Test Your Knowledge on Emerging Technologies and DARPA's Role in Developing Mili...

Emerging Technologies: A Summary

• Emerging technologies are new or older technologies finding new applications that are characterized by radical novelty, relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity.

• Examples of emerging technologies include educational technology, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

• Convergence brings previously separate technologies together so that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies and a new field of technology.

• Emerging and converging technologies are seen by some as offering hope for the betterment of the human condition, while others warn that some of these technologies could pose dangers, even existential risks.

• Some of the emerging technologies that have been identified as critical to humanity's future include artificial intelligence, 3D printing, gene therapy, cancer vaccines, cultured meat, nanotechnology, robotics, stem-cell therapy, distributed ledger technology, and augmented reality.

• Research and development, science policy, and patents provide inventors with resources to develop emerging technologies.

• Patents provide inventors with a limited period of time of exclusive right to their inventions, including artificial intelligence, robotic inventions, new materials, or blockchain platforms.

• In 2019, AI was the most prolific emerging technology in terms of number of patent applications and granted patents.

• DARPA is one of the sources of funding for research and development of emerging technologies.

• Critics of emerging and converging technologies warn of the risks of technological change, including significant unemployment, stagnant or falling wages, and increased concentration of income and wealth.

• Advocates of emerging and converging technologies believe that they could and will eliminate poverty and abolish suffering.

• As robotics and artificial intelligence develop further, even many skilled jobs may be threatened, leading to depressed consumer spending and economic growth.DARPA: Developing Emerging Technologies for Military Use

• DARPA is a U.S. Department of Defense agency that creates and develops emerging technologies for military use.

• The agency was established in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).

• DARPA's goal is to advance technology and science beyond immediate military requirements and expand the frontiers of technology.

• Projects funded by DARPA have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as the Internet and Global Positioning System technology.

• The Orteig Prize was a $25,000 award offered in 1919 by French hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris.

• The XPRIZE series of awards are public competitions designed to encourage technological development that could benefit mankind.

• The Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community.

• The Millennium Technology Prize is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland to individuals who have made significant technological advancements.

• The Methuselah Mouse Prize (Mprize) was established in 2003 to encourage the development of new life extension therapies in mice, which are genetically similar to humans.

• Science fiction has often inspired innovation and new technology, such as rocketry pioneers.

• The term "bleeding edge" refers to new technologies that are even more advanced, albeit with an increased risk due to the unreliability of the software or hardware.

• The first documented example of the term "bleeding edge" being used dates to early 1983 by an unnamed banking executive in reference to Storage Technology Corporation.