Word: expect
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...sized, skinny and affable to the point of goofiness, Rudenstine is hardly the imposing figure one might expect from a giant in American higher education...
...plaintiffs: Don't expect any crying for David Koresh. Caddell has long claimed that his opening arguments would kick off with the words "I am not here to defend David Koresh." He'd much prefer that the trial deal not with why the FBI siege began, but with how it was ended: with a plan whose tactics had critics within the law-enforcement agency, whose execution was less than perfect, and the end result of which was the fiery death of women and children as well as the bad guys. Who started the fire - the key point for conspiracy theorists...
With so many powerful forces in play, technology could hyperaccelerate to the stars with stunning rapidity, or it could stall completely. My expectation is that it will do both, with various technologies proceeding at various rates. The new technologies may be self-accelerating, but they are not self-determining. They are the result of ever renegotiated agreement with society. Because they are so potent, their paths may undergo wild oscillations, but I think the trend will be toward the dynamic middle: much slower than the optimists expect, much faster than the pessimists think humanity can bear...
...researchers are taking apart the simplest living bacteria--mycoplasmas--whose genome can be stored in less than a quarter of a megabyte, to better understand the process of life at the molecular level. Meanwhile, computer programs that reproduce and evolve are starting to exhibit behaviors we expect from simple living creatures, such as interaction with complex environments and sexual reproduction. Artificial life forms that "live" inside computers have evolved to the point where they can chase prey, evade predators and compete for limited resources...
...expect to see multiple species of robots appearing over the next few decades. There will be those that will be our appliances as well as those toward which we will feel more and more empathy. One day the latter will call our bluff and ask us to treat them as well (or as badly) as we treat one another. If they are unlucky, their prayers just may be answered...