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Growing up in the Alps, close to the stars, made

conceive the dream of being a fighter pilot.

He was prevented by his visual deficiencies, but he has flown far and high.

Since he couldn't fly,

before becoming responsible for a $20 million project at McDonell Douglas: the development of much of the F18 fighter's systems.

Since 2001 he has been a professor of the Apollo Program of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Institute for Data, Systems and Society, both belonging to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

as airplanes, cars, printers, critical infrastructure... In fact, he served two years (2016-2018) as Senior Vice President of Technology Planning at Airbus.

An experience that he has just collected in the book Technology Roadmapping and Development: A Quantitative Approach to the Management of Technology (Springer).

To see the future of innovation is to see the future of the human species

, the challenges for its survival and the possible solutions, a topic that he analyzed a few days ago in a talk organized by Banco Santander as part of its X Innovation Xperts program, of which Advisory Council is a member.

Will machines put us out of work?

How much will human capabilities increase as a result of genetic engineering and technological implants in our bodies?

Will we stop the consequences of global warming?

De Weck's verdict: cautious optimism.

Can the future evolution of technology be predicted? In my book I say that technology planning is different from technology prediction.

Technology is not like the weather, which progresses automatically, but thanks to human intervention, and it is not something that has been happening for only the last 10 or 100 years, but thousands of years, since

we begin to be different from our cousins.

I don't think it's true what they say that technology is advancing much faster than ever before in history.

If you look at specific advances like the steam engine, it's 300 years old and we consider it quite obsolete, but there are still a lot of them in operation.

Also, some technologies grow faster than others.

Information technologies, between 20 and 50% per year and those related to matter and energy, 5% per year.

In which fields do you foresee the greatest technological disruption in the coming years? I see three major trends.

The first is robotization, automation and artificial intelligence.

The most routine and predictable tasks will be taken over by machines, and the shortage of personnel right now in the industry is going to speed it up.

There will always be people in these tasks, but the machines will assist the humans, both in physical and mental matters.

The second trend is the modification and enhancement of the human body with physical and chemical technology, as well as genetic engineering.

People see cyborgs as something from the future, but we humans are already cyborgs: glasses, eye surgery, pacemakers, hip and knee replacements... The only question is whether they are permanent or removable, whether health insurance will pay for them and who can afford them.

A third trend has to do with sustainability.

Recycling and returning to nature and learning from it, the decarbonisation of the economy...

The second trend is the modification and enhancement of the human body with physical and chemical technology, as well as genetic engineering.

People see cyborgs as something from the future, but we humans are already cyborgs: glasses, eye surgery, pacemakers, hip and knee replacements... The only question is whether they are permanent or removable, whether health insurance will pay for them and who can afford them.

A third trend has to do with sustainability.

Recycling and returning to nature and learning from it, the decarbonisation of the economy...

The second trend is the modification and enhancement of the human body with physical and chemical technology, as well as genetic engineering.

People see cyborgs as something from the future, but we humans are already cyborgs: glasses, eye surgery, pacemakers, hip and knee replacements... The only question is whether they are permanent or removable, whether health insurance will pay for them and who can afford them.

A third trend has to do with sustainability.

Recycling and returning to nature and learning from it, the decarbonisation of the economy...

hip and knee replacements... The only question is whether they're permanent or removable, whether health insurance will pay for them, and who can afford them.

A third trend has to do with sustainability.

Recycling and returning to nature and learning from it, the decarbonisation of the economy...

hip and knee replacements... The only question is whether they're permanent or removable, whether health insurance will pay for them, and who can afford them.

A third trend has to do with sustainability.

Recycling and returning to nature and learning from it, the decarbonisation of the economy...

Should we be optimistic about the impact these technologies will have on the future of our species? Yes, I would say cautiously optimistic.

It is true that almost all the technologies created by humanity have had collateral effects once they have been scaled and have begun to be used by millions of people: accidents as a result of the implementation of air transport;

large CO2 emissions and traffic jams in cities... However, we are also very adaptive as a society and have developed electric cars to reduce emissions and tools like Uber and restricted areas to combat traffic congestion .

It seems that we have the ability to correct our mistakes and reverse the negative side of technology.

In any case, despite my optimism,

Yes, millions of jobs that people currently do may disappear, but millions of new jobs that did not exist will also appear

Olivier L. de Weck, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT

What role are ethics or equity going to have in the technological trends I was commenting on? Inequity in access to technology is not new.

By 1900, only a handful of rich people owned cars or could travel on steamboats.

When a new technology is launched, it is usually more expensive and exclusive, but once its production is developed and scaled, the costs per unit go down and more and more people can afford it.

And that will continue to happen.

Regarding ethics, the debate will focus for the next few decades and centuries on genetic engineering: the ethical view of technology tends to be the perception that if it is used to cure diseases or reduce mortality, there is no problem, but if it is used to enhance the physical capabilities of the human species above the standard, then it is not acceptable.

But the truth is that it is not clear what that standard is, it is different for each one of us. How much should we be concerned about the automation and robotization of human work? I do not think we are heading towards a future without work.

It has been talked about for at least two decades.

We used to be traditionally hunters and gatherers, then we gradually became an agricultural, industrial, information society... Yes, millions of jobs that people do today may disappear, but millions of New jobs that didn't exist.

Many will have to do with programming the machines, maintaining them, managing them...

What should a country like Spain do so as not to miss the technological train of the future?

When I worked at Airbus, I went to the Getafe headquarters on several occasions and I was always very impressed that the operations in Spain are smaller than in France or Germany, but they have many high-value programs.

Also that it was the Airbus headquarters with the most women engineers and in management positions.

If I were the Minister of Economy or Innovation of Spain, I would invest a lot in certain industries in which you have a certain advantage.

Of course, one is low-carbon tourism.

Spain could be a pioneer country in the development of environmentally safe tourism.

Another example is desalination:

we are becoming more and more certain that the water we drink will have to come from desalination and will have to be transported inland, because the climate is changing, there is less rainfall and aquifer reserves are rapidly declining.

Another area could be agriculture.

Spanish agri-food technology is among the best and most efficient in the world, which would allow it to be a benchmark in the production of tasty and healthy food, but also environmentally safe in a world with very high temperatures and a lot of water scarcity.

Of course, also in renewable energies... Of course, all this requires investing a lot in the educational system.

Another area could be agriculture.

Spanish agri-food technology is among the best and most efficient in the world, which would allow it to be a benchmark in the production of tasty and healthy food, but also environmentally safe in a world with very high temperatures and a lot of water scarcity.

Of course, also in renewable energies... Of course, all this requires investing a lot in the educational system.

Another area could be agriculture.

Spanish agri-food technology is among the best and most efficient in the world, which would allow it to be a benchmark in the production of tasty and healthy food, but also environmentally safe in a world with very high temperatures and a lot of water scarcity.

Of course, also in renewable energies... Of course, all this requires investing a lot in the educational system.

Olivier L. de Weck, professor of astronautics and aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Speaking of investments...why invest in space exploration with the amount of problems we have on Earth right now? At the top of the list I would put earth observation via satellites, because looking at the skin of a patient reveals a lot about his internal health.

Of course, space missions also make possible navigation systems such as GPS, Galileo, Glonass... Much less useless kilometers are covered thanks to them and that reduces CO2 emissions.

In addition, the possibility of establishing settlements on the Moon and on Mars forces you to think about how to guarantee the supply of water, food and the rest of the things that we have said will be scarce on Earth, but in a closed and very hostile environment.

Much of that learning can later be applied to solving that same problem on Earth.

On what horizon will we see human settlements outside of Earth? That will take longer than many people think.

First we have to get there, and for that we need affordable and very powerful rockets like Starship, the one developed by Elon Musk's company Space X, which is going to have its first test launch later this year.

If successful, she could become the Santa Maria of off-Earth human settlements.

Once you get there, you have to stay alive, and for that you have to figure out what and where to build.

In my research group we believe that the most appropriate thing is to dig a tunnel system, because it will allow you to obtain natural protection from radiation.

The third problem is the logistics required for regular resupply from Earth.

If we can solve these three problems,

it should be possible to create a permanent human presence on the Moon, Mars, or both.

And once that happens, the rules of the game will change.

Spain could be a world leader in low carbon footprint tourism, desalination, agri-food technology and renewable energies, but all this requires investing a lot of money in the educational system.

Olivier L. de Beck

Is there any technology that is currently being used in space missions that may soon come into our daily lives? I could tell you about some wonderful processor or incredible material that could be useful on Earth in the future as it happened in the 60s with microprocessors , Velcro, Teflon... that were developed for military use or for space missions and later ended up being adapted for the mass consumer market.

Actually, what's happening right now is the opposite flow: commercial technology has progressed so far that we're starting to import it for spaceflight, because it does the job just fine and it's so much cheaper.

For example, our department is launching small satellites called

that have integrated a Raspberry Pi computer [the size of a credit card], that were developed for hobby-type applications and that can survive in the space between six and nine months. All the critical infrastructures in the world today depend on the Internet.

Isn't that a great vulnerability? Absolutely.

I believe that each system and each infrastructure in our society is like a layer that used to function independently: the water supply, the electricity grid, physical transport, the Internet, the agri-food industry... However, these layers are increasingly they are more interconnected and rely more on the Internet, which accounts for a growing share of electricity consumption.

It is still below 10%, but it is increasing every year.

I think it is a vulnerability that should be better understood and solutions sought.

For this we will need detection sensors, algorithms that tell us which parts of the network are failing in order to isolate them... Of course, the great risk is still cybersecurity: that a virus is not detected and infects millions of servers.

I'm a bit old-fashioned and I like to have a mechanical emergency solution for everything, a small door that you can open if everything fails, even if you turn a crank.

I wouldn't remove those mechanical emergency solutions in any system just in case. How are new transportation systems going to change the way we get around?

I don't know if the model that I envision will be the one that ends up prevailing, but at least it does seem very efficient from the point of view of energy consumption.

For urban journeys or journeys of less than 50 kilometres, I believe that low-weight electric vehicles will prevail, halfway between current cars and an electric bicycle.

An extremely efficient electric car, with batteries that are very respectful of the environment (such as those made of molten salt), that you can plug in, recharge and give yourself autonomy for those distances at a speed not much lower than the current ones.

For continental travel, the solution will be something like

recharge and give you autonomy for those distances at a speed not much lower than the current ones.

For continental travel, the solution will be something like

recharge and give you autonomy for those distances at a speed not much lower than the current ones.

For continental travel, the solution will be something like

: vacuum tubes that run mainly underground and through which transport capsules can travel.

It is a very efficient system, because there is practically no friction.

The big challenge there is that you have to create this network of tubes and maintain the vacuum, which requires energy, but would still be very efficient.

Regarding transoceanic transport, there are two different approaches, one faster and the other slower than current mobility.

The quick one would be the Earth-to-Earth spacecraft launches that Elon Musk has proposed, where you spend a lot of the way coasting through space after an initial acceleration, so you're not burning fuel.

That would allow the Madrid-Shanghai journey to be made in 45 minutes.

It sounds very crazy, but it would be a real option.

The other would be to reconsider aircraft in the style of the old Zeppelins powered by oxygen or helium.

Of course they are slower than current air transport, but you can make them hybrids and have them move at 200 kilometers per hour without losing efficiency.

They would also be very spacious, comfortable, with Wi-Fi... If we are willing to travel more slowly, not much more, they would be much more efficient and more respectful of the environment. How will sustainability condition the development of technology in the future?

There are four case studies in my book: the car, the aircraft, DNA sequencing, and the Deep Space Network [the international network of radio antennas that supports space missions and picks up signals from the solar system and the universe. ] ,

And if I have learned one thing, it is that natural evolution has developed very efficient solutions from an energy point of view, because plants and animals have evolved over millions of years to survive even changes in the environment.

Much of that energy comes from the sun and is then converted into one form or another.

What I would say, in general, is that if we are willing to slow down in many ways, we could still learn a lot from nature in the development of future technology.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

because plants and animals have evolved over millions of years to survive even changes in the environment.

Much of that energy comes from the sun and is then converted into one form or another.

What I would say, in general, is that if we are willing to slow down in many ways, we could still learn a lot from nature in the development of future technology.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

because plants and animals have evolved over millions of years to survive even changes in the environment.

Much of that energy comes from the sun and is then converted into one form or another.

What I would say, in general, is that if we are willing to slow down in many ways, we could still learn a lot from nature in the development of future technology.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

Much of that energy comes from the sun and is then converted into one form or another.

What I would say, in general, is that if we are willing to slow down in many ways, we could still learn a lot from nature in the development of future technology.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

Much of that energy comes from the sun and is then converted into one form or another.

What I would say, in general, is that if we are willing to slow down in many ways, we could still learn a lot from nature in the development of future technology.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

A former student of mine is the CEO of a company called Cambrian Innovation that treats wastewater using bacteria.

He says that the best technology is the one you can't see because it looks like a completely natural system even if it's carefully managed.

And I agree with him more and more.

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