Given the summer break, my 15-year-old son Alex is engrossed in a coding project rooted purely in his passion. He aims to develop a class schedule reminder app for iPhones for his high school. He has a foundational knowledge of Python, which I had taught him. To further his skills, I subscribed to a poe.com membership for him, allowing him to consult AI models for any coding queries. This left me less worried about providing constant support. When I inquired about his project’s progress this morning, he mentioned that things were going smoothly and that he could consult ChatGPT for any hurdles he encountered.
I conveyed to him that this might be the modus operandi for many future tasks: start with an idea, have some foundational knowledge, and leverage AI (and occasionally human) assistance to solve issues and achieve objectives. In the future, most people might have two primary professions: scientists and entrepreneurs (or engineers, if working solo).
Scientists: Their principal duty is to understand everything and answer “why” questions. For instance, why do humans age, or how does intelligence arise? Through in-depth research into natural laws and scientific principles, they unveil life’s mysteries and how the universe operates. There are also social science questions, such as why healthcare in the U.S. is so expensive or why public school education quality is often poor. Einstein is a prime example of a scientist; his equation, E=mc^2, revealed that mass and energy are interchangeable, fundamentally altering our understanding of the universe. It explained the energy sources of stars and laid the theoretical groundwork for harnessing nuclear energy.
Entrepreneurs: Their main responsibility is to produce products or provide services that meet people’s actual needs and solve specific problems. For example, they develop smartphones that enable communication anywhere, anytime; create logistics networks to ensure efficient product circulation; and launch telemedicine services that help patients recover health at lower costs and greater efficiency. Take Elon Musk as an example: he founded Tesla, promoting the widespread adoption of electric vehicles and the development of autonomous driving technologies. His company SpaceX aims to reduce the cost of space exploration, bringing humanity’s dream of settling on Mars closer to reality.
Science and entrepreneurship complement each other, collectively advancing societal progress.
We then discussed what future scientists and entrepreneurs should specifically aim to achieve. I opined that the essence of intelligent life is the pursuit of freedom in various dimensions. If an action increases freedom for everyone (without harming others), it is a positive direction. If it restricts freedom, it is a negative direction.
I brought up specific examples:
- Time Dimension: The desire to live longer, travel back to the past, and see the future.
- Space Dimension: The aspiration to travel anywhere quickly and affordably, from Mars to other galaxies.
- Financial Dimension: Aspiring for financial freedom to purchase any needed goods and services. However, in the future, AI-driven robots might produce most goods and provide numerous services at low costs, potentially diminishing the importance of money. After discussing these examples, I encouraged Alex to identify some dimensions and freedoms he would like to achieve. Initially unsure, I prompted him to consider his daily schedule and activities, identifying any areas where he felt constrained and desired greater freedom.
He immediately mentioned sleep: future technology should allow freedom in sleep, enabling one to fall asleep anytime and optimizing sleep quality and efficiency. For instance, spending just an hour, or even a few minutes, to achieve the equivalent of traditional eight hours of sleep. Analogous to the evolution of phone charging, which initially took eight hours and now can fully charge in minutes.
He then spoke about human perception: there should be freedom of perception. It would be beneficial to control the sensitivity of senses, turning them on or off as needed. One example is disabling the sense of smell to avoid unpleasant odors. Another is vision; since vision is the perception of electromagnetic waves, it should expand across the entire spectrum, not just visible light. It should also magnify vision, integrating functionalities of microscopes and telescopes within the human eye. I agreed, adding that miniaturizing large, bulky external devices for personal use is a common way of increasing freedom. The clearest example is computers evolving from large machines to personal computers, smartphones, and smart glasses.
He continued with food: there should be freedom of food. This includes numerous possibilities, like producing any desired food with 3-D printing. Food production chains could become highly efficient, with rapid outputs of various vegetables and meats. Ultimately, it’s a matter of energy transfer: from solar energy to photosynthesis, then to plants, animals, and finally humans. Why not explore enabling human skin to directly perform photosynthesis, bypassing plants and animals? His idea was indeed fascinating. If energy is the base, reliance on the sun might not be optimal, given that the sun will eventually exhaust itself. The best scenario would be an individual having a personal, independent energy generation source.
This naturally led our conversation to energy freedom. Currently, the foundational source of energy is nuclear: fusion and fission. Due to pollution concerns, nuclear fusion is receiving significant attention, with various countries and high-tech companies investing in its commercial development. In the future, every individual might carry a nuclear battery, akin to nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers today, with a single battery fulfilling decades of energy needs.
After discussing all this, he realized the possibilities are limitless, with so much to be achieved. We need not worry about current AI advancements. Even with AI assistance, it might take us thousands of years to resolve a few dimensions of humanity’s freedom. That is, assuming we don’t destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons due to some war-mongering extremists.