The Global Futurist^TM

A new film project, The Surrogates movie, is Terminator meets Blade Runner demonstrates the rapid acceleration of technology and its impact on society---in radical new ways. Its is based on a graphic novel of the same name. It is a bold even dark future that could happen. As with every technology there are good, bad and ugly scenarios that share an equal possibility of emerging as reality. This film captures this chaos.

We just finished on Friday the prequel to Surrogates. This is the yet to be released film starring Bruce Willis and directed and produced by the Terminator movie team. The film is about a future time when everyone has a surrogate, a robot avatar of sorts, that operates in society. The prequel is the mini film documentary about how robots will change human society, in dangerous ways. More complicated then robo cleaners, in this future, humans experience life via being connected to Sim Chairs that wirelessly connect with their Surrogates, their robo-selves.

In this future, robo-surrogates take risks, engage in adventures and operate in society often because their human owners don't go out. Surrogates offer a parallel society of interactive robots and humans who experience their robots every sensation. There is a murder, the first in 15 years of a surrogate and their human. Willis is assigned the investigation to unravel the murder.

What the prequel, a short film I am being interviewed for, explores the future of robots and society. What kind of a dangerous Extreme Future, world are we creating where both robots and humans will interact in intimate and collaborative ways that may fundamentally change the nature of human culture. In the film, as today, we are not ready for accelerating innovations--from synthetic biology to AI--that creeping into every aspect of our world. Yes we move forward towards a number of Singularities--computing, nanotech, biotech, neurotech, quantum.

In a world where everything is connected, aware, interacting and even alive, new synthetic life forms, systems and smart processes are emerging, even here, few are watching. Some are not human. There may be other non-human agendas emerging that are directing the evolution of planetary culture, parallel to human evolution. Are you watching?

My last book, the Extreme Future explored some of this landscape, read it for more future forecasts. Look for Bruce Willis's new movie, the Surrogates in Nov. 2009.

The Ghost Hack that is now embedded in about 100 million computers, perpetrated by an rogue Asian secret organization is waiting for instructions. It is an experiment in how powerful hackers can comprise our IT infrastructure. Just an experiment in staging a penetration on a scale we cannot properly even measure. Showcase for future intrusions?

Now take the Swine Flu. There are few life forms on the planet that are older or more agile then a virus. They make perfect platforms for carrying engineered pathogens or bio-agents. Given this relative benign nature of the current Swine flu, we cannot forget that the global pandemic speed that this flu traveled, covering in less then two weeks 40 countries should be noted.

The connection between two random but global agents, to reach the penetration, from a systems acceleration perspective is not random. In a larger context, both of these events, one seemingly random, the Swin flu and the other a purposeful malicious hack, have the same global system dynamics--fast trajectory of penetration, borderless mobility, digital and human infection, infection velocity and transglobal impact.

At the Institute for Global futures, we track these seemingly wild card events to establish patterns of connection so we are able to make forecasts, trends and provide advice to our clients. This is an example of a speculative but plausible scenario we are watching.

This article comes from MIT's Tech Review and is startling in its implications for what is next in not just computing, but in driving the Singularity Forecast. Will we witness an era where AI rivals human intelligence or even surpasses it?

Perhaps a different form of AI, different form of consciousness from human beings, a synthetic form of intelligence I would maintain, has already emerged.

I wrote about this in my article When the Network Wakes Up. In it, I posed the notion that perhaps the Singularity has already started and we did not notice because we are so human-centric in looking for consciousness and intelligence that is biological, or computational in form, when there is a new A-Life model that is emerging, a mash-up of silicon and biology. Read on.

Artificial intelligence investigators have built a fully silicon scale simulation of the human brain. The artificial neurons operate faster than the organic model, are built to learn and adapt.

The Fast Analog Computing with Emergent Transient States project takes a different approach to other electronic intellect endeavors. Research like the Blue Brain project, run vast software simulations of virtual brains, which allows them to tinker with the conditions and wiring of the brain with the tap of a keyboard. On the downside, you're running a layer of simulation of a parallel system on top of an utterly sequential computer system, which slows things down.

The FACETS hardware instead builds direct silicon similes of synapses and neural circuits, creating a real hardware brain which can operate in parallel just like the human mind. Sure, it's more of an American Idol mind at the moment, with only two hundred thousand neurons compared to a hundred billion in your head (a factor of five hundred thousand).

But the FACETS architecture is scalable, and the team already has plans for a billion-synapse super chip - for those of you updating your "end of the human race" calendars, that's a fifty-thousand-fold increase in one generation. And we all know that computers don't have new generations more than once or twice a year.

FACETS Artificial Brain

The use of geospatial information is transforming every industry, from health care to climate change. For an example, check out the Tornado Map. This map shows the spatial distribution of 43,433 tornadoes in the United States recorded between 1950 and 1995.

Dr. James Canton's Response to the White Paper for the National Human Genome Research Institute

From the National Human Genome Research Institute

Developments in DNA sequencing technologies over the past two decades have been a critically important driver of breath-taking advances in our understanding of broad areas of biology and biomedicine, ranging from human disease to microbial ecology, to evolution. During this time, and especially in the past few years, sequencing costs have decreased faster than Moore's Law and sequencing capacity has increased at an ever-greater pace.

These advances have enabled the landmark accomplishments of genomics - the determination of the genome sequences of the major model organisms used in biomedical research (bacteria, yeast, roundworms, fruit flies and mice) and, ultimately, that of humans.

Building on those fundamental data sets, DNA sequencing has been applied on a large scale to learn more about human variation (e.g., HapMap and 1000 Genomes), the functional composition of genomes (e.g., ENCODE and modENCODE), and the genetic basis of many human diseases and other traits.

In the past few years, a new generation of DNA sequencing platforms based on fundamentally different methodologies has collectively become a 'disruptive technology' that will create a new set of research opportunities for the coming decade. The availability of these so-called 'next-gen' sequencing technologies (and the already emerging 'third-generation' technologies that will closely follow) raises many questions for the research community. NHGRI has identified a number of questions that are pertinent to the future of DNA sequencing and of genomics.

Dr. James Canton's Response

These are the right questions regarding the future of genome sequencing. There are a number of key convergence drivers impacting genomic sequencing also to consider, such as the future of personalized medicine, consumer genomic informatics, nano-biology and synthetic biology, all should be factored in as well to this strategic planning process.

How and why we collect, manage and mine the data from sequencing is the real value of this effort. We need to explore new ways to leverage off of social networking and research collaborations that will encourage process innovations from beyond the large institutions; we need to inspire a highly innovative era of Sequencing 2.0.

We should consider what the future of the Post-Genomic Society looks like on the other side of the next ten years and then work backwards to consider strategic planning, funding and policy to shape a desired future. If not, we run the risk of genomic developments happening faster then we can anticipate, plan for and control. Too much control in the hands of the large institutions will be no worse then no control over a highly distributed open source model. We need the right balance of players--large and small, all focused on the same objectives.

There will be radical outcomes of an inexpensive, highly pervasive, distributed, genomic sequencing, information infrastructure that will and should, transform health care, medicine and influence human evolution. This impact will be beyond the disruptive innovations we see today, such as the development of a personal predictive health forecast. Society, medicine and policy makers in government are not ready for this extreme future that is coming fast.

Consumers will want to know their Predictive Health Future Outcome. The policy implications of this social, economic and scientific impact will be comprehensive--sequencing is just the first stage of this transformation in either consumer empowerment, or confusion.

The future impact of high scale inexpensive sequencing will likely create a new consumer awareness of the value of personal genomics. How long will I live? What diseases may I be at risk for? What can I do?

Also, the practice of medicine and health care delivery should change to be responsive to this innovation--from early genomic detection to wide distributed data-rich, real-time sequencing. Policies and funding to create new medical education and treatment models that will change the paradigm of health care should be researched now. Sequencing opens transparency, but an imperfect future of predictive and preventive health care in the short term. Managing expectations will be important from a policy perspective.

Future scenarios may be problematic and defeat consumer expectations if the control of genomic info via sequencing is not distributed and controlled with a scientifically sound and rationale plan, given this information today. It is likely that the link between genomic personal data and medicine, i.e. how disease can be prevented or disease treated, will continue to lag our capacity to turn genomic data into treatment.

At the same time, we should expect dramatic and consistent breakthroughs if we make available via a social networking model, access online to a larger collaborative community to pool data, share insights, create tools and conduct the large-scale knowledge management of the outcomes of sequencing the larger population.

The real value of sequencing to address human health issues from forming a National Genomic Sequencing Data Infrastructure project (beyond current efforts Hap Map etc.) to warehouse, mine and conduct research linking drug discovery, prevention, diet to individual health outcomes, is to actually prevent disease and promote health with personalized information. This should be pursued as the ultimate end game. This would be accelerated if a private and public partnership were to incentivize academics, research centers and private sector companies to collaborate beyond the efforts currently available.

Sequencing projects might focus on: Smaller scale projects to offer innovation grants to research the links to develop lifestyle, genomic and cardiovascular disease, early detection links with specific Cancer populations, evidence based medicine with nutra-genomics.

Funding agencies should encourage sequencing innovations towards enhancing human health, more innovative research into drug discovery and genomics, and the creation of centralized collection, and distribution of genomic data with the objective to better understand the much needed transformation of medicine and health care that must be addressed, if we are to enable healthy consumers.

In an era of the aging baby boomers, depopulation, reduced GDP, a multi-trillion dollar health care system, funding agencies must be on the vanguard to drive innovation, collaboration and discovery to direct the future of sequencing to become a viable cost-effective strategy for enhancing the health of Americans.

As a young doctoral student decades ago, one of my thesis projects was to analyze a revolutionary new technology for traveling in the deep ocean. The person who was head of the company was Sylvia Earle. He ideas, then and now, have revolutionized our thinking about the connection between life support systems, humans and biodiversity.

Sylvia Earle, the foremost ocean scientist and advocate for biodiversity has just won the TED prize. She has been a staunch advocate for waking us all up to the threats to biodiversity, threats to the future of humanity. Her key point, if we do not protect the oceans, to protect the living sea, to make the sea sustainable for our children, then the game is over.

The unknown impact of killing the oceans and this impact on human health and the future---the destruction of mankind's life support system--are known. This potential disaster in the making can be stopped. It is in our interest to protect the living sea. The climate, food chain and public health are at risk. We have 50 years before game over. Even if you disagree with the climate change data, no one can disagree with the hard evidence that we are killing the oceans. And we can change this now.

Syliva Earle's acceptance speech is moving. Enjoy.

Clearly the global economy is in free fall and despite what actions any government takes, we need a financial liposuction to trim the fat, so to say. The fat in this case is the funny money deals, lack of any regulation, voodoo economic theory and enough stupidity to go around, from consumers to Wall Street. It is time for adult supervision.

My position on this is that the global financial crisis will last best case 2-3 years, worse case 3-5, and I think that is unlikely, as the global economy, led by the US and EU, is fundamentally sound. GDP is stable and even growth will return. I think there is a confidence issue that is fueled by the sky-is-falling-media and many people will be hurt. But a recovery is in the cards and soon.

While we are reassessing our lifestyle, consumerism, retirement and work in general, a return to basics is in order. Do we really need all the stuff in our lives? Do we really need the consumption on steroids that has got us here? Is "greed is good" the only moral standard?

I forecast that the trend toward sustainability, a new Conservation Economic model will emerge. More simplicity, sustainable consumption, reasonable choices, evaluation of lifestyles are all in order. Conserving money, resources and living a bit more aware of the future will be a part of this new awareness.

eBay confirmed that former President Obama’s DNA SNP’s are now on sale on their network. Obama’s SNP’s for public speaking, leadership and cognitive insight will be top sellers according to genetic marketing experts, who commented when Buy it Now auctions confirmed over $25Million in offers.

Cool new Mars animation showing a visual scenario about the possibility of life on Mars:

http://www.nasa.gov/mov/303569main_mjmumma_vid_02.mov

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today, the Personal DNA Security Progam, that upgraded genomo-metric technology is in place at major U.S. ports of entry, and most international visitors should expect to use the new technology when they enter the United States. This will make the entry process faster and more accurate, enabling DHS officials to focus their attention on people who may pose a risk to the United States. Have a nice day.

You may have now heard about Singularity University, a new school sponsored by NASA and Google based on the ideas of the Singularity, when computer intelligence surpasses human beings. Ray Kurzweil, the author and inventor, popularized this idea.

A few of us got together recently to found this new university that has a quite outrageous mission: Preparing humans to understand, forecast and ready civilization for the Singularity to better humankind. The first Singularity University program starts in June.

Singularity is Now

Though this sounds like too much sci-fi, my position on this is that this phenomena, the Singularity, has already begun. Streaming global networks encircle the earth communicating in various machine languages, unknown by humans today. Ten billion computer chips, Internet routers and digital switches mediate billions of transactions per second between humans, machines, networks, quite invisible to their human hosts. A stealthy techno culture has already emerged that is pushing towards the Singularity as end game.

Evolutionary Phases of the Singularity

The Singularity is an evolutionary process, an emergence birthed by the co-evolution of humans and technology--nano-bio-IT-neuro. To name a few key drivers, a next level cut would include: Synthetic biology, personalized medicine, robotics and AI.

Evolutionary Phase 1 of the Singularity has already happened: Deep Global Connectivity. Networks, chips, systems, media, infrastructure, wireless connectivity. As more media convergence emerges, digital TV, wireless, Internet, radio with more aware always-on platforms such as GPS, satellites, video and RFID, deeper global connectivity will be created. I see this as it fits into a future construct that may shape the Singularity.

Optimized self-healing and self-organizing networks already exist that manage the global Internet, voice and data traffic that defy human measurement of Exabytes and Google Plus level of high speed complexity. This is today. No one actually knows how large the Internet has grown to be or how much data flows per minute.

The immensity of the data and networks that are connected and number of transactions of all forms is incalculable. This is the foundation of the Singularity, a global connected platform, a dynamic information sea.

Evolutionary Phase 2 is Exponential and Accelerated Development. As all strategic technologies, nano, bio, computers, networks double every 12 months, grow in power and capability exponentially, this will create an acceleration, a velocity that will hasten the emergence of the Singularity. Think Moore's Law applied to every technology.

Evolutionary Phase 3: High Convergence. More then simple connectivity, convergence of all technology platforms is coming: Media, genomic, medical, chemical, logistics, retail that look for optimized ways to enhance the performance (at first) of those platforms, then the optimization and efficiency, then sustainability (survival?). Think SkyNet. Google this.

Evolutionary Stage 4: Super Intelligence. This is the emergence of the super intelligence of computing networks. Smarter computers tasked with bigger problems in need of solutions. Hunger, climate change, war - just to name a few. Next on this path is accelerated network based intelligence--systems that think. This stage will not require smarter-then-human-technology.

These systems will manage the global systems of information and operations management of security, water, health, defense and many other strategic domains such as learning, drug discovery, global food logistics and model climate change remediation.

Evolutionary Stage 5 may happen sooner then we think: Self-Awareness. Self-aware global systems are coming. Self-aware minds. Connected minds. Self-organizing minds. This is when the global integrated technology platforms become aware of their own existence. This AI, self-awareness cannot be compared to human awareness or even human intelligence.

Singularity self-awareness is not required for the emergence of super intelligence that equals or surpasses human beings. A rudimentary self-awareness will emerge that will be based not on human-like senses, cognition or emotion, but something else.

Evolutionary Phase 6 will be Higher Cognition. This is the Singularity end game - when computer intelligence or when AI, artificial intelligence, is greater then human intelligence. This could be a network based quantum computing mind that integrates all of the other phases into a Unified Synthetic Consciousness, or not.

How we will know when we have reached this phase is when major challenges that face the planet, such as climate disasters, poverty, war or unlocking mysteries of physics or curing cancer and disease can only be discovered by these AI's.

This is the penultimate of Singularity, to leverage this intelligence to better find solutions to problems humans cannot solve or to find opportunities to expand humanity's reach into new domains of discovery, such as space.

Stay tuned. Ideas from humans and AI's welcome.

The US election results have sent a clear signal that a new future is emerging. Having energized the electorate, especially minorities and the youth demographic - maybe for the first time, with a message of change and hope for the future, President-Elect Obama has swept to the White House. What will the future look like? It is likely that America's future will be tied closer to the future of the planet, the needs of the world, the future of civilization, more then ever before.

I forecast that the original principals of the US ideological narrative, the story Americans have about themselves and how America is perceived by the world, will be at the core of this revitalization. If Americans are anything, they are resilient, and have revitalized the American experience numerous times, through numerous crises. From an American Revolution, through two World Wars, a massive economic Depression, the tragedy of 9/11, the accelerating climate change, right to up to today's global economic crisis--the American experience has been tested, revised, upgraded and now may be rewritten.

Too many have attacked the American Dream as a bankrupt vision--more hype then reality. I think this is not true. There is authenticity in the American Dream that has delivered for so many over generations in the past, and hopefully generations of the future. If America is the great melting pot of different races, creeds and cultures, Barack Obama certainly is the ultimate expression of that vision. He is uniquely qualified to refresh the American Dream at a time when it needs refreshing so very much.

Here are the top strategies, in my opinion, he should understand and move on to capitalize as he prepares to be President.

Briefing the President: Top Strategies that President Obama Must Embrace Now

1. Revitalizing the Economy must be the highest priority. This should include business incentives, tax breaks, direct investments in fundamental ways, but not to stifle the growth engines of: Innovation, science, small business and global trade.

2. Fixing unemployment means job creation. A massive public/private sector infrastructure program that provides work, training, education and investment will electrify the economy in positive ways.

3. Banks are not lending and they must be encouraged to or Game Over. Liquidity is the driver of business. Growth is being restricted. Jobs are being lost. This must change. Every bank that has received funds must lend, should be the mandate. M&A's are not a productive, sole use of public funds.

4. Small business grants should be increased by 1000% to stimulate the economy.

5. Tax incentives for business to stimulate job creation must be a top priority. Make it cost-effective to hire people in this economy.

6. Research and Development grants for alternative energy, clean tech, advanced computing, next generation Internet, biotech, nanotech and all next generation technologies are essential to job creation and a strong economy.

7. Government Student Loan programs must be outsourced to include private sector lending companies who know how to make for an efficient marketplace for students.

8. Re-Thinking Education. There is much about the education system from secondary to college that needs an overhaul. Educating for tomorrow's high tech jobs, teaching about diverse cultures, entrepreneurship, understanding globalization and trade, and bringing down education costs is a good beginning.

9. Transforming Health Care should include, before we give it away for free, completely changing how we think about the health care model--from disease care to prevention. This will change how we deliver care. Eliminating the waste, using IT to make health care efficient and preparing for the Post-Genomic and personalized health care era is good start.

10. A Comprehensive Economic Sustainability Plan is needed to better plan and understand the risks, challenges and trends affecting the global economy. From security to energy, to climate change to trade, the US needs a plan that embraces the new future.

Though it looks like it, and maybe it is now a global crisis, this will lead to more controls and regulations by government that has not been in the game. The truth is that the level of complexity that is required to understand and manage this global mess defies anyone who is in charge. We need a new type of 21st Century Leader who can manage high complexity. The search for value will persist as the mobility of capital circulating the globe, over $10 trillion, must go someplace for a return.

We all need a Debt Haircut and it is coming--but the pruning and consolidation in industries and markets will continue. Forecast: This is a five year work out. So don't panic, hold on. Not a bad time to set up a leap option or go long on those stocks that are more then cheap. Apple anyone? High Tech looking good.

Labels: 21st Century Leader, Debt Haircut, Global Crisis

Crazy free-fall hides the battle between Euro-Socialism and Free Market Capitalism. Last time I checked, real jobs, real GDP growth, real innovation comes from Free Market Capitalism. Just because of the greed factor, the blow up of another asset class and real estate, doesn't mean the world is coming to an end. Liquidity is tight. It is impossible to borrow. More bank failures are coming.

Labels: Dr. James Canton, Euro-Socialism, Free Market Capitalism, Malta, Wolters Kluwer

Very impressed with Istanbul. They are laying the foundation of the future of the net and business. Great example of a Post-Modern society. If they can do it, why not every other Islamic nation? Let's get beyond the geopolitics of oil.

Here is my future of the Mid-East forecast -- The Turkey Model. The first democratically elected moderate Muslim nation shows the way for the future. Companies like Siemens, my client, are building this broadband pervasive future. I get this is the future model that will offer prosperity and peace. Question is, who will be listening with a long view for the future?

Labels: Dr. James Canton, Istanbul, Siemens IT, The Turkey Model, Turkey