What We're Reading

Every year the silicon computer chip shrinks in size by half and doubles in power, enabling our devices to become more mobile and accessible. But what happens when our chips can't get any smaller? George Tulevski researches the unseen and untapped world of nanomaterials. His current work: developing chemical processes to compel billions of carbon nanotubes to assemble themselves into the patterns needed to build circuits, much the same way natural organisms build intricate, diverse and elegant structures. Could they hold the secret to the next generation of computing?

We've spoken of this from time-to-time in Chat and I never leave feeling very reassured for my children's children. 

Remember the milkman?  The corner newspaper paperboy?  The assembly line workers at Detroit automotive plants?  How about the shrinking postal service and empty ghost plants that were once steel mills?   Then there are travel agents and printing press operators; both almost eliminated at this juncture.

As we speak, millions of algorithms created by computer scientists are frantically running on servers all over the world, with one sole purpose: do whatever humans can do, but better.  According to some, the displacement of labour by machines and computer intelligence will increase dramatically over the next few decades. Such changes will be so drastic and quick that the market will not be able to abide in creating new opportunities for workers who have lost their jobs, making unemployment not just part of a cycle, but structural in nature and chronically irreversible. I