The Abundance Builders - World Future Society

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The potential for abundance—that is, pervasive opportunitiesfor prosperity, as opposed tolives of luxury for all—depends onour ability to exploit breakthroughsin key exponentiallygrowing fields. This article will explorea few of the leaders who havedevoted their lives to creating thisnew world of abundance.Biotechnology:The Code BreakersIn 1990, the U.S. Department ofEnergy and the National Institutes ofHealth jointly launched the HumanGenome Project, a 15-year programwhose goal was to sequence the3 billion base pairs that make up thehuman genome. Some thought theproject impossible. Others felt itwould take a half century to complete.Everyone agreed it would beexpensive. A budget of $10 billionwas set aside, but many felt it wasn’tenough. They might still be feelingoil or any other kind of fuel. Interestedin pure octane? Aviation gasoline?Diesel? No problem. Give yourdesigner the proper DNA instructionsand let biology do the rest.To further this dream, Venter hasalso spent the past five years sailinghis research yacht, Sorcerer II, aroundthe globe, scooping up algae alongthe way. The algae is then runthrough a DNA sequencing machine.Using this technique, Venter hasbuilt a library of more than 40 milliondifferent genes, which he cannow call upon for designing hisfuture biofuels.Venter wants to use similar methodsto design human vaccineswithin 24 hours rather than the twoto three months currently required.He’s thinking about engineeringfood crops with a 50-fold productionimprovement over today’s agriculture.Low-cost fuels, high-performingvaccines, and ultra-yield agricultureare just three of the reasons thatthe exponential growth of biotechthisway, too, except that, in 2000,J. Craig Venter decided to get intothe race.It wasn’t even much of a race.Building on work that had come before,Venter and his company,Celera, delivered a fully sequencedhuman genome in less than one yearfor just under $100 million.As an encore, in May 2010, Venterannounced his next success: the creationof a synthetic life-form. He describedit as “the first self-replicatingspecies we’ve had on the planetwhose parent is a computer.” In lessthan 10 years, Venter both unlockedthe human genome and created theworld’s first synthetic life-form—geniuswith repeat success.Venter’s actual goal is the creationof a very specific kind of syntheticlife: the kind that can manufactureultra-low-cost fuels. Rather thandrilling into the earth to extract oil,Venter is working on novel algae,whose molecular machinery can takecarbon dioxide and water and createPHOTOS: J. CRAIG VENTER INSTITUTEDr. J. Craig Venterat the microscopeonboard Sorcerer IIExpedition.The Sorcerer II atanchor in theMarquesas Islandsin French Polynesia.1 The Abundance Builders
nology is critical to creating a worldof abundance. Let’s turn to the nextcategory on our list.Networks and Sensors:The ConnectorsDuring his graduatestudent years, Vint Cerf,chief Internet evangelistfor Google, worked in thenetworking group thatconnected the first twonodes of the AdvancedResearch Projects AgencyNetwork (Arpanet). Next,he became a programmanager for the DefenseAdvanced Research ProjectsAgency (DARPA), funding variousgroups to develop Internetprotocol technology. During thelate 1980s, when the Internet beganits transition to a commercialopportunity, Cerf moved tothe long-distance telephone companyMCI, where he engineered thefirst commercial e‐mail service. Hethen joined ICANN (Internet Corporationfor Assigned Names andNumbers), the key U.S. governanceorganization for the Web, and servedas chairman for more than a decade.For all these reasons, Cerf is consideredone of the “fathers of the Internet.”These days, Cerf is excited aboutthe future of his creation—that is, thefuture of networks and sensors. Anetwork is any interconnection ofsignals and information, of whichthe Internet is the most significantexample. A sensor is a device thatdetects information—temperature,vibration, radiation, and such—that,when hooked up to a network, canalso transmit this information. Takentogether, the future of networks andsensors is sometimes called the “Internetof things,” often imagined as aself-configuring, wireless network ofsensors interconnecting, well, allthings.Now imagine its future: trillions ofdevices—thermometers, cars, lightswitches, whatever—all connectedthrough a gargantuan network ofsensors, each with its own IP addresses,each accessible through theInternet. Suddenly, Google can helpyou find your car keys. Stolen prop-Vint Cerferty becomes a thing of the past.When your house is running out oftoilet paper or cleaning products orespresso beans, it can automaticallyVENI MARKOVSKIreorder supplies.If prosperity is reallysaved time,then the Internetof things is a bigpot of gold.As powerful asit will be, the impactthat the Internetof thingswill have on ourpersonal lives is“The Internet of things holdspromise for reinventing almostevery industry.”— Vint Cerfdwarfed by its business potential.Soon, companies will be able to perfectlymatch product demand to rawmaterials orders, streamlining supplychains and minimizing waste toan extraordinary degree. Efficiencygoes through the roof. With criticalappliances activated only whenneeded (lights that flick on as someoneapproaches a building), the energy-savingpotential alone wouldbe world changing. And world saving.A few years ago, Cisco teamedup with NASA to put sensors allover the planet to provide real-timeinformation about climate change.“The Internet of things,” says Cerf,“holds the promise for reinventingalmost every industry. How wemanufacture, how we control ourenvironment, and how we distribute,use, and recycle resources.When the world around us becomesplugged in and effectively selfaware,it will drive efficiencies likenever before. It’s a big step toward aworld of abundance.”Digital Manufacturing and InfiniteComputing: The MakersThe 3-D printing that Carl Bass ispursuing at his company Autodesk(which makes software for 3-D printers)is the first step toward Star Trek’sreplicators. Today’s machines aren’tpowered by dilithium crystals, butthey can precisely manufacture extremelyintricate three-dimensionalobjects far cheaper and faster thanever before. This technology is thenewest form of digital manufacturing(or digital fabrication), a fieldthat has been around for decades.Traditional digital manufacturersutilize computer-controlled routers,lasers, and other cutting tools to preciselyshape a new piece of metal,wood, or plastic by a subtractiveprocess—slicing and dicing until thedesired form is all that’s left. Today’s3-D printers do the opposite. Theyutilize a form of additive manufacturing,where a threedimensionalobject is created bylaying down successive layersof material.While early machines weresimple and slow, today’s versionsare quick, nimble, andable to print an exceptionallywide range of materials—plastic,glass, steel, even titanium. Industrialdesigners use 3-D printers to makeeverything from lampshades andeyeglasses to custom-fitted prostheticlimbs. Hobbyists are producingfunctionin g r o b o t sand flying autonomousaircraft.Biotechnologyfirmsa re e x p e r i -menting withthe 3-D printingof organs,while inventorand Unive r s i t y o fBehrokh KhoshnevisSouthern Californiaengineeringprofessor Behrokh Khoshnevishas developed a large-scale3-D printer that extrudes concretefor building ultra-low-cost, multiroomhousing in the developingworld. The technology is also poisedto leave our world. Made In Space, aSingularity University spinout, hasdemonstrated a 3-D printer thatworks in zero gravity, so astronautsaboard the space station can printspare parts whenever the needarises.“What gets me most excited,” saysBass, “is the idea that every personThe Abundance Builders 2
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