What will be the next revolutionary technology"

The industrial revolution was based on the steam engine, the use of coal rather than wood for fuel, mechanization of manufacturing, and the growth of the metals industries. Electification and the development of transportation systems based on the internal combustion engine, the oil economy, had huge economic effects starting in the first part of the 20th century.

I would suggest that the development of vaccines and pharmaceuticals had similar revolutionary impact, especially in the second half of the 20th century.

In my lifetime we have seen the Information Revolution based on advances in information and communications technologies. Biotechnology is having major impacts on agricultural and biomedical development and have major impacts on industrial processes. Nanotechnology has already been seen in the field of electronics and is likely likely to have many other positive impacts in other sectors.

I would guess that the next emergence of a revolutionary technology may be for a technology of thought. As in any revolutionary technology, there may be a variety of related manifestations. In the case of technologies of thought, I would expect one to be techniques, often medications, to reduce mental illnesses. Similarly, I would guess there will be a variety of pharmaceuticals which will enhance normal mental functions; indeed, I understand that the majority of college seniors today are using drugs to enhance their ability to study at critical moments in the school year and that the military is similarly developing use of drugs for critical combat situations. We are seeing a variety of applications of information and communication technologies to improve educational services, and I would hope that we will see an explosion of new and improved techniques to improve learning.

We have perhaps not so named them, but there are already many applications of information and communications technology which enhance human thinking ability. They enhance information gathering, data mining, and analytic capabilities. There should be a continued elaboration and extension of such applications.

It is increasingly recognized that Homo sapiens is a species that has evolved in communities and that we think and think better collectively. Social networking technologies are already enhancing our ability to think collectively, as is clearly the case with Wikipedia and the World Wide Web. The further application of technology to enhance collective cognition should be another part of the revolution in cognitive technologies.