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The C-R-Newsletter
C-R-Newsletter #65:
October 4, 2008
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Nick Bostrom Ph.D., Director, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University |
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Jamais Cascio, research affiliate, Institute for the Future |
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James J. Hughes Ph.D., Exec. Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies |
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Mike Treder, Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology |
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Eliezer Yudkowsky, Research Associate. Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence |
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William Potter Ph.D., Director, James Martin Center for
Nonproliferation Studies |
This event comes just ahead of the futurist mega-gathering
Convergence 08 at the same venue (see below). Please
join us for this
essential seminar!
Convergence 08
On November 15-16, 2008, the world’s most dangerous ideas will collide in
Mountain View, California.
Convergence08
will examine the world-changing possibilities of nanotech
and the life-changing promises of biotech. It is the premier forum for debate
and exploration of cogtech ethics, and ground zero of the past and future
infotech revolution. Convergence 08 is an innovative, lively
unconference,
the first and only forum dedicated to NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) technologies.
CRN will be there, and we hope you will be too. Discounted
early bird
registration is available until October 20.
Scenarios Becoming Real
Although we're quick to point out that the
nanotechnology scenarios developed by the CRN Task Force are not
predictions, it's interesting to follow the news and see how some early elements
we hypothesized are starting to take place.
We’ve compiled a few
examples:
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RepRap Release & Scenario #2 |
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IDEAS Factory Funding & Scenario #3 |
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Water Treatment Breakthroughs & Scenario #5 |
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Accelerated Warming & Scenario #8 |
And here’s
another one:
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Banning Chinese Products & Scenario #3 |
Again, the scenarios should not be viewed as predictions, nor do they represent
outcomes desired by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. CRN intends the
scenarios to provide a springboard for discussion of molecular manufacturing
policies and societal responses. While each scenario can be understood
individually, the real value of the process comes from the comparison of
multiple scenarios.
The End of Capitalism?
Does the present financial crisis signal the
end of capitalism, as we
know it? We don’t think so, but we do believe it could signal a
fundamental systemic shift.
During the last comparable upheaval, back in the 1930s, most of Europe began
moving toward a system of democratic socialism, which is still in place today.
The US never went as far, of course, and in fact retreated from that direction
in the 1980s and 1990s in a move toward laissez faire economics that many
people blame in part for our present troubles.
At the same time, China has, since the 1980s, combined one-party politics with
robust capitalist economics and achieved astonishing financial growth. Russia's
present leadership seems eager to follow that example, while the US may lean
more toward Europe and others in adopting socialist management of health care
and various major financial institutions.
If that happens, we would end up with something like the old Cold War alignment,
but with the economic systems flipped around. It’s possible we may see, over the
next decade or so, a clear realignment that puts communist capitalism --
China and Russia -- on one side, with democratic socialism -- the United
States, Europe, Japan, Australia, and Canada on the other side. India, Africa,
and South America would remain in the middle, to be wooed and/or fought over by
both sides.
CRN Goes to Spain
Last month, CRN Executive Director Mike Treder traveled to Spain to make a
presentation to a group of faculty and students about the effects of
nanotechnology on globalization.
In addition to speaking about economic, military, and humanitarian implications,
a major point he made was the projected continuum between global warming,
climate chaos, geoengineering, and planet-scale engineering.
You can read more about those remarks in CRN’s
latest monthly column
for Nanotechnology Now.
Funding for Independent Researchers
The European Research Council has good news for "early career independent
researchers" working in "any field of science, engineering, and scholarship."
They are offering grants totaling almost half a billion US dollars for qualified
researchers from any country who have an innovative idea and need funding to
explore or develop it.
Proposals can be submitted in three broad areas:
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Physical Sciences and Engineering (by 29 Oct) |
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Social Sciences and Humanities (by 19 Nov) |
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Life Sciences (by 10 Dec) |
Read more here.
CRN Goes to Greece
Later this month, CRN’s Mike Treder will make a presentation at the World
Public Forum’s “Dialogue
of Civilizations” in Rhodes, Greece. Mike will report to the group on this
subject: “From ‘top down’ to ‘bottom up’ -- In technology, economics, and
geopolitics.”
World Public Forum is “a deliberative-consultative body that unites various
public organizations, members of organs of government, representatives of
intellectual, cultural, spiritual, business and political elite from different
countries, representatives of various cultural traditions, people that strive
for contribution in dialogue among civilizations.”
Their mission includes
“the creation of effective and democratic instruments of solving of global
problems and realization of evolutionary changes in the structure of modern
society.”
Mike looks forward to meeting and exchanging ideas with the event’s esteemed
participants.
Feature Essay: The Human Extinction Scenario
By Jamais Cascio, CRN Director of Impacts Analysis
It's 2019. A major pandemic has swept the planet, with upwards of 25 million
people infected. Global food networks have collapsed, and riots over food
supplies are in daily headlines around the world. The transition away from
fossil fuels is underway, but a lack of standards, failing infrastructure, and
catastrophic mistakes have made the shift far more painful than expected.
Pirates fill the seas, hackers attack key networks, and "griefing" has moved
from the world of online games to our information-laden real lives. War,
drought, and climate disruption have pushed millions out of their homes
throughout the world, a global diaspora that grows daily.
And into this set of interwoven crises, an announcement: According to the most
sophisticated global computer simulations ever run, the human species is likely
to go functionally extinct by 2042.
What do you do?
This is the premise behind Superstruct, a
new project
organized by the Palo Alto, California-based
Institute for the Future (IFTF).
The Institute has been around for 40 years, a non-profit think tank offering
structured forecasts to a variety of global clients. For 30 years, it has
produced an annual "Ten-Year Forecast," highlighting trends and topics that the
combined work of the various IFTF associates deem likely to be important over
the coming decade. This year, for the 2009 forecast, IFTF decided to do
something different: Rather than rely on its internal experts, they would
"crowd-source the future," opening up the foresight process to thousands (or
more) of participants.
IFTF is doing this crowd-sourcing in the form of a game -- Superstruct.
Superstruct (meaning to build upon) is a "massively-multiplayer forecasting
game" designed by Ten-Year Forecast director
Kathi Vian, noted game
specialist Jane
McGonigal, and me, environmental futurist (and the Director of Impacts
Analysis at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology)
Jamais Cascio. I have
worked as a part-time Research Affiliate with IFTF for a few years now. For
Superstruct, Kathi makes sure that the work fits in with Ten-Year Forecast
goals, Jane has organized the game structure, and I've been in charge of
building the game world.
Unlike World of Warcraft or other massively-multiplayer online worlds,
Superstruct is not played as a traditional computer game. Rather, it's perhaps
better thought of as a collaborative storytelling exercise, but with rules.
Participants will be asked to describe in detail how they themselves will be
living in 2019, and how they would respond to the crises presented -- and to the
announcement of the likely extinction of humankind. Moreover, the participants
will be asked to work together to come up with new forms of organizations --
superstructs -- that could offer novel ways to deal with the crises at hand, and
help push out the extinction horizon for the human species.
Participation takes the form of videos, blog posts, twitter feeds, and active
contributions on the Superstruct discussion boards. Already, creative early
participants have produced novel materials, even entire websites, based in this
fictional world of 2019. Twitter chat has been underway for at least a week;
Superstruct-related posts either have the #2019 tag, or come from a Twitter
account with 2019 in its name (e.g., my game-related Twitter feed is at
cascio2019).
So where does advanced nanotechnology fit into this?
The five "superthreats" described at the beginning of this essay (given the
catchy titles of "Quarantine," "Ravenous," "Power Struggle," "Outlaw Planet,"
and "Generation Exile") may at first seem like a cacophony of catastrophe, as if
we've overloaded the world of 2019 with more than its fair share of disasters.
In truth, while the conditions may in some cases be exaggerated, the number and
complexity of the problems on the planet strongly parallel what we see today:
global economic meltdown; peak oil; struggles against violent extremism;
multiple simultaneous wars; and environmental crises galore. These problems
haven't gone away by 2019, but they serve as the background conditions that made
the superthreats possible.
But we're not just offering an eschatological laundry list for participants to
deal with; we're also talking about the various tools and ideas that could be
available to us to deal with these crises. The design team decided early on that
full-blown molecular manufacturing, while certainly a possibility within this
time-frame, would not be available -- we didn't want fixing the world to be too
easy. But that research is underway, and has started to bear early fruit -- much
more precise microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), even borderline
nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). Moreover, the fabber revolution is well
underway, and many of the nanotech-related issues surrounding intellectual
property, open source design, and access to materials have already begun to
emerge.
Moreover, if you look back at the eight scenarios
produced by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology last year, you'll note
that deep crises can serve as a catalyst for accelerated development of advanced
technologies. While the scenario behind Superstruct doesn't map precisely to any
single CRN scenario, it has elements that reflect nearly all of them.
Nanotechnology-aware participants in Superstruct should look for ways in which
the early precursor technologies likely to be available by 2019 can help to
enhance other kinds of projects. The heart of Superstruct can be found in the
combinations of ideas and organizations created by the players -- the goal isn't
to be the one person who can save the world, but to be the one who sees the
right kind of collaborative structures needed. To that end, we have a small
number of judges (including science fiction writer Bruce Sterling, graphic
novelist Warren Ellis, and Heroes producer Tim Kring) who will offer
their own, unique awards at the end of the project. Players will also be able to
earn badges and other smaller awards along the way.
When this is done, not only will Superstruct participants have access to the
entire body of material created by the other participants, in 2009 they'll also
receive IFTF forecast work produced as a result.
Superstruct play officially begins October 6, and the project will run through
November 17.
Help create the future -- and maybe avert human extinction -- by playing
Superstruct.
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