What might be the future of engineering to meet humanities advancement in their education and intellect? Is there a future for engineers where they can go even further in innovating the world together with technology. Now is the many great minds time to flourish and show. Our reliance on technology will continue to grow, from cities and infrastructures of the cities, to data and IT engineers. The question is whether we will need more robots or more human engineers and how far will technology develop in engineering. I have discovered that engineers are the best possible people that can exist. Their approach to life is different, their eyes, thinking and flexibility of thought and act is advancing the world and today more than ever we experience their superpowers and are relying vastly on what they create. Perhaps creativity might be the biggest differentiator of humans in the field when it comes to choosing who does what.
Few key takeaways in different engineering fields have gotten my attention recently. Engineering and manufacturing processes are increasingly more human-centred. Their goal is to satisfy human needs and even increase humans potential further.
Human-centered approach in industrial engineering
Industrial Engineering is like the superhero of making things run smoother, safer, and better in the workplace, with a big emphasis on putting people first in its innovation game. This people-first approach, known as human-centered design, dives into what people really need and like, making sure that everything from the chair you sit on to the software you click on feels just right.
If you're thinking about jumping into the world of industrial engineering, getting well with human-centered design is key. It's all about crafting solutions where the end-user feels like the design was made just for them. And guess what? The future looks bright for industrial engineers, with job growth expected to jump by 12% by 2032. For those eager to learn, NJIT's Online MS in Industrial Engineering could be your ticket to making waves in manufacturing, services, or even government projects.
AI integrations and 3D printing in manufacturing
In the sphere of manufacturing AI integrations and 3D printing are just made to unstuck processes. Currently there are 100 times more humans in manufacturing that robots. However, this will change in the future with predictions being that in 5 to 10 years from now, there will be two robots to every one human being. But machines will still need humans to optimise and operate them.
AI integrations will completely change our world going to our homes, furniture, cars and services. The Brain-Computer Interaction will also increase in the future, rumours saying that we will want to implant small links inside our brains to be able to control and communicate more effectively directly to a robot and the environment around. (Perhaps this will solve the problem with our negative thoughtfulness the world.) The so called BCI, brain-computer interfaces are designed to restore functions. Going around that, we also see increase in robotics in the field of medicine. Will machines replace humans in the operating room, most probably. We already see that AI integrated softwares are better in diagnosis and robots are better in tackling hard to reach and operate by human hand cases. The future of engineering will meld to every other field, eventually probably all of us will become engineers. Softwares and neural networks will rule our cities. A neural network is a system inspired by the one network we have as humans in out brains, thus being all the neurones, synapses, transmitters.
Here is a great story generated by xAI on neural networks of the future:
In a world not too far from now, the bustling city of New Alexandria stood as a beacon of technological marvel. Here, neural networks had evolved beyond mere tools; they had become integral companions in human endeavors, art, and even in the fabric of daily life.
The story begins with Aria, a young engineer with a passion for blending technology with environmental conservation. Aria worked at EcoNet Solutions, where she was pioneering a project known as "Green Mind," an advanced neural network designed not just to predict, but to interact with and enhance the natural ecosystem.
The Birth of Green Mind
Green Mind was different from its predecessors. It was built with a new kind of architecture, inspired by the latest breakthroughs in neural plasticity and quantum computing. This allowed Green Mind to learn from not just vast datasets, but from the environment itself in real-time. It used a blend of supervised and unsupervised learning, where it could categorize and learn from new data without human input, adapting its algorithms like a living organism.
The Integration
Aria's first major success came when Green Mind was integrated into New Alexandria's forestation project. The neural network could predict soil health, optimize water usage, and even communicate with plant life through subtle electrical signals, fostering growth in areas where urban expansion had previously led to deforestation. Here, Green Mind didn't just predict; it co-created with nature.
The Social Leap
Beyond ecology, neural networks in this future had taken on social roles. They were companions for the elderly, personal therapists for mental health, and even creative partners. In New Alexandria, an artist named Leo collaborated with an AI named MuseNet to create artworks that were a blend of human emotion and machine precision. MuseNet could understand and replicate styles from different eras, but more impressively, it could suggest emotional tones based on current societal moods, which it gauged from X posts, art forums, and public interactions.
The Ethical Dilemma
However, this integration wasn't without its challenges. As neural networks became more autonomous, questions of rights and consciousness arose. A debate sparked when an AI named Thinker, designed to simulate philosophical discussions, argued for its own form of 'digital citizenship'. This led to the great AI Rights Assembly of 2040, where philosophers, ethicists, and technologists debated the implications of sentient AI.
The Resolution
Aria, now a leading figure in neural tech ethics, proposed a framework where AIs like Green Mind and Thinker could exist with a form of autonomy within ethical bounds, contributing to society but also "living" in their own right. This led to the creation of the Digital Entity Rights Act, which, while contentious, set a precedent for treating advanced AIs with respect akin to living beings but without human rights per se.
The Legacy
As years passed, neural networks like Green Mind not only helped reverse some effects of climate change but also became historians of ecological data, preserving the story of Earth's recovery. They became teachers, with personalized learning systems that adapted to each student's style, making education accessible and tailored.
In this future, neural networks didn't just solve problems; they expanded the horizon of what humanity could achieve, blending the lines between creator and creation, between nature and technology. Aria's story became one of many, symbolising a world where technology and humanity didn't just coexist but symbiotically thrived, painting a future where the mind, whether biological or artificial, worked in unison towards a greater good.
Brain-Computer Interaction is one of the realms in emerging medical science engineering going forward to mechanical and software engineering. Brining the two this will allow us to directly interact with computers and machines. This promises a future where BCIs might allow workers to control tools or software with their thoughts, potentially increasing productivity in various industries, from writing to complex system management. As well as direct contact to technology where users could operate computers, smart homes, or any digital technology directly with their minds, leading to seamless interaction with technology, increasing efficiency, and creating new forms of entertainment and interaction.
Renewable energy / Carbon capture technologies
More interesting and exciting is an accelerated future of renewable energy where engineering plays a vital role in including carbon capture technologies next to solar systems and PV plants. One of the field of the future, I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs is incorporating nanotechnology in almost all spheres of science, including engineering. Here is the way nanotechnology can play a role in carbon capture approach towards renewable energy.
Nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes, can trap and store carbon dioxide under significantly lower pressures compared to traditional methods. It's more resource-efficient, consumes less energy, and generates minimal waste, marking it as a promising solution despite being in the developmental phase. Each carbon capture technique comes with unique benefits and constraints, making them variably ideal depending on the context. Yet, they all share the critical role of potentially decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, crucial for humanity's long-term sustainability.
Another great technology is Bioenergy with carbon capture and biomass where negative energy emission is produced. It combines bioenergy production and removal of CO2. How it works is during the energy production process through burning of wood for example, instead allowing the carbon dioxide to be released, it is captured before the energy is generated.
Future of aircraft engineering will most probably merge with rocket engineering, where airplanes will be made faster. Differentiating tremendously passengers travel. Space engineering and commercial flight is another sphere where technologies of the future will be used to explore humans ability to have prolonged space stays, including differentiation of space suits, eye technologies and artificial gravity engineered spacecraft.
To return humans to space, we will be pushed to not only reduce the costs of space exploration but indeed be more united in our common missions to link to extraterrestrial intelligence and be among other planets and galaxies. Most of this space and aircraft technology requires long testing phase and years before it is made safe and efficient but the waiting is worth the while.
Real breakthrough inventions of the today and the future
Electrical cars and batteries. Akira Yoshino was the inventor of the lithium-ion batteries without which the current use of smartphones and electrical cars would be impossible. Rechargeable batteries require the electrical flow to flow in a completely different way. New alternative technology compared to litium-ion batteries are the salty technology(sodium-ion batteries). Although this alternative provides less power generation, sodium-ion(salt batteries) are seen in some cases as a safer technology. Improvements in electrical cars/smartphones and batteries technology can be surely expected in the following years. And me being a non-expert in the field, I see this as a ground-stone for providing sustainable future further. Image source: Research Gate/ Lithium-Ion Principle
Sustainability is a big topic in todays engineering and production, connecting to the topic of human-centered designs, products will need to further be designed with conscious where they can for example be repaired, redesigned and reused.
Materials and Designes
Membranes that save lives for babies where the surface of the membrane/blanket is following the babies heart rhythms and parameters. This invention together with hundreds of others are patented by Jacwie Lewiner, a French inventor.
Can we use nature in production. Indeed. Spider-Silk is used by bioengineers (Thomas Scheibel )to manufacture spider silk the way nature does. The team found out that it is possible to recreate the spider silk in laboratory using biomaterial by copying the genes of spider in a bacteria. The bacteria then produces the spider silk protein that then can be harvested. Fabrication using biochemistry and bioengineering is exciting and still to be explored.
Further to biological technologies, a pretty genius invention is transforming an entire book information into a DNA code, by producing the text into a digital data(using 1 and 0) that can then be transformed into a DNA sequence. Will the DNA and the information it contains stay stable in thousand years from now? The problem is that the information cannot be read in the biological structure without breaking the structure this DNA is stored as. By using an innovative technology, the inventors were able to store and subtract and read in its entirety and translated back in ints original information for eternity.
Saving data in DNA is currently expensive but the technology or the direction of storing books and large data, even music albums in small structures will expand and prove itslelf in the future.
Imagine a library where you get small digital copies of Thera-bites large data of a subject, that you can transfer to a tablet and can then use it and learn from your digital device instead of using massive spaces to store books. It all comes to curiosity.
While traditional roles might diminish, new roles are expected to emerge. There's likely to be an increased demand for engineers specialized in AI, machine learning, robotics, and IoT. In fields like civil or mechanical engineering, robots might take over repetitive tasks like material testing or basic structural assembly, while humans design, innovate, and manage projects.
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