Scenario:NBIC

The NBIC workshop determined that by 2022 the following benefits are likely to come from technology convergence:


 * Fast, broadband interfaces directly between the human brain and machines will transform work in factories, control automobiles, ensure military superiority, and enable new sports, art forms and modes of interaction between people.
 * Comfortable, wearable sensors and computers will enhance every person’s awareness of his or her health condition, environment, chemical pollutants, potential hazards, and information of interest about local businesses, natural resources, and the like.
 * Robots and software agents will be far more useful for human beings, because they will operate on principles compatible with human goals, awareness, and personality.
 * People from all backgrounds and of all ranges of ability will learn valuable new knowledge and skills more reliably and quickly, whether in school, on the job, or at home.
 * Individuals and teams will be able to communicate and cooperate profitably across traditional barriers of culture, language, distance, and professional specialization, thus greatly increasing the effectiveness of groups, organizations, and multinational partnerships.
 * The human body will be more durable, healthier, more energetic, easier to repair, and more resistant to many kinds of stress, biological threats, and aging processes.
 * Machines and structures of all kinds, from homes to aircraft, will be constructed of materials that have exactly the desired properties, including the ability to adapt to changing situations, high energy efficiency, and environmental friendliness.
 * A combination of technologies and treatments will compensate for many physical and mental disabilities and will eradicate altogether some handicaps that have plagued the lives of millions of people.
 * National security will be greatly strengthened by lightweight, information-rich war fighting systems, capable uninhabited combat vehicles, adaptable smart materials, invulnerable data networks, superior intelligence-gathering systems, and effective measures against biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear attacks.
 * Anywhere in the world, an individual will have instantaneous access to needed information, whether practical or scientific in nature, in a form tailored for most effective use by the particular individual.
 * Engineers, artists, architects, and designers will experience tremendously expanded creative abilities, both with a variety of new tools and through improved understanding of the wellsprings of human creativity.
 * The ability to control the genetics of humans, animals, and agricultural plants will greatly benefit human welfare; widespread consensus about ethical, legal, and moral issues will be built in the process.  The vast promise of outer space will finally be realized by means of efficient launch vehicles, robotic construction of extraterrestrial bases, and profitable exploitation of the resources of the Moon, Mars, or near-Earth approaching asteroids.
 * New organizational structures and management principles based on fast, reliable communication of needed information will vastly increase the effectiveness of administrators in business, education, and government.
 * Average persons, as well as policymakers, will have a vastly improved awareness of the cognitive, social, and biological forces operating their lives, enabling far better adjustment, creativity, and daily decision making.
 * Factories of tomorrow will be organized around converging technologies and increased human-machine capabilities as “intelligent environments” that achieve the maximum benefits of both mass production and custom design.
 * Agriculture and the food industry will greatly increase yields and reduce spoilage through networks of cheap, smart sensors that constantly monitor the condition and needs of plants, animals, and farm products.
 * Transportation will be safe, cheap, and fast, due to ubiquitous realtime information systems, extremely high-efficiency vehicle designs, and the use of synthetic materials and machines fabricated from the nanoscale for optimum performance.
 * The work of scientists will be revolutionized by importing approaches pioneered in other sciences, for example, genetic research employing principles from natural language processing and cultural research employing principles from genetics.
 * Formal education will be transformed by a unified but diverse curriculum based on a comprehensive, hierarchical intellectual paradigm for understanding the architecture of the physical world from the nanoscale through the cosmic scale.