Sveta McShane in Singularity Hub:
Over the last several decades, the digital revolution has changed nearly every aspect of our lives. The pace of progress in computers has been accelerating, and today, computers and networks are in nearly every industry and home across the world. Many observers first noticed this acceleration with the advent of modern microchips, but as Ray Kurzweil wrote in his book The Singularity Is Near, we can find a number of eerily similar trends in other areas too. According to Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns, technological progress is moving ahead at an exponential rate, especially in information technologies. This means today’s best tools will help us build even better tools tomorrow, fueling this acceleration. But our brains tend to anticipate the future linearly instead of exponentially. So, the coming years will bring more powerful technologies sooner than we imagine.
As the pace continues to accelerate, what surprising and powerful changes are in store? This post will explore three technological areas Kurzweil believes are poised to change our world the most this century. Of all the technologies riding the wave of exponential progress, Kurzweil identifies genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics as the three overlapping revolutions which will define our lives in the decades to come. In what ways are these technologies revolutionary?
More here.