Policy Challenges of Accelerating Technological Change: Security Policy and Strategy Implications of Parallel Scientific Revolutions
Abstract
This paper examines policy, legal, ethical, and strategy implications for national security of the accelerating science, technology, and engineering (ST&E) revolutions underway in five broad areas: biology, robotics, information, nanotechnology, and energy (BRINE), with a particular emphasis on how they are interacting. The paper considers the timeframe between now and 2030 but emphasizes policy and related choices that need to be made in the next few years to shape the future competitive space favorably, and focuses on those decisions that are within U.S. Department of Defense s (DoD) purview. The pace and complexity of technological change mean that linear predictions of current trends cannot be the basis for effective guidance or management for the future. These are issues for policymakers and commanders, not just technical specialists. The summaries below highlight a few of the developments and implications in each area. The body of the paper includes significantly more detail. Transformational advances in biology, biotechnology, and medicine include personalized and regenerative medicine, neuroscience, brain mapping, biomanufacturing, and synthetic biology. Progress in robotics, artificial intelligence, and human augmentation is enabling advanced unmanned and autonomous vehicles for battlefield and hazardous operations, low-cost autonomous manufacturing, and automated systems for health and logistics. Advances in information and communications technologies (ICT) and cognitive science are being driven by trends such as speed, mobility, commoditization/open source, big data, the cloud, and the Internet of (Every)Thing. They are complemented by advanced decision-support tools and exotic computing architectures such as quantum computers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2014
- Accession Number
- ADA622058
Entities
People
- James Kadtke
- Linton Wells Ii
Organizations
- National Defense University