http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/74/5tech.html
With so much going on in the IT world today, one can have trouble sorting out the real earth-shaking technologies from those which are just causing the jello to ripple. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags [mentioned several times before in this blog], 3D printing, biosimulation, self-aware computers [also touched on previously], and distributed power generation are the selected candidates here.
Of all of these, I think that self-aware computers, followed by 3-D printing, probably have the potential for the deepest impact, because the combination could give rise to machine propagation. It is hard to see how a self-aware machine capable of both these functions and able to communicate in a naturalistic manner could not be granted personhood.
Posted by jho at October 2, 2003 11:31 AM