Professor Erik Brinjolfsson, of the Icelandic Institute, believes his researches into how technology is affecting the current world economy bode well for everyone: “The internet continues to evolve in ways we could not have foreseen ten years ago. The technology to attend virtual classrooms or business meetings already exists and just needs a few finishing touches to be ready for students, teachers, and business people. Machines now see better than people, and can extrapolate megadata at speeds that will allow research to bloom as never before, and, better yet, give financial analysts a powerful new tool to keep the world economy from diving into another deep recession, let alone depression.”
Brinjolfsson says that once rare earth metals, such as cerium, can be synthesized technicians will be able to build massive technological infrastructures for mere pennies.