Dark Thoughts Trouble Michio Kaku’s Otherwise Wonderful Dreams

Michio Kaku spends a lot of time envisioning the amazing upcoming technologies that are getting close enough to touch. It’s a mostly positive endeavor, except for some troubling and unnerving possibilities Kaku refers to as “wildcards.” These unanticipated uses of tech threaten to turn happy futuristic dreams into nightmares.

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We’re actually seeing these things happen more and more. No sooner had our initial excitement about 3D printing peaked than we began to hear about this technology being the driver behind a new industry that produces homegrown weapons. One of the most exciting aspects of modern tech is how quickly it can filter down to the street, but guns. How about a person with the right skill set using a commercially available laser to fashion the uranium required for a home-bred nuclear device? Or a super-virus accidentally created by a high school student studying the manipulation of life forms in some future high school science class? Eek.

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It’s not that governmental or other official uses of new technology help a dreamer sleep too well at night either. In fact, their larger scale is even more likely to wipe us off the face of the earth. Kaku imagines a military organization losing control of a weaponized disease.

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Let’s face it: The first technology-based wildcard, one that’s been brewing since the Industrial Revolution, has already been dealt — climate change.

The scariest part of all of this is that of course you can’t preemptively prevent what you don’t expect to happen. It would seem we’re in for a wild ride, and there’s not much we can do but keep our fingers crossed and hold on tight. Unless someone invents a time machine, pronto. Because could possibly go wrong?