This book is about the future of technology. In it we will examine some of the many recent developments in a few key fields and try, in a limited way, to forecast where they will take us in the next fifteen years or so.
If that sounds like a modest goal, it’s not.
(Technology is the dominant force of our time and probably of all time to come. It appears in more varieties than we can count).
It changes so rapidly that no scientist or engineer can keep up with his own field, much less with technology in general.
(It permeates and shapes our lives at every turn.)
We live in technology as fish live in the sea, and we have only a little better chance of forecasting the details of its changes.
(Yet the task is well worth undertaking. Whatever hints we can glean about the future will help us prepare for the changes to come. Modest forecasts, evidence of trends, a few concrete developments to be expected all are better than no warning at all. And though technology has made the present much less stable than the past, and surely will make the future more turbulent still, there is good reason to hope that our lives, in sum and on average, will be better as a result.)
In an age of uncomfortable challenges, this is reassurance we all can use.
For an idea of what is to come—in magnitude if not in specifics—look to the past. In the last ninety years, the world has shrunk, while human experience has expanded almost beyond the recognition of those who grew up in our grandparents’ generation.
(A century after America’s founders conceived their agrarian democracy, nearly all their descendents still lived on small farms. Since World War I, technology has extracted us from behind horse-drawn plows and plugged us into assembly lines and offices. Today it is removing many of us from offices and letting us work at home or compelling us to work on the road.)
(As recently as 1920, the average American baby could expect to live only fifty-four years. By the early 1990s, average life expectancy in the United States had climbed to seventy-five years, seventy-two for men and neatly seventy-nine for women. In the next twenty years, life expectancy may well rise again, even more steeply. This time it will climb, not only for the newborn but for those already well into adulthood).
In transportation and communications, the changes have been even more pronounced.
(As recently as World War two, the average American lived and died within 38 miles (61 kilometers) of his birthplace. For New Yorkers, the radius was only 17.5 miles (28 kilometers), as far as the subway ran. Information from the outside came by newspaper, radio, or word from the traveler’s mouth; it moved intermittently and often arrived only after long delay).
In 1945, when the first atomic bomb fused the sand of Alamogordo, New Mexico, the shot was not heard around the world; rumors of a massive explosion in the desert were easily contained. Only a half century later, someone born in Massachusetts is more likely than not to attend college in Chicago, find a job in Seattle, vacation in Mexico, and retire in Florida. (News from London, Moscow, Sarajevo, and Pyongyang arrives instantly on CNN and, for growing numbers of people, on personal computers fed by the Internet.) From our offices in suburban Virginia and rural New Hampshire, Paris, Singapore, Buenos Aires , and Sydney are all as close as Washington and Boston, none more distant than the few steps to the computer. Around the globe, we will spend the rest of our lives finding things to say to people we will never meet in person. (Thus far, shared interests have proved easy to find).
译文:
科技推动我们的时代
这本书要讲的，是科学技术的未来。在本书中，我们会审视在一些关键领域中最新的进展，并试图从某种角度，来预测在未来的15年，这些科技将会把我们带向何方。
这是个听起来很普通的目标，但实际上不是。
科技是一股主导我们这个时代的力量，并且一直都会是这样。这股主导力量的表现形式不胜枚举。
科技又在飞速地演进着，以至于没有哪个科学家或者工程师，能够在他自己的领域里一直对其自身领域的前沿动态了然于胸，就更不用说是在整个科学界了。
科技还渗透到生命的每个轮回，影响着生命的形态。
科技之于我们，就好比海洋之于鱼类。而我们也只能对科技的发展，做一下短浅的预测。
但是，预测这些可以让我们受益良多。不论哪种关于未来的暗示，都可以让我们在它来临前，做好准备。适当的预测、潮流发展的迹象、哪怕是一点点关于未来发展的证据，都比没有任何征兆来得好得多。尽管科技让现在的世界不如从前那样稳定，而且注定会在未来继续引起波动，我们仍然有足够的理由相信：我们的生活，不论从整体上还是从平均上，都会变得更美好。
在一个充满令人不安的挑战的时代，这让我们每个人都充满了期待。
对于未来将会发生什么——无论从大的方面讲，还是从小的方面讲——只要回望一下过去就可以知道。在过去的90年中，世界经历了动荡，但与此同时，人类的经验得到了巨大的扩展，几乎超过了我们的祖父那一辈人所拥有的认识。
在美国的缔造者们完成他们的土地革命民主之后一百年，他们几乎所有的后代，都还靠土地养活自己。自从第一次世界大战以后，科技把我们从马拉犁耙中解脱了出来，又把我们投进了生产线和办公室里。今天，它又把我们从办公室赶回了家里工作，或者干脆让我们在路上工作。
就在1920年，一个美国人最多平均可以活到45岁。到二十世纪二十年代初，美国人的人均寿命已经攀升到了75岁，其中男人平均活到72岁，女人平均已经能活到79岁了。在今后的20年里，这个数字还将会提高，甚至会提高得更快。这次受益的，就不仅是那些新生的孩子们了，还会包括那些已经成年的人们。
在交通和通信方面，变化就更加显著了。
在第二次世界大战的时候，一个美国人在他的一生之中，平均活动范围就只是他出生地的周围半径38英里（61公里）大的一片地方。对于纽约人来说，这个半径只有17.5英里（28公里）远，大概和地铁线路一样长。外界的信息来自于报纸、广播，或者旅行者们的嘴里，这些信息是间断的，而且经常是滞后的。
1945年，当世界上第一颗原子弹在新墨西哥州阿拉莫戈多的沙漠中被引爆时，它的响声并没有被全世界所听到；关于沙漠中有一次大爆炸的传闻也很容易就能被中止。只是又过了50年，一个在马萨诸塞州出生的人，却很有可能会在芝加哥上大学、在西雅图上班、在墨西哥度假，然后在佛罗里达退休。从伦敦、莫斯科、萨拉热窝和平壤发生的新闻，马上就能在CNN上看到，有越来越多的人用的互联网上也能即时地出现。从我们在弗吉尼亚郊区的办公室到新汉普郡乡下、或者到巴黎、新加坡、布宜诺斯艾利斯、悉尼的距离，就像从华盛顿到波士顿一样，只不过是走几步到电脑那儿那么近。在我们的余生里，我们会不断地与来自世界各个角落，却又永远不会谋面的人谈论世事。在如此大的空间里，找到一个志同道合的人，就再也不会是件难事了。