This document discusses emerging technologies and their potential impacts. It covers topics like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, cyborgs, smart materials, fusion power, artificial life, malware, biobots, network bots, and more. The document notes that many of these technologies are still in early experimental stages and face challenges before being ready for widespread use. It also discusses debates around AI safety and the relationship between humans and increasingly intelligent machines.

1. Technologies
THAT WILL CHANGE
everything
Professor Peter Cochrane OBE
www.petercochrane.com

2. W h at ’ s H o t
W H AT ’ s N O T
0 -10
10 -20+
Timeframe
Years
6 x Prime in 40 mins

3. Arti
fi
cial Life
AI
Quantum Computing
Robotics
Cyborgs
Smart Materials
F U S I O N P O W E R
Sustainable reactions remain illusive
R&D to date spans over 80 years
Still more energy in than out!
China's EAST Tokamak
120 M oK for 101s and 160 M oC for 20s
Sustained plasma at 70 M oK for 17min 36s
Fusion energy requires >150 M°K
“It may just be all a matter of scale”?

4. E A S Y T O D R A W
H A R D T O B U I L D
Q = Energy Out
Energy In
Qt = Electrical Energy Out
Total Energy In
Qp = Thermal Energy Out
Plasma Energy In
Used for the sales pitch &
all scienti
fi
c comparisons
Energy

5. A N E R R O R I N
Acc o u n t i n g ?
E
ffi
ciency Q = Energy Out
Energy In
Qt << 0.1 x Qp
The world record e
ffi
ciency Qp = 70% but the Qt << 7% - Ouch!
Qt = Electrical Energy Out
Total Energy In
Qp = Thermal Energy Out
Plasma Energy In
Used for the
all scienti
fi
c
comparisons !

6. C O L D F U S I O N
C O S T I N G Z I P
From professionals to inventors &
cranks in sheds - all failed and
raised false hopes in 1970s - 90s

7. D O n ’ t H o l d
y o u r b r e at h
Fusion power looks to be a real a long
shot and may just remain a dream for
another lifetime!

8. Apes many features of real life
Q U A N T U M
C O M P U T I N G
A n a l o g u e n o t D i g i t a l
Proba bali stic not deter ministic
’ N ’ Re s u l t s n o t a s i n g u l a r o u t c o m e
Q u a n t u m N o i s e t h e s i n g l e b i g g e s t l i m i t e r

9. F A L S E
C L A I M S
I n s t a n t l y d e c r y p t s C re d i t C a rd s
I n s t a n t l y d e c r y p t s B a n k Tra n s f e r s
Credit cards use asymmetric encryption algorithms (e.g. RSA),
QC completely breaks them in about 15 seconds per card
Bank transactions use symmetric algorithms (e.g. 256 AES),
Quantum Computing and Grover’s Algorithm only weakens them
QDecryption easily defeated by going to 512 to 1024 to 2048…AES
RSA sees an exponential rise in compute time
AES = Advanced Encryption Standard
RSA = Rivest–Shamir–Adleman

10. F A L S E
C L A I M S
W i l l re l a c e ( a l l ) d i g i t a l c o m p u t e r s
Mass shippin g in ~5years
Fundamentally we face two problem sets:
- Linear well suited to Digital Computing
- Non-Linear well suited to Quantum Computing
And Quantum Results have to be reverse computed digitally in order
to locate the correct answer out of the many produced!
SO = You will not be saying goodbye to your PC or Mainframe
- and you will not be seeing a QC in your o
ffi
ce anytime soon!

11. OB SER VAT ION IIT 2017
Why do we need Quantum Computing in the
fi
rst place ?
AI
IoT
Nets
Mobile
Trading
Conflict
Robotics
Genetics
Medicine
Climatics
Economics
Proteomics
Environment
+++++++++
From the sociology of people to
the sociology of things!
The universe &everything in
it is fundamentally non-linear

12. OB SER VAT ION IIT 2017
Why do we need Quantum Computing in the
fi
rst place ?
AI
IoT
Nets
Mobile
Trading
Conflict
Robotics
Genetics
Medicine
Climatics
Economics
Proteomics
Environment
+++++++++
There is no general understanding of
non-linear systems: no general theor y,
mathematics or models
It is way beyond our intellect/intuition and
guessing - it is also increasingly r isky - we
need mac hine help
From the sociology of people to
the sociology of things!
Averages , tell us nothing; trends are
transient; and we have to think in terms of
emergent behaviour s
The universe &everything in
it is fundamentally non-linear

13. OB SER VAT ION IIT 2017
Why do we need Quantum Computing in the
fi
rst place ?
AI
IoT
Nets
Mobile
Trading
Conflict
Robotics
Genetics
Medicine
Climatics
Economics
Proteomics
Environment
+++++++++
There is no general understanding of
non-linear systems: no general theor y,
mathematics or models
It is way beyond our intellect/intuition and
guessing - it is also increasingly r isky - we
need mac hine help
From the sociology of people to
the sociology of things!
Averages , tell us nothing; trends are
transient; and we have to think in terms of
emergent behaviour s
The universe &everything in
it is fundamentally non-linear
We a r e i n a n e w
p h a s e o f s y s t e m
design & release sans
any sure knowledge
of what they will do,
a n d w h a t o u t c o m e s
might occur…
E m b r a c i n g A I a n d
mac hine modelling is
now imperative as is
Quantum Computing

14. S T A T U S Q U O
R e a l i t y c h e c k : p r o b l e m s
- Qu Bits using atoms, e lectrons, phot ons??
- C h o i c e o f s u b s t r a t e r e m a i n s u n d e c i d e d
- A rch itecture /physica l c onfiguration still TBD!
- Operating tempe rat ure s ext remely low <0.01K
- Cooling plant ve ry big and operat ing costs high
- Qu Bit Noise is far too high for st able computation
- Qu Bit Conc atena tion e xponentially limited by noise
- S y s t e m s s t i l l c o n d i t i o n a l l y u n s t a b l e a n d u n r e l i a b l e
- Qu Bit count record cu rrently 127 by IBM: we need >1k
Developments are nowhere n ear st ab l e: mo st o f t h e
tech is still very much in th e exper i men tal stag e:

15. R E A D Y T O S H I P ?
R e a l i s t i c p r o j e c t i o n s a r e h a r d
“Current QCs are not yet powerful enough to tackle
problems that can’t be performed by traditional
computers”
“We still don’t know the ‘magic number’ of Qubits
that will make QCs supremely useful in the real world”
December
2022
C o m m e r c i a l P r o d u c t s :
G o v & C o r p s > 2 0 3 0
L a r g e C o m p s > 2 0 3 5 / 4 0
E D U / S M E s > 2 0 4 0 / 5 0
D o m e s t i c > 2 0 5 0

16. a r t i f i c i a l
L i f e ( A L )
Apes many features of real life
- Tends to create order - ie negative entropy
- Achieves some level of sustainability
- Evolves without or with human help
- Solves problems in new ways
- Interacts with environments
- Mostly acts autonomously
- Replicates or reproduces

17. a r t i f i c i a l
L i f e ( A L )
Aping life, or not, A-Life solves
problems in new ways
“Life always
fi
nds a way, it breaks free, it expands
to new territories, and crashes through barriers
painfully, maybe even dangerously”
Successes So Far
- Software
- Mini-Bots
- Biological
- Bio-Bots
- Nano-Bots
- Nanological
- Network-Bots
- Hybrid-Combos
Je
ff
Goldblum
(Alias Dr. Ian Malcolm.
Jurassic Park 22 Jun 2017

18. R A P I D M A L W A R E
S p e c i a t i o n
A r t i f i c i a l L i f e B r e e d i n g M a l w a r e

19. R A P I D M A L W A R E
S p e c i a t i o n
A r t i f i c i a l L i f e B r e e d i n g M a l w a r e
We had this capability 30 years ago
but neglected to develop it !
The Dark Side embraced it and
now uses to breed Malware!

20. B I O B O T S A N D
R E P L I C A T I O N
N e v e r o b s e r v e d i n n a t u r e !

21. B I O B O T S A N D
R E P L I C A T I O N
N e v e r o b s e r v e d i n n a t u r e !
O b v i o u s a p p l i c a t i o n s i n m e d i c i n e a n d p r o b a b l y a
g o o d p a r t n e r f o r b i o a n d n a n o t e c h .
T h e a p p l i c a t i o n p o s s i b i l i t i e s a r e o n l y l i m i t e d b y
o u r i m a g i n a t i o n & w h a t e v o l u t i o n d e c i d e s t o d o .
T h i s i s o n l y t h e f i r s t s p e c i e s !

22. N E T w o r k B O T S
T h e T r a v e l l i n g S a l e s m a n P r o b l e m

23. N E T w o r k B O T S
E m m e r g e n t P r o p e r t i e s ? ? ?
Applications in Cyber Security,
behavioural analysis, allocating
resources, tra
ffi
c routing, people
management +++ extendable to
’n-dimensional’ space…

24. A p i n g N AT U R E
W e h a v e l e a r n e d a l o t
f r o m o b s e r v i n g a n i m a l s
f u n g i & p l a n t s
E v e r y c a s e h a s v e r y
s i m p l e r u l e s t h a t
r e s u l t i n c o m p l e x
b e h a v i o u r s

25. R O B O T S
WE, are totally dependent
“Robots now produce the bulk of all our goods and have moved into
logistics, warehousing and surgery+++ They solve the global
problems of people shortages and eradicate poor quality introduce
by human operators”

26. R O B O T S
WE, are totally dependent
“Robots now produce the bulk of all our goods and have moved into
logistics, warehousing and surgery+++ They solve the global
problems of people shortages and eradicate poor quality introduce
by human operators”

27. T e c h n o l o g y
I s n o t E v i l
WE, on the other hand…!
“Give an intelligent robot a weapon and teach it to hunt down
and kill our own kind - now that is a different proposition”

30. S o o n t o b e
S E N T I E N T
A IWe cannot survive without it !
“Already ubiquitous &
a critical component of
I4.0, Society 5.0, and
vital for sustainability”
Medicine
Industry
Transport
Logistics
Farming
Defence
Law and Order
Pharma
Energy
Networks
Trading
Health
Services
R&D
Science
Design
Judiciary
InterNet
Commerce
eCommerce

31. D E b a t e
Academic & Futile
“ P o l i t i c i a n s a n d p h i l o s o p h e r s c a n
discuss till the cows come home, but
this is a done deal - the cat
is out of the bag and our
dependence is total - and
there is no going back ”
“It is now down to us and
what we choose to do - it
always is”

32. F r o m N a r r o w
T O G e n e r a l A I
O NTO S E NT I E N CE
C o m p u t i n g / I T p r o g r e s s i o n : t a s k
s p e c i f i c t o g e n e r a l p u r p o s e - P C !
“ T h e s i n g l e b i g g e s t m i s t a k e t h e
A I c o m m u n i t y h a v e m a d e i s t o
a s s u m e h u m a n s a s s o m e g o l d
s t a n d a r d r e f e r e n c e o f a b i l i t y
a n d / o r p e r f o r m a n c e f u n c t i o n ”
“ B u i l d i n g a n a r t i f i c i a l h u m a n
b r a i n i s a n i n t e r e s t i n g t a r g e t ,
b u t c r e a t i n g n e w i n t e l l i g e n c e s
i s a f a r m o r e i m p o r t a n t / u r g e n t o n e ”

33. M e a n i n g l e s s I Q
a n d T u r i n g T E S T

34. S p e c i a l i s e d
S U P E R I O R I T Y
“The good news Dave, is that the
computer’s passed the Turing
Test, but you have failed”
GO
Poker
Chess
Complexity
Mamagrams
Comp Games
Protein Folding
Medical Diagnosis
Composing Music
Drawing/Painting
Circuit Design
Data Analysis
Transcription
Chip Design
++++
Machine learning and rule creation have
overtaken human programming for AI

35. C O M M O N
E R R O R
The attributes of physical dexterity,
fl
exibility,
mobility, communication, intelligence and
evolved to meet the speci
fi
c demands of
given environments - many of which we
(humans) cannot survive in!
Our speci
fi
c human capabilities and attributes
were tuned by evolution to meet the physical
opportunities and limitations of surface living
on planet earth - not in water, air or space!
“Speciated superiority is a nonsense”

36. H U M A N I S I N G
I N T E R F A C E S
Human-AI voice interactions now the
norm and getting better by the day!

37. D E f a c t o H O M E & O F F I C E
Vehicles, Devices, Appliances, Wearables +Apps…et al
Ask yourself:
- How much AI do I own ?
- How many times do I interact with AI every day ?
Me:
> 20
> 100

38. Digital
Computing
Networking
Sensors
Sentience
Analogue
Computing
Sensors
Sentience
Linear
Non-Linear Non-Linear
Future
Cyborgs ?
Future
Arti
fi
cial
Life?
Quantum
Computing
Bio-Evolution
Quantum
Bio
Computing ?
Quantum
Bio
Computing ?
Biological
Life
Intelligence
AI
AI
Robotics
T h e B I G P i c t u r e

39. P R O S T H E T I C S
A N D I m p l a n t s
Could you say no thanks?

40. W e a r a b l e s
Could you say no thanks? And without you would su
ff
er
and die early

41. This would rede
fi
ne the expression -
‘Always On-Line’
N e t w o r k e d
F O R L I F E ?

42. L E A D E R S I N
T H E F I E L D ?

43. C Y B O R G
MUTATION
Prosthetics
Implants
Augmentation
AI + Nets +
Human
A hard to resist future
of convergence…
Wearables
BodyNet

44. A P A R T I N G
H Y P O T H E S I S
We posit the following concatenation as the most likely path to sentience:
Life => an emergent property of Complexity
Complexity & Chaos => the ground state of our non-linear universe
Intelligence => an emergent property of Life
Sentience => an emergent property of Intelligence
Complexity => an emergent property of Chaotic Clustering

45. Could you resist,
Would you Say no ?
Thank you
petercochrane.com
1995