What do you feel is the most important next big thing in technology?

[Sole-Warrior]

This is very difficult... So many of these options are very important. We need biotech to defeat aging which is responsible for about 2/3ds of all deaths in the world. Bio engineering can also be used to grow cultured meat, (taking cells from an animal and growing them in a rich environment like a dish) Could reduce land usage of meat by 99%, cut water usage by another 90% and carbon emissions by another large %. Also lets not forget mental reprogramming, thing about the ability to reprogram one's mind with nano or bio technology to be free from depression, engineering super happiness, and the capacity to feel agonizing pain. Obviously we need to know if our body's take damage, but there are other ways to sense damage without causing pain or suffering. There are a tiny group of individuals who can't sense pain, but they can sense harm to their body taking place .

Desalination already exists but it could still be improved. With climate change, we will need this to prevent water shortages.
Energy, we have to find alternatives to fossil fuels. Climate change and the fact it regenerates extremely slowly (taking millions of years to naturally build up). Things like fusion and solar are the future.
AI automation reduce human error, making driving FAR safer, could participate in replacing humans in dangerous jobs, and could free us from doing boring as fuck jobs, though a thing called technological unemployment is becoming a thing, so if we advance very fast in this field, the current model for work will have to change. A Resource Based Economy inspired by the Venus Project for example. AI could also help accelerate research in those other fields. In fact, advancements in AI would lead us towards the technological singularity.

Social engineering, with powerful AI comes responsibility. Fanatic groups ISIS or rogue nations wielding such powerful tools could further endanger the region. The Venus Project also has some pretty cool ideas in this.

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Where's the "nothing" option? I feel our species has progressed as far as its going to go - we have no future. I believe we will arrive at "The Great Filter" mentioned in the Fermi Paradox in a hundred years or so. We will never evolve to a Type II Civilization.

There is another option for the Fermi Paradox:
The reason why we have not seen aliens could be the fact they might be transferring consciousness to ever denser mediums, like biological creatures to nano-scale conscious sustaining mediums, than to the femto level and beyond. That is another explanation for the paradox which makes quite a bit of sense. Basically instead of branching off into space as large biological creatures, they expand towards denser mediums. (though some will still go to space, but it's very difficult to detect such tiny spacecrafts).

And plus, with virtual reality, the real world will become boring and expensive in comparison, further reducing the number that would want to expand off their home moons/planets making it harder to detect extra terrestrials.

[ItachiZaku]

Space travel. I need off this planet.

[PC2]

With climate change, we will need this to prevent water shortages.

Just the opposite for Western civ, we will have to learn to manage an excess of water. Temporary droughts happen regardless of warming or cooling cycles.

[Kathandira]

I would go with energy storage/power. There are many break through's that cannot be mass produced because they require more and more powerful energy sources which we cannot sustain.