Accelerating Change

An introduction to cyborg anthropology

By
8/7/2010

An interesting webcast by Amber Case (from O’Reilly Media’s YouTube channel): Note: Cross-posted from FUTR.es.


Noel Sharkey on the inexorable rise of robots

By
1/15/2010

From Silicon.com: In this video interview, Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics and AI at the University of Sheffield, discusses developments in robotics – from the proliferation of robots in Japan’s automotive industry to the stair-climbing dexterity of Honda’s Asimo robot and beyond. He also discusses ethical issues, and in which countries we can find the [...]


The Education Futures timeline of education

By
12/21/2009

Education Futures celebrates its first five years of exploring new futures in human capital development with a timeline of the history of education from 1657-2045. This timeline provides not only a glimpse into modern education, but plots out a plausible future history for human capital development. The future history presented is intended to be edgy, [...]


Farewell to the Average American

By
10/12/2009

Looking at demographic trends across the United States, Advertising Age came to a conclusion that will be stunning for most people: “The concept of an ‘average American’ is gone, probably forever,” demographics expert Peter Francese writes in 2010 America, a new Ad Age white paper. “The average American has been replaced by a complex, multidimensional [...]


The Singularity is nearer than we might think

By
3/18/2009

The future is getting harder to imagine –so much that the SciFi channel is giving up on science fiction and rebranding the channel. Rather than pushing for bold futures, network executives at NBC Universal have decided to retreat into the make-believe worlds fantasy, the supernatural and pro wrestling. From their media release: By changing the [...]


On the approaching Singularity

By
2/21/2009

The Star Tribune’s Karen Youso interviewed me for what I thought would be a short sidebar article on accelerating change, but it wound up taking the full front page of the Variety section in today’s paper. I’m absolutely delighted to see mainstream media discuss the Technological Singularity! … especially since the article contains questions for [...]


Singularity University

By
2/10/2009

This past week… A shockwave passed through the singularity community today with the public launch of Singularity University at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley.  Singularity University aims to assemble a world class community of thought leaders, academics, and entreprenuers across the many fields of exponentially advancing technologies (nanotechnology, genetics, medicine, artificial intelligence, etc.) [...]


My-oh-my, have times changed

By
1/29/2009

Thanks to Jamie Schumacher for passing along the video link: “Imagine [...] turning on your home computer to read the day’s newspaper.” …and, 28 years later, newspapers are shutting down because they cannot compete with the home computer.


We’re always busy, but doing nothing

By
1/26/2009

Here’s another look at accelerating change. On Friday, the New York Times published an excellent review of Dalton Conley’s book, Elsewhere U.S.A.: “A new breed of American has arrived on the scene,” Conley, a professor at New York University, declares in “Elsewhere, U.S.A.,” his compact guidebook to our nervous new world. Instead of individuals searching [...]


Toward a smarter planet

By
12/8/2008

Last month, IBM took out a two-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that touted their vision for a smarter planet. They believe: The world continues to get “smaller” and “flatter.” But we see now that being connected isn’t enough. Fortunately, something else is happening that holds new potential: the planet is becoming smarter. That is, [...]


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The futures that never happened

A great blog, Paleo-Future, has emerged over the past couple months. The site provides “a look into the future that never was” –often for good reason. Here’s one: Bill Gates’ vision of the future classroom. Matt writes: The paleo-future of 1995 is filled with ethnically diverse students academically engaged by the high-tech presentations of their [...]


The Memo v4.0: Building a “Leapfrog” University

Date: May 17, 2006 To: All Participants From: Arthur Harkins and John Moravec Subject: Building a “Leapfrog” University: Renovating Undergraduate Education (Version 4.0) “A Noble Quest” (as suggested by Robert Giampietro, retired VP, Target Corp.) A new paradigm founded on the convergence of globalization, the rise of knowledge societies, and accelerating change is emerging. This [...]


The “great Singularity debate”

ZDNet is running a blog story on the Singularity Summit at Stanford University. Particular attention in the article is focused on the debate between Ray Kurzweil and Douglas Hofstader on utopian versus dystopian futures: Kurzweil acknowledged that Singularity could lead to an unappealing or cataclysmic future, but he believes his vision will have a soft [...]


Computers that innovate

The April 2006 issue of Popular Science reports that John Koza’s: 1,000 networked computers don’t just follow a preordained routine. They create, growing new and unexpected designs out of the most basic code. They are computers that innovate, that find solutions not only equal to but better than the best work of expert humans. His [...]


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Education Futures explores a New Paradigm in human capital development, fueled by globalization, the rise of innovative knowledge societies, and driven by exponential, accelerating change. Education Futures is owned and published by Education Futures LLC.