What will the future hold?

The festivities are past their peak, the days are growing longer and we can look ahead to what the new year may bring. The holiday season is a natural break in the tempo of life and gives us a bit of space to reflect on what has happened and where we want to go. Despite some suggestions that there are better times in the year to set goals and achieve them, we are conditioned to do so in January. I am just as guilty of this as others, often commenting about New Year resolutions at this time of year. We still set our personal and career goals, even though the past five years have shown more than ever that unpredicted external events can thwart the best laid plans. However, for the sake of having some control and direction, it is important to have at least an outline plan.

When it comes to predicting what may happen with technology and non-destructive testing (NDT), we only have to look at the general trends of the previous years and extrapolate them forward. No doubt there will be more talk of artificial intelligence (AI), the application of machine learning and digital twins. The latter means different things to different people. NDE 4.0 is still with us, but that has not stopped talk of NDE 5.0. This is said to be about human-machine reconciliation, addressing shortcomings of the fourth revolution, fulfilling major sustainability goals and quantum computers.

It is a braver person than I who can predict the changes we will see in 2025 and subsequent years, but I believe that by learning lessons from history we can be more efficient in the implementation of recent and new technologies. In July, Nicole Kobie published a book, titled: Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Technology Still isn’t Here, which examined why some futuristic ideas never came to fruition. Writing about the failure to produce a fully driverless car, she reminds us that the technology is being used to assist the driver in conventional cars, thereby enhancing safety. A reviewer of the book concluded that technology fails when people do not get what they need, asking: “Do we really want the future today? Or just the present improved?” This brings to mind the words of another columnist who likened AI to plastic: it is very useful but generates a lot of garbage.

When it comes to giving the market what it needs, it is important to actually involve the users in the development of any product or process. I have come across a number of examples of where a potential product has been improved through dialogue with end-users. The crux of this is diversity of experience and thought, balancing knowledge of what technology could do with the practicalities needed to deliver improvements. In 1953, Hyman Rickover, the father of the US Navy’s nuclear programme, wrote a ‘Paper Reactor’ memo (https://whatisnuclear.com/rickover.html) to point out the differences of opinion on nuclear reactor design between the academics and the people who actually had to build them. Things have moved on since then, but an understanding of practical implementation is still essential before good ideas can actually realise meaningful benefits for end-users.

This dialogue requires an open mind; the realisation that there are limits to your knowledge and that other people with different perspectives can enhance the final outcome. This was brought home to me only today while listening to the radio. There was an interview with Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian biochemist and Nobel laureate who is also on the BBC’s list of 100 Women for 2024. When she set out to do research on modified messenger RNA (mRNA), she failed to obtain any grants because the prevailing technological focus at the time was on genes. Her acclaimed research was used by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna to create COVID-19 vaccines. So I, for one, am glad that she persisted.

Other examples of establishments being closed to suggestions that run contrary to their conventional wisdom are provided in Sounds of Life, a book by Karen Bakker. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in how digital technologies are opening up new insights into the use of sound within the natural environment.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a happy 2025.

Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author’s own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within NDT News. They do not represent the views of Amentum or BINDT.

Letters can be mailed to The Editor, NDT News, Midsummer House, Riverside Way, Bedford Road, Northampton NN1 5NX, UK. Email: ndtnews@bindt.org or email Bernard McGrath direct at bernard.mcgrath1@global.amentum.com