This is the timeline for my fictional Netec 2045 universe. It’s mainly inspired by Ray Kurzweil’s predictions, but has its own flavour due to my focus on the economic and social innovations unleashed by the nets, decentralized organizations driven by advanced collective intelligence. At its current state, it’s not based on serious research, but more on my own informed intuition.
2019:
- Autonomous cars are legalized throughout the EU.
2021:
- The advanced cryptocurrency Aura launches. It is a much improved version of the Fluido currency from the Quantified Prestige system. It features a global universal basic income and a reputation income based on one’s Luminosity score.
2022:
- Moore’s law has finally officially ended. Performance increases of conventional silicon based electronics have slowed down massively. Besides researching alternative hardware substrates, neuromorphic architectures become a strong research focus for chip producers.
- Cortexand, a start-up specialized on delivering neuromorphic AI solutions is founded
2023:
- Seminal paper “An integrated approach to superior collective intelligence” was published by anonymous author Ben Skyland. It outlined the operational structure of the decentralized organizations later termed “nets”.
2025:
- Cortexand AI assistant NIA (Neuromorphic Intelligence Assistant) is released and quickly becomes very popular
- Another seminal paper “Adaptive decentralized collective intelligence driven governance networks” by Ben Skyland introduces the concept of govnets.
2026:
- The Netec Manifesto is written by Italian hacktivist Piero “Ultradrake” Ragone. It outlines the functioning and potential of the advanced Network Economy system that is supposed to replace capitalism.
- Two years after “peak fracking” in the USA oil prices start rising significantly.
2027:
- Netwish, the neuromorphic open source AI system for optimizing collective intelligence reaches version 1.0
- A global economic crisis hits the world
2028:
- The Youroid One home android / gynoid is released and used in private homes
- Hyperinflation massively devalues the US Dollar, the Euro, then Yen, and the Yuan all at the same time. Wherever people can, they switch to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Aura.
2029:
- The World Bank issues the new world reserve currency Terra to provide an alternative to the big faltering national currencies. However, many people are disappointed by the rather old-fashioned currency and rely on Aura for most of their financial transactions.
- While most conventional companies suffered severely from the economic crisis, the nets became even stronger and more popular.
- ERiNN, the Existential Risk Negation Network, publishes the paper “A universal solution to the control problem”, which introduces the concept of the peacenet.
2030:
- In one of the most spectacular moves in the history of business, the Cortexand corporation transformed itself into a net.
2031:
- The decentralized social network Humanet becomes more popular than Facebook.
- AICON, the Augmented Intelligence Confinement Operations Network, is launched in order to protect humanity against malicious augmented intelligences.
2032:
- Cortexand Generis, the first human-level Artificial General Intelligence system is introduced to the world
- Google transforms itself into a net
- UUN, the Universal Upgrade Network, releases its manifesto “United in Upgraded Existence”.
- The Youroid Two is released. It’s of course not as intelligent as Generis, but can at least participate in slightly meaningful conversations.
2033:
- The performance of carbon based electronics finally surpasses the stagnating performance of silicon based electronics.
- The financial markets start favouring nets strongly. As a result, many corporations transform themselves into nets, while the others decline sharply.
- Due to disagreements with AICON policies, the UUN launches its own peacenet: SHIELD, the SuperHuman Intelligence Existential Layer of Defence.
2034:
- Reactionary anti-net legislation triggers a civil war in the USA. Nets around the world support the resistance against the US government. Especially the Netec Storm hacktivist net is waging a fierce cyber- and information war against the US government forces. The US threatens to attack other countries, if they don’t assist in the war against the net “terrorists”
2035:
- First neural nanomachines start interconnecting neurons with electronic devices
- The threats made by the US government coerce many nations into declaring nets as terrorist organizations, which effectively triggers a global civil war between nets and governments.
- Iceland is occupied by the US for its refusal to support the anti-net war. This triggers a chaotic split of the NATO into US supporters and US opponents. Opportunistically, the US opponents join forces with the BRICS countries, and World War 3 begins. It’s waged between the hastily founded Net Coalition (NC) and the United States of the World (USW).
- As a military project, the US government uploads the first human brain to an electronic computer system
2036:
- Mature wireless energy transmission systems start being used
- For hampering its military AGI research the USW declare AICON as their enemy. As a result, AICON, the Netec Storm, and the NC join forces for a cyber attack of unprecedented proportions. USW forces are quickly overwhelmed and start changing sides at an accelerating pace. A few weeks later, the USA surrender unconditionally to the NC. In the following month the remaining USW states surrender unconditionally, too. The NC sets up interim governments that oversee the transition from conventional government to govnets. As surprisingly swift war involving mostly combat between automated forces, WW3 only cost the lives of 150,000 armed human combatants. However, more than 3 million civilians were killed during the global civil war and WW3.
- The Youroid Three is based on the Cortexand Generis AGI system and passes the Turing Test after some amount of training.
2037:
- The Aurelian manifesto “Our Golden Age of Humanity” is released by the Aurelia net.
- Being the winners of WW3 most the states of the NC quit their alliance with the nets in order to preserve their power. Having worked closely with the nets, this stance angers a lot of people. As a consequence, many factions and parties arise who promise to shut down conventional governments and replace them with govnets. The factions and parties are swiftly declared unconstitutional and illegal. This triggers a second round of global revolutions.
- In his book Anima Age, the Japanese philosopher and computer scientist Tetsuya Araya proposes to upgrade the collective intelligence of nets with specialised AGI systems. The anima or integrator of a net would assimilate the knowledge of the most important participants of the net, increase its quality of deliberation, and act as its spokesperson.
2038:
- The neural nanomachine driven telepathic and empathic network Nounet is launched.
- Disregarding “national sovereignty”, many govnets of the previous USW support the revolutionaries in the former NC countries. This triggers World War 4, the final war between all remaining governments and all govnets.
2039:
- Brazil, South-Africa, and many other countries surrender to the govnets.
- The Youroid Four already possesses general genius level of intelligence, which is perceived as frightening by many users
2040:
- Russia, India, and most other countries surrender to the govnets.
- The Chinese government engages in experiments to uplift non-human animals to human levels of intelligence for military purposes.
2041:
- China, Iran and all other remaining countries except for North Korea surrender to the govnets.
- Most people and govnets now cooperate with the Earth govnet (also called Earthnet), which provides direct global governance.
- The performance of photonic devices surpasses the performance of electronic devices.
2042:
- North Korea surrenders to the govnets. This finally ends World War 4. Compared to WW3, World War 4 was terrifyingly violent and ruthless. In a desperate attempt to ensure their victory, the governments used nuclear, biological, chemical, and nanotechnological weapons for deterring their opponents – civilians were usually the primary target. As a result, the total casualty toll of WW4 was close to 200 million humans, or about 2 percent of the global population.
- AICON classifies the integrators of several nets as superhuman intelligences and “potentially threatening”.
2043:
- Global peace and unity ushers an unprecedented economic and technological boom. Under Earthnet governance, the solar system starts being colonized
- The Declaration of Anthropoid Rights is ratified by some govnets, but not by Earthnet.
2044:
2045:
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The performance of photonic cyberbrains supasses that of biological human brains on every measure.