Scenarioplanning

The Future of the future; Utopia versus The End Of The World As We Know It Thursday, November 3, 2011
Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15
Location: Volkskrantgebouw, Wibautstraat 150, 1091 GR Amsterdam [former building of the Volkskrant]
The conference language is English.

"The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."  -- Paul Valery, French poet

The Future of the Future is an examination of the various future vision as portrayed by futurists, academics and scenario thinkers.

Samen met Corio en Kordaat in de Ruimte heeft Gendo de afgelopen maanden gewerkt aan toekomstscenario's voor de retailsector met focus op ontwikkeling en gebruik van vastgoed. Op het Retailforum van PropertyNL in Amsterdam presenteerden wij op 17 mei onze visie.

De presentatieslides staan hier. Het volledige artikel hier.

On may 19th 2011 the Club of Amsterdam will host The Future of the Singularity.

The technological singularity is an interesting concept from 1993 by mathematician Venor Vinge. Vinge describes the consequences of smarter-than-human systems (computers, improved humans or symbiotic human-machine systems) as leading to an infinite acceleration of intelligence-improvement.

It goes like this: "what would a smarter-than-human artificial intelligence do? It might play the stockmarket or be the worlds greatest artist, politician or general. But it might also become the worlds smartest computer-science researcher working on improving artificial intelligence, making a better version of itself. Rinse and repeat and interesting stuff starts to happen. Computer systems have been doubling performance every 18 months under the limited guidance of static human intelligence for over a century. With self improvement they could perhaps double in a much, much shorter time-spans. Think 17 minutes. Or less.

The implications of this idea are profound. It has the potential to make most of our problems today irrelevant (material scarcity and mortality might turn out to be easily solvable problems). It may also destroy our entire solar system. But just as with nuclear fusion there is also the possibility that it just won't happen in the forseeable future. We must guard against passivity among smart people who stop solving problems while they are waiting for 'the rapture of the nerds'.

In earlier articles and presentations I also discussed some of these concepts.

For over a million years we lived as hunter-gatherers in small family groups, for thousands of years we lived as farmers in small villages, for 200 years we lived in cities and built industry. Now we live globally in a world that is changing faster every day than ever before through new ideas and technologies.

Sickness and mortality? Scarcity of material goods? Humans as the most intelligent beings? How very 20th century!

Our history has not prepared us for these changes, Our cultures, ideologies and religions provide no answers to many of the new questions we are faced with. Trying to impose old world views or ways of doing things on a new world is a recipe for failure, whether you are a company, government or individual.

For businesses the challenge will be to provide valuable products in a world where many things that were expensive in the recent past have quickly become very cheap or essentially free. Governments will struggle to remain relevant in a world that moves much faster than they can and where geographical location is becoming less and less important for the individual citizens' identity, income and social network.

Met Dr. Fred Krautwurst van het blad van ondernemers netwerk 'de status' in gesprek over de scenarioplannings werkzaamheden van Gendo. Dit was een voorproefje voor de netwerkbijeenkomst van 15 mei a.s. De gebruikte plaatjes staan hier.

Klik op de pagina's voor de scan in hoge resolutie

No? Than maybe you should have a chat with the scenarioplanners at Gendo.........

Technology is moving at an ever increasing rate of development, and just a few years from now, we'll be exponentially more informed and equipped than we were in all of human history.

In opdracht van stichting Digitaal Erfgoed Nederland werkte Gendo mee aan een film over digitaal erfgoed in 2035. Deze film is op de DEN conferentie getoond om het lange-termijn denken in de sector aan te wakkeren. Hieronder de film en het door ons geschetste toekomstscenario.

Voor een van onze bancaire klanten hebben wij deze film gemaakt die gebruikt wordt als discussie aanjager bij brainstormsessies die de bank met haar klanten heeft. Het is een zeer verkorte weergave van het soort presentaties die wij regelmatig verzorgen in allerlei sectoren waarbij in dit geval speciale aandacht is voor de relatie tussen technologie en economische groei.

My presentation on the impact of emerging technologies at What the Hack (august 2005):