5 technologies from the future: forecasts of inventors from the “Polytech” festival

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On May 27 and 28, the festival of science, art and technology “Polytech-2017” is being held in Gorky Park. Aisha Daily interviewed its headliners – brilliant engineers and inventors – about their vision of the future.

Intangible gadgets with mimic interface

“I think in the future, technological gadgets will be intangible. They will either be integrated into our body or into the brain, but they will not physically exist. It will be some kind of interface with which a person can change something with a wink or lip movement, if such gadgets are used for communication. Or we can, for example, order food through such things or fulfill some other needs, simply automatically, as if mentally, by sending a request to this system. ”

Out-of-body device

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“The proliferation of mobile phones has completely changed the way we move and navigate in space. We know when we will arrive at a certain point, and we can always contact the person with whom we are going to meet.  I think that, perhaps, there will be some other technologies that will allow us to “get out of our own body” – for example, to look at the world from the point of view of a drone. Such things, of course, will completely change our perception of reality, space and the world around us. ”

VR glasses that do not hinder movement

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“I only wore virtual reality glasses once. It seems to me that for now this is a subject too tied to physical reality, which greatly constrains our capabilities in this regard. Maybe helmets and virtual reality goggles will be used somewhere where a person is stationary, such as in airplanes. But in order to use such gadgets somewhere on the street, it seems to me that while they lack flexibility, they are not yet well thought out exactly as physical objects.

Art always uses the most advanced technology. This was also the case with virtual reality. As soon as something new appears, art tries to get a new look at the world due to this. ”

Artificial intelligence

I think that it will actively develop in the next 5-10 years. We are now technologically at the same stage in the development of artificial intelligence as we were in the development of the Internet in the 1990s. Then no one imagined what this technology would develop into. We thought it would be just such a huge encyclopedia, a big book. Then it was impossible to imagine such a thing as, for example, YouTube. They said that it was too difficult, that it would take a hundred years to develop video transmission technologies, but it turned out quite differently. In the same way, now it is difficult to say what the development of artificial intelligence will result in. When scientists create something new, they act as pioneers. Columbus sailed to India and did not know that he would find America, Ermak discovered Siberia and did not know what awaited him. Likewise, when we create new technologies, we cannot predict how their development will turn out in the end.

But AI will not be able to create works of art, because art is very much tied to personal experiences, human emotions. Yes, of course, the AI ​​will be able to draw some kind of picture, it might even be interesting.  In Switzerland, for example, there is a whole museum, where works of people with severe mental illness who were treated in clinics are exhibited. These are amazing works, you look at them and are surprised that the human brain could even come up with such a thing.  These works make a shocking impression, but, probably, they do not find a response among the general public precisely because they are based on experiences and feelings that are incomprehensible to those who have never experienced them.

“In the coming years, mobile technologies and the miniaturization of computers that make up them will be actively developed. Everything goes to the fact that even the smallest and most ordinary objects – a pen, paper, a can of cola – will be connected to the Internet. In my laboratory, we are also doing this, testing, for example, what will happen if we try to connect clothes to the Internet. Ultimately, this will lead to the fact that through absolutely any object people will be able to access huge amounts of information, observe the life of the whole world and be included in it. ”

Digital theater in virtual reality

“I am very interested in virtual reality. This technology will take its own niche in culture and art. With the help of VR, it is possible that some new direction in art will be created, something like digital theater. I think virtual reality will eventually become a very important technology for the entertainment industry. But I don’t presume to say for sure whether VR will be successful with a mass audience. Certain developments in this area existed back in the 1980s. I think today it is very important for VR to be useful for business, otherwise it will fail again.

For me, technology itself is not so important, the idea that I want to express in my art is much more important to me. I proceed from my subjective view of the world around me. This is exactly how I see the creative process. But, of course, there are also artists who start from new technologies and opportunities. “