Post on 20-Aug-2015
transcript
what is your image of the future...of futuring?
To help prepare this program I polled members of the Association of Professional Futurists as to their views of futuring in 2100. What follows in several slides is a sample of responses.
Futuring in 2100 will be more experiential and participatory than it is today. We will try out possible futures in simulations on Holodecks. We, as futurists, will be the facilitators of those experiences.
Joyce Gioia
Futuring will be baked into human educa7on and 2st century ci7zens will think in vastly more sophis7cated ways about long term implica7ons...Watsonian power computers will help explore complex physical issues...crea7ng new visions of humanity is not something we’d willingly hand over to our computa7onal friends...have learned how resistant people are to giving up power. 21st Century humans will fully understand the power of the future.
Joel Barker
Our view of human nature is central to our sense of what futures will be in 2100. I think history shows that people are quite willing to give up their power...if in exchange for greater comfort, leisure and pleasure...I suspect most of us would gladly turn over our liber7es in exchange for Wall-‐E style pampering.
Noah Radford
Futuring in 2100 will be ex7nct as it now exists -‐ crude, prima7ve, ineffec7ve. We’ll have very sophis7cated soOware doing predic7ve analy7cs and nuanced scenarios using big data in real 7me...Humans may act as occasional prophet in the wilderness calling out Black Swans...
Lee Shupp
In addi7on to Watson-‐type computa7on of what 21st Century people quaintly called “big data” the instant scenario-‐izing of informa7on will be baked into all our ac7vi7es, in ever more immersive environments. As computa7on, virtual modeling, visualiza7on, gamifica7on advance we are likely to see “futuring” across all domains -‐ retail, policy, finance, healthcare, educa7on, management, personal development, child-‐rearing, etc.
Cecily Sommers
What remains of the human race will be s7rring the embers of the fire to see what’s wriWen in the charred bones of dinner.OR, we’ll be so deep into the post-‐silicon bio-‐age that alternate outcomes will be ar7ficially evolved in sequestered eco-‐arenas...OR it will be a meme marketplace to see whose design fic7ons aWract the most viewer-‐aWen7on seconds...OR futuring will be simply another elementary skill...but this assumes we rescue our educa7onal systems ...which seems more unlikely than that we’ll rescue the environment.2100 will be different...very different.(And no I don’t call what I do futuring, or futurology.)
Wendy Shultz
In 2100 traveling in space via light-‐speed vessels is very commonly affordable to middle-‐class people...Non-‐human occupied vehicles can travel 100 LY away. Standard measures of 7me, space, distance [have evolved].In 2100 the words ‘past’, ‘present’, future’ will be found in history books explaining how previous people marked their loca7on in the Universe’s grid system...languages will no longer have past tense, present tense and future tense...instead space travelers communicate with each other by expressing their ‘space grid loca7on’ on universe naviga7on maps.
June Lo
All great paths lead us to [the] threshold, but none can guide us across the great divide--from the creature human to the co-creative human. None can guide us as to how to use the vast new powers given us by science and technology. None of us have been there yet.
Barbara Marx Hubbard 7/13/13
“If you don’t go far enough back in memory or far enough ahead in hope, your present will be impoverished.”
Edward Lindaman
“Any student of the rise and fall of cultures cannot fail to be impressed by the role played in this historical succession by the image of the future. The rise and fall of images precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as a society’s image is posi7ve and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive.”
The Image of the Future, Fred Polak, 1961
heilbroner, visions of the future... distant past
150,000 to 300 years ago people did not imagine material conditions of future would be different
yesterday 300 years ago to 1970’s future seen as full of unimaginable possibilities for improving human
condition at all levels
today 1970’s to now future seen as dominated by large impersonal forces - science,
economics, politics, religion tied to state humans still believe future will be different, but most likely worse
everything possible today was at one time impossible.
everything impossible today may at some time in the future be possible.
Edward LindamanDirector Program Planning, Apollo
heilbroner, visions of the future... distant past
150,000 to 300 years ago people did not imagine material conditions of future would be different
yesterday 300 years ago to 1970’s future seen as full of unimaginable possibilities for improving human
condition at all levels
today 1970’s to now future seen as dominated by large impersonal forces - science,
economics, politics, religion tied to state humans still believe future will be different, but most likely worse
• will there be a 2100 for futuring?• who will do the futuring?• what might futuring look like?
survival first
Consciousness precedes reality, and not the other way around.” President Vaclav Havel Czech Republic
effective choice making…
technology acceleration
connectivity | convergence | 3D
nano | bio | info | cogno | robo
who will future?
Marc Prensky originated “digital native” term
FuTURIST•com
generations of digital natives
digital immigrants gone
...test is “168 7mes faster, 26,000 7mes less expensive, and over 400 7mes more sensi7ve than the current standard.” It costs $0.03 per test and takes five minutes. The test could also poten7ally be used to diagnose ovarian and lung cancer, both of which also produce abnormal levels of mesothelin.
hWp://singularityhub.com/2013/02/25/16-‐year-‐old-‐jack-‐andraka-‐invents-‐innova7ve-‐cancer-‐test-‐using-‐google-‐search/
what might futuring look like?
people of the screen do not accept old limitations...
Based on: Gerd Leonhard
transhuman intelligence will assist or do forecasting
futuring 2100 will involve... unlocking the power of human intelligence and
human imagination getting bandwidth to the brains of more people
linking minds getting bandwidth between more brains
living in correct uncertainty rather than incorrect certainty
connecting the future to the now applying futuring intelligence to real world needs
leveraging amazement as in The Toynbee Convector (Bradbury, 1984) people
will be thrilled to have made it and ready to go beyond
“the future enters into us in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”
Rainier Maria Rilke
thank you for your timefor more information
www.futurist.com
glen@futurist.com
twitter.com/glenhiemstra
facebook.com/glenhiemstra