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When You're Serious about the Future
Data-driven analysis,
informed speculation, and agendas for action
in understanding
and guiding accelerating change
Universal, Global,
Societal, Organizational, and Personal
systems of change
Engaging in Science, Technology, Environmental, Economic,
Political, Social,
Organizational, and Personal dialogs on the future
A multidisciplinary, Big
Picture overview of universal evolutionary development,
global technological acceleration, transparency, and other forces and
choices ahead.
Considering the implications, choices, and challenges of asymptotic growth
in local
computation, and evaluating potential signs of a coming technological
singularity
Editor:
John Smart. To subscribe (Free)
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Accelerating
Times (ATimes) is a multidisciplinary, systems
science exploration of the Big Picture of universal development, including local technological acceleration,
compassionate transhumanism, and signs of the coming singularity (increasingly stronger self-development of technological
intelligence, as viewed from the biological perspective).
This newsletter seeks to provide concise but comprehensive and penetrating
analysis, speculation, and activist opinion in a range of processes of
accelerating change. It is read by a growing number of acceleration-aware
intrigued skeptics: scientists, technologists, business leaders, humanists,
and futurists. We've written it to provide you with valuable scientific,
technological, global, political, social, and personal foresight. Let
us know what you think.
Newsletter
Archive (click
here)
Audio
Free
Downloads
Simulation,
Agents, & Accelerating Change: Personality Capture & the Linguistic
User Interface, 2004 (70 mins)
Big picture discussion of human society as an evolutionary developmental
system, and multidisciplinary trajectories in social and technological
change. This somewhat rambling and sometimes-too-abbreviated presentation
(sorry, but I was quite tired) concludes with a brief intro to digital
twins, personality capture, and the conversational (linguistic) user interface,
perhaps the next major paradigm shift in information and communications
technologies (ICT). While we can see evidence for this emergence even
today, I think the major phase change will occur circa 2020-2040. The
actual time to transition and its quality seems to be entirely our collective
choice. A recording of my talk at Accelerating Change 2004. Free
download courtesy of Doug Kaye at IT Conversations.
How
to Be a Tech Futurist, 2005 (67 mins)
"John Smart's talk is a perfect introduction to what he
calls the infopomorphic paradigm - a way of understanding ourselves and
the universe in terms of information theory. He examines the increasing
efficiency and density of physical-computational systems to show that
we can continue to expect what Carver Mead has called our “unreasonably
efficient” advances in the microcosm, such as the recent production
advance in carbon nanoribbons. Smart proposes that the very structure
of our universe appears organized to drive accelerating discovery and
computation in the microcosm at a rate many orders of magnitude faster
than in any other domain.
This microcosmic acceleration is enabling developments in intelligent
agents and interfaces, immune systems, transparency, accountabilty, and
an emerging computational dimension to our social space. Smart expects
this will dramatically improve the quality of human life, even as it brings
new potential for misuse and abuse in its early years. He discusses the
importance of balancing both accelerating innovation and sustainable development
in the history of human civilization and makes the case for a lot more
research into apparent developmental trends. Why? They make us more accurate
forecasters and agents of change, as well as being verifiable propositions
about our future.
If you have any plans to formalize your study of the future of technology
then Smart's talk is essential. Not only does he provide an overview of
the courses currently available within the US but he also highlights the
benefits of acquiring a qualification in this area." A recording
of my talk at Accelerating Change 2005. Free download courtesy
of Doug Kaye at IT Conversations.
CDs
Understanding
the Singularity: Exploring Meta-Trends in Accelerating Change
(72 mins)
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Track
Titles:
1.
Intro to Accelerating Change
2.
Linguistic (Conversational) User Interface (LUI)
3.
Chaisson's Phi
4.
Immunity and MEST Compression
5.
Evolution vs. Development
6.
Smolin's Black Hole Attractor
7.
Uploading, Conclusions
Illustration
by Brannon Wright Design.
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From
an introductory talk at WorldFuture 2002 (Philadelphia, PA). Understanding the Singularity provides a brief,
Big Picture overview of important issues, predictions, and scenarios
in accelerating technological change. Great place to start if you haven't
heard these ideas before. Was available for $20 from ASF, now out of stock. I need to get this online next chance
I get.
Video
Speaking
to the Web, SIAI Video Interview (and Print
Transcript), 2007 (18 min)
Informal interview. “What I think is going to happen somewhere
around 2019 is every kid in the world is going to have a cell phone, because
they are going to be dirt cheap by then. Every kid in the world is going
to learn as fast as their curiosity drives them, just talking to Google.”
“We already know we have maybe five billion years more and then
the earth is going to get heated up by an expanding red giant sun. Intelligence
has got to leave earth. Most futurists currently think it is going into
outer space. I think that’s 180 degrees wrong. I think we are going
into inner space.”
Systems
Theories of Accelerating Change (and Print
Transcript), John Smart, Singularity Summit 2006 (20 min)
Presentation with slides. "In 2006, Smart presented the
talk “Systems Theories of Accelerating Change” at the Singularity
Summit at Stanford. There he looked at accelerating change from universal,
biological, human cultural, and technological perspectives, and introduced
a few well known and unorthodox ideas in acceleration mechanics."
"How to be a Tech Futurist," 2005
Video with slides of my talk at Accelerating Change 2005. Need
to put this on the web. Audio is linked above.
"The Symbiotic Age: Accelerating Change, Personality Capture,
and the Linguistic User Interface," 2004
Video with slides of my talk at Accelerating Change
2004. Need to put this on the web. Audio is linked above.
The
Ultimate Matrix Collection, 2004.
This DVD set ($60 at Amazon) contains two freewheeling 60-minute
documentaries discussing philosophy (Return to Source: Philosophy
and the Matrix) and science and technology futures (The Hard
Problem: The Science Behind the Fiction). I briefly discuss accelerating
change and dematerialization on the second documentary.
"A Brief History of Concepts in Accelerating Change,"
2003.
Video with slides of my talk at Accelerating Change
2003. Need to put this (video and audio) on the web.
Beyond Man (in production)
This three part documentary for European public television will
deal with 1) accelerating technology, 2) the concept of the technological
singularity, and 3) social and philosophical reactions to accelerating
change. I was intereviewed for this in 2006. Still waiting to see if it
ever gets produced.
Books
Humanity
3000 Seminar 4 Proceedings, John Smart, 2003
(PDF, 350 pages)
Recently-released transcript of the fourth Humanity 3000 event at the
Foundation for the Future,
Bellevue, WA. Every few years the foundation invites multidisciplinarians
to discuss and debate big picture issues for the long term future of humanity
in three time frames (25 years, a challenging 250 years, and a truly humbling
1,000 years). Seminar 4 involved Dan Barker, Don Beck, Charlie Brass,
Angela Close, Carl Coon, Peter Corning, Paul Davies, Russell Genet, John
Hartung, Ronald Moore, Adriana Ocampo, Gary Schwartz, Seung-Schik Yoo,
and myself, facilitated by Sesh Velamoor, Walter Kistler, Bob Citron,
and other members and observers at the Foundation. I made a case for the
importance and challenges of adapting to accelerating technological change.
Slide
Presentations
See ASF's slide
presentations archive.
Articles
See ASF's articles
archive.
Interviews
Interview
with John Smart, June 2005. (AACC, Institute
for the Future, 3 pages. Question by Stephen Steele).
A brief outline of accelerating change, and a few implications for 21st
century humans.
Interview
with John Smart, April 2004. (USN&WR, Next
News, 2 pages. Questions by Jim Pethokoukis).
A brief chat about some of the big changes coming our way, and others
not coming our way.
Interview
with John Smart, Nov, 2003. (See also: Speculist.com,
40 pages. Questions by Phil Bowermaster).
Speculative futurism on national priorities, systems theory, MEST compression,
inner space, the limits of biotechnology, and issues in technological
development. Even discusses when you'll get your flying car. Don't hold
your breath!.
Interview
with John Smart, Aug, 2001. (Nanomagazine.com,
10 pages. Questions by Sander Olsen).
Quite speculative futurism on various topics still-neglected but centrally
important to the coming transition: autonomous technology, immune systems,
nanotechnology and the developmental singularity hypothesis.
Future
Short Stories
Future Heroes 2035: My Friends and
I, John Smart.
High school students in the CUI era. Illustrated
future scenario for teens. This was quite popular with the focus groups.
Published in Futuristics:
Looking Ahead, Vol. 1 of Tackling Tomorrow Today, Art
Shostak, Ed., 2004.
Future Heroes 2035:
The Big Picture, John Smart.
Post-singularity futurism: inner space, accelerating change and the big
picture. This is a bit harder for some teens to grok, but has some potentially
valuable longer term ideas. Published in Moving
Along: Far Ahead, Vol. 4 of Tackling Tomorrow Today, Art
Shostak, Ed., 2004.
Developmental
Futures Scenarios
IdeaShare: Technology Proposals
A minor list of proposed sociotechnological solutions to various human
problems, large and small.
Underground Automated
Highway Systems for High-Density Cities: A 2030-2060 Scenario
Thoughts on what I expect will be the next major urban transportation
revolution, after surface-level AHS.
Speculative
Topics
The Developmental Singularity
Hypothesis
An outline and early bibliography of works and themes relevant to the
question of what autonomous intelligence must do after it emerges locally
in coming decades. From my perspective, it appears to be moving relentlessly
toward inner space, not outer space, in a process constrained by the developmental
physics of the universe. Please let me know if you know other scholars
who have reached similar conclusions.
Answering the
Fermi Paradox: Exploring Mechanisms of Universal Transcension,
June 2002. Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET), John
Smart.
I first formulated a variant of the developmental singularity hypothesis
in 1972, after reading Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. The central
thesis is simple enough for any high school student to understand, which
makes me think it just might have a chance of being correct. I've been
refining it for 30 years, and finding an increasing number of systems
theorists who have reached similar tentative conclusions. We at ASF
look forward to accelerating scientific scrutiny of this and other intriguing
hypotheses for the future of cosmic intelligence in coming years.
Spiritual Computation:
The 'Religious Galaxy'
Some thoughts on the spiritual dimensions of worldwide philosophical and
religious dialog, and a suggestion that integral deism is uniquely centrally
located in the phase space of spiritual belief.
Critiques or improvements? Send them to mail{at}accelerating.org.
Thank you.
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