Evaluating future technology

[ciphergoth]

How do you tell a reasonable guess about what future technology might bring (eg a manned mission to Mars) from unreasonable guesses (eg teleportation)?

I'm inclined to think that you have to get down to the technical nitty-gritty. If you don't know the field, it might be reasonable to think that in the future we'll prove that our ciphers are unbreakable. Actually, for everyday useful ciphers, a proof that they are secure with no unproven assumptions is much harder than you might think if you've not studied CS. There's no reason I'd expect you to know that if you're not a computer scientist, but if your vision of the near future included provably unbreakable ciphers, I'd want to explain why that doesn't look very likely at the moment.

What do you think?

Comments

[hieroglyphe.livejournal.com]

Although not foolproof, it seems like a pretty sound basis to me. FWIW it's pretty much how I decide what is likely/not likely or possible/not possible when people ask me things of a linguistically geeky nature - though that can get pretty fuzzy when you're starting to talk about things for which there is no empirical basis for any assumptions.

[keirf.livejournal.com]

You need to know about currently believed limitations (2nd law of thermodynamics meaning that perpetual motion is unlikely, or relativity meaning that faster than light is unlikely). Those are indeed technical nitty-gritty for most people.

I remember sitting behind two teenagers on a bus discussing whether invisibility paint or anti-gravity paint would be invented first.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Not a complete answer, but I'd distinguish between math-, science-, and engineering-based technology limitations. This requires knowledge.

Engineering limitations can be overcome quite easily given enough time and money. (e.g. Mars mission.)

Science limitations may melt away if some hitherto unknown natural phenomenon is discovered. (e.g. human teleportation.)

Math limitations are probably here to stay. If there's an accepted proof that something is impossible, then maybe there's a flaw in the proof... but that's rather unlikely, in the same way that I am rather unlikely to win the lottery. (e.g. limitless data compression.)

[andrewducker]

Hah - it was compression of random data that I was thinking of.

I agree on all counts - but bear in mind that engineerings limitations aren't _that_ easily overcome. A mission to Mars is harder than the vast majority of people seem to think it is.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

A manned mission to Mars wouldn't be that hard.

It's only if you want the astronauts to return to Earth, alive, that it gets prohibitively difficult.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I chose that as an example at least in part because it's incredibly hard in a way that often seems underappreciated.

However, if for some reason we discovered tomorrow that the first nation to get a manned mission to Mars and back would immediately gain some massive military advantage over all the others, I don't suppose anyone thinks it would take all that long.

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

Neah. What you do is get them to Mars and start a colony. Then you cryogenically freeze them. Once their descendants have advenced to the stage of being able to build a ship to get back to Earth, you wake them up and send them back.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

Well quite; sometimes "enough time and money" is more than anyone is willing to pay.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

You can't travel to Mars until we know how to prevent (with a near 100% success rate) kidney stones. Then you have to solve all the other problems, but all I've written about is bone density and related factors, so I am happiest talking about kidney stones. :)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Is that something you'd describe as requiring a fundamental breakthrough?

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I don't think so – we're already nearing solutions to eliminating bone loss in long-term spaceflight and kidney stone likelihood will be vastly reduced if we get to that stage. Coupled with sodium and protein restriction inflight and a portable ESWL machine on the spacecraft, it'd be possible, I think. I'm not a physiologist, just been reading up on the subject for my assignment. :)

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm being unimaginative, but I have trouble imagining what a truly unbreakable cipher would even be like (as opposed to one that was just very, very difficult to break).

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

We're able to prove some things are very hard - like a decision procedure for Presburger arithmetic. This is I think a harder problem than proving P != NP.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography with one-time pad.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I said "everyday useful ciphers" because I didn't want to get into technical documentation. I don't have time to search for the paper just now, but "unbreakable" quantum cryptography has been broken because of small differences between the system that had been theoretically analyzed and the real system.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying, it's not difficult to imagine what a truly unbreakable cipher would be like, because it's one of those things that doesn't really quite work yet but where most of the pieces are in place.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

OK. The problem I have in mind is an unbreakable conventional cipher; I don't really think that QC is a good idea.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Aha, clearly I was being unimaginative. Thanks!

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

How do you tell a reasonable guess about what future technology might bring (eg a manned mission to Mars) from unreasonable guesses (eg teleportation)?

Going to Mars doesn't require any fundamental breakthroughs, just lots of money and detailed engineering.

Teleportation does require fundamental breakthroughs.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Isn't this just the same question reposed with different words?

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

I don't think that it was. It was certainly clearer than your question.

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

Um, no, I don't think so. Perhaps you'd like to explain why you think it is just the same question rephrased.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Well it moves us to what constitutes "requiring a fundamental breakthrough". Perhaps you're right that that is a different question, but it's also one I'm not sure how to answer!

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

what constitutes "requiring a fundamental breakthrough"

I guess it's like what the judge said about porn: I'll know it when I see it.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

OK, but if you and I disagree on whether a posited technological advance requires a technical breakthrough, how will we resolve our difference? Or if I'm not sure myself, what would I look for to find out?

[fizzyboot.livejournal.com]

if you and I disagree on whether a posited technological advance requires a technical breakthrough, how will we resolve our difference?

By, as you say, getting down to the technical nitty-gritty.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

OK, that makes sense, thanks!

[xxxlibris.livejournal.com]

'Science' and 'technology' do not exist in a social vacuum - their research, development, mass-production, adoption and diffusion is intrinsically bound up in social, political, cultural and economic systems (and the history of these systems). Knowing whether a technology will be 'successful' depends on the nature of the system in which it is developed, and also by what criteria that system judges things to be successful.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Sure, but here I guess I'm asking about the constraints that reality imposes. The absence of teleportation is not just a social convention :-)

[xxxlibris.livejournal.com]

But the way that labs (whether private or public) might be funded to investigate teleportation is completely political/social/cultural/economic: whether labs and engineers exist in that place who have the knowledge and capabilities to investigate teleportation (or whether they can be hired in); whether teleportation is seen socially as the next step in technological endeavor or a frivolous self-indulgent crackpot idea; whether the state has the finance to throw money at this, which bodies can convince the state that throwing money at this is a good idea and who will benefit; whether private firms are *already* throwing money at this but are keeping it under wraps; what IP systems are in place to reward the people who discover teleportation; the cost of taking it to the mart.

The current absence of teleportation is entirely social and political as without the 'right' systems in place, the path by which the relevant scientific breakthroughs *might* be made will never exist.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Surely reality has some say?

[keirf.livejournal.com]

That's the point - reality has an awful lot to say. Because of our social and cultural nature we're often unable to listen.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, but for the purposes of this question it's what reality has to say that I'm really interested in.

[djm4]

The current absence of teleportation is entirely social and political as without the 'right' systems in place, the path by which the relevant scientific breakthroughs *might* be made will never exist.

I'm convinced that it's partly social and political, but not that it's entirely so (except in the sense that everything is, but in that case I'm not sure it's a useful categorisation). It seems to me that you and ciphergoth are lookign at different parts of the same elephant.

I mean, sure, without the social and political conditions being right, many things that are otherwise technologically trivial may neither get done nor recognised as technologically trivial. Or even considered at all. But some things (I think teleportation is one) can reasonably considered impossible whatever the social and political conditions. Well, OK, I suppose it would be possible to consider social and political conditions that redefined teleporation to become something that is technologically possible, but I think that's a different matter.

Or have I got that wrong? This sort of thing is very much your field and not mine, so I realise I may be talking rubbish because I don't understand the issues (and I may not have the background to understand the issues either).

[xxxlibris.livejournal.com]

I disagree - I don't think P and I are looking at different parts of the same elephant (a tail, a trunk) because everything is so interconnected that you can't unpick them.

As I understand it P has asked: how can we work out which future technologies are more likely to occur than others? He's then added that he wants to think about this in terms of 'reality' (which does rather imply that political forces aren't 'reality' but I'm not touching that one for now). So if I've got this right, the discussion is about which things are scientifically more likely to occur - antigravity machines, jetpacks, what-have-you - given an infinite amount of resources and time (which is very far from 'reality', but...). To flip the question around, P seems to be asking: is there anything which is scientifically and technologically impossible? Because anything else is therefore possible, and the reasons why some things are more possible than others is down to factors other than science, because we've already said it can potentially happen.

So: if there's some small scientific possibility that we could have functioning jetpacks, the reasons why they will or won't be widespread by 2040 can't just be due to science, it's due to investment and resources and all the other things I mentioned earlier. Maybe we need a series of other scientific advances to take place before we get our jetpacks, to do with fuel cells and propulsion and aluminium skeletons - but each of those advances is just as dependent on the political forces, and moreover need to be integrated in some way that's likely to involve political and economic will.

[djm4]

Thanks for the reply, that helps me see where your reply is coming from.

I think that P was asking a different question - or, at any rate, he wasn't asking only the question you address. I think he was also asking the question:

'Given future technology X and future technology Y, both of which we can't do at the moment, what is the best way to separate those that we might be able to do with 50 years of progress (where "progress" certainly does imply a large social and political aspect, to me at least), and those which are technologically impossible?'

Jetpacks, for example, are technically feasible given current scientific knowledge. Teleportation is not. If we don't have widespread jetpacks by 2040, you are correct that it's unlikely to be just down to science. If we don't have teleportation by 2040, it may well be simply that it's technically impossible.

With a technology such as, say, an 'upload your consciousness to this computer' system, it's hard to say what category it falls into. Opinion is divided about whether it's theoretically possible, but even for those of us who think it is, most of us agree that we don't know how to build such a thing, and that there are problems involved that we don't know the solutions to, nor are we 100% sure that they're solvable. And yes, even if it's technically feasible, the social and political factors will be absolutely key to whether or not it happens in practice. Those same factors will be there even if it's not technically feasible, of course, but the difference is that even if they're favourable, we won't end up with a working brain-upload system at the end of it.

I take your point about the interconnectedness of all things, but I still think those are separate questions. I'm happy to discover that I'm wrong (as I say, this is more your field than mine and I respect your considerable knowledge in the area) but I'd certainly like to know whether you think they are different questions, or whether that's not what you thought P was asking. (For that matter, I'd be interested in whether P thinks that's what he was asking. ;-)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Not sure if I could claim to have it in my head as clearly as that, but certainly this says what I want to say now :-)

[stgpcm.livejournal.com]

I'm more worried about the future where someone has found an easy trick to factoring large primes.

[stgpcm.livejournal.com]

... or the products of large primes.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Heh, yes, you commented just in time there :-)

You might be interested in this...

[lovingboth]

You are Bill Gates and I claim my $1b :)

[stgpcm.livejournal.com]

Ah... by making an OS this bloated and CPU hungry, I force the hardware guys to produce computers powerful enough to brute-force them...

[josington.livejournal.com]

I'm having to explain why provably unbreakable ciphers are unlikely, including a discussion of the Diffie-Hellman assumption, for my final-year project at the moment.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Communications of the ACM edition 09/2009 is all about the state of the P vs NP problem, which might be relevant. Of course even if we could solve P vs NP, that still only applies to worst-case problems, and we need average-case for cryptography.

The Wikipedia entry on "Results about difficulty of proof" is also interesting.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Well for most of the cases where science says things are implausible it's cos we already have a law or a thoroughly accepted theory as to why, it's just that, like in your cryptography example, not everyone is aware of all of them. So most people[1] know about light speed and that you can't make things completely invisible, but when the media goes on about quantum teleportation and the like, that makes it harder.

[1] OK, maybe that's wishful thinking

[djm4]

Indeed. And some people have never constructed even the simplest electron microscope, and are therefore a little hazy as to their capabilities. ;-)

Ok, straight up

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Well, not having any scientific knowledge or ability, when I hear a prediction about the future I usually ask myself who is funding whatever is going on, or who might fund it in the future. Then I read the bumf to see how far they have actually got with it - I mean,for example, I understand that a quark can appear to be in two places at once, but I am noit putting money into teleportation research. Then I guess I give some thought to whether whoever is talking about it has read a lot of science fiction. Then I ask myself who might make money by lying about it. At some point I will also ask myself how much I want to believe in it/disbelieve in it.

That is assuming I dont think something like "that is just bonkers" and move swiftly on.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Also this XKCD says a lot :-0
http://www.xkcd.com/678/

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I think that it's weird that I've just written 4200 words on how bone density factors are going to affect any proposal for a mission to Mars and then you mention it on your LJ!