Exploring Micro and Macro Frontiers:
Using the Lever of Accelerating Change
John Smart
Space Frontier Conference 2004
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
(accelerating.org/slides.html)
© 2004 Accelerating.org
The Extraordinary Present
“There has never been a time more pregnant
with possibilities.”— Gail Carr Feldman
Quiet happiness, careful confidence, and flow (after
Flow, by Csikszentmihalyi) are the natural state of the
human animal.
Our accelerating world adds regular surprise to the mix.
If you aren’t surprised (occasionally even astonished) at
least once a day, perhaps you aren’t looking closely
enough.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
The Future is Now
“You will never again be as good looking as you are today.”
“Things will never again be as slow or simple as they are today.”
— You (in front of the mirror every morning).
More than ever, the Future is Now. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.
— William Gibson (paraphrased)
We have two options: Future Shock, or Future Shaping.
Never has the lever of technology been so powerful.
Never have we had so much impact, and potential for impact.
We need a pragmatic optimism, a can-do, change-aware attitude. A
balance between innovation and preservation. Honest dialogs on
persistent problems, tolerance of imperfect solutions. The ability to
avoid both doomsaying and a paralyzing adherence to the status quo.
— David Brin (paraphrased)
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Tip: Great input leads to great output. Do you have a weekly
reading and writing period? Several learning and doing communities?
How global is your thinking and action?
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Institute for the Study of
Accelerating Change
Los Angeles
Palo Alto

ISAC (Accelerating.org) is a nonprofit community of scientists,
technologists, entrepreneurs, administrators, educators,
analysts, humanists, and systems theorists discussing and
dissecting accelerating change.

We practice “developmental future 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.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Evolution vs. Development
“The Twin’s Thumbprints”
Consider two identical twins:
Thumbprints
Brain wiring
Evolution drives almost all the unique local patterns.
Development creates the predictable global patterns.
Los Angeles
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© 2004 Accelerating.org
Replication & Variation
“Natural Selection”
Adaptive Radiation
Chaos, Contingency
Pseudo-Random Search
Strange Attractors
Evolution
Complex Environmental Interaction
The Left and Right Hands of
“Evolutionary Development”
Left Hand
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New Computational Phase Space Opening
Selection & Convergence
“Convergent Selection”
Emergence,Global Optima
MEST-Compression
Standard Attractors
Development
Right Hand
Well-Explored Phase Space Optimization
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Marbles, Landscapes, and Basins
(Complex Systems, Evolution, & Development)
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Palo Alto
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.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Understanding Development
Just a few thousand
developmental genes “ride
herd” over massive molecular
evolutionary chaos.
Yet two genetic twins look, in
many respects, identical.
How is that?
They’ve been tuned, cyclically,
for a future-specific
convergent emergent order,
in a stable development niche.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
Origination of Organismal Form, Müller and Newman, 2003
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Every Substrate Has its Niche
The entire evolutionary history of life
involves each organisms increasingly
intelligent (value driven) modification
of their niche, and environmental
responses to these changes.
“Organisms do not simply 'adapt' to
preexisting environments, but actively
change and construct the world in which
they live. Not until Niche Construction,
however, has that understanding been
turned into a coherent structure that brings
together observations about natural history
and an exact dynamical theory.”
– Richard Lewontin, Harvard
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Palo Alto
Niche Construction, Odling-Smee, Laland, Feldman, 2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Niches are Increasingly more Local in
Spacetime (Space and Time)
Biogenesis required a cooling Earth-crust, and billennia.
Multicellular organisms required a Cambrian Explosion,
and millennia.
Human culture required a Linguistic Explosion, and tens
of thousands of years.
Science and technology revolutions required a Social
Enlightenment, a fraction of the preserved biomass of
Earth’s extinct species, and hundreds of years.
Intelligent computers will apparently be able to model
the birth and death of the universe with the refuse thrown
away annually by one American family. In tens of years?
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
How Many Eyes Are
Developmentally Optimal?
Evolution tried this experiment.
Development calculated an operational optimum.
Some reptiles (e.g. Xantusia vigilis, certain skinks) still
have a parietal (“pineal”) vestigial third eye.
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© 2004 Accelerating.org
How Many Wheels are
Developmentally Optimal?
Examples: Wheel on Earth. Social computation device.
Diffusion proportional to population density and diversity.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Stratellites:
A Developmental Attractor?
Inventor: Hokan Colting
21stCenturyAirships.com
180 feet diameter. Autonomous.
60,000 feet (vs. 22,000 miles)
Permanent geosynch. location.
Onboard solar and navigation.
A “quarter sized” receiver dish.
Why are satellites presently losing
against the wired world?
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Los Angeles
Palo Alto

Border monitoring
(low altitude drug flights)
City monitoring
Early warning radar
Urban broadband
Latency, bandwidth, and launch costs.
MEST compression always wins.
Don’t bet against it!
© 2004 Accelerating.org
EM Mass Drivers:
A Developmental Attractor?
Cost of launching to LEO orbit: $10K/kilogram. Escape velocity: 8 km/second.
Mass drivers (linear electromagnetic induction in vacuum) and Slingatrons
(spiral or circular EM acceleration, Derek Tidman), are both potential launch
system candidates.
“The actual energy cost of putting a pound into Earth Orbit would be very low,
only about 25 cents per pound if electric energy were directly [100%
efficiently] used to accelerate payloads to an orbital velocity of 8 km/second.”
(Maglev 2000 of Florida)
Problem: Deformation when
the projectile hits atmosphere
at the end of the tube.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
MagLifter Solution: Subsonic
non-vacuum (600 mph) launch
vehicle, replacing first stage
(1/10th the cost).
Long-Term Solution:
Not yet apparent.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Railguns: EM Proof of Concept
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Los Angeles
Palo Alto
Railguns (a 2% efficient, simpler EM technology) are
actively being developed by the U.S. Navy for
antimissile defense. Rails can be as short as 1 m.
They presently fire small projectiles (at 300,000 G’s,
using two-story generators for sufficient current) at
velocities up to 10 km/sec. Performance goal is 15
km/sec. 150 km/sec is considered possible.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Hurricane Control:
A New NASA/NOAA Mission?
Hurricane Ivan: $11B in property
damage. 11 named storms in 10
months in 2004, 7 have caused
damage in U.S.
NOAA expects decades of
hurricane hyperactivity.
Ross Hoffman, use Solar Powered Satellites (SPS’s).
In 1968, Peter Glaser, microwave-relay SPS’s for
power on earth, tuned away from climate. These would
be tuned to water vapor (like microwave oven). Low
pressure centers disruptible by atmospheric heating.
Very sensitive to hi pressure side steering. Cyclones,
monsoons, blizzards, possibly even tornados.
Research: Russian mylar mirrors, 1993, 1999 (failed).
23 m mirror (above), 5 km light circle on the ground.
Arrays would raise surface temp. several degrees.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
Controlling Hurricanes, Scientific American, 10.2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Something Curious Is Going On
Unexplained.
(Don’t look for this in your physics or information theory texts…)
Los Angeles
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© 2004 Accelerating.org
From the Big Bang to Complex Stars:
“The Decelerating Phase” of Universal ED
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
From Biogenesis to Intelligent Technology:
The “Accelerating Phase” of Universal ED
Carl Sagan’s
“Cosmic
Calendar”
(Dragons of
Eden, 1977)
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
Each month
is roughly 1
billion years.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
A U-Shaped Curve of Change?
Big Bang Singularity
50 yrs: Scalar Field Scaffolds
50 yrs ago: Machina silico
100,000 yrs: Matter
100,000 yrs ago: H. sap. sap.
1B yrs: Protogalaxies
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Developmental Singularity?
8B yrs: Earth
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Eric Chaisson’s “Phi” (Φ):
A Universal Moore’s Law Curve
Free Energy Rate Density
Substrate
Ф
(ergs/second/gram)
time
Galaxies
Stars
Planets (Early)
Plants
Animals/Genetics
Brains (Human)
Culture (Human)
Int. Comb. Engines
Jets
Pentium Chips
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0.5
2 (“counterintuitive”)
75
900
20,000(10^4)
150,000(10^5)
500,000(10^5)
(10^6)
(10^8)
(10^11)
Source: Eric Chaisson, Cosmic Evolution, 2001
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Saturation: A Biological Lesson
How S Curves Get Old
Resource limits in a niche
Material
Energetic
Spatial
Temporal
Competitive limits in a niche
Intelligence/Info-Processing
Curious Facts:
1. Our special universal structure permits each new computational
substrate to be far more MEST resource-efficient than the last
2. The most complex local systems have no intellectual competition
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Result: No apparent limits to the acceleration of local intelligence,
interdependence, and immunity in new substrates over time.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Understanding the Lever of ICT
"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
“The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of
Archimedes, with the given fulcrum [representative
democracy], moves the world.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1814)
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
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…)
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Simplicity and Complexity
Universal Evolutionary Development is:
Simple at the Boundaries, Complex In Between
Simple Math
Of the Very Small
Simple Math
Of the Very Large
(Big Bang,
Quantum Mechanics,
Chemistry)
(Classical Mechanics,
General Relativity)
Complex Math
Of the In Between
(Chaos, Life, Humans,
Coming Technologies)
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Palo Alto
Ian Stewart, What Shape is a Snowflake?, 2001
© 2004 Accelerating.org
The Meaning of Simplicity
(Wigner’s ladder)
Complex systems
are evolutionary.
Simple systems
are developmental.
Evolution
Development
Non-Pattern
Pattern
Variety
Uniformity
Symmetry and
Supersymmetry
Symmetry
Breaking
Chaotic Math
Simple Math
The universe is painting complex local evolutionary pictures, on a
simple universe-wide developmental scaffolding.
The picture (canvas/intelligence, in the middle) is
mathematically complex (Gödelian incomplete),
and trillions of times evolutionarily unique.
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The framework (easel/cosmic structure, very large,
& paint/physical laws, MEST structure, very small)
is uniform, and simple to understand.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Our Universe Has an Evolutionary
Developmental Purpose
The more we study the dual processes of Evo-Devo, the
better we discover the simple background, and can
create a complex foreground. Take Home Points:
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Palo Alto
Evolutionary variation is generally increasing and
becomes more MEST efficient with time and substrate.
Development (in special systems) is on an accelerating
local trajectory to an intelligent destination.
Humans are both evolutionary & developmental actors,
creating and catalyzing a new substrate transition.
We need both adequate evolutionary generativity,
(uniqueness) and adequate developmental
sustainability (accelerating niche construction) in this
extraordinary journey.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Cosmic Embryogenesis
(in Three Easy Steps)
Geosphere/Geogenesis
(Chemical Substrate)
Biosphere/Biogenesis
(Biological-Genetic Substrate)
Noosphere/Noogenesis
(Memetic-Technologic Substrate)
Pierre Tielhard de Chardin
(1881-1955)
Jesuit Priest, Transhumanist,
Developmental Systems Theorist
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Palo Alto
Le Phénomène Humain, 1955
© 2004 Accelerating.org
The Challenge in Managing
Technological Development
Since the birth of civilization, humanity has been
learning to build special types of technological systems
that are progressively able to do more for us, in a more
networked and resilient fashion, using less resources
(matter, energy, space, time, human and economic
capital) to deliver any fixed amount of complexity,
productivity, or capability.
We are faced daily with many possible evolutionary
choices in which to invest our precious time, energy, and
resources, but only a few optimal developmental
pathways will clearly "do more, and better, with less."
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Inner Space and Outer Space
“I ask you to look both ways. For the
road to knowledge of the stars is
through the atom., and the important
knowledge of the atom has been
reached through the stars.”
Stars and Atoms, 1928
The fundamental constants of nature,
such as the mass of the proton and
the charge of the electron, may be a
"natural and complete specification
for constructing a Universe."
Fundamental Theory, 1946
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Palo Alto
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
Mathematician and Physicist
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Unreasonable Effectiveness/Efficiency:
Eugene Wigner and Carver 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.
F=ma
F=-(Gm1m2)/r2
E=mc2
W=(1/2mv2)
Commentary on the “Unreasonable Efficiency of Physics
in the Microcosm,” VSLI Pioneer Carver Mead, c. 1980.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
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.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law derives from two predictions in 1965 and
1975 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that computer
chips (processors, memory, etc.) double their complexity
every 12-24 months at near constant unit cost.
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This is one of several abstractions of Moore’s Law, due to
miniaturization of transistor density in two dimensions.
Others relate to speed (the signals have less distance to
travel) and computational power (speed × density).
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Ray Kurzweil: A Generalized Moore’s Law
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Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Some Tech Capacity Growth Rates Are
Independent of Socioeconomic Cycles
There are many natural cycles:
Political-Economic Pendulum,
Boom-Bust, War-Peace…
Ray Kurzweil first noted that a
generalized, century-long Moore’s
Law was unaffected by the U.S.
Great Depression of the 1930’s.
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Conclusion: Human-discovered,
Not human-created complexity here.
Not that many intellectual or physical
resources are required to keep us on
the accelerating developmental
trajectory. (“MEST compression
is a rigged game.”)
Age of Spiritual Machines, 1999
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Example: Holey Optical Fibers
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.
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Los Angeles
Palo Alto
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 continue to drive the
ICT and networking revolutions.
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. © 2004 Accelerating.org
Smart’s Laws of Technology
1. Tech learns ten million times faster than you do.
(Electronic vs. biological rates of evolutionary development).
2. Humans are selective catalysts, not controllers, of
technological evolutionary development.
(Regulatory choices. Ex: WMD production or transparency,
P2P as a proprietary or open source development)
3. The first generation of any technology is often
dehumanizing, the second is indifferent to humanity,
and with luck the third becomes net humanizing.
(Cities, cars, cellphones, computers).
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Many Accelerations are Underwhelming
Some Modest Exponentials:
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Los Angeles
Palo Alto
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)
Scientific publications have increased 40% over 13
years (1988-2001).
BusinessWeek, 75th Ann. Issue, “The Innovation Economy”, 10.11.2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Revisit 1929
Business Week’s First Edition:

IBM has an ad for “electric sorting machines.”
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PG&E has an ad announcing natural gas powered
factories in San Francisco.
Could we have predicted that one of these technologies
would sustain a relentless, profound, accelerating
transformation while another would, on the surface,
appear largely unchanged?
Can we predict this now?
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Areas of Accelerating Innovation, 1929-2004
“The Microcosm” (the “ICT” domain)
Materials Science (“Substrates”)
 Synthetic Materials
 Transistor (Bell Labs, 1948)
 Microprocessor
 Fiber Optics
 Lasers and Optoelectronics
 Wired and Wireless Networks
 Quantum Wells, Wires, and Dots
 Exotic Condensed Matter
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
BusinessWeek, 75th Ann. Issue, “The Innovation Economy”, 10.11.2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Areas of Accelerating Innovation, 1929-2004
“The Microcosm” (the “ICT” domain)
Systems and Software
 Television (1940’s)
 Mainframes (1950’s)
 Minicomputers (1970’s)
 Personal Computers (1980’s)
 Cellphones/Laptops/PDAs (1990’s)
 Embedded/Distributed Systems (2000’s)
 Pervasive/Ubiquitous Systems (2010’s)
 Cable TV, Satellites, Consumer, Enterprise, Technical
Software, Middleware, Web Services, Email, CMS,
Early Semantic Web, Search, KM, AI, NLP…
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
BusinessWeek, 75th Ann. Issue, “The Innovation Economy”, 10.11.2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Areas of Accelerating Innovation, 1929-2004
“The Macrocosm” (the “human-ICT” domain)
Defense and Space (“Security-oriented human-ICT”)
 Aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, ICBMs, cruise
missiles, lunar landers, nuclear powered
submarines... (major open problems (security))
Manufacturing (“Engineering-oriented human-ICT”)
 Lean manufacturing, supply-chain management,
process automation, big-box retailing, robotics…
(major open problems (rich-poor divide))
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
BusinessWeek, 75th Ann. Issue, “The Innovation Economy”, 10.11.2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Areas of Accelerating Innovation, 1929-2004
“The Macrocosm” (the “human-ICT” domain)
Social and Legal (“Fairness-oriented human-ICT”)
 Civil rights, social security, fair labor standards, ADA,
EOE, tort reform, class actions, Miranda rights,
zoning, DMV code, alimony, palimony, criminal law
reform, penal reform, education reform, privacy law,
feminism, minority power, spousal rights, gay civil
unions... (“accelerating refinements” (vs. disruptive
changes), consider E.U. vs. U.S. vs China.)
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Palo Alto
BusinessWeek, 75th Ann. Issue, “The Innovation Economy”, 10.11.2004
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Areas of Accelerating Innovation, 1929-2004
“The Macrocosm” (the “human-ICT” domain)
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
Agrotech/Biotech/Health Care (“Bio-oriented human-ICT”)
 Green revolution, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals,
transplants, medical imaging, prosthetics,
microsurgery, genomics, proteomics, combinatorial
chem, bioinformatics… (“accelerating regulation”)
Finance (“Capital-oriented human-ICT”)
 Venture capital (American R&D, 1946), credit cards
(Bank of America, 1958), mortgage derivs (1970’s),
mutual and hedge funds, prog. trading, microcredit…
Transportation and Energy (“Infrastructure human-ICT”)
 Jet aircraft, helicopters, radar, containerized shipping
 Nuclear power, solar energy, gas-powered turbines,
hydrogen (“accelerating efficiencies (hidden ©change)”)
2004 Accelerating.org
ICT: A 2030 Vision
Entertain a Radical Proposition: “Human-ICT” computational
domains are saturating. “Microcosm” ICT is not.
(Human pop. flatlines in 2050 (“First World effect”). 2nd order deriv.
of world energy demand is negative. ICT acceleration continues.)
Defense, Security, Space, Finance, Social, Legal, Agrotech,
Biotech, Health Care, Finance, Transportation, Energy and
Envirotech all will look surprisingly similar in 2030 (with major ICT
extensions).
We see evolutionarily more and better of the above, but now global,
not local. Our generation’s theme:
“First World Saturating, Third World Uplifting.”
Condensed Matter Physics, the Nanoworld, and Cosmology have
continued to surprise us.
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ICT (Sensors, Storage, Communication, Connectivity, Simulation,
Interface) now look, and feel, very different.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Physical Space:
Is Biotech a Saturated Substrate?
21st century neuropharm and neurotech won’t
accelerate biological complexity (seems likely now).
– Neural homeostasis fights “top-down” interventions
– “Most complex structure in the known universe”
Strong resistance to disruptive biointerventions
– In-group ethics, body image, personal identity
We’ll learn a lot, not biologically “redesign humans”
– No human-scale time, ability or reason to do so.
– Expect “regression to mean” (elim. disease) instead.
Neuroscience will accelerate technological complexity
– Biologically inspired computing. “Structural mimicry.”
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Physical Space:
Technological “Cephalization” of Earth
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Palo Alto
“Finite Sphericity + Acceleration =
Phase Transition”
"No one can deny that
a world network of
economic and psychic
affiliations is being woven
at ever increasing speed
which envelops and
constantly penetrates more
deeply within each of
us. With every day that
passes it becomes a little
more impossible for us
to act or think otherwise
than collectively."
—Tielhard de Chardin
© 2004 Accelerating.org
U.S. Transcontinental Railroad:
Promontory Point Fervor
Built by hard-working
immigrants
The Network of the 1880’s
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Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
IT Globalization Revolution (2000-20):
Promontory Point Revisited
The more things change, the
more some things stay the
same.
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Palo Alto
The coming intercontinental internet will be built
primarily by hungry young programmers and tech
support personnel in India, Asia, third-world
Europe, Latin America, and other developing
economic zones. In coming decades, such individuals
will outnumber the First World technical support
population between five- and ten-to-one.
Consider what this means for the goals of modern
business and education: Teaching skills for global
management, partnerships, and collaboration.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
The Pentagon’s New Map
A New Global Defense Paradigm
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Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Shrinking the Disconnected Gap
The Computational “Ozone Hole”
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Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
The Disconnected Gap:
Our Planetary Ozone Hole
Global Polarization (Core vs. Gap)
“Disconnectedness (tech, economic, cultural) defines
danger.” (Thomas Barnett, Pentagon’s New Map)
 Strategy: Encircle the Gap, Support the Seam States
-- Plant resources in “supportive soil.”
-- Greatest comparative advantage for shrinking the
hole (eg. Koreas).
 Strategy: Don’t Stir Up the Ant’s Nest
-- This is difficult, as due to differential immunity, our
cultural memes (materialism, democracy, etc.) are as
powerful as the germs that wiped out up to 90% of the
less immunologically complex cultures (Rome: 1200AD, Europe: 1300, America: 1492-1600)
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© 2004 Accelerating.org
Physical Space:
A Transparent Society (“Panopticon”)
David Brin,
The Transparent Society, 1998
Hitachi’s mu-chip:
RFID for paper currency
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Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Virtual Space:
Is Inner Space the Final Frontier?
Mirror Worlds, David Gelernter, 1998.
Large scale structures in spacetime are:
• A vastly slower substrate for evolutionary development
• Relatively computationally simple and tractable (transparent)
• Rapidly encapsulated by our simulation science
• A “rear view mirror” on the developmental trajectory of
emergence of universal intelligence?
versus
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Non-Autonomous ISS
Autonomous Human Brain
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Interface:
Oil Refinery (A Multi-Acre Automatic Factory)
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Palo Alto
Tyler, Texas, 1964. 360 acres. Run by three operators,
each needing only a high school education.
The 1972 version eliminated the three operators.
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Interface:
Understanding Process Automation
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Perhaps 80-90% of today's First World
paycheck is paid for by automation
(“tech we tend”).
Robert Solow, 1987 Nobel in
Economics (Solow Productivity Paradox,
Theory of Economic Growth)
“7/8 comes from technical progess.”
Human contribution (10-20%) to a First
World job is Social Value of Employment
+ Creativity + Education
Developing countries are next in line
(sooner or later).
Continual education and grants
(“taxing the machines”) are the final job
descriptions for all human beings.
Termite Mound
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Understanding Automation
Between 1995 and 2002 the world’s 20 largest economies lost
22 million industrial jobs. This is the shift from a Manufacturing
to a Service/Information Economy.
1995-02, America lost 2 million industrial jobs, mostly to China.
China lost 15 million such jobs, mostly to machines. (Fortune)
Despite the shrinking of America's industrial work force, our
country's overall industrial output increased by 50% since
1992. (Economist)
“Robots are replacing humans or are greatly enhancing human performance in
mining, manufacture, and agriculture. Huge areas of clerical work are also
being automated. Standardized repetitive work is being taken over by
electronic systems. The key to America's continued prosperity depends on
shifting to ever more productive and diverse services. And the good news is
jobs here are often better paying and far more interesting than those on we
knew on farms and the assembly line.” (Tsvi Bisk)
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
"The Misery of Manufacturing," The Economist. Sept. 27, 2003
"Worrying About Jobs Isn't Productive," Fortune Magazine. Nov. 10, 2003
“The Future of Making a Living,” Tsvi Bisk, 2003
© 2004 Accelerating.org
An ICT Attractor:
The Linguistic User Interface
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Los Angeles
Palo Alto
Google’s cache (2002, % non-novel)
Watch Windows 2004 become
Conversations 2020…
Convergence of Infotech and Sociotech
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Today: Gmail
Free, search-based webmail service with 1,000
megabytes (1 gigabyte) of storage. Google
search quickly recalls any message you have
ever sent or received. No more need to file
messages to find them again.
All replies to each retrieved email are
automatically displayed (“threaded”). Relevant
text ads and links to related web pages are
displayed adjacent to email messages.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Tomorrow:
Social Software, Lifelogs
Gmail preserves, for the first time, everything we’ve ever
typed. Gmailers are all bloggers (who don’t know it).
Next, we’ll store everything we’ve ever said. Then
everything we’ve ever seen. This storage (and
processing, and bandwidth) makes us all networkable in
ways we never dreamed.
Lifeblog, SenseCam, What Was I Thinking, and
MyLifeBits (2003) are early examples of “LifeLogs.”
Systems for auto-archiving and auto-indexing all life
experience. Add NLP, collaborative filtering, and other
early AI to this, and data begins turning into wisdom.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Personality Capture
In the long run, we become seamless with our machines.
No other credible long term futures have been proposed.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
“Technology is becoming organic. Nature is becoming
technologic.” (Brian Arthur, SFI)
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Your “Digital You” (Digital Twin)
“I would never upload my consciousness
into a machine.”
“I enjoy leaving behind stories about my life
for my children.”
Prediction: When your mother dies in 2050,
your digital mom will be “50% her.”
When your best friend dies in 2080, your
digital best friend will be “80% him.”
When you die in 2099, your digital you will be
99% you. Will this feel like death, or growth?
Successive approximation, seamless
integration, subtle transition.
When you can shift your consciousness between
your electronic and biological components, the
encapsulation and transcendence of the biological
will feel like only growth, not death.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Greg Panos (and Mother)
PersonaFoundation.org
© 2004 Accelerating.org
Action Items
1. Sign up for free Tech Tidbits and Accelerating
Times newsletters at Accelerating.org
2. Attend Accelerating Change (AC2004)
November 5-7 at Stanford, Palo Alto, CA
3. Send feedback to johnsmart@accelerating.org
Thank You.
Los Angeles
Palo Alto
© 2004 Accelerating.org