A busy week for futurists in the media. We start with a post from APF member Gray Scott outlining seven emerging technologies “that will change the world forever,” an event featuring The Millennium Project Team, and a well-promoted video update referencing the singularity from Google’s own organizational futurist, Ray Kurzweil as well as evidence of emerging needs for futurists in the insurance industry. The topics he explores certainly are intriguing. Perhaps the most intriguing, to this student, is the beautiful pink vertical garden scenario which is reshaping the life of the modern industrial farmer. Eliminating the O, Y, G, and V bands of the visible spectrum via extremely efficient (and low temperature) LED light delivery systems are now being used to more efficiently produce greenery.
Washington DC’s Woodrow Wilson Center hosted the “2015-2016 State of the Future” launchg event on October 2nd. Speakers included Jerry Glenn of The Millennium Project, Institute for Alternative Futures, Clem Bezold, and Director of the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) at the Wilson Center, David Rejeski. The Executive Summary of the report reads, “It is time for intolerance of irrelevant speeches and non-actions by leaders. The stakes are too high to tolerate business as usual.”
A video referencing Ray Kurzweil covered a talk of his at Singularity University. In his talk, Kurzweil used the term “godlike” to describe the marriage of technology and the human mind. He spoke about the development of tools and the development of the brain’s neocortex as gradual and simultaneous. As we evolve, so too do our tools. Kurzweil sees the singularity as the next big tool, perhaps the new fire, and a natural and inevitable step in the progression along the timeline of human evolution. The video referencing Kurzweil had comparatively massive exposure to the typical returns on a futurist hit. Perhaps it’s his position at Google in concert with his use of the somewhat sensitive term “godlike” which caused so many links to pop up, but I definitely liked his conclusion “Evolution is a spiritual process, it makes us more godlike.” — Will Williamson
About Futurists in Media: The Houston Foresight program is tracking, collecting and analyzing mentions of futurists in the media in order to gather evidence for how we are being talked about in order to inform a potential strategic response.
