Plenary Session: Welcoming Remarks
The Honorable Duncan Moore
Director for Technology, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
I am really pleased to be here and be part of the opening of this meeting. One of the things we have learned during this administration is that support for science and technology is fairly broad among the society. People think science and technology is good. They couple it with economic growth, thanks to Alan Greenspan, who speaks often about the role technology has played in the growth of the economy during this last decade. However, we have also learned that there is a limit to how much Congress will appropriate for science and technology, especially if our requests are articulated as increases for physics, chemistry, engineering or other disciplines. If we want really large increases in funding for science and technology we have to relate those increase to initiatives.
Most of you know that two years ago we went to Congress and asked for about a 32% increase in funding for information technology. We actually got that increase. This year, we asked for a 35% increase and it looks as though that will be accepted as well. Another important initiative is nanotechnology. Instead of technology where we take a large element and reduce it to its components, nanotechnology builds materials up, atom by atom, by atom, by atom. In doing that, we create different types of materials. Both initiatives, we believe, are going to be important for our economy over the next decade.
There is also entirely different way to look at the problem and that is why we have come to this meeting. About three years ago, a group of us actually had a meeting to talk about where science and technology might be heading. We started with the President’s State of the Union Address from that year and we wrote on the blackboard all of the themes contained within it; not the science and technology themes, just the themes. The first theme was on children, the second crime, the third on social security, and so forth. We then proceeded to go down this list and put the word tech after each one of them and thought about how technology can support each one. We generated words like “Kid Tech” and thought about how technology can help children learn. “Crime Tech”? No, it was not the idea of how to generate new crimes using technology. It was how to use technology to reduce the costs we spend in this country for incarceration, policing, and the judicial system. We spend $100 billion on those three items alone. And those are just the costs that could be easily identified.
When it came to “social security tech”, it didn’t ring very well. We thought about “Elder Tech”, but we soon found out there are no elderly people in America! After much discussion, we finally came up with “Technology for Successful Aging”. No matter the name, the idea is the following: “How do we use technology to allow people to live independently longer?” If they live independently longer, the quality of life is higher, the cost to the individual is be lower, and the cost to the Federal Treasury is lower.
An example I use often is that of becoming deaf later in life. Deafness is a very debilitating disease. If I became deaf, I would want to build directional microphones in the bows of my glasses. Directional microphones are necessary because I am going to want a voice recognition system that I can use in any environment, not just in an office, where they work very well as long as there is no background noise. I want to be able to look at someone or something and only pick up sound in that field of view. I also want a voice recognition system that is speaker and accent independent. Current systems require you to train them by speaking clearly and distinctly. Most importantly, you know the word you spoke, so if the computer makes a mistake, you can correct it. However, if I am deaf, I have not way of knowing if the system is mistaken, so the voice recognition system must be incredibly reliable. Finally, it has to be packaged in the frame of my glasses because I am not going to carry around a computer all the time. I am going to have to store an enormous amount of information in a tiny space. As it turns out, because of our investment in nanotechnology, we actually know how to store about three hundred 300 page books in the cross-section of a hair. Of course, we don’t know how to actually implement it, but that is just a mere engineering detail.
To finish my example, I need a display system on the inside of my glasses, so that as I am making eye contact, I am also seeing the words you speak printed in front of me. And I have the ability to communicate in real time. Some of these technologies actually exist. The display system exists. The directional microphones exist, but they are too big for this sort of application. The voice recognition system is a long way off and there is a lot of work to do on that.
So, we are asked you here today to help us plan for the future. Despite what we just heard from Jack Rowe, let us assume that some of our senses will decrease over time. We will tend to lose our hearing. We probably will lose our eyesight. It would be nice if we didn’t, but we should be prepared. We’ve asked people from academia, industry, and the government to come together to figure out if we can put together a major initiative in this sort of technology that would be like information technology or nanotechnology. We want to identify the problems that engineers, physicists, and biological scientists can work together towards solving. It is not something we want to do or the problem that will be solved the day after tomorrow. This is a 10-year goal. Later on today, I will ask you to think about the “Grand Challenges”. As we listen throughout the day and tomorrow, think about those issues that are important to your neighbors, your friends, and your family. And think about how science and technology can play a role in making them non-issues.