“I think that what we are up against
is a generation that is by no means sure
that it has a future.”
George Wald
This book is about the future.
It’s about the unprecedented technologies and know-hows gathering momentously on the horizon. It’s about the scientists and their salesmen whose hype fills us with hope. But above all, it’s about you— yes, you—because it is you who will help determine if the powerful innovations described in this book will result in a great future—or a grim fate.
To anyone keeping up with the news, it’s obvious science never rests. During every minute of every day, scientists somewhere in the world are wide awake, exploring, discovering, bringing to life inventions with enormous promise but also substantial risk.
Where is this vast, tireless, impressive scientific and technological prowess taking us? To a better life? To a worse life?
Can we trust scientists? Are they, as they insist, guileless seekers of truth? Or are they corrupted by politics and other self-serving agendas?
Is it wrong—anti-intellectual, anti-scientific—for society to control science? Is it even possible? Or are we fated to go along for the ride, come what may?
I am a theoretical physicist with some honest answers to offer you. I am also an award-winning science journalist who will help you digest what’s going on.
For this book, I’ve chosen to focus on the four subject areas radically upending our lives: the world wide web, robots and artificial intelligence, surveillance technology, and genetic engineering. I devote four chapters to each subject. The first explains how the innovation came to be; the other three—relying on the very latest news from the frontiers of science—describe where it is taking us.
Before diving in, take a moment right now to see how, in just a few words, today’s headlines presage the ambiguous future already within sight—a future of either monumental greatness or catastrophic grimness. Or both.
Distance Learning Is Now Open to All Thanks to the Internet1
How Telemedicine Is Revolutionizing Health Care2
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Facebook Says It Can’t Guarantee Social Media Is Good for Democracy3
Your Social Media Addiction Is Giving You Depression4
Dating Apps Fueling Rise in Casual Sex5
Why a Rising Number of Criminals Are Using Facebook Live to Film Their Acts6
Why Are People Live-Streaming Their Suicides?7
Why the Internet Makes Us Monsters8
Former Facebook Exec Says Social Media Is Ripping Apart Society9
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The Internet of Things Can Save 50,000 Lives a Year10
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Massive Ransomware Infection Hits Computers in 99 Countries11
The Darkening Web: Misinformation Is the Strongest Cyberweapon12
Paralyzed Woman Moves Robotic Arm with Her Mind13
Bionic Eyes Can Already Restore Vision, Soon They’ll Make It Superhuman14
Bionic Pancreas Shows Success at Controlling Blood Sugar15
Google’s AI Invents Sounds Humans Have Never Heard Before16
*
Domino’s Will Begin Using Robots to Deliver Pizzas in Europe17
LG Electronics to Sell Robots to Replace Hotel, Airport, Supermarket Employees18
Amazon’s Robot Workforce Has Increased by 50 Percent19
Robots Are Coming for Jobs of as Many as 800 Million Worldwide20
Robot Doctors Come a Step Closer as a Machine Passes Medical Exams with Flying Colors21
Robot Surgeons Are Stealing Training Opportunities from Young Doctors22
The Inventor of the World Wide Web Says Computers Will Someday Run Companies without Humans23
Elon Musk: Robots Will Take Your Jobs, Government Will Have to Pay Your Wage24
Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could End Mankind25
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GE’s Jeff Immelt: Robots Won’t Kill Human Jobs26
Why Robots Will Be the Biggest Job Creators in World History27
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Humans Must Merge with Machines or Become Irrelevant in AI Age28
10 New Technologies that Will Make You a Cyborg29
Hyundai’s Wearable Robots Could Make You Superhuman30
DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us “Upload” Skills31
Godlike “Homo Deus” Could Replace Humans as Tech Evolves32
*
GM to Test Fleet of Self-Driving Cars In New York33
Self-driving Uber Car Kills Arizona Woman Crossing Street34
Get Ready for Freeways that Ban Human Drivers35
Self-Driving Cars Programmed to Decide Who Dies in a Crash36
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Supersmart Robots Will Outnumber Humans within 30 Years, Says Softbank CEO37
Europe Mulls Treating Robots Legally as People38
When Machines Can Do Any Job, What Will Humans Do?39
Amazon’s Alexa Helps Catch Thief Red Handed40
Alexa, What Other Devices Are Listening to Me?41
London Says Media Company’s Spying Rubbish Bins Stink42
Is Your Smartphone Listening to Everything You Say?43
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Amazon May Give Developers Your Private Alexa Transcripts44
App Developer Access to iPhone X Face Data Spooks Some Privacy Experts45
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Hundreds of Apps Using Ultrasonic Signals to Silently Track Smartphone Users46
How This Internet of Things Stuffed Animal Can Be Remotely Turned into a Spy Device47
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No, You’re Not Being Paranoid. Sites Really Are Watching Your Every Move48
Facebook Can Track Your Browsing Even after You’ve Logged out, Judge Says49
Creepy New Website Makes Its Monitoring of Your Online Behavior Visible50
Mattress Startup Casper Sued for “Wiretapping” Website Visitors51
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Surveillance Cameras Are Everywhere, Providing Protection—But Not Much Privacy52
Creepy Website Shows Live Footage from 73,000 Private Security Cameras Globally53
China’s All-Seeing Surveillance State Is Reading Its Citizens’ Faces54
Caught on Camera: You Are Filmed on CCTV 300 Times a Day in London55
Americans Vastly Underestimate Being Recorded on CCTV56
After Boston: The Pros and Cons of Surveillance Cameras57
AI-Powered Body Cams Give Cops the Power to Google Everything They See58
The Camera in Your TV Is Watching You59
Walmart Is Developing a Robot That Identifies Unhappy Shoppers60
Amazon Driver Caught on Video Pooping in Front of Home61
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The Vast, Secretive Face Database that Could Instantly ID You in a Crowd62
Smile, You’re in the FBI Face-Recognition Database63
The New Way Police Are Surveilling You: Calculating Your Threat Score64
US Navy Funds Development of Robot Surveillance System that Can Spy on Humans in Incredible Detail65
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Cyborg Dragonfly Developed for Spying66
Talking Drone Trying to Lure Kids from Ohio Playground67
Orem Police Search for Drone-Flying Peeping Tom; Takes Pics of Neighbors Through Bedroom and Bathroom Windows68
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“Mind Reading” Technology Decodes Complex Thoughts69
The Robot that Knows When You’re Lying70
Algorithm Can Identify Suicidal People Using Brain Scans71
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Comey: “There Is No Such Thing as Absolute Privacy in America”72
DNA Scan that Can Detect 1,800 Diseases in Newborns Raises Privacy Concerns73
World’s First “Smart Condom” Collects Intimate Data During Sex74
Earth’s Atmosphere Can Be Turned into Massive Surveillance System Using Lasers, Scientists Discover75
Paralyzed People Could Walk Again Instantly after Scientists Prove Brain Implant Works in Primates76
Tiny Human Brains Grown in Lab Could One Day Be Used to Repair Alzheimer’s Damage77
Scientists Implant Tiny Human Brains into Rats, Spark Ethical Debate78
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Italian Doctor Says World’s First Human Head Transplant “Imminent”79
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Genetic Engineering: Way Forward for Medical Science or Sinister Threat to All Our Futures?80
Gene Editing Has Saved the Lives of Two Children with Leukemia81
A Boy with a Rare Disease Gets New Skin, Thanks to Gene-Corrected Stem Cells82
The Gene Editors Are Only Getting Started83
Top US Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat84
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First Human Embryos Genetically Modified—More Will Come85
Chinese Researchers Announce Designer Baby Breakthrough86
Engineering the Perfect Baby87
World’s First Baby Born with New “Three-Parent” Technique88
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Scientists Just Took a Major Step toward Making Life from Scratch89
How Scientists Are Altering DNA to Genetically Engineer New Forms of Life90
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How Upgrading Humans Will Become the Next Billion-Dollar Industry91
Scientists Reverse Aging in Mammals and Predict Human Trials within 10 Years92
Why Death May Not Be So Final in the Future93
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Human-Pig Hybrid Created in the Lab—Here Are the Facts94
Organs for Human Transplant Are Being Grown inside Sheep and Pigs95
A Human Ear Has Been Grown in a Rat96
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Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Zika97
We Might Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. Is It Worth the Cost?98
Peter Thiel Funding Effort to Bring Woolly Mammoths Back from Extinction99
Science Fiction No More: Cloning Now an Option for Pet Owners100
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Next Phase of High-Tech Crops: Editing Their Genes101
What Have They Done to Our Food?102
Once Again, US Expert Panel Says Genetically Engineered Crops Are Safe to Eat103
Would You Put the Genetically Modified Arctic Apple in Your Pie?104
Scientists Convert Spinach Leaves into Human Heart Tissue—That Beats105
Change isn’t new. Throughout history each generation has been blindsided by one scientific game-changer or another. My wife’s grandfather Bill Decatur, who turns ninety-nine this year, has watched planes, trains, and automobiles replace horse-drawn buggies; telegrams, phone calls, and emails replace letter writing; and x-rays, CAT scans, and robot surgeons replace house calls and the family doctor’s trusty ol’ black bag.
Nevertheless, this time is different. Very different.
Never before in human history have scientific and technological upheavals threatened to be so powerful, so intrusive, so apocalyptic. It’s as if the winds of change started by previous generations have accelerated into a Category 5 hurricane. After countless centuries of great and grim changes, we are now on the brink of a future that could finally deliver the utopia we’ve long been pursuing—or take us out, once and for all.
As a baby boomer, I belong to the first generation of children who grew up under the terrifying cloud of nuclear annihilation. Still, my boyhood wasn’t all gloom and doom—far from it. Wide-eyed, I watched engineers build the first nuclear power plants, lasers, and computer chips; doctors discover the first oral polio vaccine and perform the first human heart transplant; and astronauts fly into space, orbit the earth, and travel all the way to the moon.
Those formative experiences taught me at least two lessons concerning the fabulous and fearsome aspects of science and technology’s creations. First, it taught me to be careful not to overstate their dangers.
In a 1910 newspaper article reporting on a speech delivered by prominent Chicago physician Charles Gilbert Davis, the three-tiered headline screamed:
Dr. C. G. Davis Says Already One Man in 300 Is Insane.
Sees Doom of Civilization
What was the reason for Davis’s apocalyptic concern? The evils of modern industry. “Forty thousand gaunt, hungry, exhausted children are toiling in the dust and roar of the cotton mills of the south and New England,” Davis lamented. “In the great city of New York, I’m informed, 20,000 children attend school every morning suffering the pangs of hunger.”106
The good doctor’s fears, though over the top, were well founded. Yet our species managed to survive the industrial revolution and has moved on and prospered in many ways—even though, it must be said, way too many children in industrialized nations still go to school hungry and neglected.
Second, my boyhood experiences taught me to be careful not to overstate the benefits of science and technology’s creations. In 1898 Marie and Pierre Curie discovered a mysterious, glowing element they named radium. Very quickly, fast-talking salesmen—including, alas, many scientists—hyped its miraculous powers and sold the public on a wide range of radium-laced products. From candy, toothpaste, and cosmetics to cold remedies, aphrodisiacs, and even stylish, glow-in-the- dark cocktails.107
“Physicians took off with the idea,” reports Ross Mullner, a scientist at the University of Illinois School of Public Health in Chicago. “They tried to use it for every disease under the sun.”108
Our very own Dr. C. G. Davis was among the physician–hypesters of the day. In a 1921 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Medicine, he raved: “Radioactivity prevents insanity, rouses noble emotions, retards old age, and creates a splendid youthful joyous life.”109
It took decades before we fully realized radium’s deadliness. During that time, countless people were poisoned, and many suffered gruesome deaths. Among the victims were the now-famous radium girls, young women who used radium paint to brush tiny numerals onto the faces of glow-in-the dark clocks and watches.110
In helping you, dear reader, see where science and technology are now leading us, I have striven for balance—avoiding Dr. Davis’s euphoric highs and doom-laden lows.
How accurate will my analysis in this book turn out to be? My Generation-Z son will surely live long enough to find out; but even someone in his sixties is liable to see the actual outcome. I say that, because the speed at which science’s stunning accomplishments are overtaking us is itself one of the great perils we face. It leaves us very little time to adequately prepare for what’s coming.
There are other perils as well. Here are three I consider significant:
• Hubris. Even the most brilliant among my fellow scientists know far less than they let on. Every day, they toy with things they do not understand fully or in too many cases at all yet boast about improving them. As the celebrated author and social commentator E. B. White remarked, “I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.”111
• Hype. Too many cheerleaders—notably journalists and scientists themselves—routinely exaggerate the significance of an achievement, while remaining mum about its dangers. Three reasons for such hype are:
• Fierce competition for funding. Most scientists doing basic research rely on the generosity of private and public patrons. These include foundations such as Rockefeller, Ford, and Sloan; government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation; and, increasingly, billionaires with specific agendas, such as Jeff Bezos, David H. Koch, and Richard Branson. As Steven Edwards at the American Association for the Advancement of Science says, “the practice of science in the 21st century is becoming shaped less by national priorities or by peer-review groups and more by the particular preferences of individuals with huge amounts of money.”112
The Darwinian scramble for grant monies encourages a culture of hyperbole—a lesson I learned firsthand as a grad student at Cornell. The topic for my doctoral dissertation involved kinetic theory, the science of fluids, so my thesis advisor urged me to write a grant proposal to the US Navy. He helped me word the petition to emphasize—honestly, to hype—the possibility my work could one day assist in developing new naval weaponry. It worked; I received my funding.
• Ego. Scientists constantly fight for the prestige and influence that comes with receiving high-profile honors, as well as having their work referenced in professional journals and the public media. This battle for scientific supremacy is every bit as cut-throat as HBO’s Game of Thrones.
During my thirty-plus years as a science journalist, I have witnessed the scientific ego in all its unseemly glory. Room-temperature superconductivity, for example, is an area of research that might one day (no hype) improve our ability to generate clean, electrical energy. While preparing a report on it for Good Morning America, my producers and I were bombarded with phone calls from rival university scientists, each faulting the other’s work and lobbying to have their own research showcased on national TV.
• Sensationalized media. Being a physicist, I can usually keep scientists honest during media interviews. I don’t let them wax hyperbolic—for example, to claim their research will one day cure all diseases and end world hunger. Regrettably, though, the average general-assignment reporter is easily snowed and thus becomes a naïve, starry-eyed enabler of scientific hype.
• Human Nature. Generation after generation, science offers us new, improved ways to live. But our basic, flawed nature invariably spoils or outright sabotages the opportunities. We drive cars, fly in planes, and carry smart-phones, but the basics of the human experience are pretty much what they were in Old Testament times. As Felicia Day, a popular gamer and web goddess, puts it: “The internet is amazing because it connects us with one another. But it’s also horrific because . . . it connects us with one another.”113
Will everything turn out okay? Of all the questions I attempt to answer in these pages, this one is clearly the most important.
As an optimist, I cling to the hope everything will turn out okay; that science—as it so dearly wishes to do—will help lead to a model future for everyone. But honestly, it does not look like that to me right now.
That, dear reader, is why I penned this book. Think of it as a heads-up. A warning of things to come—and in some cases, as you’ll see, things that are nearly or already here.
But also think of this book as a source of hope. Knowledge is power. The more you know of what’s coming—of what will affect you, your children, and grandchildren—the better prepared you will be to help check the more disturbing possibilities of our scientific and technological innovations.
Is the best yet to come, as science keeps promising us? Or the worst?