Isms Issue May | Page 28

In the year 2117 I May 2017 06 08 Antarctica will be “open for business” Nanorobots will flow around our body fixing cells The area seems worth keeping as a natural wilderness so I am hesitant here, but I do expect that pressure will eventually mean that some large areas will be used commercially for resources. It should be possible to do so without damaging nature there if the technology is good enough, and this will probably be a condition of ex- ploration rights. Before there is a rush to develop Antarctica we will most likely see a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. Whether the Arctic states tighten control over the region’s resources, or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead. Successful (if not necessarily sustainable) development of the Arctic portends well for the development of Antarctica. Right now, medical nanorobots exist only in theory and nanotechnology is mostly a materials science. But it’s a rapidly growing field. Nanorobots exist within the realm of possibility, but the question of when they will arrive is another matter. 07 We will all be wired to computers to make our brains work fast We can expect this as soon as 2050 for many people. By 2075 most people in the developed world will use machine augmentation of some sort for their brains and, by the end of the century, pretty much everyone will. If someone else does this you will have to compete. .isms May 2017 30 rockys The by I Joseph Kim .isms I May 2017 31