majority of human ailments.

After that... Who knows? We'll probably lose our identities as individuals and turn into the Borg or something.

What I've just described is a process leading to the technological singularity, which you can read about here should you so choose.

Discussion is now open.

we are entering upon the age of dreams my friend. Almost everything is possible.
Soon my computer I'm useing now will be as worthless as dust or it will be gathering it in a museum. HELL the computers my mother was working on (as in actually programing and stuff) when she started her career are now in the museum considered antiques in the digital world we live in. The future is a open book...Lets just watch the words form...

Hate to say it, but the un-grasp-ability of the human emotions is, in fact, what makes them what they are. The unfathomable depression that drives the famous artist to a masterpiece (+ suicide combo), the forbidden love that fuels the greatest poems of our time, etc. Call me old-fashioned, and this is an IT major talking here, but the second a computer oversteps that boundary I'm quite comfortable with revoking our humanity.

I mean, I'm all for technological advancements and super improved convenience beyond anything we could even understand at this point, but I feel there should be some kind of line drawn pre-advancement, just so we don't, you know, forget who we are and what we've come from.

Of course, this is all horribly, horribly far down the line to the point I'd likely not even be alive, but hey, yay 'puters!

Robot Controlled by Rat brain cells.

A little bit old, but still very relevant.

I love technology yet I fear we may be advanceing too fast! Man kind will surely abuse newly found tech as it's invented. Plus I fear with more advance tech comes more advance weapons. We may even create something we can't contorl or something that's just too deadly for this very planet! Maybe I'm over reacting. Tech isn't all that bad and with each new weapon comes a means to deal with it. Maybe the future won't end up like terminator or nano breaker. Maybe it'll be like megaman battle network, or may even megaman starforce.

There is something to be said for the need to preserve our humanity. I tried to hint at that with the Borg comment, but I didn't really commit to it.

I guess the biggest question there is whether we want to become that kind of race, whether we want to become the hive mind rather than the community of individuals. Is it worth the price of individuality to continue in greater peace? Is peace even relevant in such a situation?

It's not like any of us can really comment on being in some sort of integrated hive mind, or anything, but I'm sure there's some pros to be had along with the cons.

They've been going on for years about the eventual computer slowdown due to size constraints, but really, as we can apply QM more and more to real-world applications, the sky is the limit.

Actually, with quantum computing, I'm pretty sure the sky IS the limit. That is, I think the limiting factor will immediately become the acquisition of data to compute, not the computation and analysis itself.

I can imagine some years in the future, NASA using a quantum computer to broadcast space probe results live on Google or whatever (presumably by this point Google owns 10% of the globe). Oh yeah, that'd be neat.

Edit: Relevant links, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Computing

I think that technology is going to be less about "how can we mechanize ourselves" and more about "what kind of sweet shit can we build with this?" Honestly, as another IT major with a focus on programming, we're getting some pretty nifty A.I. right now. This kind of technology might help greatly with that, depending on how it actually turns out. When you start delving into the possibilities of analog data and data memory, you might well be able to build a robot that has a memory-based emotional reaction to a person in a degree of the original and subsequent emotional impacts from their meetings.

I think it's a hell of a lot better application than trying to stick it into a human brain, which already has a better capacity than anything in computers right now.

I think a lot of what is being suggested here sounds an awful lot like William Gibson's Neuromancer.

Personally I think that through a combination of AI and Quantum Computer advancement we are going to see a large jump in technology in the coming century. (Which oddly enough are both fields I'm interested in, but I'm digressing.)

If we're talking about putting our brains into computers, I feel the need to remind everyone that the electrical signals in our head are only one part of the equation. Hormones account for a whole lot themselves, and then there's still the fact that different parts of our bodies interact with our brain in ways we don't even fully understand yet (take placebo effect, for instance). Regardless of how fast our computers advance, our understanding of biology has to catch up before we start transferring our consciousnesses into androids or anything.

The closest we're going to get to being Borg any time in the near future is better prosthetic limbs.