You have some type of major injury, afflicted with cancer, or perhaps have some type of birth defect. In today's world at best one would just have to live with these issues.Treat the symptoms and adapt the best way we know how. At worse it becomes a death sentence and it is just a matter of time before your number is up. However, science is on the verge of a break through in the very new future.
In an article that just came out today on CNET.com entitled "Scientist inch closer to building a drug-delivering nanorobot" it presents this as a real possibility in the near future. For those that are not familiar with nanotechnology what we are basically dealing with are microscopic robots that can be programmed to target particular areas of the body on a molecular level. The potential for something like this is incredible.
The ability to cure birth defects, cancer becomes a thing of the past, and major injuries could be not just repaired by perhaps even regenerated such as lost limbs. This is without question an exciting time when we think about the possibilities that exist to help humanity as a whole.
However, for every new technology that can help society there is also the potential for abuses in it on many different levels. There will undoubted be those that refuse to take part in anything like this for fear that inserting some type of robotic technology has the potential to be misused, such as someone hacking in to a computer or a smartphone. And with a technology so new as this, how could this be seen as paranoia? It is a great unknown. As strange as it sounds, all one has to do is say something outlandish might happen and many will say that would only be a one off. And no sooner does something like this get said, that one off has a way of happening.
Then there are the philosophical implications of this type of technology. Futurist Michio Kaku brings up an interesting point that with the growth of this very technology. With this technology exists the potential to have what Star Trek fans would know as a "Replicator". Something that would be able to re-arrange matter in such ways as to produce just about anything you could imagine. Food, products, goods. Michio Kaku raises the question: if one gets all of their needs tended to just by a simple request, what is the incentive to produce anything at all.
At present date, many of us claim that there are a good number of people that do not produce anything. People that just consume from the "Nanny State" and do little to contribute for themselves, let's not even get in to the lack of contribution to society as a whole. So how many more people would simple exist because there would be no incentive to produce as their needs would supposedly be tended to? Would we as a society become the Utopian idea of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek where people would work for their own personal enrichment and the betterment of humanity. Or would be it something more sinister.
Technology has always been, and there is little to think otherwise, always will be a doubled edged sword. Be it the invention of automobiles, smartphones, drones or any number of other gadgets. All have in some way proven themselves to be a great tool for great uses and all have the potential to be used in a harmful fashion.
Whatever the future may hold, as it relates to technology advancement, it is hard to not to agree that it is a very exciting time.
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