Note: This was originally written by me in 1987, as one of two essays submitted for the Honeywell Futurist Awards, an essay-writing competition sponsored by the Honeywell corporation. It was one of ten winning submissions that year.
Twenty five years from now, it will be the year 2012. By that date, there will be many significant developments in the field of computer science, with societal impacts rivaling those of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Fields of research now on the cutting edge will have blossomed and borne fruit. These research efforts will probably succeed in perpetuating the trend that has prevailed in computer science up until now: dramatic increases in the speed, quality, and quantity of information generation, manipulation, and transmission, both among humans and machines.
Significant developments in computer science will occur along two tracks: conventional sequential processing machines, and parallel processing machines–otherwise known as Fifth Generation machines. The trends toward greater processing power, speed, and memory, with parallel trends toward less bulk and cost will surely continue over the next 25 years. This will obviously translate into advances in the various capabilities of computers. In the area of graphics for example, high-resolution full-color real-time interactive three-dimensional animation will be possible on microcomputers.
There will doubtlessly be advances in input and output devices as well. Flat display monitors (some the size of entire walls), laser holographic displays, and high-speed, very high-resolution color printers are all likely developments. One advance in input-output technology which will make the computer friendlier to many users is speech recognition and synthesis. Already available in primitive form, by 2012 it will be perfected and in widespread use.
Well before 2012, computers equipped with parallel processing will have reached a level of development sufficient for use in a wide range of sophisticated artificial intelligence applications.
One of these will be natural language understanding. By 2012, computers will probably be able to comprehend user queries stated in natural language. Further, since natural language usage is often imprecise, these computers will be equipped with the ability to pose questions to the user, also in natural language, which clarify any ambiguous requests. In a similar vein, natural language translation by computer will be perfected by 2012.
Another application of artificial intelligence is in expert systems. By 2012, these will be far more powerful than at present, and will probably be able to learn independently, using both their own experience and logical tools such as induction and deduction. Thus, they will continually be expanding their knowledge bases. Some of the applications for these enhanced expert systems will be in medical diagnosis, scientific research, military strategy, and the design of everything from microcircuits to supertankers. These systems will also be used in business and government for advanced decision support and general problem solving.
In 2012, computers will be even more heavily used in design than they are today. Computers will play a larger role in the design of aircraft, buildings, circuits, ships, factories, drugs, robots, automobiles–indeed, virtually every manufactured product. In addition to the mathematical analysis and graphic representation they already provide, computers will embody expert systems which will enable designers and engineers to create plans for structures more sophisticated, more powerful, and more efficient than ever before. What is more, computer simulations will permit these designs to be thoroughly tested before ever being built.
Advances in computer science will continue to propel the automation of manufacturing processes. By 2012, robots will no longer be isolated islands of automation, but will be integrated into a smoothly functioning whole. Coupled with automated warehouses, automated factories will be composed of a complex array of computers and computer-controlled robots, with varying specialties and degrees of mobility.
Developments in computer technology will also permit significant advances in communications. By 2012, there will be far more networks among individuals, organizations, and intelligent machines. They will be larger–both in geographic scale, and the number of people, computers, and databases connected. Computers will also be instrumental in the development of another communications technology: the personal communicator. This system, the descendant of today’s cellular phone systems, will enable anyone with a communicator to contact anyone else with a similar device, almost anywhere and at any time.
Twenty five years from now, it will be possible to retrieve information from libraries far more quickly than at present. The use of high-density optical storage devices, holding gigantic quantities of digitized information, connected to fiber-optic communications networks, will enable users to retrieve any of billions of books or articles, from one’s home or office, in a matter of minutes. Clearly, there must also be substantial improvements in information retrieval software to navigate through this ocean of data.
In 2012, the long-awaited “electronic book” will finally become a reality. A book-shaped personal computer really, this device will at first need to be plugged into an on-line network to load books and other information into it, but eventually it will be possible to download information directly from radio waves. Like the personal communicator, the information will be accessible almost anywhere, and at anytime.
And it is not only textual information which will become more easily accessible, but also videos, photographs, computer software, music, and artwork. Well before 2012, it will be possible to buy these products, in digital form, from on-line (or on-air) vendors.
The creation of new knowledge through scientific research has already been greatly accelerated by computers. It is clear that improvements in networks, information storage, and retrieval will accelerate it still further. The application of self-teaching expert systems, coupled with advances in graphic representation and simulation will increase the rate of scientific discovery and technological breakthroughs in virtually every field.
An interesting synergism between materials science, aerospace, and computer science will probably take place early in the 21st century. Advanced materials manufactured in the zero-gravity of a space station in Earth orbit will permit the development of improved computer architectures, which will probably find applications in the space industry itself, which computer technology made possible in the first place.
Developments in computer science will also yield technologies and procedures that will be applied to the field of education. Education is very information-oriented, making it highly amenable to enhancement by computer. By 2012, there will certainly be sophisticated multi-media educational disks on every major subject. These high-density disks, probably optical in nature, will combine rich, colorful animated graphics with text, voice, music, sounds, and video. They will incorporate discoveries about human learning obtained as a by-product of artificial intelligence research. And they will be interactive, endlessly patient, and highly adaptive to individual learners–in short, the most powerful learning tools ever devised.
Another significant development in computer science will be enormous improvements in computer simulation. In addition to uses in scientific research, engineering, and military strategy, computer simulation will find wide application in recreation and entertainment. Elaborate, highly realistic and interactive simulations will seem to move us into the world’s great cities, natural landscapes, aircraft and starships. The simulation of masterpieces of art, both two and three dimensional, will bring the treasures of museums from around the world into one’s living room.
And this is just one of many applications of developments in computer science to the home. By 2012, there will be a large number of “smart homes” employing computers to manage energy use, detect intruders, and respond to voice commands. Further, they will automatically scan on-line information vending services and notify the user of products meeting preset selection criteria. Books, articles, music, movies, and computer programs will be automatically downloaded, stored, and indexed, at the user’s request. Both billing and payment for these products will, of course, be done electronically.
In 2012, computer scientists will be excitedly engaged in research directed at developing the Sixth Generation machines. Like Fifth Generation machines, these will be equipped with parallel processing, but instead of being manufactured via photolithography, they will be composed of circuits assembled at the molecular level by enzymes, directed by a specially designed molecule of DNA. These circuits will be photonic, rather than electronic, and will form the foundation for billions of tiny microprocessors, invisible to the naked eye. Interconnected in ingenious ways, they will provide supermassive parallel processing, and superhuman associative abilities.
Computer memories built this way will be able to store one bit of information per atom–the theoretical quantum limit. Using this technology, all the books, articles, music, artwork, movies, television programs, photographs, computer programs–indeed, ALL the informational products ever created by humanity, will fit neatly into an area no larger than a thumbnail.