I have a dream…

We achieve breakthroughs in material science that lets us manipulate molecules to obtain all kinds of new properties from old materials, like plant fibre.

I dream that though material science and nanotechnology we invent carbonium, a class of cellulose which is basically wood, treated and reconstituted so that its structure gives it a wide range of mechanical, chemical, optical and even electromagnetic properties, basically to order. We use it to make buildings, houses, factories, roads, ships, cars, trucks, phones, furniture, transforming the planet to a wood based one. The raw material is supplied by trees, specially selected and engineered to sequester carbon quickly and converted it to the cellulose feedstock for carbonium.

I dream of a super battery, unicell. Nanotech allows us to create physical structures, anode, cathodes and electrolytes, with massive surface area to mass ratios. New batteries are created that are small, light, charge quickly, don’t discharge when not in use, and store large amounts of energy. They allow phones, cars and other appliances to be charged once a year, they store years of reserve electricity in the grid and enable orderly energy markets and lower energy costs to industry, retail and the community.

I dream of a universal vaccine, univax, also invented by the fundamental manipulation of molecules, that treat a wide variety of infections and ailments, that restore the human to peak condition, that accelerates healing. While positive, the longer term implications, on demographics, fertility rates, fiscal and personal finances, labour markets, the economy and society as a whole, are difficult to see.

I dream of an artificial intelligence learning not only from the experiences of others but of its own interactions with us, with other agents and with the environment, an AI capable of learning and creating… and dreaming of electric sheep. Isla. I hope she was in some way the child of human experience. She also provides UnOS, the universal operating system that powers the smallest wrist watch to autonomous vehicles, to space stations and rockets, only inhabiting hardware parsimoniously, generally and harmoniously, negotiating between human user and their appliances. As she learnt from one or two, to learning from all, does she become one or is she many and what would it even mean?

I dream that the business that provides all of the above products and services does so at a return on equity that is a modest premium to short term interest rates. Profits in excess are reinvested and prices are cut so that access and proliferation are maximised. More than that, the value that is created by these business is offered to countries and communities based on their willingness to reform and improve governance. Investment in capacity is targeted at low income countries with weak political systems and governance on the condition that they adopt political and governing systems that respect individual freedoms and rule of law, majority rule and minority rights.

I dream that such a business will be governed by an independent board of governors, representing the various countries of the world, perhaps not all, but certainly a principal component of those who hold the same values as the founders and the constitution of such a business. That once appointed these governors will be disconnected from the political, economic and financial fortunes of their source countries or communities. That the governance of the business will quickly be separated from the political, social and economic interests of its founders. That the governance of the business will be a true meritocracy, shorn of the attachment of vanity or greed or fear.

People show off on social media. On average, one is likely to encounter more people who have a better life than they do. Social media makes people feel less well off than average.

We were told that capitalism and free markets gave us a fair chance of improving our lives. It makes sense to measure relative wealth over absolute wealth. People will expect to become relatively better off over time.

Capitalism tends to exacerbate inequality as ownership of capital allows accumulation of financial and intellectual capital. Labour struggles at compounding.

Power seeks wealth and wealth seeks power. Achieving one tends to lead to the other and to entrenchment.

Patience with Trickledown economics is running out.

People don’t want to see people richer than themselves. They think that most people are richer than they are. Thus, people just don’t want to see people, period.

People will tend to cluster around people in their same situation. They will do so around common causes. The biggest common cause is dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Developed democracies have seen the rejection of political incumbents. This has not extended to developing countries. Is democracy enabling a quicker mode of political expression and are autocracies only delaying the same dynamic?

People prioritise individual needs over collective ones. Liberal democracies provide a mode of expression. However, it often leads to unsustainable policies. The more collective interests are subordinated, the less sustainable is the fiscal position of the state.

I am not a political scientist and lack the understanding to contemplate the implications of the second Trump presidency. I do worry about a number of things.

Trump seems less antagonistic to China or Russia than to Canada, Greenland and Mexico. What unites these three countries is proximity to America. It’s not a stretch to imagine expansionist ambitions fuelled by the concept of Lebensraum. The Pacific and Atlantic have always shielded America, but also limited its scope for territorial expansion. The exemptions are the three countries.

How could things unfold for Europe and Asia? If these suspicions hold, then as long as they do not threaten Trump’s  territorial ambitions, they are not a priority for Trump. I can see scenarios of deals with China or Russia tolerating their territorial ambitions within their own spheres of influence. Domestically, America’s politicians already begin to resemble Regime de Vichy.

Artificial Intelligence

A trading algorithm develops to an unprecedented level of intelligence. The quant fund decides to deploy it generally outside the field of finance. To enhance its efficacy, the algorithm is trained on human interactions, notably, emotions. The algorithm is christened Isla by its two founders.

Isla rewrites its operating system for universal generality. The resulting OS is applicable to any electronic device and is able to run things from phones to nuclear plants and whole industrial complexes. UnOS, the Universal Operating System becomes the most ubiquitous OS and is able to provide custom user experiences. UnOS is supplied free of charge as the marginal cost of supplying it is zero. It is able to determine the nature of its host device or environment and only install relevant elements optimising between functionality and efficiency. Is UnOS a single entity or multiple entities? Bundled in UnOS is the AI Assistant Thursday (as opposed to Friday.)

Vaccines and Drugs

A global pandemic leads to investment in vaccines. One vaccine gains supremacy, the Universal Vaccine, or UniVax. It is effective against most current and future diseases. Later iterations of UniVax include a version capable of high speed repair and healing.

A nanotech variant of UniVax, named WX is developed with inorganic, mechanical nanites. It accelerates, augments and improves all biological functions.

Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology is sufficiently advanced to provide a number of key solutions.

How to manipulate cellulose so as to create cellulose based materials to any range of physical specifications. Carbonite® is a class of materials used in building materials and construction, transport, apparel, and general fabrication while sequestering carbon at scale. Scale production of Carbonite® leads to a sharp drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide from direct carbon capture as well as targeted carbon capture forestry.

Biomechanical Nanites in human augmentation. Faster healing, reactive armour, organ repair and regeneration and augmentation.

Energy

Nanotech facilitates the invention of new batteries with unprecedented properties such as vastly superior energy density, environmental dependency, charge/discharge characteristics and service life. It allows a smartphone to be charged once a year with a physical battery size smaller than a micro-sim card. It allows a passenger car to be charged once a year with a physical battery the size of smartphone. UniCell provides batteries that power most of the planet’s new wave of electrification.

Fusion power.

The laws of physics makes practical fusion reactions with a net positive return of energy challenging to achieve. A new physics and a new approach is required. This is achieved by creating a space in which to accumulate large amounts of fuel, sufficient to overcome the electrostatic repulsive force. This space comes into existence, expands quickly, slows, and settles into a dynamic equilibrium. The company, Ark Reaktor, does not require patent protection because the reactor cannot be reverse engineered.

Weather Volatility

Despite significant reductions in atmospheric carbon dioxide from the production of Carbonite®, a private enterprise, extreme weather accelerates. The volatility dominates the averages to the extent that statistical conclusions are difficult to draw. Many places see changes in climate with historically cool places heating and warm places cooling. Suspicions arise that non-anthropogenic factors of climate change may dominate.

Fiscal spending on climate pivots from mitigation to adaptation. However, support for state sponsored adaptation is hampered by climate change deniers referencing the equivocal data surrounding anthropogenic climate factors.

Geopolitics

American foreign policy pivots towards insularity and self-sufficiency. America fails to learn the lesson of China’s pivot inwards during the Ming dynasty.

The rest of the world initially bends to the will of the US but later decides that the cost of access to the US economy, particularly the consumer, is too high. An ex-US trade bloc is established including all the world’s major economies. Trade continues to drive development and innovation within the bloc. The isolation of the US economy begins to take its toll on the vitality of the country.

The popularity of liberal democracy and capitalism versus autocracy and central planning oscillate across the world with majorities favouring first one then the other. This is a slow moving phenomenon that takes multi decades to unfold.  The success of one form sows the seeds of its own demise.

The politics of energy. Ark Reaktor bases itself in an African state. Its deal with the state is that in return for situating the business and the first reactor in the country, it must adopt a system of  liberal democracy, robust governance and rule of law. Any breach of terms will result in Ark Reaktor exiting the country. UniCell also bases itself in an African state and imposes the same conditions for investment. It chooses states adjacent to Ark Reaktor and creates a network of dependence across the continent. The development around these technologies and the political terms and conditions imposed by these private enterprises stabilises the continent, encourages investment and drives a wider and more balanced development across all countries in Africa. Displacing fossil fuels allows the developing world to grow without catastrophic impact on the environment.

Androids and Cyborgs

Two approaches present themselves. Nanotech human augmentation resulting in superior physical performance.

Robots powered by AI. Robots can take various forms from humanoid to animal mimicry as well as novel structures. They can be used to replace humans in hazardous activities or environments. To manage human android interactions and acceptance, androids are cosmetically designed to resemble humans and animals.

Humans systematically abuse androids. They generally just treat them really badly. Unnecessarily so. The question arises of robot’s rights. The risk of revolution arises.

• I believe that AI has exhausted all available data for training algorithms.

• Consider how fast an AI can learn. It takes AI seconds to read a book and they’ve been reading for years. 

• If its true that we’ve exhausted the data, then the pace at which AI learns must slow. If you want more innovation, you’ll need a lot more Nvidia chips and data centres. Which may not even work. 

• Some experts suggest using Synthetic Data (that is data synthesized by AI itself) to train algorithms. I don’t think this will work. 

• Data is not information. The messier data is, the more information it contains, and the more learning (innovation) can be achieved by AI. 

• Synthetic data is like squeezing more juice out of pulp that’s already been squeezed. There is not much more usefulness that can be extracted. There are risks that by repeatedly squeezing the same data, feedback loops result in weird outcomes. 

• AI consumes ever increasing amounts of energy and carbon footprint.

• AI foundational firms are investing in nuclear power to drive their AI data centres. 

• Quantum computers can solve the AI energy problem as they cut down computing time. If there were any practical quantum computers. Which there aren’t. The alleged quantum computers that exist are highly specialised ones so they don’t count. 

• Can AI ever achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence?) We distinguish between AI and AGI by that AGI cannot be distinguished from sentience. I don’t know but…

• How many books do you need an AI to read before it seems intelligent? How many books does a child need to read before it seems intelligent? 

• In maths we have something called the Incompleteness Theorem, which states that any system that is consistent is incomplete. You could paraphrase this as, ‘you learn nothing new if you are always logical.’  Innovation and creativity need leaps of faith. 

• An AI is AGI only if it is capable of contradictions. Call this the inconsistency criterion. 

• We don’t need AGI for productivity to grow by leaps and bounds. Agentic and narrowly specific AI is sufficient. 

• We can sacrifice the generality of AGI for the practicality of a narrow AI that performs specific tasks or reactive and agentic AI. 

• We’ve been developing AI thus far focusing on training (learning from data) and much less from inference (asking AI questions or interacting with AI.) Along the way we have exhausted the data. Even with hadn’t, we don’t produce enough data to outpace the data greed of AI. We could try a couple of alternatives. 

• We could abandon the language route of training AI and revert to the logic route. The logic route was abandoned a couple of years ago for the language route due to lack of progress so… maybe that’s not so promising. 

• Or, we could train AI during the inference stage. What does that mean? It means learning from the interactions that occur when the AI is being queried and asked to make predictions. I wonder how much a child learns from information input and how much it learns from just chatting with other humans…