Real Superheroes are Coming: Part 1 – Predicting the Powers [View all]

[Katashi_itto]

Technology is advancing… fast!

And it’s advancing exponentially, meaning that the advances predicted over the next 30 years, will make our complete history to date seem like the work of primitive children. With predicted tech advances in mind, I see a future where ‘human’ becomes a word used to describe the unempowered. Transhuman will be the new normal – superhumans will no longer live only in fiction.

In the emerging years of humanities transcendence into something more, only a small number of people will be ‘upgraded’. It is reasonable to make the assumption then, that some people will use their privileged power to help others, in such a heroic way, that headlines will read – “Our First Real-Life Superhero”.

The US Army Research Laboratory released a report last year titled, “Visualizing the Tactical Ground Battlefield in the Year 2050: Workshop Report“. In the report, they describe a world where robots and humans will fight side by side on the battlefield, with these humans being ‘advanced’ in a number of ways. They explain that “the presence of super humans on the battlefield in the 2050 time-frame is highly likely because the various components needed to enable this development already exist and are undergoing rapid evolution”.

The key to taking the question seriously: Exponential thinking

Real superheroes can exist within 30 years! That’s one hell of a statement.

To seriously consider the possibility, you need to understand the impacts of the ongoing exponential growth of our technologies – the reason why humanity has advanced far more over the past 100 years than it has ever in the whole of history. 1,000 years ago, we went our whole lives seeing barely any improvement to our way of living. We are now on the ‘knee of the curve’, and exponential growth is about to sky-rocket our technological advances. You can see an example of exponential growth in the chart below, which maps out the predicted advance of our computing power over the next 30 years.

The "Iron Man Scenario"
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