242
case of robots capable of limited “thinking”.
Even the chess machine Deep Blue could not follow the intelligence of a 4-year-old kid in everyday life despite defeating Kasparov, the world
champion chess player. The machine is only able
to play chess.
In this field the creation of real artificial intelligence is targeted by new development projects. This would make robots capable of
recognising regularities. In a specific field the
greatest achievement made the robot capable of
explaining the results to its creators after recognising something new. (A software had to be
composed for making the robot capable of this.)
Since robots work very fast the time required to
acquire knowledge is shortened significantly
which makes the integration of new knowledge
even faster.
We can be sure that autocatalytic technologies will change the society as well as the classic industrial revolution did. We can only hope
that the society as a complex adaptive system
will change in the right direction and becomes
fairer, more developed, peaceful, accommodating to the natural environment better than today.
For this, of course, the approach of the society
as a whole has to develop that would be made
possible—in the opinion of the authors—by the
new education system coming into general use.
The time required for the above process is hard
to estimate, if it will be realised at all. It has to
be also mentioned related to sustainable economic growth that energy is necessary for production, the transport of products and labour
and even for consumption as well. Technology
advances in a right direction in this respect as
well. Environmentally sound renewable energy
production methods spread faster and faster.
Solar and wind energy seem to be especially
promising as their investment costs are decreasing. Shifting to new forms of energy production, however, is a long process, taking decades
and it is likely that countries with abundant fossil energy resources will deliberately slow
down the process. SDG 7 (affordable and sustainable energy supply) will probably be implemented eventually but 2030 seems to be too
early for this.
6.4
SDG: Decreasing
Inequalities. Possible?
The society has to be able to satisfy the basic
needs of everyone, and this is a minimum condition of sustainable development. Currently our
society is far from this as presented in Sect. 6.1.
Several scientists think that humanity produces
the material goods that would be enough to satisfy the basic needs of 7.5 billion people.
Moreover, the development of production would
make the production of goods enough for 10–12
billion people even if the technical revolution
steered by nanofactories was not realised. The
problem therefore lies not in the volume of production but in the procedure of distribution. It is
likely that a fundamental change in this respect
would be realistic in a post-capitalist time period.
Regarding this, only obscure, completely illusory
ideas have been published in the literature.
Assadourian (2010), for example, considers
the complete transformation of cultural models
necessary. This transformation would involve the
rejection of consumer approach. Assadourian
(2010) thinks that the American (U.S.) and even
the European lifestyle would not work globally
from the Earth’s point of view. Eventually cars
and airplanes have to be “abandoned”. (This
seems to be apparently impossible.) Analysing
the data of Table 6.3 Assadourian (2010) comes
Table 6.3 Sustainable population of Earth at different
consumption levels (Assadourian 2010)
Level of
consumption
Income per
capita,
2005 (GNI,
PPP,
2008 in
dollars)
Used
biocapacity
per capita,
2005 (global
hectare)
Sustainable
population at
this level
(billion)
Small
income
1230
1.0
13.6
Medium
income
5100
2.2
6.2
Large
income
35,690
6.4
2.1
United
States
45,580
9.4
1.4
Global
average
9460
2.7
5.0
6 Steps Towards Realising Global Sustainable Development
case of robots capable of limited “thinking”.
Even the chess machine Deep Blue could not follow the intelligence of a 4-year-old kid in everyday life despite defeating Kasparov, the world
champion chess player. The machine is only able
to play chess.
In this field the creation of real artificial intelligence is targeted by new development projects. This would make robots capable of
recognising regularities. In a specific field the
greatest achievement made the robot capable of
explaining the results to its creators after recognising something new. (A software had to be
composed for making the robot capable of this.)
Since robots work very fast the time required to
acquire knowledge is shortened significantly
which makes the integration of new knowledge
even faster.
We can be sure that autocatalytic technologies will change the society as well as the classic industrial revolution did. We can only hope
that the society as a complex adaptive system
will change in the right direction and becomes
fairer, more developed, peaceful, accommodating to the natural environment better than today.
For this, of course, the approach of the society
as a whole has to develop that would be made
possible—in the opinion of the authors—by the
new education system coming into general use.
The time required for the above process is hard
to estimate, if it will be realised at all. It has to
be also mentioned related to sustainable economic growth that energy is necessary for production, the transport of products and labour
and even for consumption as well. Technology
advances in a right direction in this respect as
well. Environmentally sound renewable energy
production methods spread faster and faster.
Solar and wind energy seem to be especially
promising as their investment costs are decreasing. Shifting to new forms of energy production, however, is a long process, taking decades
and it is likely that countries with abundant fossil energy resources will deliberately slow
down the process. SDG 7 (affordable and sustainable energy supply) will probably be implemented eventually but 2030 seems to be too
early for this.
6.4
SDG: Decreasing
Inequalities. Possible?
The society has to be able to satisfy the basic
needs of everyone, and this is a minimum condition of sustainable development. Currently our
society is far from this as presented in Sect. 6.1.
Several scientists think that humanity produces
the material goods that would be enough to satisfy the basic needs of 7.5 billion people.
Moreover, the development of production would
make the production of goods enough for 10–12
billion people even if the technical revolution
steered by nanofactories was not realised. The
problem therefore lies not in the volume of production but in the procedure of distribution. It is
likely that a fundamental change in this respect
would be realistic in a post-capitalist time period.
Regarding this, only obscure, completely illusory
ideas have been published in the literature.
Assadourian (2010), for example, considers
the complete transformation of cultural models
necessary. This transformation would involve the
rejection of consumer approach. Assadourian
(2010) thinks that the American (U.S.) and even
the European lifestyle would not work globally
from the Earth’s point of view. Eventually cars
and airplanes have to be “abandoned”. (This
seems to be apparently impossible.) Analysing
the data of Table 6.3 Assadourian (2010) comes
Table 6.3 Sustainable population of Earth at different
consumption levels (Assadourian 2010)
Level of
consumption
Income per
capita,
2005 (GNI,
PPP,
2008 in
dollars)
Used
biocapacity
per capita,
2005 (global
hectare)
Sustainable
population at
this level
(billion)
Small
income
1230
1.0
13.6
Medium
income
5100
2.2
6.2
Large
income
35,690
6.4
2.1
United
States
45,580
9.4
1.4
Global
average
9460
2.7
5.0
6 Steps Towards Realising Global Sustainable Development