Last week I saw a very good lecture by Ray Kurzweil at Harvard, the subtitle of which was “In the 21st century, intelligence will underlie everything of value.” But the real meat of the talk was around two things: one, the exponential pace of technogical progress, where progress is advancement in the form of new technology and exponentially decreasing costs and size. Kurzweil has spent many years building models of future technology, and he was able to predict things like the growth of the Internet, back in the early 1980s. Expoential growth has a way of creeping up on you. When the size of the network goes from 128 nodes to 256 in a given year, no one notices. But when it goes from 64 million to 128 million in a year, that’s a big deal. His current prediction is that medicine is on a path where, in about 30 years, we will be increasing the average lifespan of humans by more than 1 year each year. In other words, in 30 years we will all live forever, or at least we will not die because of medical problems. Kurzweil does a good job of showing past data about technological growth that make his current predicitons seem within the realm of possibility.

Of course, on hearing something like “in 30 years we will all live forever,” a shiver runs down my spine as I think about the ugly battle for resources on a planet full of people who are living forever. It’s quite possible that we’re approaching a tipping point, where we either reverse the effects of technology on our planet and move forward into a virtuous cycle of prosperity and renewal, or we lose too much ground or develop something that destroys us for good. This will be a major milestone in human history, and it’s hard to say when it will happen. I think miniature versions of this ultimate deathmatch have been happening throughout human history, and I believe we won’t know exactly when we’ve passed the tipping point.

Which brings me to the second component of the talk. Technology is a tool which can be used for “good” or “evil.” Many technologies go through “arms race” phases as they grow—computer viruses are a great example. Virus technology and virus detection technology have always been neck-and-neck. Phishing and anti-phishing, encryption and cracking, missiles and anti-missiles—these battles are costly to fight and often result in a lot of collateral damage. But they are a maor driving force for technology. Damn, we say, someome figured out how to make a virus that dynamically reorganizes itself—now what? Technology takes a step forward.

But while these arms races literally shove technology forward, I think they are a very damaging way of doing it. One might say that the cold war was an arms race with a positive outcome, because we did not destroy ourselves. But on the other hand, what about all the military ditritus that was developed, manufactured, and deployed on both sides between 1947 and 1985? Who’s holding those guns now? They are still on this planet, somewhere, probably being pointed at someone by another. They have dissipated across the world and are still being used to exploit and oppress, to maim and kill. So, does that mean the whole of the cold war had a net negative outcome? I believe so, and this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. I think most arms races kick off a destruction pattern that haunts us into the long term.

So as technologists, we have to learn to be accountable to what we’re putting into the world. A better version of the cold war might have been fought on paper and with diplomacy. “Oh, it looks like we won’t have the resources to win this. So lets just settle it now.” Seems unlikely though, doesn’t it?

But do you see how it all boils down to a social and economic problem, not just a technological problem? With no conflict, there is no need for destructive technology. It’s not just renewable resources that will save us. It’s global diplomacy, education, and a global consciousness. But technology is a huge factor, and my biggest hope is that more future resources will be devoted to technology that sustains rather than destroys. We need to leverage the exponential growth toward a future that works.

And the trouble is, by no means does capitalism guarantee this. The planet is not going to wait around until we decide that the economic atmosphere is right for sustainability. It’s not going to wait around until we choose to quit our oil addiction. Mother Nature has so often appeased us in the past, so we assume she will in the future. “Oh, sure,” she’ll say, “I’ll just hang on a minute while you figure out how to keep my icebergs from melting.”

Kurzweil is unfazed by the urgency of climate change. He criticizes Al Gore for assuming linear technological growth in “An Inconvenient Truth.” Thirty years from now, Kurzweil said, we’ll have reversed all the effects of climate change and eliminated fossil fuel use. Such is the stunning impact of exponential technological growth; you can’t even imagine what will be possible. I sure hope he’s right.

POSTSCRIPT: A quote from an aging Thomas Edison, asked about his predictions for the future: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait ‘til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

POSTSCRIPT 2: Robin just pointed me to Bill McKibbon’s recent review of books on climate change.