Futurism

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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Futurists Invade Toronto

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There is nothing like meeting a bunch of forward thinking visionaries who dare to dream big and want to change the world for the better. Thus, I am very happy that this year’s World Future Society Conference will be held in Toronto, Canada.  I will definitely not miss it and am very much looking forward to attending.

If you plan to be there too and you see the big bold head (usually on the front row), do not hesitate to come and say “Hi.” I am always happy to meet in person Singularity Weblog readers.

For those still hesitating, here is all the event info you need to make an informed decision: 

Futurists from around the globe will meet in Toronto this July (27-29) to discuss sustainability, technology, and the future of the human race at the annual conference of the World Future Society. This year’s presenters include

Geordie Rose

Canadian computer scientist Geordie Rose is the creator of the D-Wave One, the world’s first commercial quantum computer—a breakthrough that will revolutionize the way computers are built and how they function. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of British Columbia, specializing in quantum effects in materials. Rose has just been named Canadian Innovator of the Year by the Canadian Innovation Exchange.

Lee Rainie

is one of the world’s foremost experts on the changing face of the Internet and the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan fact tank that studies the social impact of the Internet.

In this keynote presentation based on his latest book, Networked: The New Social Operating System (co-authored with Barry Wellman), Dr. Rainie will discuss the findings of the most recent expert surveys on the future of teens’ brains, the future of universities, the future of money, the impact of Big Data, the battle between apps and the Web, the spread of gamefication, and the impact of smart systems on consumers.

Rainie “probably knows more about the impact of the internet on everyday life than anyone else on the planet,” according to the Guardian.”

Check out Rainie’s article in the July-August issue of THE FUTURIST magazine 

Brian David Johnson

Johnson is the chief futurist for Intel where his job is to guide the world’s most important chip maker into the future. He’s also the author of Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love (Intel, 2010), in which he looks at the shifts taking place in TV, film, advertising, and the new roles that TV will take on in our Internet-driven world. Attendees at this year’s WorldFuture conference will hear Johnson give an opening plenary on Intel’s algorithm-based projections of what human life will be like in 2025.

For too long, computers, computational power, and even software have been thought of as cold mathematical pursuits, when in reality, the digital world is just an extension of human existence. With increasing generation of data through human activity and interaction, more complex processing and technologies are needed—but they must also be accessible. Building data processes for the future requires a more human design to interpret and deliver information in the right context, relatable to and understood by users.

At WorldFuture 2012, Brian David Johnson will discuss how Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is crafting algorithms and processes that will better understand what it means to be human in 2025.

Scientific American recently called Brian David Johnson “Equal parts seer and evangelist, Johnson helps map out the future of technology and then guides his company toward that destination, whether it is five years or even a decade away.”

Check out his cover feature in the July-August issue of THE FUTURIST magazine 

Read the October 2011 Forbes profile of Johnson here. 

Read The Wall Street Journal Q&A here. 

Alex Peake

Alex Peake is the founder and CEO of Primer Labs, a startup that creates endless learning games to make all knowledge playable. His most recent creation, a game called Code Hero, teaches students how to program computers through a first-person shooter. He says that “computer programming literacy is the gateway to science, technology, engineering and mathematics literacy.” The gamification of education could fundamentally improve the way we learn over the next 10 years.

John Smart 

It’s a rare speaker who can engage audiences equally in corporate board rooms, university classrooms, and on stage at Burning Man Festival, Nevada’s notorious, annual desert rite of radical self-expression and edgy creativity. John Smart is such a speaker. He’s founder and president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, a respected associate professor of emerging technologies at the University of Advancing Technology, and sits on the Advisory Board member at numerous global futures institutions, including Singularity University. He is also the recurring host of Futurecamp, a Burning Man mainstay that Australian reviewer Amplfy.com describes as “legendary.”

At WorldFuture 2012, Smart will present on Chemical Brain Preservation: How to Live Forever. He’ll describe the procedure, now in development, by which doctors might remove a dying person’s brain and preserve it in full, with all of the person’s stored memories and knowledge, so that he or she can be revived at a later date. Smart will forecast when this procedure might debut, and what implications it holds for medicine and society.

Andrew Hessel 

is a futurist and catalyst in biological technologies, helping industry, academics, and authorities better understand the changes ahead in life science. He is also the co-founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, the world’s first cooperative biotechnology company, which is aiming to make open source viral therapies for cancer.

Trained in microbiology and genetics, Hessel has continually worked at the forefront of genomics, first to read and comprehend bacterial, human, and other genomes and more recently to write them. At WorldFuture 2012, he’ll discuss how the technology that makes this possible, called synthetic biology, will eventually surpass information technology (IT) as an economic engine and driver of societal change. He speaks widely on topics that include cells as living computers, life science as an emerging IT industry, and biological safety and security. The future is open to infinite possibilities for innovative thinkers.

Josh Schonwald

The April 20th edition of MacLean’s magazine describes journalist Josh Schonwald’s revealation of the future of food thusly: “He’s explored everything from genetically engineered foods—like a cherry tomato modified to carry a lemon basil gene, which is said to be delicious—to meat grown in a test tube. Canadian scientists are working on this too, building healthier hot dogs and other processed foods.” Schonwald is the author of the book Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from The Future of Food 

Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley says “Schonwald gets the central point: the ‘foods-of-the-future question [is] inextricably linked to the future-of-the-Earth question,’ a question that self-indulgent, self-regarding foodies simply refuse to face.”

Check out Schonwald’s article for the May-June issue of THE FUTURIST magazine here 

Tomorrow’s Next Big Start Up at Futurists: BetaLaunch 

Futurists: BetaLaunch (or F:BL) is a technology petting zoo where engineers, designers and others can present their inventions to the 1,000 futurists expected to gather for the Society’s annual conference. The inaugural F:BL event in 2011, co-produced with 1×57 and sponsored by Disruptathon, was a huge success. “Futurists presented Bold Visions at the BetaLaunch expo in Vancouver” said Eric Mack of BYTE, published by Information Week. F:BL was also covered in the Vancouver Sun, CBC Canada, MarketWatch, and Xinhua News, the largest news agency in the People’s Republic of China. This year’s participants include 


Senstore 

Senstore is taking advantage of exponential developments in sensors, wireless connectivity, and artificial intelligence to provide access to health care from anywhere. Senstore is developing a home diagnostic device—a medical tricorder—with intuitive AI interactions and continuous monitoring of biometric data.

The Cyberhero League by Evolutionary Guidance Media R&D

Most children want to help other people, animals, and the environment—but they don’t know where or how to begin. The Cyberhero League is a social platform that will enable children to act digitally to help others around the world.

A child earns points through games and other activities, and uses those points for charitable gifts that supply emergency relief supplies (food, water, and medicine), support wildlife conservation, and protect the environment. As Cyberheroes, kids will have the power to change the world while learning about environmental stewardship and social responsibility.

The BiliSuit by i3 BioDesigns

The birth of a new child is a joyous occasion—but millions of babies each year are born with a common but serious jaundice condition, requiring extended hospital stays in an isolette tank for the child or mobility-constraining home treatments.

The BiliSuit is a form-fitting garment that delivers life-saving treatment through an LED and fiber-optic delivery system. The suit is reusable and its battery can be recharged with solar energy, so it can be used in remote locations with limited access to electricity—such as rural areas in Asia.

ZED.TO by The Mission Business

The Mission Business has developed an immersive, cross-platform entertainment strategy that combines foresight and education with transmedia events, fiction, and theatrical panache to thrill audiences. The first event, ZED.TO, will play out in real life and online over the course of months to explore critical uncertainties in technology and social values.

Filabot by Rocknail Specialties

A tool designed to make home 3-D printing cheaper and more environmentally friendly, Filabot (pictured left) is a desktop extruding system that grinds various plastics to make spools of filament for 3-D printers. Filabot can process milk jugs, soda bottles, and other types of plastics—as well as bad prints, turning what would be waste into usable filament for future prints.

ComposeTheFuture

This free, integrated social network focuses on futurist members’ interests in future predictions, goal setting, scenario planning, and impact analysis. The network will enable futurists around the world to collaborate on issues and work toward achieving goals. Check out the interview with Compose The Future founder Brian Merritt here 

Strategic Foresight & Innovation program at OCAD University

This program trains students to address complex, socially important issues through designing for creative social futures. The program instills the spirit of technological foresight and long-horizon innovation into new foresight thinkers through a combination of innovation practice, systems thinking, design leadership, and social research.

Ion Proton Sequencer by Life Technologies 

The Ion Proton Sequencer, featured in the May-June 2012 issue of THE FUTURIST as a Consumer Electronics Show pick and pictured here, offers affordable whole-human-genome sequencing in just hours instead of days or weeks. The Ion Proton Sequencer sequences DNA on a small semiconductor chip rather than using standard large, expensive optical-based instrumentation. 

B-TEMIA 

To get people on their feet, B-TEMIA has developed a wearable dermoskeleton that restores, maintains, or enhances mobility. With military and medical applications, the dermoskeleton increases a person’s biomechanical capabilities and assists movement without impeding natural walking patterns.

 

The World Future Society

Founded in 1966 as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Washington, D.C., the World Future Society has members in more than 80 countries around the world. Individuals and groups from all nations are eligible to join the Society and participate in its programs and activities.The Society holds a two-day international conference once a year where participants discuss foresight techniques and global trends that are influencing the future. Previous conference attendees have included future U.S. President Gerald Ford (1974), Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1975), behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner (1984), age-wave expert Ken Dychtwald (2005), U.S. comptroller general David M. Walker (2006), and inventor Ray Kurzweil (2010). Others in attendance typically include business leaders, government officials, scientists, corporate planners, and forecasters from across the globe.You can learn more about the conference by visiting www.wfs.org.

Download the entire conference program here

http://www.wfs.org/Upload/PDFs/WF2012_preliminary.pdf 

Learn more about Futurists: BetaLaunch at www.wfsbetalaunch.com or contact Patrick Tucker at ptucker@wfs.org or call (443) 756-4205.

For journalists in Toronto, Patrick Tucker will be available to meet in person to discuss F:BL and the conference during the last week of July. Contact him to schedule an interview at 443-756-4205 or ptucker(at)wfs.org 

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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James Martin’s The Meaning Of The 21st Century

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Last night me and Julie watched James Martin‘s documentary The Meaning Of The 21st Century. The movie is based on his titular book and is aimed to provide what James calls A Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future.

In his 1 hour documentary Martin catalogues all the major perils and promises that humanity faces in the 21st century. In addition, he doesn’t forgo issues arising from advances in the fields of artificial intelligence, genetics, robotics and nanotechnology, or interviewing other futurists, scientists, inventors, singularitarians and transhumanists such as Ray Kurzweil, Hugo de Garis, Nick Bostrom and others.

The video is narrated by Michael Douglas and I think it is worth watching.

Synopsys:

We are at an extraordinary crossroads of human history. Our actions, or failure to act, during the next 20 years will determine the fate of the Earth and human civilization for centuries to come. This is a make-or-break century.

Humanity’s demands for affluence are growing rapidly. If we are able to make the planet work, as shown in this film, we face a magnificent future. If we fail, we could be headed for a new Dark Age.

Long Trailer:

You can watch the full movie by clicking here.

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