Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (61 page)

A loud murmur immediately fills the room. You can hear the rising chorus of objections: “Our own robot? Impossible. Preposterous. It’s never happened before,” people protest.

Then your boss quiets the room and responds solemnly. “I was afraid someone would raise this issue, so let me say that this is a matter of great importance, which has to be kept strictly confidential. This information must not leave this room, until we issue our own press release. Yes, the leak was caused by one of own robots that suddenly went out of control.”

Pandemonium breaks out in the meeting. People are shaking their heads. How can this be?

“Our robots have had a perfect record,” your boss insists. “Absolutely spotless. Not a single robot has caused any harm, ever. Their fail-safe mechanisms have proven effective again and again. We stand by that record. But as you know, our latest generation of advanced robots use quantum computers, which are the most powerful available, even approaching human intelligence. Yes, human intelligence. And in the quantum theory, there is always a small but definite probability that something wrong will happen. In this case, go berserk.”

You slump back into your chair, overwhelmed by the news.

It has been a very long day, first organizing the robot repair crew to fix the leak, and then helping to deactivate all experimental robots that use quantum computers, at least until this issue is finally resolved. You finally arrive back home again. You are exhausted. Just as you sink comfortably into your sofa, Molly appears on the wall screen. “John, you have an important message from Dr. Brown.”

Dr. Brown? What does your robot doctor have to say?

“Put him on screen,” you say to Molly. Your doctor appears on the wall screen. “Dr. Brown” is so realistic that you sometimes forget that he is just a software program.

“Sorry to bother you, John, but there is something I have to bring to your attention. Remember your skiing accident last year, the one that almost killed you?”

How could you forget? You still cringe when you remember how you plowed into a tree while skiing in what is left of the Alps. Since most of the Alpine snow has already melted, you had to choose an unfamiliar resort at a very high altitude. Unaccustomed to the terrain, you accidentally tumbled down the slope and slammed into a bunch of trees at forty miles per hour. Ouch!

Dr. Brown continues, “My records show that you were knocked unconscious, suffering a concussion and massive internal injuries, but your clothes saved your life.”

Although you were unconscious, your clothes automatically called for an ambulance, uploaded your medical history, and located your precise coordinates. Then at the hospital robots performed microsurgery to stop the bleeding, sew up tiny ruptured blood vessels, and patch up other damage.

“Your stomach, liver, and intestines were damaged beyond repair,” Dr. Brown reminds you. “Luckily, we could grow a new set of organs for you just in time.”

Suddenly, you feel a little bit like a robot yourself, with so much of your body made from organs grown in a tissue factory.

“You know, John, my records also show that you could have replaced your shattered arm with a fully mechanical one. The latest robot arm would have increased the strength in your arm by a factor of five. But you declined.”

“Yes,” you reply, “I guess I’m still an old-fashioned guy. I’ll take flesh over steel any day,” you say.

“John, we have to do a periodic checkup on your new organs. Pick up your MRI scanner and slowly pass it over your stomach area.”

You go to the bathroom and pick up a small device, about the size of cell phone, and slowly pass it over your organs. Immediately on the wall screen, you can see the 3-D image of your internal organs lighting up.

“John, we are going to analyze these images to see how your body is healing. By the way, this morning the DNA sensors in your bathroom detected cancer growing in your pancreas.”

“Cancer?” You suddenly straighten up. You are puzzled. “But I thought cancer was cured years ago. No one even talks about it much anymore. How can I have cancer?”

“Actually, scientists never cured cancer. Let’s just say that we are in a truce with cancer, a stalemate. There are too many kinds of cancer. Like the common cold. We never cured that, either. We simply keep it at bay. I’ve ordered some nanoparticles to zap those cancer cells. There are only a few hundred of them. Just routine. But without this intervention, you would probably die in about seven years,” he deadpans.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” you say to yourself.

“Yes, today we can spot cancer years before a tumor forms,” says Dr. Brown.

“Tumor? What’s that?”

“Oh, that’s an old-fashioned word for a type of advanced cancer. It’s pretty much disappeared from the langauge. We never see them anymore,” adds Dr. Brown.

Then you realize that in all this excitement, you forgot that your sister threatened to set you up with someone. You call up Molly again.

“Molly, I am not doing anything this weekend, so can you find a date for me? You know the kind of person I like.”

“Yes, your preferences are programmed in my memory. Wait a minute while I scan the Internet.” After a minute, Molly displays the profiles of promising candidates who are also sitting in front of their wall screens, asking the same question.

After scanning the candidates, you finally select one who appeals to you. This person, called Karen, somehow looks special, you think to yourself. “Molly, send Karen a polite message, asking her if she is available this weekend. There’s a new restaurant that just opened that I want to try.”

Molly then sends Karen your profile in a video mail.

That night, you relax by having some of your coworkers come over for beer and to watch some football. Your friends could have watched the game by appearing in your living room via holographic images, but somehow, cheering for the home team is more enjoyable with your friends joining in the excitement in person. You smile, imagining that this is probably how it was thousands of years ago, when cavemen had to bond with one another.

Suddenly, the entire living room is illuminated, and it appears as if you are right on the football field, at the 50-yard line. As the quarterback makes a forward pass, you stand right next to him. The game is being played all around you.

During halftime, you and your friends begin sizing up the players. Over beer and popcorn, you hotly debate who trains the most, practices the hardest, has the best coaches, and has the best gene therapist. Your home team, you all agree, has the best geneticist in the league, with the best genes that money can buy.

After your friends have left, you still are too excited to go to sleep. So you decide to play a quick game of poker before turning in.

“Molly,” you ask, “it’s late, but I want to set up a game of poker. I’m feeling lucky. Someone must be awake in England, China, India, or Russia who might want to play a few hands right now.”

“No problem,” says Molly. A number of promising faces appear on the screen. As the 3-D images of each player materialize in your living room, you relish the idea of seeing who can bluff the best. It’s funny, you say to yourself, that you are more familiar with people in distant countries, thousands of miles away, than with your next-door neighbors. National boundaries don’t mean much these days.

Finally, just before you finally turn in, Molly interrupts you again, appearing in the bathroom mirror.

“John, Karen accepted your invitation. Everything is set for this weekend. I will make a reservation at that new restaurant. Do you want to see the profile that she wrote about herself? Do you want me to scan the Internet to verify the accuracy of her profile? People have been known to … ah … lie about their profiles.”

“No,” you say. “Let’s keep it a surprise for the weekend.” After that poker game, you feel lucky again.

It’s the weekend now, and time to go shopping and buy a present for Kevin. “Molly, put the mall on the screen.”

The mall suddenly appears on the wall screen. You wave your arms and fingers, and the image on the wall screen traces a path through the mall. You take a virtual tour until you arrive at the image of the toy store. Yes, they have exactly the toy robot pets you want. You telepathically order the car to take you to the mall. (You could have ordered the toy online. Or you could have had the blueprints e-mailed to you, and then had your fabricator materialize the toy at home from scratch using programmable matter. But it’s always good to get out of the apartment and shop once in a while.)

Cruising in your magnetic car, you look outside and see people taking a walk. It’s such a nice day. You also see robots of all sorts. Robots to walk the dog. Robot clerks, cooks, receptionists, and pets. It seems that every task that is dangerous, repetitive, or requires only the simplest human interaction is being duplicated by robots. In fact, robots are now big business. All around you, you see ads for anyone who can repair, service, upgrade, or build robots. Anyone in the field of robotics has a bright future. The robot business is bigger than the automobile industry of the last century. And most of the robots, you realize, are hidden from view, silently repairing the city’s infrastructure and maintaining essential services.

When you reach the toy store, a robot clerk greets you at the entrance. “Can I help you,” it says.

“Yes, I want to buy a robot dog.”

You look over the latest robot dogs. Amazing what these pet robots can do, you say to yourself. They can play, run, fetch, do anything a dog can do. Everything but pee on the carpet. Maybe that’s why parents buy them for their kids, you muse.

Then you say to the robot clerk, “I’m buying a robot pet for my six-year-old nephew. He’s a very intelligent, hands-on type of kid. But he’s also sometimes shy and quiet. What kind of dog might help bring him out of his shell?”

The robot replies, “I am sorry, sir. That is outside my programming. Perhaps I can interest you in a space toy?”

You forgot that robots, no matter how versatile, have a long way to go before they understand human behavior.

Then you go to the men’s department store. Time to replace that ratty old outfit of yours if you want to impress your date. You put on some designer suits. They all look stylish, but they are all the wrong size. You are disappointed. But then you take out your credit card, which contains all your precise 3-D measurements. Your data is fed into the computer, and then a new suit is being cut at a factory and will soon be delivered to your door. A perfect fit every time.

Last, you go to the supermarket. You scan all the chips hidden in each plastic item in the market, and then in your contact lenses you compare prices to see which store in the city has the cheapest, best products. No more guesswork about who has the lowest prices.

You have been looking forward to this date all week. Preparing to meet Karen, you are surprised that you feel like a schoolboy again. You decide that if you are going to invite her to your apartment after dinner, you will have to do some serious remodeling of your worn-out furniture. Fortunately, most of the kitchen counters and living room furniture is made of programmable matter.

“Molly,” you say, “can you show me the catalog of new kitchen counters and furniture offered by the manufacturer? I want to reprogram the furniture. It looks so old.”

Soon, the pictures of the latest furniture designs flash on the screen.

“Molly, please download the blueprints for this kitchen counter, that sofa, and this table, and then install them, please.”

While you are getting ready for your date, Molly downloads and installs the blueprints. Instantly, the kitchen countertop, living room sofa, and table begin to dissolve, turn into something that looks like putty, and then gradually re-form into the new shapes. In an hour, your apartment looks brand-new. (Recently, you were scanning the real estate section on the Internet, and noticed that houses made of programmable matter were becoming quite fashionable. In fact, at your engineering company, there are ambitious plans to create an entire city in the desert totally out of programmable matter. Push a button, and—poof!—an instant city.)

Your apartment still looks a bit drab, you decide. You wave your hand, and the pattern and color of the wallpaper change immediately. Having intelligent wallpaper certainly beats having to repaint the walls, you say to yourself.

You grab some flowers along the way, and finally pick up your date. You are pleasantly surprised. You hit it off right away. Something is clicking.

Over dinner, you find out that Karen is an artist. Normally, she jokes, she might be penniless, starving, and selling paintings along the sidewalk for a pittance. Instead, she is a very successful Web designer. In fact, she has her own company. Everyone, it seems, wants the very latest designs for the Web. There is such a huge demand for creative art.

She draws some circles in the air with her fingers, and some of her animations appear in thin air. “Here are some of my latest creations,” she says proudly.

You comment, “You know, as an engineer, I work with robots all day long. Some are pretty advanced, but they can also act pretty stupid at times. What about your field? Are robots making inroads?”

“Absolutely not,” she protests. Karen says she works exclusively with creative people, where the most prized commodity is imagination, something the most advanced robots lack.

“I may be old-fashioned, but in my field, we use robots only to make copies or do clerical work,” she says proudly. “I would like to see the day when robots can do something really original, like tell a joke, write a novel, or compose a symphony.”

That hasn’t happened yet, but it might, you think to yourself.

While she is talking, a question crosses your mind. How old is she? Since the aging process was medically slowed years ago, people can be any age. Her Web site did not say how old she was. But she does not look a day over twenty-five.

After taking her home, you begin to idly daydream. What would it be like to live with a person like her? To spend the rest of your life with her? But there is something that is bothering you. It’s been nagging at you all day.