How to Be a Tech Futurist: Predicting, Managing, and Creating in a World of Accelerating Change UAT Tech Forum 2005 Joh

How to Be a Tech Futurist: Predicting, Managing, and Creating in a World of Accelerating Change UAT Tech Forum 2005John Smart, President, ASF Slides: accelerating.org/slides.html

Presentation Outline 1. Overview 2. Types of Change 3. Intro to Accelerating Change 4. Prediction: Expecting the Future 5. Management: Thriving with Change 6. Creation: Making the Future © 2005 Accelerating.org

Future Prediction, Management, and Creation • Prediction • forecasting methods, metrics, statistical trends, the history of prediction, technology roadmapping, science and systems theory, marketing research • Management • environmental scanning, scenario development, risk analysis, hedging, enterprise robustness, planning, matter, energy, space, and time management systems • Creation • personal and entrepreneurial tools for creating preferred futures, research and development, creative thinking, positive psychology, social networking, business plan production © 2005 Accelerating.org

1. Overview

Acceleration Studies Foundation • ASF (Accelerating.org) is a nonprofit community of 3,100 scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, administrators, educators, analysts, humanists, and systems theorists discussing and dissecting accelerating change. • We practice “developmentalfuture studies,” that is, we seek to discover a set of persistent factors, stable trends, convergent capacities, and highly probable scenarios for our common future, and to use this information now to improve our daily evolutionary choices. • Specifically, these include accelerating intelligence, immunity, and interdependence in our global sociotechnological systems, increasing technological autonomy, and the increasing intimacy of the human-machine, physical-digital interface. © 2005 Accelerating.org

Brief History of Futures Studies • 1902, H.G. Wells, Anticipations • 1904, Henry Adams, A Law of Acceleration • 1945, Project RAND (RAND Corp.) • 1946, Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) • 1962, Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future • 1967, World Future Society, Institute for the Future • 1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock • 1974, University of Houston, Studies of the Future M.S. • 1977, Carl Sagan, Dragons of Eden • 1986, Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, • 1995, Tamkang U, Center for Futures Studies • 1999, Ray Kurzweil, Age of Spiritual Machines • 2002, Acceleration Studies Foundation © 2005 Accelerating.org

Where are the U.S. College Courses in Foresight Development? • Tamkang University • 27,000 undergrads • Top-ranked private university in Taiwan • Like history and current affairs, futures studies (15 courses to choose from) have been a general education requirement since 1995. • Why not here? © 2005 Accelerating.org

2. Two Types of Change: Evolution and Development

The Left and Right Hands of “Evolutionary Development” Replication & Variation “Natural Selection” Adaptive Radiation Chaos, Contingency Pseudo-Random Search Strange Attractors Evolution Selection & Convergence “Convergent Selection” Emergence,Global Optima MEST-Compression Standard Attractors Development Complex Environmental Interaction Left Hand Right Hand New Computat’l Phase Space Opening Well-Explored Phase Space Optimization © 2005 Accelerating.org

Marbles, Landscapes, and Basins (Complex Systems, Evolution, & Development) The marbles (systems) roll around on the landscape, each taking unpredictable (evolutionary) paths. But the paths predictably converge (development) on low points (MEST compression), the “attractors” at the bottom of each basin. © 2005 Accelerating.org

How Many Eyes Are Developmentally Optimal? Evolution is always trying experimental structures. Development has found an operational optimum. Ex: Some reptiles (e.g. Xantusia vigilis, andcertain skinks) still have a parietal (“pineal”) vestigial third eye. © 2005 Accelerating.org

“Convergent Evolution”:Troodon and the Dinosauroid Hypothesis Dale Russell, 1982:Anthropoid forms as a standard attractor. A number of small dinosaurs (raptors and oviraptors) developed bipedalism, binocular vision, complex hands with opposable thumbs, and brain-to-body ratios equivalent to modern birds. They were intelligent pack-hunters of both large and small animals (including our mammalian precursors) both diurnally and nocturnally. They would likely have become the dominant planetary species due to their superior intelligence, hunting, and manipulation skills without the K-T event 65 million years ago. © 2005 Accelerating.org

How Many Wheels are Developmentally Optimal on an Automobile? Examples: Wheel on Earth. Social computation device. Diffusion proportional to population density and diversity. © 2005 Accelerating.org

3. Intro to Accelerating Change

From Biogenesis to Intelligent Technology: The “Accelerating Phase” of Universal ED Carl Sagan’s “Cosmic Calendar” (Dragons of Eden, 1977) Each month is roughly 1 billion years. © 2005 Accelerating.org

A U-Shaped Curve of Change? Big Bang Singularity Developmental Singularity? 50 yrs ago: Machina silico 50 yrs: Scalar Field Scaffolds 100,000 yrs: Matter 100,000 yrs ago: H. sap. sap. 1B yrs: Protogalaxies 8B yrs: Earth © 2005 Accelerating.org

Henry Adams, 1909: The First “Singularity Theorist” The final Ethereal Phase would last only about four years, and thereafter "bring Thought to the limit of its possibilities." Wild speculation or computational reality? Still too early to tell, at present. © 2005 Accelerating.org

The Technological Singularity Hypothesis Each unique physical-computational substrate appears to have its own “capability curve.” The information inherent in these substrates is apparently not made obsolete, but is instead incorporated into the developmental architecture of the next emergent system. © 2005 Accelerating.org

Eric Chaisson’s “Phi” (Φ): A Universal Moore’s Law Curve Ф Free Energy Rate Density Substrate (ergs/second/gram) Galaxies 0.5 Stars2(counterintuitive) Planets (Early) 75 Plants 900 Animals/Genetics 20,000(10^4) Brains (Human) 150,000(10^5) Culture (Human) 500,000(10^5) Int. Comb. Engines (10^6) Jets (10^8) Pentium Chips (10^11) time Source: Eric Chaisson, Cosmic Evolution, 2001 © 2005 Accelerating.org

“Unreasonable” Effectiveness and Efficiency: Wigner and Mead The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner, 1960 After Wigner and Freeman Dyson’s work in 1951, on symmetries and simple universalities in mathematical physics. Commentary on the “Unreasonable Efficiency of Physics in the Microcosm,” VSLI Pioneer Carver Mead, c. 1980. W=(1/2mv2) F=ma E=mc2 F=-(Gm1m2)/r2 In 1968, Mead predicted we would create much smaller (to 0.15 micron) multi-million chip transistors that would run far faster and more efficiently. He later generalized this observation to a number of other devices. © 2005 Accelerating.org

Example: Holey Optical Fibers • Above: SEM image of a photonic crystal fiber. Note periodic array of air holes. The central defect (missing hole in the middle) acts as the fiber's core. The fiber is about 40 microns across. • This conversion system is a million times (106) more energy efficient than all previous converters. These are the kinds of jaw-dropping efficiency advances that have historically driven the ICT revolution. • Such advances are due even more to human discovery (in physical microspace) than to human creativity, which is why they have accelerated throughout the 20th century, even as we remain uncertain exactly why they continue to occur. Lasers today can made cheaply only in some areas of the EM spectrum, not including, for example, UV laser light for cancer detection and tissue analysis. It was discovered in 2004 that a hollow optical fiber filled with hydrogen gas, a device known as a "photonic crystal," can convert cheap laser light to the wavelengths previously unavailable. © 2005 Accelerating.org

Understanding the Lever of ICT “The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum [representative democracy], moves the world.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1814) The lever of accelerating information and communications technologies (in outer space) with the fulcrum of physics (in inner space) increasingly moves the world. (Carver Mead, Seth Lloyd, George Gilder…) "Give me a lever, a fulcrum, and place to stand and I will move the world." Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC), quoted by Pappus of Alexandria, Synagoge, c. 340 AD © 2005 Accelerating.org

Our Historical Understanding of Accelerating Change In 1904, we seemed nearly ready to see intrinsicallyacceleratingprogress. Then came mechanized warfare (WW I, 1914-18, WW II,1939-45), Communist oppression (60 million deaths). 20th century political deaths of 170+ million showed the limitations of human-engineered accelerating progress models. Today the idea of accelerating progress remains in the cultural minority, even in first world populations.It is viewed with interest but also deep suspicionby a populace traumatized by technological extremes, global divides, and economic fluctuation. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control, 1993 © 2005 Accelerating.org

Acceleration Quiz Q: Of the 100 top revenue generating entities in the world, how many are multinational corporations and how many are nation states? 76 MNC’s and 24 Nations. GBN, Future of Philanthropy, 2005 © 2005 Accelerating.org

Acceleration Quiz Q: How many of the lowest net-worth Americans would it take to approximate Bill Gate’s net worth? Roughly 110 million Americans in 1997, when his net worth was $40 billion. At $30 billion presently (2005), Mr. Gates ranks roughly as the 60th largest country, and the 55th largest business. When MSFT went public in 1986, Bill was worth $230 million. NYU economist Edward Wolff (See also Top Heavy, 2002) © 2005 Accelerating.org

Acceleration Quiz Q: Disney and Sony (respectively) produce and launch one new product every _________? Three minutes for Disney.Twenty minutes for Sony. Elizabeth Debold, What is Enlightenment?, March-May 2005 © 2005 Accelerating.org

World Economic Performance GDP Per Capita in Western Europe, 1000 – 1999 A.D. This curve looks quite smooth on a macroscopic scale. Notice the “knee of the curve” occurs at the industrial revolution, circa 1850. © 2005 Accelerating.org

Three Hierarchical Systems of Social Change • Technological(dominant since 1950!) “It’s all about the technology” (what it enables, how inexpensively it can be developed) • Economic(dominant 1800-1950’s, secondary now) “It’s all about the money” (who has it, control they gain with it) • Political/Cultural(dominant pre-1800’s, tertiary now) “It’s all about the power” (who has it, control they gain with it) Developmental Trends: 1. The levels have reorganized, to “fastest first.” 2. More pluralism (a network property) on each level. Pluralism examples: 40,000 NGO’s, rise of the power of media, tort law, Insurance, lobbies, etc. © 2005 Accelerating.org

4. Prediction: Expecting the Future

Humans are Prediction Systems “Our brain is structured for constant forecasting.” Jeff Hawkins, Inventor, PalmPilot, CTO, Palm ComputingFounder, Redwood Neurosciences Institute Author, On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines, 2004 © 2005 Accelerating.org

The Prediction Wall and The Prediction Crystal Ball What does hindsight tell us about prediction? The Year 2000 was the most intensive long range prediction effort of its time, done at the height of the forecasting/ operations research/ cybernetics/ think tank (RAND) driven/ “instrumental rationality” era of Futures Studies. (Kahn & Wiener, 1967). © 2005 Accelerating.org

Many Accelerations are Underwhelming Some Modest Exponentials: • Productivity per U.S. worker hr has improved 500% over 75 years (1929-2004, 2% per yr) • Business investment as % of U.S. GDP is flat at 11% over 25 years. • Nondefense R&D spending as % of First World GDP is up 30% (1.6 to 2.1%) over 21 years (1981-2002). • Technology spending as % of U.S. GDP is up 100% (4% to 8%) over 35 years (1967-2002) BusinessWeek, 75th Ann. Issue, “The Innovation Economy”, 10.11.2004 © 2005 Accelerating.org

Moore’s Law Moore’s Law derives from two predictions in 1965 and 1975 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, (and named by Carver Mead) that computer chips (processors, memory, etc.) double their complexity every 12-24 months at near constant unit cost. This means that every 15 years, on average, a large number of technological capacities (memory, input, output, processing) grow by 1000X (Ten doublings: 2,4,8…. 1024). Emergence! There are several abstractions of Moore’s Law, due to miniaturization of transistor density in two dimensions, increasing speed (signals have less distance to travel) computational power (speed × density). © 2005 Accelerating.org

Relative Growth Rates are Surprisingly Predictable Brad DeLong (2003) noted that memory density predictably outgrows microprocessor density, which predictably outgrows wired bandwidth, which predictably outgrows wireless. Expect: 1st: New Storage Apps, 2nd: New Processing Apps, 3rd: New Communications Apps, 4th: New Wireless Apps © 2005 Accelerating.org

Dickerson’s Law: Solved Protein Structures as a Moore’s-Dependent Process Richard Dickerson, 1978, Cal Tech: Protein crystal structure solutions grow according to n=exp(0.19y1960) Dickerson’s law predicted 14,201 solved crystal structures by 2002. The actual number (in online Protein Data Bank (PDB)) was 14,250. Just 49 more. Macroscopically, the curve has been quite consistent. © 2005 Accelerating.org

The Start of Symbiosis: The Digital Era With the advent of the transistor(June 1, 1948), the commercial digital world emerged. New problems have emerged (population, human rights, asymmetric conflict, environment), yet we see solutions for each in coming waves of technological globalization. “The human does not change, but our house becomes exponentially more intelligent.” We look back not to Spencer or Marx and their human-directed Utopias, but to Henry Adams,who realized the core acceleration is due to the intrinsic properties of technological systems. Michael Riordan, Crystal Fire, 1998 © 2005 Accelerating.org

The Symbiotic Age • A time when computers “speak our language.” • A time when our technologies are very responsive to our needs and desires. • A time when humans and machines are intimately connected, and always improving each other. • A time when we will begin to feel “naked” without our computer “clothes.” © 2005 Accelerating.org

How to Be a Tech Futurist: Predicting, Managing, and Creating in a World of Accelerating Change UAT Tech Forum 2005 Joh