Accelerated Development

What will happen five, ten, fifteen or more years in the future? Will mankind learn to harness the powers of his mind, manage all his resources of knowledge and creativity and create a better and more wonderful world? Will mankind use faster and better computer systems to solve the problems we are facing today? Will we be able to develop artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology, upload our minds on silicon brains, transform our bodies into strange and indestructible containers for our spirits, and cross the threshold into superintelligence? Or shall we continue to lurch from one disaster to another, one mishap to another catastrophy, one stupidity to another gluttony? And finally destroy ourselves in one blind moment of madness or mayhem? We shall see.