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James Burke has a prediction, and it is just a little mind bending. Imagine all the people in the world had a machine in their home that would produce anything and everything needed to live, crafted largely from air, water and dirt, Burke asks. It is going to be either paradise or Armageddon, says the Londonderry-born author and television presenter.
It will happen in the lifetime of people who are living today is his prediction, arguing it will entirely upend the way society operates and warning the world needs to start readying itself now.
If this all sounds like mad science fiction, it is worth remembering Burke has some form and experience as an expert and futurist, the theory is sound, and scientists in various parts of the world are way beyond the conceptual stage of using nanotechnology to control atoms to make substances and build structures.