The Marriage of Inventions

Review by Patrick Tucker
The Coming Convergence: The Surprising Ways Diverse Technologies Interact to Shape Our World and Change the Future by Stanley Schmidt. Prometheus Books. 2008. 336 pages. $27.95

It is eighteenth-century France; Joseph Marie-Jacquard has just invented a mechanical loom that uses punch cards to weave cloth in a set pattern, a device that—when eventually combined with electronics—will lead to the invention of the PC. Two hundred fifty years later, the tech bubble pops, sending the prices of overhyped computer and Internet companies tumbling.

In 1896, Orville Wright tests the hypothesis that a machine heavier than air can fly, so long as the wings are shaped a certain way and there is sufficient propulsion. The experiment is a success. About 100 years later, thanks to innovations in building construction as well as flight technology, terrorists steer hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Center and U.S. Pentagon, killing thousands in a matter of minutes and setting off a series of events affecting many millions more for years to come.

Jacquard and Wright never imagined their inventions would cause such disasters. They could not have anticipated how other inventions or innovations would merge with their own creations to produce new technologies, opportunities, and perils. In The Coming Convergence, physicist, science-fiction writer, and Analog editor Stanley Schmidt argues that, as the pace of technological discovery accelerates, the world will witness more rapid and startling convergences over the next 50 years.

Schmidt begins by outlining key technological comminglings that have occurred throughout history, and their mixed results. The invention of the microphone made possible the amplification of “quiet” instruments like the guitar, leading eventually to the electric guitar and to rock and roll. The same technology, combined with the piano, produced the synthesizer and eighties New Wave—a bold step forward or an unfortunate one, depending on your affinity for that particular genre.

The technology of X-ray diffraction, which can be used to analyze the molecular nature of an object being X-rayed, led to the science of genetics and the mapping of the human genome. In the years ahead, genetic science will propel biotechnology to ever higher plateaus, helping researchers find cures for diabetes and even certain types of cancer. But genetics is also allowing millions of parents practicing in vitro fertilization to select the sex of their offspring and even screen for conditions like autism, fulfilling, in part, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World scenario.

What discoveries and innovations will create the convergences of the coming decades? In 2002, the National Science Foundation published Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, a report that identified key technologies likely to shape the future; chief among them were nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science.

“The report,” says Schmidt, “describes a ‘golden age’ and a ‘renaissance’ but will such a future really be that, or an unprecedented kind of horror—or something in between, with elements of both?... Powerful technologies can be used for powerful benefits or great harm.”

The degree of benefit or harm caused by these new convergences will depend greatly on how nanotechnology advances in the coming years, says Schmidt, stating, “That area, perhaps more than any other, holds the potential to interact so strongly with all others as to produce changes far beyond anything else in human history.”

He forecasts that, while biotechnology, information technology, and artificial intelligence will all advance in the next few decades, the impact of advanced nanotechnology on all three fields could radically transform human existence. Nanomedicine could bring forth in situ replacement organs. Nano-engineered artificial red blood cells (respirocytes) could hold oxygen longer than their organic counterparts, allowing people to hold their breath under water for hours on end. Space vehicles constructed from carbon-walled nanotubes would be both more durable and lighter than those made from titanium, allowing such craft to ferry humans ever deeper into space.

Nano-designed computer processors might show up in cybernetic implants (allowing for higher brain functioning), or in high-performance computers, and eventually massive parallel processing. Nanofactories could reconfigure bulk raw materials at the molecular level, transforming trash into clothes, materials, or even food.

None of these forecasts will be especially new to anyone who has read the work of K. Eric Drexler, Ray Kurzweil, or J. Storrs Hall, whose book Nanofuture (excerpted in the September-October 2005 issue of

THE FUTURIST) Schmidt draws from heavily. But for the uninitiated, Schmidt provides a good summary of the most popular forecasts of the day. Where Schmidt’s book stands out is in the strength of his historical narrative. In his careful retracing of the connections and convergences of the past, he reminds us that innovation— whether manifest in a better machine or a better system—isn’t a static process. It’s a chaotic back and forth between inventors, their creations, and society, a process very much beyond any one person’s control.