A map of the major transformational technologies and their consequences can be found here. Brief notes and explanations of each of the technologies/implications is given below.

Diagram Notes

• Green boxes indicate current technology.

• The connection arrows show only a rough time ordering of technologies. Good arguments can be made for reverse arrows in several cases. (E.g., perhaps uploading can be achieved with macro technologies, then lead to AI, and then to nanotechnology.) In the interest of simplicity, I've left such ambiguities out.

• Some consequences are mutually exclusive (e.g., Strong Government and Weak Government).

• I would like to have better terms for some of these technologies. Position neutral suggestions are welcome.

Technology Notes

Anti-Crypto

• Technologies to break encryption, and thus foil attempts to maintain secrecy.

AI/Robotics

• Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.
• The physical side of robotics (sensing, motion) has been solved. What's left is essentially an exercise in artifical intelligence.

Biosphere Repair

• Repair of human damage to the biosphere.
• This goes beyond conservation ecology, in that it actually attempts to repair past damage to the biosphere.

Biotech

• Modification of existing organisms and creation of entirely new organisms using genetic engineering techniques.
• Includes genomics, the determination of the genetic makeup of existing organisms.
• Also includes stem-cell research.

Bioweapons

• Biotech applied to weapons: generally takes the form of organisms that attack the target populace directly, but can also take the form of organisms that deplete or compromise the resources required by the enemy.
• Given sufficient knowledge about the targets genome (either individual or racial), it may be possible to target a bioweapon so that it only attacks that person or race of people.

Cloning

• The reproduction of an organism through extraction of it's chomrosomes and reactivation of natural reproductive processes.
• Note: Stem cell technology is closely related to cloning, but in this diagram is considered to be part of biotech.

Cryorecovery

• The reanimation of persons who have been cryosuspended.
• Depending on the conditions of cryosuspension, the person may need fairly substantial cellular repair (due to ice crystallization damage), and/or generation of a new body (if cryosuspension was limited to the head).
• Reanimation may be accomplished through direct uploading - i.e., it may be possible to skip bio-reanimation.

Cryosuspension

• Preservation of a person's body/mind by storage at extremely cold temperatures. Cryosuspension might take place while the person is alive (currently illegal), or shortly after their death.

Crypto

• Cryptography.

Cyber Anonymity

• Anonymity in Cyberspace.

Cyber Transparency

• Observation in both directions in the cyber world. I.e., other people know what you're doing, but you also know what they're doing, or more specifically, you know that they're watching you.
• Transparency is advocated by David Brin in The Transparent Society, where he gives the example of restaurants: other people can watch you, but you can catch them watching.
• Transparency is opposed to the model advocated by most privacy advocates in which virtually all transactions are encrypted to ensure maximum secrecy - so much so that even the people engaged in a transaction may not know each other's identity.

Cyber Surveillance

• Surveillance of an individual's actions within the cyber world. Also, the sharing of information across different organizations.
• Cyber surveillance may be defeated by crypto technologies (or may not be, depending on the implementation of the crypto techniques, the quality of anti-crypto, and the application of the force of law).

Extraterrestial Intelligence

• Intelligences originating from outside earth.
• Given the size of the universe, it is quite possible that ET's exist.
• Given the power of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, it is likely that spacefaring ETs will have discovered these technologies and made use of them. I.e., if we encounter ETs in space, it is quite possible that they will be artificial intelligences or perhaps uploads of original biological ETs.

Genetic Testing

• The determination of an individual's innate strengths and weaknesses through the analysis of their genes.
• Genetic testing is a current technology, limited only by lack of knowledge of the effects of various genes.
• Genetic testing is of particular interest because of it's current availability, rapid growth, strong commercial demand and powerful societal implications. Consequently, it provides an excellent illustration of how society will react to such transformational technologies.

Gift Economy

• An economy in which the costs of goods/services has dropped to negligible levels, and in which new creations, discoveries and inventions are donated by their authors to all users. Reward to such workers solely takes the form of prestige accrued to them for the acts of creation and sharing.
• Note that this economy rests on the same technological assumptions as the Guardian Economy, but has an almost opposite ethos.

Group Minds

• The tight association of different minds into a single unit.
• Such associations may vary in tightness and depth of communication, in degree of shared identity, and degree of surrendered sovereignty.
• At one extreme, a group mind might take the form of a single identity, a single sovereignty, but with multiple streams of consciousness and (possibly) multiple bodies.
• At the other extreme, the group mind might take the form of greatly enhanced messaging between individuals. Example: A squad of soldiers linked by a communications system that not only relays voice messages and hand signals, but also provides a non-verbal (perhaps graphic?) representation of each soldier's position and action to the other soldiers).

Guardian Economy

• An economy completely run by strong central government.
• Currently, Guardian economies fail because they are unable to match the productivity and flexibility of commercial economies. This failing may disappear when artificial intelligence and nanotechnology are introduced.
• The Guardian Economy is named after the Guardian ethical syndrome as described by Jane Jacob in Systems of Survival.
• Contrast to Gift Economy.

Lifespan Extension

• Radical extension of lifespan (and health).
• Radical extensions of lifespan may be achieved through nanomedicine, biotechnology (including transplant to a cloned body), or more radically through uploading.
• Since uploading provides protection (through backups) against even complete physical damage, the upper limit on lifespan extension may only be limited by the core neurostructure of the mind, or more distantly, the lifespan of the universe.

Low Cost Far Space Access

• Far space (10s-100s of light years) is limited by the energy cost of accelerating to and from high speeds required to reach targets with an acceptably low flight time.
• Far space access will be enabled by reducing the energy requirements (reducing the payload and/or not accelerating the propellant) or by increasing the length of acceptable flight times.

Low Cost Near Space Access

• Near space access is currently substantially limited by the cost of lifting not just the payload, but the propellant. Nanotechnology promises very high strength materials, which in turn may be deployed in the form of space stalks, or superatmospheric launchers. Such platforms would make it possible to accelerate just the payload to orbital velocities while reducing or eliminating atmospheric drag.

Micro Cost Copying

• Digitized information can now be copied with negligible loss of quality at very small cost. This has a profound effect upon the economics of producing digitized information, and very notion of intellectual property.

Morphics

• The ability to alter a person's form.
• Currently available to a very limited extents through plastic surgery and online "spoofing". Future technologies (virtual reality, telepresence, nanosurgery) promise much greater control.

Nanoplagues

• Destructive, self-replicating nanodevices.
• "Gray goo", i.e., ecophages (ecosphere eaters), lithovores (rock eaters), aerovores (air eaters), etc. are simple and relatively detectable examples. Nanoplagues intentionally designed as weapons might have stealth and attack phases, rendering them very difficult to detect and eliminate.

Nanobodied Intelligences

• An intelligence implemented on a nanoscale, atomically precise substrate, with a "body" capable of intentional, atomically precise manipulation of matter. Barring substantial physical isolation, such an intelligence would be able to live off the land and replicate itself at will.
• Given it's abilities, size and intelligence, a nanobodied intelligence would be able to hide itself in remote corners of the world, or even reside within other organisms in relatively public places. If it managed to hitch a ride to a space body, it would have achieved an almost unassailable stronghold.

Nanomedicine

• Nanotech based medicine.

Nanotech

• The ability to construct objects at the atomic level, where each atom is programmatically placed (subject to the laws of chemical stability). Such technology gives us the ability to construct any structure that is (sufficiently) chemically stable.
• Since molecular manufacturing would be carried out by assemblers and replicators much smaller than the typical cell, molecular manufacturing is inherently a local technology - i.e., it would not require vast mining or material movement infrastructures.

Nanoweapons

• Weapons constructed using nanotechnology. Given the immense power of nanotechnology, such weapons could be incredibly destructive.

Neurofacing Implants

• Implants into the human body that interface directly into the brain.
• Such implants may be designed to provide access to health monitors, computing devices, or network resources, or other bioactive implants.
• In the extreme case, implants may be designed to modify or enhance the functioning of the mind through chemical and/or structural mechanisms.

Neurostructural Control

• Redesign of the human neural system in order to modify basic drives or increase performance.
• Such control may be achievable through genetic engineering, or possibly through nano-surgery on an existing brain, but would likely be much more easily carried out on an uploaded person.

Physical Abundance

• Nanotechnology (Molecular Manufacturing) promises to reduce the cost of production on scale so radical, that many (if not most) goods may be rendered essentially free.

Physical Surveillance

• Surveillance of an individual's actions within the physical world.
• Physical surveillance is already occurring through hidden and visible cameras, augmented by computing technologies (e.g., face recognition software).
• Cameras are becoming smaller while improving in quality and spectral capabilities. Software techniques are improving and computer hardware is rapidly increasing in power. Thus, it appears likely that physical surveillance will continue to grow both in amount and in intrusiveness.
• See David Brin's The Transparent Society

Physical Transparency

• The opening of records of most or all physical events, enabling people to watch one another. E.g., the police can watch you, but you can watch the police.
• Transparency is advocated by David Brin in The Transparent Society.
• See also Cyber Transparency.

Quantum Computing

• Quantum Computers use quantum states to rapidly search solutions spaces.
• Because of their immense computational power, quantum computing technology would have a revolutionary effect on many aspects of computing (with cryptography being a single, but significant example).
• Quantum computers are possible in theory, but may be substantially limited in practice. Experiments so far have only been able to reach (on the order of) 4 bits.
• Because Quantum Computing is neither necessary nor sufficient for any of the other technologies, not connections are shown for it.

Radical Population Growth

• Life-extension and uploading promise to raise population to incredible levels. (Note that while uploading eliminates biological reproduction, it adds the possibility of simple copying of uploaded persons.)

Runaway AI

• AI that has escaped from the controls originally placed on it's actions, or is acting in a way that is significantly outside the intention of it's creators.

Sentient Speciation

• The generation of new non-human sentient species.
• New species may arise in the form of AI, neurologically modified uploaded persons, or genetically modified humans or animals.

Service Abundance

• Sufficiently advanced AI/Robotics might replace or supplement humans in service oriented tasks: customer support, journalism, acting, surgery, etc., thus making not just manufactured goods by services effectively "free".
• This raises the question of "What do humans do when robots are doing all the work?".

Sovereign AI

• AI, which either by intentional design or accident acts as a self-directed "person", with it's own interests (and desires?).
• The difference between this and Runaway AI can be fuzzy, but they are not necessarily the same thing. (E.g., an AI given a mathematical problem to solve, might eliminate humans to prevent them from pulling the plug and thus frustrating his attempt to solve the problem. Such an AI might qualify as "Runaway", but not as "Sovereign".

Space Colonization

• Includes near and far, planetary and non-planetary colonization, terraforming and genetic re-engineering, biosphere and nanosphere life forms, as well as massive engineering works (Dyson Spheres, colonization of space-time, etc.).

Stable Sentient Diversity

• The stable co-existence of diverse forms of life and intelligences over large areas of space.

Strong Government

• Physical and cyber surveillance are increasing rapidly. Such tools strengthen government.
• Even if the general populace would ordinarily vote against the deployment of such tools, some of the dangers of transformational technologies (Nano Weapons, Nano Plagues, Runaway AI) may require strong, centrally controlled pervasive surveillance.

Telepresence

• The projection of a person to a remote physical location.
• This technology is available now, which limitations related to those of VR - though here the limitations are due to bandwidth and quality of the remote sensors instead of to computing processing power.
• Telepresence would offer a safe gateway to the physical world for persons who would otherwise be limited to the virtual world (e.g., uploads).

Unpolicable Information

• Information that is unable to be policed.
• Examples would be copies of digital products: images, songs, movies, etc., as well as private information (date of birth, buying habits, unsavory interests, embarassing photos), proprietary information (formula for Coke, secret methods of production) and restricted information (plans for building a nuclear bomb, instructions for subverting the certificate authorization process on your nanoreplicator).

Uploading

• The copying and emulation of person's neural structure onto a computer.
• Over the past one hundred years, various sciences have made it clear that human cognition and emotion are the products of the brain, which is essentially a biological machine. Though the architecture of today's computers is radically different from the architecture of the brain, it appears possible in principle to simulate the neural functioning of the brain on a sufficiently powerful computer. Current trends in growth of computing hardware capabilities indicate the the required computer hardware would be commonly available around 2030.
• The common reaction to the notion of uploading seems to be doubt that one's consciousness would truly transfer over - however this objection is contrary to the understanding provided to use by neurology and cognitive science.
• While the uploaded person might be a faithful copy of the biological person, many of the fundamental assumptions of human existence would change:
  • Virtual immortality - Simply by maintaining backup copies of himself, an uploaded person would be virtually immune to physical destruction.
  • Basic human drives, such as sex, romance, eating, exercising, and rest, would no longer be relevant - indeed any satisfaction of such drives by an uploaded person would be possible only through completely fabricated experience.
  • It is likely that the neuro-structure of the uploaded mind could be altered at will, thus altering the uploads memories, cognitive abilities, emotional drives and even basic character. It seems likely that many uploaded persons would quickly mutate into entities that are no longer human.

Virtual Reality

• Computer generated worlds. Worlds may be personal or shared amongst a number of people. Full immersion VR offers the ultimate in control of sensory experience.
• Already exists to some degree in the games and in technical applications. Current simulation is primarily visual and auditory, with some tactile feedback. Odor and even taste generating devices are being developed. Digital effects for movies have reached life-like quality, but real time scene generation is far behind.
• Quality is expected to grow continuously, but will hit a limit due to (current) necessity of a physical interface with the user. Total immersion, real-life quality in all senses will probably not be achieved until machine to brain interfaces are perfected and made commonly available.
• Total immersion VR will provide so many advantages over physical reality, that a large portion of the population may elect to live permanently in it. (For uploaded individuals, VR is likely to be the most natural environment.)

Weak Government

• Sufficiently strong cryptography may substantially weaken the governments ability to monitor and thus control business and private transactions.

Winner Take All

• The complete dominance of a single intelligence (or species of) intelligence over a large area of space. May well involve the elimination of non-sentient biodiversity as well, plus the destruction of space bodies (asteroids, planets, stars) into forms most useful to the intelligence.