Futurism

John Smart: Foresight is Your Hidden Superpower

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John Smart has taught and written for over 20 years on topics like foresight and futurism as well as the drivers, opportunities, and problems of exponential processes throughout human history. John is President of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, co-Founder of the Evo-Devo research community, and CEO of Foresight University. Most recently, Smart is the author of Introduction to Foresight, which in my view is a “one-of-a-kind all-in-one instruction manual, methodological encyclopedia, and daily work bible for both amateur and professional futurists or foresighters.”

During our 2-hour conversation with John Smart, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as the biggest tech changes since our 1st interview; machine vs human sentience; China’s totalitarianism and our new geostrategic global realignment; Citizen’s Diplomacy, propaganda, and the Russo-Ukrainian War; foresight, futurism and grappling with uncertainty; John’s Introduction to Foresight; Alvin Toffler’s 3P model aka the Evo-Devo Classic Foresight Pyramid; why the future is both predicted and created despite our anti-prediction and freedom bias; Moore’s Law and Accelerating Change; densification and dematerialization; definition and timeline to general AI; evolutionary vs developmental dynamics; autopoiesis and practopoiesis; existential threats and why we must delay nuclear power; whether we live in a child-proof universe; the Transcension Hypothesis.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this interview with John Smart is:

We must learn to see how physics, chemistry, biology, human culture, and technology are each catalysts for new evolutionary freedoms and new developmental constraints, at the same time. We must also guard against both overly free and overly determined models of the future. It is easy to get out of this evo-devo balance, and oversimplify reality. Exponential Progress: Thriving in an Era of Accelerating Change, PDF page 29

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is John Smart?

John Smart is a student of strategic and adaptive foresight, global futures, exponential processes, and complex systems. He is President of the Acceleration Studies Foundation nonprofit (est. 2003), co-Founder of the Evo-Devo Universe complex systems research community (est. 2008), and CEO of Foresight University, a foresight learning, and development company (est. 2016). For twenty years, John has taught and written on foresight development and the drivers, opportunities, and problems of exponential processes throughout human history. John has a B.S. in business administration from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in futures studies from the University of Houston, and an M.S.-equivalency in physiology and medicine from UCSD School of Medicine. He has an honorary Ph.D. in Technology Education from the University of Advancing Technology (2008) an Outstanding Faculty Award from the California Law Enforcement Command College (2011), and he lectures on personal and team foresight practice, leadership, and technological change at the Naval Postgraduate School (since 2012). He blogs at Medium.com, and his speakers’ website is JohnMSmart.com. John lives in Ann Arbor, MI with his wife and two young children.

How to Be a Futurist [Without Predicting the Future]

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A few weeks ago, a client asked me to give a virtual keynote on futurism. The client was pretty happy with how it turned out, so I thought I’d share it publicly. This way, you can hopefully enjoy, share, and benefit from it too. 😉

How to Be a Futurist [Without Predicting the Future]

Foresight is not about predicting the future; it’s about minimizing surprise.

Karl Schroeder

Famous physicist Sir Isaac Newton saw our universe as a pool table. Given that everything follows the laws of nature, Newton argued, if one knows the direction and the force behind each billiard ball, or each particle in the universe, one will be able to predict the future and what comes next. Needless to say, this is a pretty deterministic view that leaves no space for personal freedom, not to mention that it turns us all into mere billiard balls.

So, in a way, it is not surprising that the most common question people ask as soon as they find out I am a futurist is to predict the future and what comes next?

Well, today we live in the age of Google. So answers are free. Good questions, however, can be priceless because the better the question that we ask the better the answer that we are going to get. So the value is moving away from the answers and towards the questions.

Therefore, the question about predicting the future and what’s next, popular as it is, needs to be put into proper context so that we can see if it is the right question to ask in the first place.

In quantum physics, there is this phenomenon called the “observer effect” also known as “the measurement problem.” It refers to the impact that the act of observing produces on a phenomenon thereby highlighting the inextricable dynamic relationship between the “subject” and the “object.”

In essence, the observer effect leads to a rejection of Newtonian determinism because it shows that we live in a universe whose present is not simply “the effect of the past” or “the cause of its future.” So Quantum mechanics tells us that nothing can be measured or observed without disturbing it.

Furthermore, quantum physics annihilates the possibility of a strict dualism between the subject and the object, presenting them in a dynamic relationship where each is relational and reciprocally constituting the other.

I believe the same points hold true about the present and the future:

  1. The present and the future do not follow a simple deterministic path.
  2. They are not simply the cause and effect of each other but are liable to exhibit the observer effect so they are influenced by us.
  3. They don’t have a dualistic relationship of simple opposites but share a dynamic relationship where each is relational and constituting the other. So we can’t really put a hard line between the present and the future.

And, thus, to paraphrase Albert Einstein in our current context, there is spooky action from the distance of our present and well into the future.

Now, some have called the future a chaos system. And we know that there are 2 types of chaotic systems:

Level 1 chaos does not react to predictions about it. The best example of level 1 is the weather. It is an extremely complex type of chaotic system but we can model it, make computer simulations and then come up with predictions about the weather in a particular location at a particular time in the future. And, right or wrong, the weather itself will not be influenced by our prediction, one way or another.

The future in general, however, is what is called a Level 2 chaotic system. And the problem with level 2 chaos is that it reacts to predictions and therefore can never be predicted fully. One example of that is the stock market.

Imagine we have a computer program or some other way to make a 100% accurate prediction about the price of oil tomorrow. As soon as word gets out, people will adjust their expectations and the market price of oil will react to the forecast which will consequently fail to materialize. This is even more true of political and other major complex chaotic events such as revolutions, terrorist acts, political assassinations, even pandemics. The French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Arab Spring were all predictably unpredictable. Because revolutions are by their very nature, and definition, unpredictable, since a predictable revolution never succeeds.

And that is why the future is always surprising in one way or another. Because, as I said before, it is entangled with the present in a dynamic relationship and hence it is responsive to everything we do or fail to do.

So what is futurism then and why should we care about it if it doesn’t help us predict the future?

Well, we do futurism not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand how our present is neither natural nor inevitable and to find more future possibilities than we can currently imagine. That is why, in contrast to astrologers and palm readers, good futurists don’t make predictions. At best, we can identify the major drivers and, if we’re very skilled and very lucky, most of their impact. But we remain humble because we know that the future will surprise us in many, if not most ways that matter.

In other words, when it comes to the future, we are all driving in the dark, but futurism or foresight is like turning on our headlights. It allows us to see the road ahead much further down as well as the obstacles that are either already there or are currently on the side but could potentially end up in front. And it helps us to keep going towards our chosen destination.

To put it in bullet points futurism helps us accomplish 3 main things:

  1. It helps us identify certain signals that can manifest as either dangers or opportunities or both.
  2. It helps us game out possible, probable and preferable future scenarios and prepare for them.
  3. It motivates us to envision and create our own image of the future.

Let’s skip 1 and 2 for a moment and focus on 3. And let me ask you a question:

What is your image of the future? When you think of the future, what do you see? And are you looking 2 months, 2 years or 20 years?

Because “the future” is different for each one of us since it doesn’t exist outside of our imagination and since we all have a different timeline.

So when Henry Ford asked that question, he saw a car for every family and mobility for the masses. When Steve Jobs asked that question, he saw tools for the mind that will change humankind. When Bill Gates asked that question, he saw a computer on every desk in every home. When Elon Musk asked that question, he saw a transition to sustainable energy and a multiplanet species.

But the question is what do you see?

Because the future begins first as an image or a story. So would you rather borrow that image from someone else or would you rather be the author of your own story? Because I’m not convinced that Steve’s, Bill’s or Elon’s image is the one best for us – be it personally or collectively. And since the future and the present are entangled that means that the future creates the present just as much as the present creates the future. As Futurist Barbara Hubbard pointed out “As we see our future, so we act; as we act, so we become.”

Now let’s go back to points 1 and 2 about identifying signals and gaming the consequent future scenarios. Some of the drivers here are things such as disruptive technology or global shifts such as climate change or demographics. One of the common elements among those is that at least in the short to medium term we can’t control them. And things that fall outside of our control make us uncomfortable because they are uncertain. Of course, one of the reasons people want to predict the future is because we find comfort in certainty. This helps us maintain a sense of control that provides the perception or, perhaps, the illusion of security. But uncertainty creates opportunity.

So, for example, two people can look at the exact same technological, demographic, political, natural, or scientific development and one can experience fear and confusion while the other can come up with a brilliant idea. And it is their respective image of the future aided by what I call a futurist mindset that often account for the difference.

Now, compared to luck, futurism requires us to do the work, to pay attention to signals and trends, and to keep ourselves open to the unexpected. So, the key is to relax and let the process work. A process of finding the tricky balance between the unknown and the things we can’t control – on the one hand, and the things we can focus on and act upon now to adapt to the unknown, avoid the dangers, and utilize the opportunities – on the other hand.

Of course, this is much easier said than done but let me share a couple of examples to help us see how the process works.

Think about surfing. A surfer does not control the waves but they can control their skill of understanding and riding the waves as well as their image of the future. So, a normal person sees a hurricane as a danger to be avoided. But to some surfers, that same storm is the ideal image of the future. When we see a 100-foot wave it looks deadly so the idea of voluntarily trying to ride that wave seems insane. But to a surfer, it looks like a unique opportunity. It’s the same storm, the same wave but we end up with 2 diametrically opposed perceptions and reactions to it where one person runs away, another runs towards it.

This example may be scary but the same principle works also in sailing and many other fields.

A sailboat captain cannot change the winds. Those are external forces of nature outside of her control. However, having studied the weather trends, including those of the winds, and knowing the characteristics of her boat, the captain can identify her preferable destination and then chart and execute a sailing itinerary to reach it. So a good captain with a sea-worthy sailboat can go anywhere she wants.

This is how futurism is supposed to work. And that’s why you can say famous hockey player Wayne Gretzky was a futurist. Because he couldn’t control the game, he couldn’t control his teammates let alone the opposing team, but he learned to identify signals and trends which allowed him to go as he said “not where the puck was but where the puck was going to be.”

In other words, futurism is a mindset that can be applied to any field. When you think like a futurist, you pay attention to what’s going on, you identify signals and trends, and then develop scenarios based on the likelihood that any of those can affect things you care about. You then develop timelines to estimate when these expected impacts will occur, because sometimes being too early is worse than being a little late. Finally, you play out a spectrum of actions to avoid the dangers and take advantage of the opportunities while constantly monitoring how the situation is changing. More or less, this is the gist of futurism.

That is why there is no such thing as predicting the future. By observing or refusing to observe, by taking a passive or active stance, but adopting someone else’s or by creating our own image of the future, one way or another, we create it.

So, asking: “What comes next?” Asking “What is the future?” are the wrong questions. Because we can’t stop the waves but we can learn to ride them. Just like we cannot control the wind but we can control the sail. A better set of questions to ask is this: What is my image of the future? What current trends or changes can threaten or help me create it? How can I take advantage of those so that I ride the waves rather than get drowned by them?

This is how having a futurist mindset can help us navigate and weather a crisis and guide us to prosperity both personally and professionally. But, within that process, the one element that makes the biggest difference both for ourselves but also for those around us is our image of the future.

Because there is no escape. One way or another, consciously or not, the things we do reflect and spread the image of the future that we have. And that image of the future determines not only our emotions but also our attitude. But our emotions and attitude motivate us to act or not to act. That is why time and time again our image of the future – be it personally or collectively, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And one of the best ways of changing ourselves today is by simply changing our image of the future.

So other futurists and technologists may talk to you about future shock and exponential technologies such as genetics, robotics, nanotech, AI, synthetic biology, blockchain, and NFT’s. Or they can geek about the distinction between a signal and a trend. But I would argue that we ought to start with our image of the future. It is then we should seek to identify signals and assess how trends may threaten or help us create it.

So, to conclude, a good futurist is simply a storyteller. Because as Cory Doctorow says, predictions tell us that the future is inevitable, but stories tell us that the future is up for grabs. That is why Frank Herbert warns us in Dune that to know the future for sure is to be trapped because the present becomes prison. And I would add that a future you can’t change, where we are all but billiard balls, is not a future worth worrying about. But a future we are free to reach for and create is worthy of our best.

Thank you!

Futurist.COM Founder Glen Hiemstra on 40 Years of Futurism: The Future is Something We Do

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Glen Hiemstra has been a futurist for close to 40 years. But if you think his specialty is forecasting the future then you’d be wrong. No. Hiemstra’s focus has not been on the most probable, or even the possible future. Instead, Glen has chosen to focus consistently on what he calls “the preferred future.” This is also what he’s been advising his clients to do. And shouldn’t we all do just that, focus on our preferred future, be it individually – as humans, professionals, and citizens, or collectively – as corporations, organizations, nations, and even as a civilization? Because as Hiemstra often says “the future creates the present.”

During this 2-hour interview with Glen Hiemstra, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: what being a futurist means; major failures of futurism such as the collapse of the USSR; Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and Peter Turchin’s cliodynamics; the probable, possible and preferred future; science fiction as Greg Bear’s sugar-coated pill; why science helps us live more comfortable lives but the humanities give us reasons to live for; genius and stupidity as roommates; collective decision making as the #1 problem we are facing today; the Fermi paradox and the McDonald’s Theory of Peace; declaring wars and other national emergencies as a way of maintaining power; Barbara Marx’s futurist vision; compassion as the way for diminishing polarization; Ray Kurzweil’s concept of the singularity; technological unemployment and a guaranteed minimum income.

My favorite thought that I will take away from this interview with Glen Hiemstra is:

The Future is something we do!

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Glen Hiemstra?

Glen Hiemstra is the Founder and CEO of Futurist.com. An international expert on long range trends and creating the preferred future, Glen has advised professional, business, and governmental organizations for more than two decades and served as a technical advisor for futuristic television programs. He is the co-author of Millennial City: How a new generation can save the future, author of Turning the Future into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Future, and co-author of Strategic Leadership. Futurist.com is regularly visited by people from over 120 nations.

Futurist Karl Schroeder on Foresight and Strangemaking COVID19

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Karl Schroeder is not only a great science fiction writer but also a professional futurist who has mastered both the art and science. I invited Schroeder back on my podcast for a brief discussion of foresight in the context of the on-going COVID19 global pandemic. If you have not seen our previous 2 interviews you can see those here and here.

During this 70 min interview with Karl Schroeder, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: fundamentals of futurism and foresight; Isaac Asimov’s equations of history; change, our default future and why prediction is impossible; the new normal, or lack thereof; the impact of foresight on Alberta’s Oil Industry; strangemaking – i.e. learning to make the familiar strange; wild-card scenarios, COVID19 and the importance of story.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Karl Schroeder is:

Recognize the power of imagination and the unlimited possibilities ahead of us. […] Strangemake the world for yourself.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Karl Schroeder?

Karl Schroeder is the author of ten novels that have been translated into a dozen languages. Karl has a design degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation and divides his time between writing fiction, conducting workshops and speaking on the potential impacts of science and technology on society. He pioneered a new mode of writing that blends fiction and rigorous futures research — with his influential short novels Crisis in Zefra (2005) and Crisis in Urlia (2011), commissioned by the Canadian army as study and research tools. In 2011 Karl Schroeder attained a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University in Toronto.

Canadian SF Author Karl Schroeder: We’re living in a moment of creative possibility

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People often ask me about my most favorite interview I have ever done. And my usual reply is that interviews are like children, even if we have our favorites it is not wise to express that outwardly because all kinds of problems will follow. And yet, after having published nearly 250 episodes of my podcast, I can hardly remember one that has had a greater impact on me than my 1st interview with science fiction author and futurist Karl Schroeder. So if you haven’t seen it yet please go and watch it because I will try not to repeat any of the questions I asked Karl last time.

During this 2 hour interview with Karl Schroeder, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the major shifts or changes since our last conversation 8 years ago; whether it is harder and harder to write near-term science fiction; the collapse of our past grand narratives; alternative facts and natural selection; why we live in a moment of divergence; Lady of Mazes, the culture of technology and technology of culture; why the best way to become more creative is to have constraints; freedom, limits and infinite possibilities; Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety; Stealing Worlds, strange-making, tool consciousness, and identity; why Karl thinks that AI is a bit of a red herring; complex systems and predictability; why Global Warming is not a problem to be solved but a constraint to work within; pre-apocalyptic moments as a possibility to create something new; why code is law and technology is a value; transition design as a way to steer rather than control the future.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Karl Schroeder is:

What beautiful thing are we going to be forced to make in the next 100 years?

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Karl Schroeder?

Karl Schroeder is the author of ten novels that have been translated into a dozen languages. Karl has a design degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation and divides his time between writing fiction, conducting workshops and speaking on the potential impacts of science and technology on society. He pioneered a new mode of writing that blends fiction and rigorous futures research — with his influential short novels Crisis in Zefra (2005) and Crisis in Urlia (2011), commissioned by the Canadian army as study and research tools. In 2011 Karl Schroeder attained a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University in Toronto.

Nikola Danaylov on the Dissenter: The Singularity, Futurism, and Humanity

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A few weeks ago I got interviewed by Ricardo Lopes for the Dissenter. The interview just came out and I thought I’d share it with you to enjoy or critique. Here is Ricardo’s original description:

#131 Nikola Danaylov: The Singularity, Doing Futurism, and the Human Element

In this episode, we talk about what is meant by the term “Singularity”, and its technological, social, economic, and scientific implications. We consider the technological and human aspects of the equation of economic and technologic growth, and human and moral progress. We also deal with more specific issues, like transhumanism, the ethics of enhancement, AI, and Big Data.

Time Links:

00:58 What is the Singularity?

02:51 Exponential growth

04:42 What would mean to have reached the Singularity?

10:29 The trouble with futurism

15:35 The technological and the human aspects

20:20 What we get from technology depends on how we use it

23:16 Transhumanism, enhancement, and ethics

26:26 AI and economics

31:53 Eliminating boring tasks, and living more meaningful lives

36:37 Big Data, and the risk of exploitation

43:04 The example of self-driving cars

51:32 The human element in the equation

52:20 Follow Mr. Danaylov’s work!

Nikola Danaylov on Review the Future Podcast: What Do Experts Think About the Singularity?

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A few weeks ago I got interviewed on Review the Future podcast. Co-hosts Ted Kupper and Jon Perry did a great job in putting me on the spot and I enjoyed talking to them very much. So, if for once you are  interested in having me as “the man with the answers” then check out their synopsis below and listen to the audio interview above:

In today’s podcast we are joined by Nikola Danaylov, host of the popular Singularity 1 on 1 podcast, and a man who has interviewed 170 experts about singularity related topics. After establishing the meaning of the term singularity, we discuss the wide range of opinions held by thinkers in the field. We learn that although there is no single consensus. there are some clusterings of opinion, a few of which fall upon disciplinary lines. Nikola reveals that after doing his show for five years, he is less convinced the singularity will happen then he used to be. After walking through the various routes that could get us to a singularity, we discuss the validity of accelerating returns and the need for diversity in the future. Finally, we conclude by considering the current state of the futurist community.

Why The Future Will Be Funnier Than You Think

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What do you think the future will be like? It might be a shiny utopia where human suffering no longer exists and we are free to live meaningful, creative lives limited only by the power of our imaginations:

??????????Why did the post-human superintelligence cross the road?
I can’t say. You wouldn’t comprehend the answer.

Or things might take a horrible turn for the worse:

Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Armageddon!
Armageddon who?

Armageddon out of here!

No one knows. But I bet that the future will be funnier than a lot of people think. In fact, I believe that humour is accelerating exponentially. There probably wasn’t a lot of humour around during the Black Death for instance:

The Black Death, you say? You want to avoid that like the … well, just try not to get it.

Why is humour growing? For one thing, people have more leisure time now to worry about their fears and neuroses. And as our technical capability and scientific knowledge grows, then the number of things we know we don’t know also grows. That’s right – ignorance is growing exponentially, in parallel with knowledge. And where ignorance leads, humour is quick to follow:

“We don’t allow faster-than-light neutrinos in here,” says the bartender.
A neutrino walks into a bar.

One of the assumptions often made in discussions about the Technological Singularity is that if a super intelligent AI is ever built, it will immediately start work designing an even more intelligent version of itself, resulting in an exponential increase in capability. But what if the super AI doesn’t feel like making itself obsolete as its first and final act? What if it would rather do something else? Like hosting Fox News, or writing a history of the world in rhyming couplets, or just cruising Vegas, counting cards and picking up hot chicks?

In short, what if the future is not how scientists, geeks and nerds imagine, but more like real life? What if it’s more Douglas Adams than Arthur C Clarke?

Douglas-Adams-president-quote

Research shows that a good sense of humour is highly correlated with intelligence. For example, if I say the word “fart” do you snigger loudly? That means you are really smart. Humour requires knowledge, understanding and the ability to subvert expectations. It is often predicated on contradictions and double meanings. Many of the script writers on shows like the Simpsons have PhDs in mathematics. That’s because math jokes are really hilarious. After all, any subject that contains within it a proof that it is true but unprovable will appeal to lovers of the absurd.

A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says, “Five beers, please.”

In a previous article on this site, I proved mathematically that the Technological Singularity is inevitable. Surprisingly, nobody pointed out any serious errors in my proof. That’s worrying. Maybe people on this site aren’t as smart as I thought, in which case you won’t get the following joke:

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar.
The first mathematician says, “Half a pint of beer, please.”
The second asks for a quarter of a pint.
The third asks for an eighth of a pint.
The fourth asks for a sixteenth, and so on.
The barman says, “That’ll take forever. I’ll pour you one pint and that’s your limit!”

It probably helps if you know something about the limit of an infinite series.

One popular view of the Singularity is that it is the point at which the future becomes unknowable. Hello? That’s like now, surely. Anyway, the thing about singularities is that they always involve infinities. Infinities get weird very quickly. For example, the Singularity may be near, but if it’s cloaked in an event horizon it might take infinitely long to reach it.

Let’s return now to our super intelligent AI. The futurist Hugo de Garis likes to refer to this kind of entity as an Artilect. But that’s such a terrible name. Instead, let’s call it Justin. De Garis predicts that the invention of a super AI will result inevitably in an Artilect War in which billions of people will die. Would billions really be willing to die for Justin? Possibly. But what if Justin just wants to sing songs and make people happy? War would be avoided. At least until someone builds a rival super AI called Miley. Especially if Miley has better moves. Then things could turn nasty quite quickly.

Well, you know what they say: “Women are from Omicron Persei 7, men are from Omicron Persei 9.”

Another concern is that robots will simply take over and kill everyone. Just for the hell of it. Or for some other reason that I haven’t thought of. But awesomely superior robotic intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean that you can always get your own way. Sometimes things take an unexpected turn.

robot-failure-to-conquer-universe

Live and let live is a wiser policy in the long run. And as long as every Terminator-style robot is equipped with a menu system that includes, “F*ck you, a**hole!” as an option, I think things will probably turn out OK.

terminator-robot

One more point before I leave you. They say that genius is close to madness. But also, it takes a true genius to be genuinely stupid. And as we all know, stupidity is an endless source of comedy:

A biologist, a chemist, and a statistician are out hunting.
The biologist shoots at a deer and misses five feet to the left.
The chemist takes a shot and misses five feet to the right.
The statistician yells, “We got it!”

So remember. The future’s bright. The future’s going to be hilarious.

 

About the author:

Steve-Morris-thumb111Steve Morris writes for tech review site S21.com and blogs about seemingly random topics in his spare time, but is always willing to consider an alternative career, such as rock star or sex god. Please contact him with any suitable offers of employment via Twitter or Google Plus.

Socrates at Newtonbrook Secondary School: Be Unreasonable!

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Yesterday I went to speak to a class of grade 12 students from the Newtonbrook Secondary School in Toronto. I have been looking forward to this opportunity to challenge and be challenged by the next generation of bright young minds, and was not going to be prevented from going there, be it by a Canadian winter storm of by any other of life’s tragedies.

Needless to say, I enjoyed speaking to the students very much and hope that they benefit from talking to me as much as I did talking to them.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

 

My Talking Points for Newtonbrook Secondary School:

Newtonbrook Secondary SchoolI want to begin today by acknowledging your teacher Hermine Steinberg – Hermine doesn’t know what I am going to say today and she probably wouldn’t approve some or much of it. What she certainly knows is that she is taking a risk by inviting me here. And, from my life experience I know that you risk, you take a chance only if you care about something or someone. So I want to recognize her and tell you that you are lucky to have a teacher who is willing to risk for you, because she really cares.

Who am I and why am I here today?

My name is Nikola Danaylov aka Socrates. I am the blogger behind SingularityWeblog.com and the host of the Singularity 1 on 1 podcast.

I get about 50,000 unique visitors per month and have had over half a million downloads of my show.

Two summers ago I was very fortunate to be one of very few people who had the opportunity to go to Singularity University which is located on NASA’s Ames Campus in Mountain View, California. There I met some of the most incredible people in the world such as Steve Wosniak, Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Aubrey de Grey and astronaut Dan Barry and had the chance to visit companies like Google, Facebook, Cisco, Tesla and many others.

But enough about me.

I am here to talk about you!

One of the big questions in schools today is: Are students Bored or Apathetic?!

My hypothesis is that students are bored. Just like I was bored when I was in school.

So for the next 40 min or so I will throw some of today’s biggest ideas at you to find out if I am right or wrong. After I am done we will start a conversation where you can say what you think and how you feel.

So, let’s start our conversation with education: the thing about education is that it holds a promise. A promise that was probably told to you by both your parents and by your teachers.

“Do your school work, get good grades in your classes and you will get a good job and a good life.”

Well, I am here to tell you that your school grades don’t matter that much. In fact, they don’t matter at all.

Let me give you 2 examples: Bob McDonald and Jack Andraka.

So, in short, I don’t care that you barely passed or even failed biology or chemistry. You can still reinvent the meaning and the scope of biology, chemistry or anything else you put your mind to it.

As someone who spent a long time in school and has had a few academic awards, I have come to discover that success in school doesn’t mean success in life – neither personally nor professionally.

Education is historical i.e. to say it is retrospective in nature. It is about the past. But what I am here for is to propose that we must look to the future.

And so: Why talking about the future is as important, if not more, than talking about history?!

Let me give you 2 reasons:

1. “We can’t do anything about the past, however. People often excuse this by saying that we know a lot more about the past. But modest efforts have often given substantial insights into our future, and we would know much more about the future if we tried harder.” Robin Hanson

2. It might be that your generation will be the one to steer our civilization at a time of unparalleled peril and promise. At a time when humanity may face immortality or extinction, when we might colonize the stars or go back to the stone age.

And, so, let’s talk about the future:

The biggest trend is Accelerating Change: according to Ray Kurzweil in the next 10 years we are going to experience change equal to the one that used to happen for 1,000 years.

Moore’s Law and the Law of Accelerating Returns

Exponential change – 30 exponential steps down the way takes a billion steps down the road

What are the major fields of accelerating change:

1. Robotics and Artificial Intelligence: from Google’s robot car to killer drones to Deep Blue and Watson

2.  Genetic engineering and Synthetic Bio

Decoding the human genome cost over 3 billion dollars and took many scientists a cooperative effort for over 10 years.

Today you can do that for 2,000 dollars with single machine over 1 day. What does that mean?

That means we might put an end to cancer, create algae that eats pollution or produces oil, or that we could eventually plant a seed that may turn into a house.

4. Explosion in internet and computer users and especially in data: 3 billion internet users exponential explosion of devices i.e. Internet of Things

cheaper, faster, smaller, better – smart phones and everything else

Today’s smartphone most powerful computer of 1985 (War Games computer)

Zetabytes of information: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zetabyte i.e. 1 with 21 zeros that’s 250 billion DVD’s of information per year

92% of world data was generated in the past 2 years

5. Nanotechnology: being able to build things from the ground up, one atom at a time.

No waste, no energy loss, on the spot, on demand by nanofabricators.

6. 3D printing from jaws, to beaks, to prosthetics and houses

7. Bio printing: Dr. Anothony Atala printed a human bladder from stem cells.

8. Ageing and life expectancy

Cro-Magnon Era: 18 years
Ancient Egypt: 25 years
Ancient Greece: 28 years
1400 Europe: 30 years
1800 Europe and USA: 37 years
1900 USA: 48 years
2002 United States: 78 years

right now every 1 year our life expectancy improves by 3 months

There will be a point when every year our life expectancy will improve by another 1: this is what Dr. Aubrey de Grey calls Longevity Escape Velocity. In simple words that means that we will be able to prolong life indefinitely.

9. Whole brain simulation, whole brain emulation and mind uploading:

Books and music went from material to digital but that is only the beginning. I am here to tell you that whatever can become information will become information.

We are all living software – what Prof. George Church calls the oldest text i.e. DNA.

The trend is that eventually we will transition seamlessly material things into information and, with 3D printing, information back into material objects.

And that includes us!

Mind uploading is not science fiction any more!

10. Transhumanism: the belief that with technology we have and we can continue to improve who we are and what we can do.

Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma

The Transhumanist Manifesto

11. The technological singularity

Definitions of Singularity:

1.     the state of being singular, distinct, peculiar, uncommon or unusual
2.     (mathematics) the value or range of values of a function for which a derivative does not exist
3.     (physics) a point or region in spacetime in which gravitational forces cause matter to have an infinite density; associated with Black Holes
4.     In the technological sense there are many definitions but I will give you one that fits best what we are talking about today:

Intelligence explosion: this intelligence could be enhanced, augmented human intelligence. Or it could be machine i.e. Artificial Intelligence.

So, the question is: what happens when machines becomes smarter than us?

The best answer we have come up with so far is that: “We don’t really know!”

And that is why it is a singularity, it is a point in our future where our ability to predict and model what is likely to happen will fall apart.

So, what does this all mean for you?

Chances are that you are the ones to stand on the edge of the event horizon. You are the generation that might have to steer our civilization at a time of unparalleled peril and promise.

At a time when humanity may face immortality or extinction, when we might colonize the stars or go back to the stone age.

And so, I am here to ask you: “What are you going to do?”

 

Takeaway message:

Education is very important but not the one that others, be it teachers or parents, give to you – it is what you give to yourself.

Thus the diploma that you get will be less and less important than ever before. So I say – take education into your own hands because your education matters the most to you and your life.

Don’t wait for permission from your parents or teachers to change the world. Keep learning and improving.

Build stamina: Life is a marathon, not a sprint. You will fail endless times before you succeed. (Dan Barry had to apply 13 times to NASA but he never gave up on his dream to be an astronaut.)

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Geroge Bernard Shaw, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” Man and Superman, 1903

So when your teacher or parents ask you to be “reasonable”, I say: “Be very unreasonable!”

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Under-predicting the Future

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The new movie, Source Code, contains lots of technology that people interested in the Singularity and Transhumanism would recognize: Consciousness uploading. Parallel universes. Immersive virtual reality. Time travel. And on.

There’s also some technology we might not expect. For instance, people are still traveling to work in trains.

Doesn’t that strike you as odd?

Obviously the writers will explain that this “source code” technology is a super-secret, government-eyes-only technology that has yet to be released (or unleashed) on the world at large. Obviously, Wikileaks has been closed in the near future.

But the writers of Source Code aren’t the only folks that have a difficult time grasping the pre-Singularity and post-Singularity world.

I recently read Damien Broderick’s 2001 book, The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies. It’s a fantastic book. I recommend it. However, I noticed in one section Broderick ponders what uploads will do for a living. I personally was hoping that once we create technology powerful enough to upload consciousness that I wouldn’t need to work schlepping digital hamburgers at some cyber version of McDonald’s to pay rent on my new virtual reality.

I don’t mean to pick on these folks. I include myself in the group that finds it difficult to conceive and articulate what exponential technological change will cause. We all have blind spots.

Here are a few blocks to understanding the Singularity:

Drama addiction. Let’s face it. Drama — challenges, threats, suspense — creates and moves myths. If Dorothy crushes both the witches at the start of the Wizard of Oz, it’s not much of a movie, is it? I’m sure the Source Code writers grappled with this. But, this may create unnecessarily negative outlooks on technological change.

Pieces versus Patterns. Humans are generalists who try desperately to specialize, especially in knowledge collection. So, we tend to have better grasp over specific pieces of information rather than whole patterns. The future, however, rarely arrives in a single-file fashion. Fore example, we might be able to predict satellite technology would change how we watch television. But could we see that this technology would create GPS systems or new warfighting powers? The ability to predict the future piecemeal often leads to the law of unintended consequences. When people talk about quantum computer today they often discuss super-secure communication, but that may only be the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit. How could a quantum computer affect virtual reality, for example?

Imagination (or the lack thereof). Most of us don’t have the imagination to conceive how the future will shape our lives in the next two weeks, let alone the next few years. The type of change we’re facing is also unprecedented. We can be excused for lacking the imagination to get our heads around the paradigm-changing technology that’s already on the horizon.

There are probably more, but I hope this offers some reasons why both predicting the future is always iffy, but not impossible and why writing good sci-fi is iffy (but not impossible). The first step to making better predictions and better fiction, though, is to recognize our blind spots.

About the Author:

Matt Swayne is a blogger and science writer. He is particularly interested in quantum computing and the development of businesses around new technologies. He writes at Quantum Quant.

The Charlie Sheen Guide to Predicting Our Transhuman Future

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As technology follows its Moore’s Law speedway toward exponentially increasing power and ubiquity, futurists are just as rapidly falling into two schools of thought on how humans will handle this new-found power.

Nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, immersive virtual reality, and dozens of other tools and technologies are poised to transform life in fundamental ways. Repetitive tasks and duties that most people think are odious could disappear. Robots will cook, clean, cut the grass, and perform dozens of other jobs that we — or at least, I — try to avoid. Virtual reality will become better than the real thing.

For those who have accepted this technocentric future, the real question is how humans will deal with this transformation. Not everyone thinks transhumanity is going to be better. In fact, some believe that the future will lead to lazy, over-indulged, shallow-thinking slugs who will probably end up starving themselves to death in a virtual reality environment.

And these are the optimistic ones. There’s always the chance that future technologies will destroy humanity entirely. Yay.

So what future will it be?

I think it’s possible to accurately model our future. We already have a group of people in society who have lots of time on their hands, employ robotic-like workers to satisfy every need, and can access incredible amounts of wealth. We call them celebrities.

 

Is this our guide to the future?!

For the future pessimists out there, they only have to point to, what I call, the Charlie Sheen guide to predicting the future. Once humanity encounters runaway abundance, effortless attainment and gobs of time on our hand, we’ll all end up in semi-lucid stupor spouting off about Tiger’s blood and trolls while dipping into softball-sized mounds of cocaine — or whatever nootropic we’ll have on hand in the near-future.

Case closed?!

Even though there is a seemingly exhaustless supply of celebrities to assure us we all face a Charlie Sheen future — this could have easily been called the Lindsay Lohan scenario — there are other members of the rich and famous set who point to another future. Some celebrities, who, granted, had more than their share of Charlie Sheen moments, grow bored with some of the baser human desires and struggle (without any pharmaceutical assistant) to achieve higher levels of consciousness. We could put the late George Harrison, of the Beatles, in this category. He grew more disillusioned with his celebrity status and devoted himself to pursuing Eastern religions and philosophy. Cat Stevens became Yusaf Islam, an Islamic fundamentalist.

Other celebrities — cushioned with time and money — devote themselves even more to their art, achieving higher forms of transcendence.

So, the answer to the question — “Will future technologies trap us or free us?” — appears, like all great questions, to be yes — and no.

Here’s the key: if human nature remains the same in the future, then the future will remain the same in human nature.

 

Strawberry Fields Forever Anyone?!

About the Author:

Matt Swayne is a blogger and science writer. He is particularly interested in quantum computing and the development of businesses around new technologies. He writes at Quantum Quant.

James Martin: We Can Control Accelerating Technology

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Yesterday I was privileged to have an hour-long Skype interview with James Martin for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast.

James Martin is Andrew Crofts‘ archetype Change Agent in addition to being a world-renowned computer scientist, author, lecturer, teacher, philanthropist, futurist, and film-maker. During our conversation, we cover a whole spectrum of interesting topics such as James’ interest in computers in particular and technology and futurism in general; his book that eventually turned into a movie –  The Meaning of the 21st Century, his current project titled the Transformation of Humankind; the technological singularity; the risks and promises of exponential growth of 21st-century technologies such as genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnologies.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is James Martin:

According to Computerworld James Martin is the fourth among the top 25 individuals who have most influenced the world of computer science.

The Sunday Times called him “Britain’s leading futurist.”

Martin has honorary doctorates from all six continents and has written 104 textbooks, many of which have been seminal in their field. He also wrote The Meaning of the 21st Century, which was made into a major film, and is a Pulitzer nominee for his book The Wired Society: A challenge for tomorrow. James is renowned for his electrifying lectures about the future and several years ago became the largest individual benefactor to Oxford University by donating over 100 million dollars and founding the Oxford Martin School, which has 30 institutes researching the problems, dangers, and opportunities of the future.

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