This topic emerged through a screening of emerging issues in science, technology and society in the context of the FET CSA OBSERVE.

http://www.horizon-observatory.eu/radar-en/index.php

The big picture

Some of the OBSERVE screening results reflect on possibly upcoming fundamental transformations of human civilisation.  

Future of civilization impacts

The future of our civilization could be fundamentally affected by developments in differ-ent categories.

1) Change of nature: 6th mass extinction, dying of butterflies and bees, long term ocean transformation, climate change

2) Developments and technologies: rise of the solar age, living below the sea or in space

3) Mankind: the rising average of age (nearly 100 soon)

4) Collapse through catastrophic food shortages triggered by a combination of climate change, water scarcity, energy crisis and political instability.

Artwork like David LaChapelle's Utopia: Gas Shell is reflecting on a world where nature reasserts itself in the world. Source: Aggregation of several;

Technological Singularity

The technological singularity is a hypothetical event in which artificial general intelligence would be capable of recursive self-improvement and thereby ultimately surpass human control or understanding. This expectation has long been voiced in Science Fiction but is also expected and discussed by several researchers. More and more such as physicist Stephen Hawking warn that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. FET proposals point out that in the field of artificial intelligence groundwork in fields like ontologies, knowledge representation, computational linguistics and cognitive systems is still necessary. Source: Aggregation of several;

Forest health

Forests and woodlands cover about 20% of Earth's land surface, and only a small frac-tion is undisturbed by humans. There is a need for a “future health care plan”. Forests still have an important function in the future, sustaining wildlife, producing timber, se-questering carbon, and performing other services. Tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress has become a hot topic in environmental science. Studies suggest that at least some of the world's forested ecosystems already may be responding to climate change and raise concern that forests may become increasingly vulnerable. Sources: Aggregation of several;

Underwater operations

Several underwater operations are researched and developed. Key issues are under-water: -gardening, -living, -(mini)robots, -cities, -streetview, -radio (graphene), -chemical plants, -charging, -flight, -volcanoes, -farms, -archaeology, - screening radar, -energy (wave/wind farms), materials. Sources: Aggregation of several;

Long term preservation of knowledge and timekeeping

The Long Now foundation is creating a library readable for 10,000 years. Rosetta is a physical archive—a 3.5-inch disc made of nickel, with 13,000 pages micro etched onto its surface. The disc does not depend on hardware or software to be read, only magni-fication, thus obviating the need to keep up with rapidly changing technology or the looming “digital dark age.” The Long Now initiative is establishing a clock that would still be readable for 10,000 years. Source: American Libraries Magazine;

Post antibiotics

Hazards concerning antibiotics or antimicrobial resistance are real. The malaria parasite for instance has a new resistance to malaria-drug and this spreads over South and East Asia. Bacteria that are immune to antibiotics might actually be deadlier than bacteria that aren't. Researchers might be able to bring back old, drug-susceptible strains. Some bacterial species really are weakened by the resistant mutation. Source: Nesta and several;

Extraordinary advances in facial recognition cause huge privacy issues

Extraordinary advances in facial recognition raise severe privacy concerns. Privacy activists mass-quit U.S. government committee on facial recognition privacy. Source: The Intercept Blog Unofficial Sources;

Space exploration

New ideas and developments concerning outer space abound: artificial life support space suits, space mining concepts, future space shuttle designs with a biosphere on it, outer space villages or nanosats which observe earth from space and an inflatable space elevator. Space related topics are one of the most popular domains on Kickstarter. Source: Aggregation of several;