Say hello to the “Single Individual, MAssively Destructive.” Where one person can destroy worlds.
Several world-ending possibilities are suggested, along with one possible way to counter someone with the sort of technology we’ll probably have within a few generations, and the sort of twisted personality we’ve had since the first primitive primate looked at another one and thought “you know, this tree would look fabulous covered in Oooks blood.” That suggested possibility? “Panoptic Smart Dust Sousveillance,” a variant of utility fog that involves an unthinkably vast number of nearly microscopic surveillance bots. Why unthinkably vast? In order to keep every square inch of the worlds surface under constant and active surveillance. Several such bots per cubic meter of air. Every human would have *many* bots watching them at all times. Complete privacy would become impossible… or, if someone achieved it, it would immediately raise flags.
The only way to manage such a system would be through a massively powerful AI system, with only a relatively trivial human involvement. The idea of such a surveillance state is of course horrifying to any self-respecting citizen… but honestly, I’m not sure I can come up with alternatives beyond a really effective human diaspora out into space. A few years ago, scientists created a viable polio virus from scratch. It will not be long before an entirely artificial, ferociously deadly virus can be created in a lab. And it will be relatively soon after that the same ability will filter down to the consumer level, just as room-sized “supercomputers” shrank down to solar powered digital watch-calculators that were sold alongside gum and candy in the checkout aisles of second-rate dollar stores.
Any way you look at it: the world a hundred years from now, perhaps much sooner, will be virtually unrecognizable to the likes of us.
