"How can we, limited by our current brain's capacity for 10^16 to 10^19 calculations per second, even begin to imagine what our future civilization in 2099 - with brains capable of 10^60 calculations per second - will be capable of thinking and doing?"The brains in the future that are referred to here are computers. Wolf responds:
"One thing we can imagine is that our capacities for good and for destruction will also be exponentially increased. If we are to prepare for such a future, our ability to make profound choices just be honed with a rigor rarely practiced by learners in past generations. If the species is to progress in the fullest sense, such preparations require singular capacities for attention and decision making that incorporate a desire for the common good."I completely agree with Wolf here. This is like a large scale version of Spiderman's "With great power comes great responsibility". I hope that humanity can make moral progress forwards. With a sense of common good and technology to assist us, we can do great things.
I am highly interested in this topic because if I ever have the privilege of designing a piece of technology, I want it to have positive impact and not be abused. While mankind always has the choice to misuse something which is good, I sometimes wonder: Is it possible to design something which by its very nature encourages the user to use it properly, or use it for good?
