Use the future to build the present … 2022 Science Breakthrough Radar … by GESDA, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator Foundation
November 11, 2022
We cannot predict the future, but we can anticipate it …
Science and technology are moving faster than ever, raising fundamental questions for humanity: Who are we, as humans? How can we all live together? How can we ensure the well-being of humankind and a sustainable future for our planet?
The 2022 GESDA Science Breakthrough Radar provides an overview of science trends and breakthrough predictions at 5, 10 and 25 years in 37 science and technology emerging topics, a synthesis of the related fundamental debates and actions in society, and an exploration of opportunities for concerted action through initial contributions on the implications for international affairs, global challenges, and the SDGs.
Download the radar here
GESDA was founded in 2019 to develop and promote anticipatory science and diplomacy for greater impact and multilateral effectiveness. The Science Breakthrough Radar was created by a global network of leading scientists involving more than 500 scholars from over 50 countries. They identified possible breakthroughs at 5, 10 and 25 years on four pivotal frontier issues in science.
These advances will potentially have a significant impact on who we are as humans, how we are going to live together and how we can ensure the sustainability of our planet:
1. Quantum Revolution & Advanced AI
Artificial intelligence (AI), already a world-changing technology, is set to grow in power and influence. Quantum technologies are already having an impact on sensing, imaging and metrology, and quantum computing and communications are also drawing close to meaningful real-world applications
Emerging Topics:
1. Advanced AI
2. Quantum Technologies
3. Brain-inspired Computing
4. Biological Computing
5. Augmented Reality
6. Collective Intelligence
2. Human Augmentation
Recent advances in neuroscience and machine learning have ushered in innovations for cognitive enhancement, improving human memory, cognition, and other aspects of consciousness
Emerging Topics:
1. Cognitive Enhancement
2. Human Applications of Genetic Engineering
3. Radical Health Extension
4. Consciousness Augmentation
5. Organoids
6. Future Therapeutics
3. Eco-Regeneration & Geoengineering
From the development of negative emission technologies that extract CO2 from the atmosphere, to the rapid development and scaling up of renewable energy sources — including the development of advanced materials and energy storage capacity — the decarbonisation of the planet has a ready roadmap
Emerging Topics:
1. Decarbonisation
2. World Simulation
3. Future Food Systems
4. Space Resources
5. Ocean Stewardship
6. Solar Radiation Modification
7. Infectious Diseases
4. Science & Diplomacy
Advances in science diplomacy seek to create an evidence-based foundation for this endeavour, and the increasingly diverse set of actors who practice it. One issue is how to train, incorporate and empower these actors at state level and at non-state levels, from global companies, from grass roots organisations and from non-governmental organisations
Emerging Topics:
1. Science-based Diplomacy
2. Advances in Science Diplomacy
3. Digital Technologies and Conflict
4. Democracy-Affirming Technologies
5. Knowledge Foundations
Knowledge Foundations draw on research from multiple disciplines and have effects that span numerous human, social and environmental spheres
Emerging Topics:
1. Complex Systems Science
2. Future of Education
3. Future Economics
4. The Science of the Origins of Life
5. Synthetic Biology
Other GESDA reads and reports
The “Handbook of Collective Intelligence” provides a comprehensive introduction to the multidisciplinary field of modern CI research,4 while Nesta’s “The Collective Intelligence Design Playbook” shows how these ideas can be put into practice.5 An overview in the journal ACM Computing Surveys of the diversity and potential synthesis of CI frameworks gives a solid grounding in the state of the underlying theory6. And a pair of books from Gianni Giacomelli outline the potential of combining AI and human networks to created “augmented” CI.7
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