In a world of knowledge abundance, there are so many things to consider. Knowledge has always been the engine that drives human development – and it has been throughout history. Knowledge expanded in the hunter-gatherer days with the invention of fire. In those days, a human obtained all its food by foraging. Although the source of food did not change, fire allowed humans to cook food and consume more calories. The human brain expanded with this caloric increase, and soon we invented language – the first in a series of innovations that drove the growth of knowledge. All that followed – from agriculture to the great inventions of the second industrial revolution – enabled us to advance as humans. I explored that progression Here.

Now, artificial intelligence and the pinnacle of collective intelligence could take human development or destruction to another level. This Article describes an Internet of thoughts that will give people instant access to vast knowledge and computing power via thought alone. As described in the article, it could even allow the creation of a global superbrain that would connect networks of individual human brains and artificial intelligence to enable collective thought. If humans could access the world’s knowledge simply by thinking about a specific topic or question, what role does education play in this future?

Neural nanorobots provide the mechanism to accomplish this. They will be implanted into the human body and connected to the network in real-time. Once in position, they would wirelessly transmit encoded information to and from the Cloud in real-time. Is this science fiction or reality? Peter Diamandis (author of a recent Book on the future) just asked his Twitter audience this question:

Keeping with the societal lens that I will view these advancements through this year (see other polls below) I will ask a different poll question:

As this research is the focal point this year, your thoughts on these polls would ve invaluable:

Hologram Concerts

Catalysts of Human Action

Virtually Reuniting with the Dead