What might happen is what I heard recently being called the "morality apocalypse" [1], i.e. technology is improving so fast, but we're not going to use it properly, probably not unlike when US used the atomic bomb on Japan the first time. It was a time when discovering the atomic bomb surpassed our morality by a long shot, and it took quite a few decades for our morality to catch-up to the technology, and understand that countries must not use atomic bombs against each other.

I fear the same will happen when we start using autonomous killer robots [2] (whether drones, or real Terminator-like robots), or when we learn how to make killer mosquito-sized drones that can assassinate anyone in the world anonymously, or when we learn how to use nanotechnology as a weapon. I think NSA doing mass surveillance of the whole planet "just because they can", also fits in this category.

I welcome all such neutral technological progress since I'm not a Luddite, but I also fear our governments hungry for more power or protecting their power and influence will use these technologies nefariously, probably long before we find out about them, in secret. And even if they get public, I fear most people will be too complacent to it, and won't revolt too much against it (US still keeps Guantanamo open, for how many years now? It's not a matter of technology, but the same point applies).

[1] - http://blog.joellehman.com/index.php/2014/01/morality-apocal...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYYx_im5QI

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/arms1112ForUp...

The entire notion of technology outpacing morality is itself a moral innovation.

Agree with your first paragraph. This is highlighted most by the whacky idea to "Switch off our fat cells".

It is perfectly possible to not get fat and enjoy delicious healthy food in a sustainable, affordable manner, but this appears to be quite outside the realm of possibility already.

(Mr. Kurzweil aparently lives quite healthy and probably fully understand all of that, but still advocates a technological solution. I remember fondly the old Civilization game, in which you could research mathematics and gunpowder, but also democracy and women's suffrage - cultural improvements equally valued as technological improvements).

That's debatable, but even so, what's wrong with that?

I'm much more interested in how we'll deal with Gibson's version of the future...

"And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human." -Count Zero

...than with how we'll achieve flying cars, curing cancer, or immortality.