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1. This talk title begins with “searching” rather than any other verb because I think we are still missing some basic elements in our quest for a Theory of Accelerating Change.
We may perpetually be in this state with regard to the Big Picture of Everything.
That permanent incompleteness may be the fate of intelligence in a perpetually generative multiverse.
But with regard to the Big Picture of Accelerating Change, in this Universe, we can now see the outline of an information theory for acceleration, one that ties together both local and universal events, and gives a larger context for our lives. So it’s a very exciting time to be looking for clues.
This talk title begins with “searching” rather than any other verb because I think we are still missing some basic elements in our quest for a Theory of Accelerating Change.
We may perpetually be in this state with regard to the Big Picture of Everything.
That permanent incompleteness may be the fate of intelligence in a perpetually generative multiverse.
But with regard to the Big Picture of Accelerating Change, in this Universe, we can now see the outline of an information theory for acceleration, one that ties together both local and universal events, and gives a larger context for our lives. So it’s a very exciting time to be looking for clues.
2. © 2006 Accelerating.org A Story in Three Acts
Framework, Picture, Painter
Genes, Environment, Organism
Development, System, Evolution
Rules & Limits, Observed, Observer
Laws & Constants, Universe, Intelligence Smile! ? Show your enthusiasm!Smile! ? Show your enthusiasm!
4. Intelligence: An Evolutionary Process The Driver of Accelerating Change
5. © 2006 Accelerating.org Our Infopomorphic, Biofelicitous, Accelerating Universe The universe is a physical-computational system.
We exist for information theoretic reasons.
We’re here to evolve and develop.
To create, discover, and manage.
To care, count, and act.
To innovate, plan, profit, and predict.
In a wondrously ordered, elegant, and
surprising environment.
6. © 2006 Accelerating.org “Unreasonable” Effectiveness and Efficiency of Science and the Microcosm (Wigner and 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 simple universalities and symmetries in mathematical physics. Commentary on the “Unreasonable Efficiency of Physics in the Microcosm,” VSLI Pioneer Carver Mead, c. 1980.
7. © 2006 Accelerating.org Cosmic Embryogenesis (in Three Easy Steps)
8. © 2006 Accelerating.org De Chardin on Acceleration: Technological “Cephalization” of Earth
9. © 2006 Accelerating.org Acceleration Studies: Something Curious Is Going On
10. © 2006 Accelerating.org Classic Predictable Accelerations: Moore’s Law Moore’s Law derives from two predictions in 1965 and 1975 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, (and named by Carver Mead) that computer chips (processors, memory, etc.) double their complexity every 12-24 months at near constant unit cost.
This means that every 15 years, on average, a large number of technological capacities (memory, input, output, processing) grow by 1000X (Ten doublings: 2,4,8…. 1024). Emergence!
There are several abstractions of Moore’s Law, due to miniaturization of transistor density in two dimensions, increasing speed (signals have less distance to travel) computational power (speed × density).
11. © 2006 Accelerating.org Dickerson’s Law: Solved Protein Structures as a Moore’s-Dependent Process
12. © 2006 Accelerating.org A Few Tech Capacity Growth Rates Are Almost Independent of Socioeconomic Cycles There are many natural cycles: Plutocracy-Democracy, Boom-Bust, Conflict-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.
Conclusion: Human-discovered, Not human-created complexity here. Not many intellectual or physical resources are required to keep us on the accelerating developmental trajectory.
13. © 2006 Accelerating.org Henry Adams, 1909: Our First “Singularity Theorist”
14. © 2006 Accelerating.org Macrohistorical Singularity Books
15. © 2006 Accelerating.org Macrohistorical Singularity Books
16. MEST Compression: A Developmental Process The Engine of Accelerating Change
17. © 2006 Accelerating.org Matter, Energy, Space, Time ? Information
Increasingly Understood ? Poorly Known
MEST Compression/Density/Efficiency is the ever
decreasing MEST resources required for any
standard physical process or computation. The engine
of accelerating change. “More, Better, with Less.” The MESTI Universe
18. © 2006 Accelerating.org MEST Compression Creates a “Paradise of Resources” for Leading Edge Computation Our machines are stunningly more MEST efficient with each new generation.
Our main candidates for future computational technology (nanomolecular and quantum computing, reversible logic, etc.) require little or no energy.
We are all moving to increasingly energy efficient, sustainable, and virtual cities.
Weight of GDP per capita goes down in all developed Service Economies.
Global energy intensity (energy consumption per capita) has been flat for almost three decades in the developed world.
19. © 2006 Accelerating.org Physics of a “MESTI” Universe Physical Driver:
MEST Compression/Efficiency/Density
Emergent Properties:
Information Intelligence (World Models)
Information Interdepence (Ethics)
Information Immunity (Resiliency)
Information Incompleteness (Search)
An Interesting Speculation in Information Theory:
? Entropy = ? Negentropy
Loss of Energy Potential fuels gain of Information
Potential. A hidden metapotential is conserved.
20. © 2006 Accelerating.org From the Big Bang to Complex Stars: The Decelerating Phase of Universal Development
21. © 2006 Accelerating.org From Biogenesis to Intelligent Technology: The Accelerating Phase of Universal Development
22. © 2006 Accelerating.org A U-Shaped Curve of Change
23. © 2006 Accelerating.org Eric Chaisson’s “Phi” (F): A Universal Moore’s Law Curve
24. © 2006 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).
25. © 2006 Accelerating.org “NBICS”: Five Domains for Strategic Technological Development Nanotech (micro and nanoscale technology)
Biotech (biotechnology, health care)
Infotech (computing and comm. technology)
Cognotech (brain sciences, human factors)
Sociotech (remaining technology applications)
It is easy to spend lots of R&D or marketing money on a still-early technology in any field.
Infotech examples: A.I., multimedia, internet, wireless
It is almost as easy to spend disproportionate amounts on older, less centrally accelerating technologies.
Every technology has the right time and place for innovation and diffusion.
First mover and second mover advantages.
26. © 2006 Accelerating.org Recognizing the Levers of Nano and Infotech “The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum [representative democracy], moves the world.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1814)
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…)
27. © 2006 Accelerating.org Disruptive MEST Compression in Nanospace: Holey Optical Fibers for Microlasers 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.
28. © 2006 Accelerating.org MEST Compression Regularly Disrupts Efficiency/Cost/Capacity Curves
29. © 2006 Accelerating.org Our Electric Future: Coal & Natural Gas Gen., Nanobatteries, and Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles
30. © 2006 Accelerating.org MEST Compression Implication: Three Hierarchical Systems of Social Change
31. © 2006 Accelerating.org Accelerating Ephemeralization and Our Increasingly ‘Weightless’ Economy In 1981 (Critical Path), Fuller called ephemeralization, "the invisible chemical, metallurgical, and electronic production of ever-more-efficient and satisfyingly effective performance with the investment of ever-less weight and volume of materials per unit function formed or performed". In Synergetics 2, 1983, he called it "the principle of doing ever more with ever less weight, time and energy per each given level of functional performance”
This trend has also been called “virtualization,” “weightlessness,” and Matter, Energy, Space, Time (MEST) compression, efficiency, or density.
32. © 2006 Accelerating.org MEST Compression and Inner Space: The Final Frontier?
33. Evolutionary Development: In Physics, Biology, and Beyond A New Paradigm for Change
34. © 2006 Accelerating.org Evolutionary Development: The Left and Right Hands of Change
35. © 2006 Accelerating.org Cambrian Explosion (570 mya)
36. © 2006 Accelerating.org Memetic Evolutionary Development
37. © 2006 Accelerating.org Evolution vs. Development “The Twin’s Thumbprints”
38. © 2006 Accelerating.org Marbles, Landscapes, and Channels (Evolution, Systems, and Development)
39. © 2006 Accelerating.org Developmental Biogenesis Eric Smith, Santa Fe Institute
Potential prebiotic chemical reactions form a vast ‘possibility space’ in the energy landscape.
A subset of these make self-reproducing and self-varying chemical cycles, producing information and permanently modifying the selection environment (“niche construction”).
A series of low energy paths (“channels”) emerge, constraining the landscape.
Q:“What was the problem with the prebiotic Earth that was solved by the appearance of life?”
40. © 2006 Accelerating.org How Many Eyes Are Developmentally Optimal? Evolution tried this experiment.
Development calculated an operational optimum.
Some reptiles (e.g. Xantusia vigilis, and certain skinks) still have a parietal (“pineal”) vestigial third eye.
41. © 2006 Accelerating.org How Many Wheels on an Automobile are Developmentally Optimal?
Examples: Wheel on Earth. Social computation device. Diffusion proportional to population density and diversity.
42. © 2006 Accelerating.org “Convergent Evolution”: Troodon and the Dinosauroid Hypothesis
43. © 2006 Accelerating.org Evolution and Development: Two Universal Systems Processes
44. © 2006 Accelerating.org Evo vs. Devo Political Polarities: Innovation vs. Sustainability Evo-Devo Theory Brings Process Balance to Political Dialogs on Innovation and Sustainability
Developmental sustainability without generativity creates sterility, clonality, overdetermination, adaptive weakness (Maoism).
Evolutionary generativity (innovation) without sustainability creates chaos, entropy, a destruction that is not naturally recycling/creative (Anarchocapitalism).
45. © 2006 Accelerating.org Maslow’s Hierarchy of Self-Needs Development Smart’s Hierarchy of Technoeconomic Development
46. © 2006 Accelerating.org Angus Maddison’s Phases of Capitalist Development, 1982
47. © 2006 Accelerating.org Metaverse/Attention Economy: The ICT- and CI-Enabled Services Sector US ICT sector was 8% of GDP in 1998, 11% in 2001, 14% in 2005.
OECD ICT trade, GDP share, and employment grow 4-10% a year.
Service Sector is not yet Metaverse & CI-enabled, but after 2015, it will be.
48. © 2006 Accelerating.org The Framework Challenge Building Evo Devo Theory
in an “Evolutionist vs. Creationist” World Smile! ? Show your enthusiasm!Smile! ? Show your enthusiasm!
50. Acceleration Mechanics: Exp. Growth, S,D & J Curves, Punk Eek, and Phase Change Singularities The Anatomy of Accelerating Change
51. © 2006 Accelerating.org The S Curve (Phases BG-MS) Example: Logistic Population Growth
52. © 2006 Accelerating.org A Saturation Lesson: Biology vs. Technology
53. © 2006 Accelerating.org Global Population Saturation
54. © 2006 Accelerating.org Global Energy Consumption per Capita Saturation (Energy Intensity) When per capita GDP reaches:
• $3,000 – energy demand explodes as industrialization and mobility take off,
• $10,000 – demand slows as the main spurt of industrialization is completed,
• $15,000 – demand grows more slowly than income as services dominate economic growth and basic household energy needs are met,
• $25,000 – economic growth requires little additional energy.
Later developers, using “leapfrogging technologies”, require far less time and energy to reach equivalent GDP.
55. © 2006 Accelerating.org Terminal Differentiation: Evo Devo in Homo sapiens is a Saturated Substrate
56. © 2006 Accelerating.org The D Curve (Phases BGM-SDR) Example: Environmental Impact of Individuals
57. © 2006 Accelerating.org Protected Germline, Disposable Somas, Protected Parameters, Disposable Universes One of the keys to understanding D versus S curves is understanding why germline cells persist, while somatic cells die. The former are serving a developmental purpose, and the latter an evolutionary one.
In one of the best books of the 20th century, Astrophysicist Lee Smolin asked the same question about universes, why it seems like ours has an apparent beginning, middle and end, and yet why the basic parameter seed from which our universe grew is likely to persist indefinitely.
I recommend both of these if you want to think about the difference and interplay between evolution and development.One of the keys to understanding D versus S curves is understanding why germline cells persist, while somatic cells die. The former are serving a developmental purpose, and the latter an evolutionary one.
In one of the best books of the 20th century, Astrophysicist Lee Smolin asked the same question about universes, why it seems like ours has an apparent beginning, middle and end, and yet why the basic parameter seed from which our universe grew is likely to persist indefinitely.
I recommend both of these if you want to think about the difference and interplay between evolution and development.
58. © 2006 Accelerating.org The J Curve (Phases LEH) CONSTRAINT:
Some aspects of post-emergent and post-limit systems can’t be understood or guided by pre-singularity systems.CONSTRAINT:
Some aspects of post-emergent and post-limit systems can’t be understood or guided by pre-singularity systems.
59. © 2006 Accelerating.org World Economic Performance
60. © 2006 Accelerating.org Eldredge and Gould
(Biological Species)
Pareto’s Law (“The 80/20 Rule”)
(income distribution ? technology, econ, politics)
Rule of Thumb: 20% Punctuation (Evo or Devo)
80% Equilibrium (Evo or Devo)
Suggested Reading:
For the 20%: Clay Christiansen, The Innovator's Dilemma
For the 80%: Jason Jennings, Less is More Punctuated Equilibrium in Biology, Economics, Politics, Technology…
61. © 2006 Accelerating.org Bimodal Distribution: Two Stories of the Future
62. Immune Systems: Universal, Biological, and Technological A Hidden Protector of Accelerating Change
63. © 2006 Accelerating.org Networks Breed Immunity Linked, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, 2003
Six Degrees, Duncan Watts, 2003
64. © 2006 Accelerating.org Network Economy 1.0
65. © 2006 Accelerating.org Our Greatest Strategic Interest: Managing Globalization “America has had 200 years to invent, regenerate, and calibrate the balance that keeps markets free without becoming monsters. We have the tools to make a difference. We have the responsibility to make a difference. And we have a huge interest in making a difference. Managing globalization is… our overarching national interest today and the political party that understands that first… will own the real bridge to the future.”
Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (2000).
66. © 2006 Accelerating.org Shrinking the Disconnected Gap: Our New Global Defense Paradigm The Core Countries vs the Technologically, Culturally, and Economically Disconnected Gap Countries, which together form a socio-computational “Ozone Hole.”
67. © 2006 Accelerating.org Humbot: The Sputnik (Robotic High Ground) of our Global Network Society
68. © 2006 Accelerating.org Accelerating Public Transparency: Privacy vs. Anonymity
69. © 2006 Accelerating.org Visual Transparency: Speed Cameras, Camera Traps and Mesh Networks
70. © 2006 Accelerating.org Digital Transparency: Gmail, Lifelogs/Glogs Next, some of us will store everything we’ve ever said. Then everything we’ve ever seen. All this storage, processing, and bandwidth makes us networkable in ways we never dreamed. Add NLP, collaborative filtering, and other early AI to this, and all this data begins turning into wisdom.
71. © 2006 Accelerating.org Tomorrow’s Fastspace: User-Modified 3D Persistent Worlds Global Collaboration and
Coexperience Environments
Streaming audio for main speaker, chat for others
Streaming video coming 2007.
72. © 2006 Accelerating.org Offensive to Defensive Asset Conversion: Convergent Technology in a Network Society
73. Intelligence Amplification (IA) and Autonomous Intelligence (AI): From Writing to the Digital Twin, or from the Plow to the Self-Repairing Robot Collective Bio-Technological Development
74. © 2006 Accelerating.org The IA-AI Convergence of ‘Metahumanity,’ a Human-Machine Superorganism
75. © 2006 Accelerating.org Coevolutionary Ideal: Choosing “Plural Positive” Futures
76. © 2006 Accelerating.org Understanding Process Automation Perhaps 80% of today's First World paycheck is paid for by automation (“tech we tend, not the arms we bend”).
Robert Solow, 1987 Nobel in Economics (Solow Productivity Paradox, Theory of Economic Growth) “7/8 comes from technical progress.”
Human contribution (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.
77. © 2006 Accelerating.org The Conversational Interface (CI): Circa 2015 Developmental Attractor
78. © 2006 Accelerating.org Why Will We Want to Use An Avatar/Agent Interface (“Digital Twin”) in 2020?
79. © 2006 Accelerating.org Post 2015: The Symbiotic Age A Coevolution between Saturating Humans
and Accelerating Technology:
A time when computers “speak our language.”
A time when our technologies are very responsive to our needs and desires.
A time when humans and machines are intimately connected, and always improving each other.
A time when we will begin to feel “naked” without our computer “clothes.”
80. © 2006 Accelerating.org In the long run, we become seamless with our machines.
No other credible long term futures have been proposed.
“Technology is becoming organic. Nature is becoming technologic.” (Brian Arthur, SFI) Personality Capture
81. © 2006 Accelerating.org Your “Digital You” (Digital Twin)
82. © 2006 Accelerating.org Valuecosm 2040: Our Plural-Positive Political Future Microcosm (Gilder), 1960’s
Telecosm (Gilder), 1990’s
Datacosm (Sterling), 2010’s
Valuecosm (Smart), 2040’s
Recording and Publishing DT Preferences
Avatars that Act and Transact Better for Us
Mapping Positive-Sum Social Interactions
Much Potential For Early Abuse (Advice)
Next Level of Digital Democracy (Holding Powerful Plutocratic Actors Accountable)
Early Examples: Social Network Media
83. © 2006 Accelerating.org The Picture Challenge Getting Acceleration and Development
Studies (ADS) Funded and Used Globally Smile! ? Show your enthusiasm!Smile! ? Show your enthusiasm!
85. © 2006 Accelerating.org We Have Two Options: Future Shock or Future Shaping We have two options: Future Shock or Future Shaping.
Future Shock: “Never have so many understood so little about so much of the technological world.” – James Burke
Future Shaping: Never has the lever of technology been so powerful. We truly can and are moving the world.
Another way of putting it:
“Never have so few had so much impact, and so many such potential for impact.”
The choice is ours.We have two options: Future Shock or Future Shaping.
Future Shock: “Never have so many understood so little about so much of the technological world.” – James Burke
Future Shaping: Never has the lever of technology been so powerful. We truly can and are moving the world.
Another way of putting it:
“Never have so few had so much impact, and so many such potential for impact.”
The choice is ours.
86. © 2006 Accelerating.org Three Types of Foresight Studies: Futures, Development, and Acceleration Futures Studies (Evolutionary Possibility)
“Possible” change (scenarios, alternatives)
Development Studies
“Irreversible” change (emergences, phase changes)
Acceleration Studies
“Accelerating” change (exponential growth, positive feedback, self-catalyzing, autonomous)
Each is seeing a resurgence of interest in
today’s fast-paced and poorly modeled world.
87. © 2006 Accelerating.org Wikipedia breeds Futurepedia: A Vision
88. © 2006 Accelerating.org Where are the U.S. College Courses in Foresight Development? Tamkang University
27,000 undergrads
Top-ranked private university in Taiwan
Like history and current affairs, futures studies (15 courses to choose from) have been a general education requirement since 1995.
Why not here?
89. © 2006 Accelerating.org The Painter Challenge Waking Up to the Accelerating
Promise and Peril Ahead Waking Up in Time is “minorly wrong.” We may not need to wake up In Time to save the planet from some unlikely destruction, but rather in time to exert measurable conscious control on the inevitable transition ahead, helping it better serve human ends. Waking Up in Time is “minorly wrong.” We may not need to wake up In Time to save the planet from some unlikely destruction, but rather in time to exert measurable conscious control on the inevitable transition ahead, helping it better serve human ends.
90. © 2006 Accelerating.org A Closing Visual: Collectively Piloting Spaceship Earth. Or Not. Let me leave you with my version of an old Buckminster Fuller analogy.
We are all COLLECTIVELY PILOTING SPACESHIP EARTH, and we are coming in for a landing on a vast and alien landscape, tomorrow’s technological world.
We don’t have the power to reverse course, but are under an inevitable gravitational pull, from the slower, simpler, outer space of the past to the faster, smarter, inner space of the future. In fact, the growth of universal intelligence seems to be driven by this transition from Geology to Biology to Technology, from Slower to Faster, from Physical to Virtual, and from Outer to Inner. We have a choice to be aware of this or not.
We have a choice to be in Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Guilt, or Acceptance about this.
And we have a choice to help others get to an open-eyed and clear-headed Acceptance, or not.
We have a choice to protect ourselves for the turbulence ahead, or leave the flight to chance.
We have a choice to pick our ideal landing point, or let the universe pick it for us.
We have countless daily choices of the path, and whether or not to learn and change as we go.
And we have a choice with our attitude every step of the way.
I for one hope we will keep learning to see both the inevitable Forces and the free Choices that are available to us, and that we have the courage and compassion to create the kind of future we deserve.Let me leave you with my version of an old Buckminster Fuller analogy.
We are all COLLECTIVELY PILOTING SPACESHIP EARTH, and we are coming in for a landing on a vast and alien landscape, tomorrow’s technological world.
We don’t have the power to reverse course, but are under an inevitable gravitational pull, from the slower, simpler, outer space of the past to the faster, smarter, inner space of the future.In fact, the growth of universal intelligence seems to be driven by this transition from Geology to Biology to Technology, from Slower to Faster, from Physical to Virtual, and from Outer to Inner.We have a choice to be aware of this or not.
We have a choice to be in Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Guilt, or Acceptance about this.
And we have a choice to help others get to an open-eyed and clear-headed Acceptance, or not.
We have a choice to protect ourselves for the turbulence ahead, or leave the flight to chance.
We have a choice to pick our ideal landing point, or let the universe pick it for us.
We have countless daily choices of the path, and whether or not to learn and change as we go.
And we have a choice with our attitude every step of the way.
I for one hope we will keep learning to see both the inevitable Forces and the free Choices that are available to us, and that we have the courage and compassion to create the kind of future we deserve.
