Chapter 9. Trends and Progress – Leading Positive Change

5. Cognitive Sciences and Technologies Overview

Main concept: Cognitive sciences and technologies, aided by accelerating IT and nano science and tech, will increasingly permeate our environment (smart things) and educate and empower the global workforce, reducing digital, education, and earning divides. Politics and culture will be the primary barriers to better cognition and more evidence-based behaviors, until groupnets and sims, post 2030, become even more important contributors to self-conception than politics and culture.

Leader’s challenge: Aiding Personal and Group Differentiation and Development.

Summary sentence:

“Groupnets (group “self”), personal AIs (digital “self”), and smart, digitally mediated environments (sensors, AR, telepresence) will reshape our conceptions of self.”

Area topics:

Individuation/Initiative and Smart Environments. Freedom-, risk-, and learning-permissive culture key to individuation. 2020’s Semantic Web (smart environment) helps us find our useful uniqueness, our “difference that makes a difference.”

Education and Specialization. Specialization, Trade, and Automation (STA) are the key contributors to the growth of wealth (Adam Smith, Hayek). 24/7 digital “teacherless education” will allow vast new specialization and trade. Wearables, augmented reality. Google ed. Global English. Civics. Finland became #1 in OECD in STEM and Innovation, using a 50% state-directed, 50% student-freedom model.  Free Ed. & HR platforms of 2020’s, built by business, not govt, will drive, pay for these changes. Remember 1998-1999, when an MCSE was worth more than a BS degree? That will return. Expect LinkedIn, G+, Facebook as skill certifiers.

Personal Development, Ethics, Higher Purpose. Metrics of individual and social progress will become better quantified and visualized. Different groups, cultures, religions, have unique measures, yet they have many commonalities and convergences. Technology assessment and ethics, measuring whether tech ennobles us or debases us, become key. Consider European vs. US values toward sustainability and privacy, there is more of each in Europe, by political choice. Expect more awareness of others, planet. Sustainability, religious ecumenicalism, political moderation continue to grow.

Social Networks and Groupnets. Groupnets (GNs): 5-150 cognitively diverse people, intimately teleconnected 24/7, outperforming the ungrouped. Vast new productivity, activism. FB, Twitter, G+, Arab spring just a warmup to GNs. Folks will use GNs for entertainment, education, productivity, and activism/lobbying, regulated by both corps and government.

Human Performance, Cognition and Personal AIs. Personal AIs, circa 2020, are our digital agents and servants. Eventually our “digital self.” Conversational web, wearables, lifelogs, quantified self will allow new levels of evidence-based, networked, and gamified/incentivized behavior. Our biology isn’t accelerative, but our Twin is. Productivity of our biology and our agents together keeps us competitive, in an accelerating world. Will you run a lifelog? Will you let your sim augment your conversations w/ memeshows? To suggest words during a “senior moment”? To keep learning and interacting with loved ones after your death? These will be important social choices for us, much sooner than we think.

Video: Finland Phenomenon, 2011. Books: Free Culture, 2005; Cognitive Surplus, 2011; Subliminal, Mlodinow, 2013.

Leadership Questions:

  1. What are your cognitive technologies research, acquisition, R&D, hiring, training, measuring, & mgmt strategies?
  2. What key disruptions or threats must you anticipate from accelerating web education and tech augmentation?
  3. What problems could be addressed and opportunities taken if you had much better cognitive technologies?
  4. How can you get measurably more of the most valuable cognitive capabilities, at an efficient ROI?
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Table of Contents

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Chapter 2. Personal Foresight – Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 2: Personal Foresight

Becoming an Effective Self-Leader

Chapter 4. Models – Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 4: Models

Foundations for Organizational Foresight

Chapter 7. Acceleration – Guiding Our Extraordinary Future

Chapter 7: Acceleration

Guiding Our Extraordinary Future (In Process)

II. Global Progress: 5 Goals, 10 Values, Many Trends

Innovation: Our Abundant Future
Intelligence: Our Augmented Future
Interdependence: Our Civil Future
Immunity: Our Protected Future
Sustainability: Our Rebalanced Future

III. Universal Accelerating Change

Great Race to Inner Space: Our Surprising Future
Entropy&Information: We’re Running Down & Up
The Puzzle of Meaning: We Have No Einstein Yet
Trees, Funnels & Landscapes: Intro to Evo Devo
Big Picture Change: Five Scales of Accelerating ED
Transcension Hypothesis: Where Acceleratn Ends?
IDABDAK: Social Response to Accel & Developmnt
We’re On a Runaway Train: Being Accelaware

IV. Evo Devo and Exponential Foresight

Seeing It All: Accel., Diverg, Adapt, Convrg, Decel.
Natural (I4S) Innovation: The Evolutionary Drive
Natural (I4S) Intelligence: The Human-AI Partnership
Natural (I4S) Morality: Why Empathy and Ethics Rule
Natural (I4S) Security: Strength from Disruption
Natural (I4S) Sustainability: The Developmental Drive
S-Curves: Managing the Four Constituencies
Pain to Gain: Traversing the Three Kuznets Phases
Hype to Reality: Beyond Hype Cycles to Reality Checks
Exponentials Database: Measuring Accelerations
TINA Trends: Societal Evolutionary Development
Managing Change: STEEPCOP Events, Probs, Ideas
A Great Shift: A Survival to a Sentient Economy

V. Evo Devo and Exponential Activism

Building Protopias: Five Goals of Social Progress
Normative Foresight: Ten Values of Society
Top & STEEPCOP Acceleratns: Positive & Negative
Dystopias, Risks, and Failure States
Three Levels of Activism: People, Tech & Universe
A Great Opportunity: Exponential Empowerment

 

Chapter 8. Your Digital Self – The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

Chapter 8: Your Digital Self

The Human Face of the Coming Singularity (In Process)

I. Your Personal AI (PAI): Your Digital Self

Digital Society: Data, Mediation, and Agents
Personal AIs: Advancing the Five Goals
PAI Innovation: Abundance and Diversity
PAI Intelligence: Bio-Inspired AI
PAI Morality: Selection and Groupnets
PAI Security: Safe Learning Agents
PAI Sustainability: Science and Balance
The Human Face of the Coming Singularity

II. PAI Protopias & Dystopias in 8 Domains

1. Personal Agents: News, Ent., Education
2. Social Agents: Relat. and Social Justice
3. Political Agents :  Activism & Represent.
4. Economic Agents:  Retail, Finance, Entrep
5. Builder Agents :  Work, Innov. & Science
6. Environ. Agents : Pop. and Sustainability
7. Health Agents :  Health, Wellness, Death
8. Security Agents :  Def., Crime, Corrections

III. PAI Activism & Exponential Empowerment

Next Government: PAIs, Groupnets, Democ.
Next Economy: Creat. Destr. & Basic Income
Next Society: PAI Ent., Mortality & Uploading
What Will Your PAI Contribution Be?

Chapter 10. Startup Ideas – Great Product & Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs

Chapter 10: Startup Ideas

Great Product and Service Challenges for Entrepreneurs (In Process)

I. 4U’s Idea Hub: Building Better Futures

Air Deliveries and Air Taxis: Finally Solving Urban Gridlock
Ballistic Shields and Gun Control: Protecting Us All from Lone Shooters
Bioinspiration Wiki: Biomimetics and Bio-Inspired Design
Brain Preservation Services: Memory and Mortality Redefined
Carcams: Document Thieves, Bad Driving, and Bad Behavior
Competition in Govt Services: Less Corruption, More Innovation
Computer Adaptive Education (CAE): Better Learning and Training
Conversational Deep Learning Devsuites: Millions of AI Coders
Digital Tables: Telepresence, Games, Entertainment & Education
Dynaships: Sustainable Low-Speed Cargo Shipping
Electromagnetic Suspension: Nausea-Free Working & Reading in Cars
Epigenetic Health Tests: Cellular Aging, Bad Diet, Body Abuse Feedback
Fireline Explosives and Ember Drones: Next-Gen Fire Control
Global English: Empowering the Next Generation of Global Youth
Greenbots: Drone Seeders and Robotic Waterers for Mass Regreening
High-Density Housing and Zoning: Making Our Cities Affordable Again
Highway Enclosures and Trail Networks: Green and Quiet Urban Space
Inflatable Packaging: Faster and Greener Shipping and Returns
Internet of Families: Connecting People Over Things
Kidcams: Next-Gen Security for Child Safety and Empowerment
Kidpods: Indoor & Outdoor Parent-Assistive Toyboxes
Microdesalination: Democratizing Sustainable Fresh Water Production
Noise Monitors: Documenting and Reducing Noise Pollution
Oceanside Baths: Sustainable Year Round Beach Enjoyment
Open Blood Scanners: DIY Citizen Health Care Sensor Tech
Open Streaming Radio: User-Centered Audio Creation and Rating
Open Streaming Video: User-Centered Video Creation and Rating
Open Values Filters: Social Rankers, Arg. Mappers, and Consensus Finders
Personal AIs: Your Private Advisor, Activist, and Interface to the World
Pet Empowerment: Next-Gen Rights and Abilities for Our Domestic Animals
Safe Closets: Fire-, Earthquake-, and Intruder-Proof Retreat Spaces
Safe Cars: Reducing Our Insane 1.3M Annual Auto Deaths Today
Safe Motorcycles: Lane Splitting in Gridlock Without Risk of Death
Shared Value Insurance: User-Centered Risk Reduction Services
Sleeperbuses and Microhotels: Demonetized Intercity Travel
Space-Based Solar Power: Stratellite Powering and Weather Management
Stratellites: Next-Gen Urban Broadband, Transparency, and Security
Touch DNA: Next-Gen Home Security and Crime Deterrence
View Towers: Improving Urban Walkability, Inspiration, and Community

Chapter 11. Evo Devo Foresight – Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Chapter 11: Evo Devo Foresight

Unpredictable and Predictable Futures

Appendix 1. Peer Advice – Building a Successful Foresight Practice