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Expanding Human Horizons...

Meta-category - Expansion: Technologies that exponentially expand human effort and activities. By Jona Nalder, with Rhys Cassidy


“I don’t think we will survive another 1000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”
- Stephen Hawking

Expansion. Throughout our history, exploring for survival or new opportunities has been a constant theme. At the dawn of time, the Hawking’s of that era would perhaps have been warning about the need to move beyond Africa, or away from somewhere an ice age was beginning. During such migrations (1), it has often been the development of new technologies which have enabled such moves to succeed. For Vikings fighting the scarce resources of their arctic homes, the longship enabled commerce, trade and exploration. For sailors in the 1700’s, the sextant allowed ships to cross oceans with the certainty of success required before global travel could become commonplace, and today, millions of people cross borders and oceans held aloft by carbon fibre wings that are given lift by spinning turbo-fans. All of these are part of the story of technology impacting human efforts and abilities.

This lens of ‘the ways in which technology is impacting humanity, work and learning’ is the basis of the Future-U framework (2) developed to help us begin addressing the vast story of humans and technology into a discussion that can be most useful for us right now. ‘Expansion’, the third meta-category in this framework, follows on from both Automation and Augmentation. Rather than focusing on technologies that replace or assists human activities as they do however, it refers to the technologies that exponentially expand human possibilities. 

Specific examples in our current time-frame include the internet (information everywhere) and the smartphone (access and share information everywhere). In our near-future timeframe, ‘Expansion’ covers the arrival of low-cost renewable energy, access to free high speed internet, ‘New Space’ activities like asteroid mining and autonomous Artificial Intelligence and Robots. Any one of these have the potential to bring exponential change on a scale similar to what electricity did for our grandparents. 

Mining of Asteroids and the moon for example are now forecast to facilitate huge increases in building in space and expansion on Earth. Countries such as the US and Luxembourg are evolving policy and law to allow for mining in space, and several companies are racing to develop technologies to identify, mine, utilise and transport the vast quantities of resources found in asteroids (3). This includes Moon Express, the first private company to receive a government licence to go to the moon (4). The database of Asteroids compiled by Asterank details several whose equivalent value of trillions of dollars is the same as the total wealth produced in an entire year on Earth (5).

The long and continual process of expansion illustrated in maps of human migration (1) does make it hard to imagine that humans won’t soon continue this process and migrate off-planet. What will become possible when we are no longer limited just by the resources found only on Earth? Exponential expansions which build on automation and augmentation technologies like asteroid mining have the potential to increase our ability to cater for a growing population on Earth and beyond in ways that until recently were found only in Science Fiction. The ability of today’s learners to soon explore and settle our solar system does raise important big picture questions about our responsibility for this planet and our place in the universe however. Will we replicate Earth systems in space or use technology to devise new ways of being? Will this expanded awareness lead to different approaches to old and new problems? Future-U is here to help kickstart the answering of these questions. The future is you, and us. Let’s get started. 

 

1. https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/ 

2. This Future-U framework acknowledges that no one schema can ever encompass all the developments and directions technology is taking. However, it is important to make a start now that the impact of technology has accelerated so greatly. 

3. http://www.planetaryresources.com/2016/11/the-second-age-of-exploration-has-begun-in-space/

4. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/moon-mining-company-moon-express-google-lunar-xprize-a7528606.html

5. http://www.asterank.com

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Super-humans? The Rise of Augmentation Technologies

Meta-category — Augmentation: Technologies that directly assist human effort and activities. By Jona Nalder, with Chris Hills and Rhys Cassidy

‘Augmentation’, or the rise of technology which assists humans to do more than they could naturally achieve, has been integral to humanity’s journey through all historical epochs. The Agricultural revolution circa 10,000 BCE allowed the first farmers to provide food in quantities far beyond what hunters or gatherers had been capable of. The discovery of metallurgy for creating bronze and iron gave workers and warriors strength and abilities much greater than natural tools like wood and bone. Likewise, the invention of the steam engine made the Industrial revolution of the 1700’s possible as previous levels of horse and animal power were exceeded many times over. From the 1800’s, the combustion engine and electricity only increased this trend of technology extending the amount of physical assistance available.

The invention of the microchip in the 1960’s was also a development that significantly assisted human effort and activities but in the mental rather than physical realm. In this way it is more similar to inventions like the abacus or sextants which augmented what the human brain was capable of calculating. It also marked the beginning of the digital age which has led to the array of other modern technologies that can be grouped under Augmentation, as well as those in Automation meta-category overviewed in part 3.

One of the best current examples of Augmentation technologies that assist human efforts is accessibility technology. Christopher Hills [1]is a young man with no use of his limbs. Yet, using Switch Control, an accessibility feature built into Apple Macs, he has taught himself to be a certified Final Cut Pro Editor, runs his own ‘Switched-On Media’ [2] business and even advises Astronauts [3] — all with only the tap of a switch with his head. Companies and designers who have invested in creating such accessibility options are now finding that designing for those with extra needs has also meant that their tools become more useful for augmenting the activities of everyone. In fact Australia now plays host to a dedicated startup accelerator, Remarkable.org [4] due to the fact that interest in this sector is now so high.

Augmentation can also include developments such as wearable tech, virtual and augmented Reality headsets, tele-work tools, exo-skeletons, bio-tech and implants, and genome-editing. Augmented reality, for example, provides another layer of visual information on top of the real world that users can then interact with through a mobile phone or tablet screen or special headset. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg with this technology in games like Pokemon Go and apps developed for the Daqri Smart Helmet and Microsoft HoloLens. Like other augmentation technologies, AR has the potential to impact every industry.

Even the smartphone in our pockets we now take for granted can be said to makes us ‘super-human’. Its ability to instantly record events, send and receive over vast distances, store what was previously a life-times worth of books and music and more has made it almost a ‘phantom limb’ or extension of ourselves to the point where according to a Time Magazine survey across 8 countries, 68% of people sleep with smartphones by their bedside [5]. It’s possible that many won’t even flinch as bio-tech enables such capabilities to live within our bodies soon.

Such profound and unprecedented extensions and changes to human abilities is one of the reason why Jona Nalder has created these meta-categories like Augmentation as discussion starters that a wide enough group of decision makers and global citizens can understand and use to begin adapting rather than just reacting as the huge transition that tech is bringing across all categories accelerates.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--J...

2. www.switchedonvideoediting.com.au

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZY...

4. www.remarkable.org/

5. http://content.time.com/time/intera...

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What does Automation mean for THE future of work and learning?

Meta-category 1: Automation > Technologies that directly replace human effort and activities.

By Jona Nalder with Rhys Cassidy

The very idea that a human being’s worth was measured almost exclusively by his or her productive output of goods and services and material wealth will seem primitive, even barbaric, and be regarded as a terrible loss of human value to our progeny living in a highly automated world.” — Jeremy Rifkin, The Zero Marginal Cost Society

A post-work world made possible by automation as Rifkin is envisioning here may still be a long way off in the context of recent news story headlines like ‘I’m a GP- will a robot take my job?’ (1), and ‘Japanese AI Writes a Novel’, Nearly Wins Literary Award’ (2). As alarmist as these sound, real world developments like Google’s AI beating a champion human 4–1 (3), and driverless cars being deployed for real-world trials (4) show that this is a very real and present issue. How examples like these will lead to a post-work and post-wealth future is yet to be seen. What is important is that the transition stage is here, and a bigger-picture way of adapting to it is required.

Future-U is working to develop this bigger-picture view in its frameworks by grouping of a range of developments into ‘meta-categories’ rather than trying to explain each one in isolation; an approach we simply don’t have time for anymore. For Automation this means that in addition to AI and driver-less cars, there are a wide array of technologies such as conversation bots, Machine Learning, blockchain, the internet of things and artificial assistants that are linked to the bigger concept of ‘Automation’. All of these can be said to be technologies which are impacting society and work by replacing human activities and effort rather than just helping or ‘augmenting’ them. In fact it is this potential to replace not just assist that can be seen as a defining characteristic of the move beyond the 3rd industrial revolution (initiated by the microchip and digital tech) into the 4th: The information age.

One of the most far-reaching examples of Automation is the development of stores without human cashiers or sales staff. Initially this has meant supermarkets with customer-operated checkouts — but initiatives such as the Amazon Go store (5) have the capability to be run purely by interactions between apps, software and sensors. Where this gets interesting is when such developments are considered in the broader context of nations like Australia where retail jobs make up the highest single category of workers (6). Such nations may be able to navigate through one transition where large numbers of human workers are replaced. However, if the framework and mindset that decision-makers are using fails to include the full picture of Automation technologies, it may be the second of these two options proposed by Stephen Hawking that comes to pass.

Everyone can enjoy a life of leisure if the machine-produced [robots] wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution” — Stephen Hawking

So, now that we have a meta-category to understand this particular aspect of the transition we are living through, we can perhaps proactively ask how it can be managed to benefit everyone. Merely reacting to individual developments one at at time using methods that worked in previous eras is not something future workers will thank us for — let’s start thinking how to use Automation to everyone’s advantage now.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/dec/29/im-a-gp-will-a-robot-take-my-job-in-2017

2. http://bigthink.com/natalie-shoemaker/a-japanese-ai-wrote-a-novel-almost-wins-literary-award?

3. www.bbc.com/news/technology-35420579

4. http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-making-driverless-cars-by-2020-2016-8/?r=AU&IR=T

5. https://www.wired.com/2016/12/amazon-go-grocery-store/

6. http://www.news.com.au/finance/small-business/whats-the-most-common-job-in-australia/news-story

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We need a new big-picture way to understand technology’s accelerating complexity

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We need a new big-picture way to understand technology’s accelerating complexity

Future-U manifesto part2

"We must develop a comprehensive and globally shared view of how technology is affecting our lives and reshaping our economic, social, cultural, and human environments” — Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, 2016

Is this view of the impact that technology is having a new one? Far from it. From immediately after the introduction of the microchip in 1960’s and the beginning of what has been labelled the third industrial revolution, with the first being ushered in by steam power and the second by electricity, there have been those who understood that it was reshaping society. But here we are nearly 50 years later, and despite it being well known that “Digital is the main reason over half of the companies on the Fortune 500 disappeared since the year 2000” (Pierre Nanterme, CEO Accenture), the comprehensive view that Schwab is calling for has not appeared.

This can be seen as a major problem for those working to encourage positive adaption rather than reactionary approaches to the current massive transition. For Future-U however, the lack of such a shared understanding of where technology is going is not a problem but an opportunity that has led founder Jona Nalder to distill his 12 years working with technology and learners into creating a big-picture view that can summarise and articulate the amazingly complex and diverse concepts involved so that necessary conversations can begin.

While the technologies involved in the current transition are many, the Future-U framework organises the majority into three meta or overall categories of Automation, Augmentation and Expansion. Each of these will be detailed further in parts 3–5, but can be summarised as:

Automation: A.I., bots, Machine Learning, driverless cars, blockchain, internet of things, robotics
Augmentation: VR, AR, mixed reality, tele-work & play, exo-skeletons, bio-tech, genome-editing, implants
 Expansion: low-cost renewable energy, free high speed wifi, space mining and production, off-earth living

No schema could ever encompass all the developments and directions technology is taking. For instance, previous efforts have often grouped technology purely by its functions. This framework instead seeks to create meta-categories based on the ways in which technology is impacting society and work. In this way, disparate elements such as Virtual Reality or Bio-tech which are normally discussed separately can instead be understood in terms of their direct augmentation, but not replacement, of humans’ abilities to work, think and learn.

In the same way, the other meta-categories are also designed to bend and further our understanding, not of the million different directions technology seems to be taking us, but of how technology can be understood and acted upon together. And that is a big part of what Future-U is being created to do. If this makes sense, please share this message, get in touch, and look forward to part three.

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Intro to FUTURE-U: The ‘Overview Effect’

Future-U manifesto part1

Going into space is something that humans have dreamt of and written about for centuries. And, thanks to factors like engineering ingenuity and the way newly miniaturised transistors could help calculate the required orbital mechanics, this dream was finally achieved by Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961.

Since Gagarin, programs like Apollo, Mir, Space Shuttles, the International Space Station and Tiangong have seen 0.000076% of people alive leave Earth. These approx. 550 women and men have been formally studied for changes that their time in space have caused such as the effect of low gravity on muscles and bone density — but one of the most fascinating impacts of being in orbit has been how it changes astronauts mindsets and world-views. This phenomenon, dubbed the ‘Overview Effect’ by Frank White in 1985, refers to the effect that viewing our planet and sole home from the distance of orbit has had on those who have witnessed it. View the official documentary here.

More recently, Astronaut Chris Hadfield, author of ‘An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth’ and poster of this prolific series of Twitter images from space has added to the reports of previous generations:

“We live on this little bit of cooled crust, and this little sliver of air, and we think it’s guaranteed. We think we’re invincible right, and we think the whole universe is here to serve us. And we’re like bacteria in a corner, just found a little niche that’ll support our life” — Chris Hadfield, 2013, JRE.

So, if we were looking down at our pale blue dot home right now, what would we see? It’s probable that with just such a big-picture perspective, we would see a planet undergoing massive transitions in technology, work, and society, the effects of which are showing in increased social and political instability particularly as many jobs that have been mainstays since the previous Industrial revolution of the 1800’s begin to disappear. The technologies involved in this transition are many, but the majority can be roughly organised into three meta or overall categories of Automation, Augmentation and Expansion. These categories will be covered in detail in ‘Intro to FUTURE-U’ parts 2–5, but overall refer to:

Automation: A.I., bots, Machine Learning, driverless cars, internet of things, robotics. Augmentation: VR, AR, mixed reality, tele-work & play, exo-skeletons, bio-tech, genome-editing, implants. Expansion: low-cost renewable energy, reduction of Earth-limits, Space mining and factories, off-earth living.

Many across the globe are of course aware of these developments and their effects and symptoms, but are not putting all the pieces together in an ‘Overview Effect’ -enough of a way that could allows us to think beyond today to plan for a successful future where soon many humans may be seeing Earth not just from near-space, but from Mars and beyond.

QUESTION: If we were mission control and could build an organisation to lead the next phase of work and education into a thriving future, what would it look like? Future-U.org is designed to answer just this question. Look out for more articles laying out the what, how and why in coming weeks.