This morning as my daughter was leaving for school she asked if
she could watch the “fat, chunky” movie this weekend. I gave her a
perplexed look and replied that I’d never heard of it. I probed a
little further and although it took me a few moments to determine
what she was talking about, I eventually understood that she wanted
to know if she could watch a VHS-format
movie.
This incident, along with another this past weekend where she
gazed unknowingly at a record player that was for sale at a garage
sale, has gotten me to thinking about what else might seem “fat and
chunky” to her in the future.
Already televisions, phones and iPods are impressively thin and
are likely to grow more so in the future. Alas, it won’t stop
there.
A few months back, I wrote about solar energy’s
long-term potential and one reason I’m so optimistic about its
potential is that I believe thin-film photovoltaics are only going
to grow more efficient and cost-effective over time. Among other
things this implies that today’s bulky silicon solar cells are
likely to fade away.
The field of nanotechnology is also leading to thinner and more
effective materials. Therefore, walls made out of aerogels; car
panels constructed of new nanocomposites; and automobile batteries
(which utilize various nanomaterials) should also become thinner.
As will lights, which will take advantage of advances in organic
light emitting diodes. (cont.)
Humans are only evolved primates-monkeys and apes-with a limited
conceptual vocabulary. We are easily impressed by our technological
accomplishments. In networked opportunity societies, creative and
inventive persons are able to feed off each others’ ideas so that
during periods of economic surplus, the pace of innovation will
take off. In dark ages, totalitarian societies where information is
compartmentalized and otherwise restricted, innovation slows.
The more
sanguine examiners of the tech singularity concept are less
likely to see The Singularity as inevitable. Many developments
within society and government could short-circuit The Singularity,
sending into terminal mode. Imagine a world government ruled by a
Vladimir Putin, Josef Stalin, or Mao. Imagine world science,
academia, media, and governance being taken over by dysfunctional
post-modernist irrationality. Imagine the default human
society-stratification by wealth, knowledge, power, and a profound
inertial resistance to change. (cont.)
When Charles Darwin first proposed writing his landmark book on
evolution, The Origins of Species, his editor suggested
writing a book on pigeons because, in his words, “Everyone is
interested in pigeons.” Fortunately, Darwin chose to ignore the
advice. I am reminded of the story because even though Darwin’s
theory was proposing only that species make modest, incremental
changes over long periods of time, it was – and in many circles
still is – a revolutionary idea.
What then happens if evolution is not just incremental in nature
but rather exponential? That, too, is a revolutionary idea –
especially since it could impact us within our lifetimes.
Well, we are now approaching a time when this exponential theory
of evolution will be put to the test.
If you accept the notion of evolution, you will agree that the
earliest life appeared on earth approximately 4 billion years ago.
Complex cellular organisms showed up 2 billion years ago, and the
first multicellular organism about 1 billion years ago. The first
reptiles and dinosaurs made their appearance 300 million years ago;
the first primates 40 million years ago; homo sapiens appeared
160,000 years ago; Cro-Magnon man 40,000 years ago; and modern
civilization as we know it began about 10,000 years ago.
Thinking about this much progress over such an extended period
of time is difficult. Years ago, Carl Sagan, the famed astronomer,
offered up a “cosmic calendar” to make such progress more
comprehensible to the layperson. He asked that they imagine the
entire history of the universe as being compressed into a single
year. (cont.)
Fueled by accelerating change, transhumanism
(H+), the belief that humans can and should consciously evolve past
our current limitations, is on the rise. It’s a safe bet that over
the coming years this budding philosophy, or memeplex, will make
its way into the minds of millions of humans, maybe more. However
it lines up with reality, transhumanism will exert a big impact on
our future (barring a near-term cataclysmic event, of course).
Certain aspects of transhumanism appeal to my logical and
emotional parts. Logically, I can see that accelerating change will
transform the human body and the human brain, perhaps enabling
immortality, telekinesis, teleportation, possibly even
“transcendence.” Emotionally, I like the idea of establishing
greater control over my environment in order to best externalize my
imagination (fostering peace, health, happiness), transform my
existence and, essentially, play in the universe however I damn
well choose.
However, when attempting to simulate the future, particularly a
hyper-fastKurzweilian future
or Ted Modis’
moderately
slower future , I’ve found that I cannot embrace a wholly
transhumanist-compatible view of the years to come because
transhumanism, unsurprisingly, fails to provide an adequate
definition of the term “human”. (cont.)
What will the future smell like? On the face of it, it sounds
like a silly question but I believe that by thinking about the
question we might be able to glean some insights into the future.
The other day I was in Las Vegas to give a speech to the Food
Marketing Institute and it was my good luck to have the opportunity
to sit in on a presentation by Martin Lindstrom who is one of the world’s
leading branding experts.
His talk was absolutely fascinating and he spent a good deal of
time discussing how important the sense of smell is in branding.
(To this point, if I say “Crayola” crayon or Play-Doh my guess is
that many of you can almost smell those products’ unique
scents).
More interesting, however, Lindstrom discussed how certain
smells conjure up different emotions for people of different
generations. For example, if you were born before 1930 you are
likely to enjoy the smell of hay and manure; and if you born before
1960 the smell of freshly cut grass conjures up positive feelings.
(cont.)
Wondering when national currencies, intimacy, natural childbirth
and Rocky films will go the way of the dodo? Here’s a fun timeline
of extinction events for the 1950-2050 range by futurist and
Future
Trends Book author Richard Watson:
The other day I explained why society doesn’t always
absorb new technologies as fast as early advocates often
believe will happen. As with almost every issue, there is another
side to the story and I’d now like to argue why emerging
technologies will be adopted at an ever accelerating rate.
Ray Kurzweil addressed this issue in his outstanding book,
The Singularity is Near, when
he noted that the rate of “paradigm shift” is doubling every
decade. As a historical analogy, he noted that it took 35 years
before 25% of the population adopted the telephone. The radio took
about 31 years; the television 26 years; the personal computer 16
years; the mobile phone 12 years; and the World Wide Web only 10
years.
Since then Google, Wikipedia and a number of other social
networking applications have been adopted in an even shorter amount
of time. This acceleration, however, has not been limited to only
communication-related devices. Robotics are being adopted at an
accelerating rate. In 2005, only 1% of all prostatectomies were
performed by robots. Today, over 50% of all such operations are
performed using a da Vinci surgical robot.
The fields of rapid prototype manufacturing and systems biology
are also experiencing acceleration. To this end, I encourage you to
watch the short two-minute video on the fab@home project (an open
source rapid prototype manufacturing platform) as well as read this
excellent interview with biotechnology
guru and system biology advocate LeRoy Hood.
I spend a great deal of time documenting how exponential
advances in semiconductors, data storage, bandwidth, gene
sequencing, brain scanning technology, robotics, algorithms and
nanotechnology will fundamentally alter the business environment in
the next decade. I am, however, aware of the fact that technology
is already outpacing society’s ability to adapt to it. As such, I
am always careful to temper client’s enthusiam about how quickly
many of today’s emerging technologies will be incorporated into the
fabric of our lives. (Frequently, I need to temper my own enthusiam as
well).
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential
candidate John Edwards, recently had a thoughtful opinion piece
bemoaning the media’s lack of meaningful coverage of today’s
important issues. To emphasize her point, she noted that many
American’s can now tell you Barack Obama’s bowling score but can’t
recite one major plank in his health care plan.
It is a valid criticism and I wholeheartedly agree with her
critique but Edwards, the candidates, and the media are missing
another serious issue – the accelerating pace of science and
technological change.
More specifically, no candidate is approaching today’s important
issues of health care, education, the environment and war from the
perspective that the near-term future of all of these issues will
almost certainly will be different – and perhaps radically so –
because of the accelerating pace of technological change.
Let me provide just a few recent examples. Late last year, the
Pentagon reported that it had begun arming robots with guns for the
first time ever. It then announced, to little fanfare, that it
intended to triple the number of robots in battlefield situations
by 2010. And by 2015 – a date that would place it near the end of
the next president’s second term – the Defense Department has
publicly stated that it expects one-third of the U.S. fight force
to consist of robots. (cont.)
In my new book, Jump the Curve, I make the case that one
strategy for “jumping the curve” and helping your organization
innovate into the future is to “develop a future bias.”
A future bias is the opposite of “hindsight bias” and hindsight
bias is, quite simply, the idea that after an event occurs
most people take credit for believing that the idea was
pre-ordained and that they “knew” it would happen. For instance, by
1920, most citizens claimed they knew that man would “always” fly.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Most people were completely
blind-sided by human flight. Lord Kelvin, the world’s most renowned
scientist claimed in 1899 that “Heavier than air machines are
impossible,” and no less an authority than the New York
Times wrote in an editorial in December 1903 – just two weeks
before the Wright Brother’s historic first flight – that human
flight would not be achievable for “1 to 10 million years.” My
guess is that if a poll had been commissioned at the beginning of
the turn of the 20th century the overwhelming consensus among the
American public would have subscribed to similar opinions or,
alternatively, something along the lines of “If God had intended
man to fly, He would have given him wings.”
In the future, as a result of exponential advances in technology
(see above chart,
source – Collapsing Geography), many things that sound
impossible today are, in fact, not only going to be possible they
are going to be commonplace. Therefore, in order to embrace this
future, it will be necessary to think exponentially – and not
linearly – about the future. As Ray Kurzweil says in his book,
The
Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, in the 21st
century humanity will experience the equivalent of 20,000 years of
change (using the 20th century’s rate of change). What he is trying
to do in an indirect way is to get people to develop a future bias.
(cont.)
At the center of our civilization lies culture – and the core of
our culture has traditionally been religion. More than any other
factor, religion provides a perception of reality by explaining the
origins of the universe and giving meaning to history as well as
humanity’s place in it. Religion defines the nature of good and
evil and creates reward and punishment images of life after
death.
The world’s major religions share their values but not
philosophies, and conflicting ideologies have prevented peaceful
coexistence in many of our societies for thousands of years. No
single religion dominates Earth’s 6.5 billion people, as the
following list shows: Christianity 2.1-billion, Islam 1.3-billion,
Secular, Agnostic, Atheists, Freethinkers 1.1-billion, Hinduism
900-million, and Judaism, 14-million.
Most religious traditions include seeds of compassion and
harmony, but some tend to promote conflict. While the world
benefits from religious leaders like Pope Benedict XVI and the Dalai Lama who try to promote peace and
benevolence, others like evangelical Christian James Dobson and
Taliban leader Mullah Omar cause strife with their “I’m right and
you’re wrong” mantra. This negative stance often inspires
terrorists that try to weaken or supplant nations through fear,
violence and intimidation.
Forward-thinking spiritual leaders understand that religions
must change if they want to fill the needs of a civilization about
to experience overwhelming science and technology breakthroughs at
exponential speeds. Futurists predict that by mid-century or
before, biotech, nanotech, infotech, and cognitive sciences could
‘morph’ the world into a global community enjoying the benefits of
a high-tech future. (cont.)
(Frequently, I need to temper my own enthusiam as
well).
