THE FUTURIST, January - February 2014

Forecasts, Trends, and Ideas about the Future

www.wfs.org

January-February 2014

The Best Predictions of 2013 A roundup of the year’s most-intriguing predictions by experts from around the world. Page 31 An Islamic Approach to Water Management, page 19 Privacy and the Surveillance Explosion, page 42 When Virtual Workers Rule the World, page 27 Taking the Exoskeleton for a Ride, page 64 World Trends & Forecasts

Seeking Alien Life Primates as Planners Turf Wars?

Modeling Green Economies

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About the World Future Society Why study the future?

What is the World ­Future Society?

The world changes so quickly that it‘s hard to keep up. New inventions and innovations alter the way we live. People‘s values, attitudes, and beliefs are changing. And the pace of change keeps accelerating, making it difficult to prepare for ­tomorrow.

By studying the future, people can better anticipate what lies ahead. More importantly, they can actively decide how they will live in the future by making choices today and realizing the consequences of their decisions.

The future doesn‘t just happen: People create it through their action—or inaction—­today.

The World Future Society is an association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. The Society was founded in 1966 by a group of private citizens, and is chartered as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization.

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No one knows exactly what will happen in the future. But by considering what might happen, people can more rationally decide on the sort of future that would be most desirable and then work to achieve it.

Opportunity as well as danger lies ahead, so people need to make farsighted decisions. The process of change is inevitable; it‘s up to everyone to make sure that change is constructive.

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January-February 2014 Volume 48, No. 1

A magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas

Water perspectives.

Page 19

ARTICLES 19 Water Futures: An Islamic Perspective

By Syeda Mariya Absar

Water has immense spiritual importance to Muslims; it is a symbol of purity and cleanliness. The progressive ideals of Islam may therefore offer alternative solutions for future water resource management.

Using the futurist technique of Causal Layered Analysis, a climate-change researcher explores the trends and potential futures of freshwater availability and usage in the Muslim world.

DEPARTMENTS 2

Tomorrow in Brief

4

Future Scope

6

World Trends & Forecasts

Machine testing, by Randall Mayes Modeling green economics Seeking alien life Plants and climate change Greener grasses Primate planners

17 Institutional Members 48 Consultants and Services

about the future

PLUS: Causal Layered Analysis Defined

By Sohail Inayatullah

27 When the Economy Transcends Humanity

By Robin Hanson

What will our economy, workplaces, and society look like when we can copy our brains and build virtual workers to do our jobs? An economist looks at the next great era, a world dominated by robots.

No public privacy?

Page 42

31 The Best Predictions of 2013 Compiled by the staff of THE FUTURIST

Forecasting the future is not the exclusive domain of futurists, so we looked at what experts in a wide variety of areas have had to say in the past year about what tomorrow may bring.

42 Privacy and the Surveillance Explosion

By Timothy C. Mack

As surveillance technologies become more ubiquitous, are we using them for good or for evil? The answer is Yes. The president of the World Future Society offers an overview of who is watching us and why.

64 Visions: Riding the Power Jacket

By Patrick Tucker

Exoskeleton technology will one day help soldiers to carry more and the disabled to walk, but first it needs to break out of the garage.

Man empowered. Page 64

51 Reviews

22 Ideas to Fix the World, Dutkiewicz and Sakwa, eds.

Creation, Rutherford Futurevision, Watson and Freeman Green Wizardry, Greer

56 2013 Subject/Author Index to THE FUTURIST 60 Future Active 62 News from WFS COVER ILLUSTRATION: LISA MATHIAS

© 2014 World Future Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. THE FUTURIST is a registered trademark of the World Future Society. Printed in the U.S.A. THE FUTURIST (ISSN 0016-3317) is published bimonthly by the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Included with membership in the World Future Society (dues: $79 per year for individuals; $20 for full-time students under age 25). Subscriptions for libraries and other institutions are $89 annually. Periodicals postage paid at Bethesda, Maryland, and additional mailing offices. • POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE FUTURIST, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814. • OWNERSHIP: THE FUTURIST is owned exclusively by the World Future Society, a nonpartisan educational and scientific organization incorporated in the District of Columbia and recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit taxexempt organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. • CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Write or call Membership Department at the Society. 1-800-989-8274.

Tomorrow

in brief PURDUE RESEARCH FOUNDATION

Purdue University police patrol sergeant John Goetz uses VALET to track traffic and civil incident data.

Analytics on Patrol A data-analysis toolkit ­ romises to help law enforcep ment officers “work smarter, not harder.” Developed at Purdue University, the Visual Analytics Law Enforcement Toolkit ­(VALET) provides real-time, ­location-specific data on criminal activity, civil incidents, traffic, and other factors to give ­officers better situational awareness.

Beyond telling officers and

first responders what’s happening now, VALET’s software includes temporal prediction algorithms enabling users “to forecast future criminal, traffic, and civil incident levels within a 95% confidence interval,” according to Purdue.

Source: Purdue University, Office of Technology Commercialization, otc-prf.org/otc. © FRAUNHOFER IIS

Lights, cameras, action: Using an array of cameras (top right in photo) will enable filmmakers to change angles in postproduction.

Tools for Enhancing Filmmakers’ Creativity In the future, technologies will give filmmakers far more creative choices after “wrap” is called.

Directors could soon be armed with a new array of 16 cameras and algorithms developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. The array would allow them to zoom, pan, refocus, alter angles, or even freeze the hero and circle around him—all in postproduction.

“The software estimates a depth value for every pixel recorded by the cameras,” explains lead researcher Frederik Zilly. “Intermediate images can be calculated in postproduction from this depth information, so that we have virtual data not from just four columns and four rows of cameras, but from 100 x 100 cameras instead.”

Source: Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, www.fraunhofer.de/en/.

Plasma as an Alternative to Antibiotics As antibiotic resistance ­ ecomes a growing threat, reb searchers are turning to new weapons against diseases.

One potential approach involves using plasma as a substitute for antibiotics. However, to use the plasma to target specific wounds—and avoid side effects—more must be known about how it affects cells.

Plasmas contain different components, such as ions, radicals, or ultraviolet photons, and so their effects on targets vary. Researchers at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, analyzed the effects of UV photons and reactive particles on bacteria at the cellular and

molecular levels, with positive results: Reactive particles destroyed cell envelopes and inactivated proteins, and both UV radiation and reactive particles damaged the DNA. “In ten years, bacteria might have developed resistance against all antibiotics that are available to us today,” says ­Julia Bandow, head of the ­Junior Research Group Microbial Antibiotic Research. Without an alternative to antibiotics at the ready, surgery would become impossible due to high infection rates, she warns.

Source, Ruhr University-Bochum, www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de.

Of Bug Eyes and Human Vision Human eyes can change as it focuses on objects at diftheir focus quickly, but they ferent distances. lack the wide-angle views that many insects boast. Lenses Source: Ohio State University, typically can emulate one or Research and Innovation Commuthe other, but not both. nications, researchnews.osu.edu.

To build a better lens JO McCULTY / OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY for cameras and other optical devices, scientists at Ohio State University have created a hybrid lens combining the best of human and insect vision.

The lens is a composite of dome-shaped pockets that adjust size and shape as fluid is The image of Purdue University repumped into or out of searcher Yi Zhao is captured in the lens them. The ability to he developed, combining the wide angle change shape mimics of insect eyes and the depth perception of the muscular movehuman eyes. ment of the human eye

WordBuzz: Neologizer At the risk of being labeled neologizers ourselves, we at the WordBuzz desk took a grim interest in the term when it appeared as number six on management professor Alf Rehn’s recent list of “Nine Kinds of Bad Futurists.”

“Yes, new words are fun and yes, confounding wordplay can make us think in new ways,”

says Rehn. “But no, this doesn’t tell us a lot about the future.”

Tellingly, Merriam-Webster’s secondary definition of neologism is a “compound word coined by a psychotic and meaningless to the hearer.”

Source: “Nine Kinds of Bad Futurists” by Alf Rehn, the Futurist Blog, September 17, 2013.

2 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

About

this

Issue

A Publication of the World Future Society

Editorial Staff Edward Cornish Founding Editor

Cynthia G. Wagner Editor

Patrick Tucker Deputy Editor

Rick Docksai Associate Editor

Keturah Hetrick Editorial Assistant

Lane Jennings Research Director

Lisa Mathias Art Director

Contributing Editors Clement Bezold, Government Tsvi Bisk, Strategic Thinking Irving H. Buchen, Training Peter Eder, Marketing and Communications Thomas Frey, Innovation Joyce Gioia, Workforce/Workplace Jay Herson, Futurist Community Barbara Marx Hubbard, Images of Man Joseph P. Martino, Technological Forecasting Matt Novak, Historical Futures Joseph N. Pelton, Telecommunications Arthur B. Shostak, Utopian Thought David P. Snyder, Lifestyles Gene Stephens, Criminal Justice Timothy Willard, Biofutures Richard Yonck, Computing and AI

Contact Us Letters to the Editor: letters@wfs.org Subscription/Address Change: info@wfs.org Advertising: jcornish@wfs.org Submissions/Queries: cwagner@wfs.org Permission/Reprints: jcornish@wfs.org Back Issues/Bulk Copies: jcornish@wfs.org Press/Media Inquiries: ptucker@wfs.org Partnerships/Affiliations: tmack@wfs.org Conference Inquiries: swarner@wfs.org Anything Else: info@wfs.org THE FUTURIST World Future Society 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450 Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA Hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m. eastern time, weekdays except U.S. holidays Telephone: 301-656-8274 or 800-989-8274 Fax: 301-951-0394 www.wfs.org/futurist

Best Predictions of the Year: Proceed with Caution In the last issue of THE FUTURIST, the annual Outlook report offered a roundup of the year’s best forecasts appearing in our magazine. In this issue, we see what nonfuturists had to say about the future during 2013.

Many people who define their profession as “futurist” are loathe to make actual predictions; that’s because we know it’s more useful to create the future than predict it. But nonfuturists who are experts in their fields have a keen sense of what is important and probable, and so it is valuable to take a look at their ­visions of what may happen and why they think so.

In some cases, a prediction might actually be a goal, such as Nissan’s declaration that it will sell self-driving cars to the public by 2020. In other cases, the prediction is based on data and what may happen if trends are not altered: hence, World Health Organization’s forecast of a billion tobacco-related deaths by the end of the century. In both cases—and for the others in this report—the editors of THE FUTURIST looked at the authority of the prediction and its potential impacts for our future. See “The Best Predictions of 2013,” beginning on page 31.

What is different about the way that futurists look at the future versus nonfuturists? For one thing, methodology. In this issue, Oak Ridge National Laboratory research associate Syeda Mariya Absar applies a tool that is gaining popularity, called Causal ­Layered Analysis (CLA), to her study of cultural factors underlying policy choices about a critical resource: water. (See “Water Futures: An Islamic Perspective,” page 19.) We have also invited CLA’s developer, Sohail Inayatullah—a professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan and a member of the World Future Society’s Global Advisory Council—to help explain the concept. (See page 26.)

Another thing that distinguishes the futurist approach to the future is that the imagined tomorrows are less likely to be selfserving ones. While members of the French cabinet recently earned public ridicule for their very optimistic predictions for French society (and George Lucas can more or less get away with forecasting $150 movie ticket prices—because it’s pretty obviously a trend extrapolation), economics professor Robin Hanson is able to freely offer a thought-provoking scenario of a post-­ Singularity economy. (See “When the Economy Transcends ­Humanity,” page 27.)

—Cynthia G. Wagner, editor cwagner@wfs.org

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Future Scope Trend scanners notebook Values | Governance

Separation of Religion and State Is Unlikely in Muslim World “The Arab world does not want a state without religion,” according to Islamic scholar Gudrun Krämer of the Free University of Berlin.

Despite a rise in secularity throughout the Muslim world, “many associate the separation of religion and politics with atheism. And those who are godless have neither values nor decency,” Krämer BHE said in a recent lecture at the German Oriental Studies Conference at the University of Münster.

Yet, total Islamic law (sharia), exclusive of secular values, is also unlikely, according to Krämer, as even the most religious people will object to the government telling them what to think and do (or not do). In states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, Gudrun Krämer, Islamic where sharia is applied, it is viewed scholar at the Free Unias legal rather than divine law and versity of Berlin, speaks thus open to social reality, she said. at the German Oriental “If Islamist circles intend to conStudies Conference at sistently control even private life, the University of Münster. they incur the displeasure even of pious practicing Muslims,” Krämer warned. “These condemn alcohol, homoeroticism, and prostitution, but they do not wish to be constantly called to order by guardians of public morals.”

ucation among minorities to enable them to gain higherpaying jobs, as well as encouraging baby boomers to stay in the workforce longer.

Source: Cornell University, www.cornell.edu.

Psychology | Humanity

Positive Messages to Fight Negative Behavior The invincibility of youth is a tough wall to penetrate when we’re trying to guide teenagers around the risks of life ahead. Apparently, warning them about lung cancer doesn’t always prevent kids from taking up smoking. Researchers now understand why not: Negative messages simply don’t penetrate like positive messages do.

Rather than telling kids that cigarettes will eventually kill them, we might try telling them that not smoking will give them more pocket money and a better complexion, suggests a team of researchers at University College London’s Department of Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, led by Christina Moutsiana.

Their study showed that young people were less likely to learn when exposed to bleak images of their future than when given positive images. Consequently, they were less likely to make good decisions about risky behavior.

Source: University College London, www.ucl.ac.uk. The study, “Human development of the ability to learn from bad news,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (October 8, 2013).

Source: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Cluster of Excellence, Religion and Politics, www.uni-muenster.de/Religion-und-Politik/en/.

© DUKE PHOTOGRAPHY

Climate Change | Earth

Incomes | Commerce

Median U.S. Incomes Will Decline through 2030 The average American household will bring in a half a percent less income per year for about the next two decades, according to Richard Burkhauser, a policy analysis professor at Cornell University, and Jeff Larrimore, an economist for the Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress.

Drawing from U.S. Census Bureau statistics, Burkhauser and Larrimore found that the factors behind the income decline are more demographic than economic: baby boomers phasing out of their high-income years, plus an increase in Hispanic and African American populations, whose household incomes now average only about 60% of that of non-Hispanic whites. Nor are the rising incomes of women going to bail out households this time, as their employment levels have plateaued since 2000.

Burkhauser and Larrimore recommend improving ed-

Trees Will Age in Place, Faster While global warming is prompting some tree species to scatter their seeds northward to cooler climates, as climate researchers have predicted, the majority (80%) are not.

What they’re doing instead is aging in James S. Clark place, and with an accelerated life cycle, according to environmental scientists at Duke University.

The researchers studied 65 different species in 31 eastern U.S. states and found no consistent evidence of large-scale northward migration.

“Instead, most trees are responding through faster turnover—meaning they are staying in place but speeding up their life cycles in response to longer growing seasons and higher temperatures,” according to James S. Clark of Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

Source: Duke University, Nicholas School of the Environment, www.nicholas.duke.edu.

4 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

❑

Officers

Staff

President: Timothy C. Mack

Director of Communications: Patrick Tucker

Treasurer: Carol D. Rieg

Business and Advertising Manager: Jeff Cornish

Secretary: Les Wallace

Conference Director: Sarah Warner Conference Coordinator: Tom Warner

Directors Bob Chernow (vice chairman) CEO, The Tellier Foundation

Edward Cornish founder and former president, World Future Society

Nancy Donovan senior analyst, U.S. Government Accountability Office

Joyce Gioia president and CEO, The Herman Group

John Gottsman president, The Clarity Group

Kenneth W. Hunter (chairman) senior fellow, Maryland China Initiative, University of Maryland

Timothy C. Mack president, World Future Society

Eric Meade senior futurist and vice president, Institute for Alternative Futures

Mylena Pierremont

Clement Bezold

Julio Millán

chairman and senior futurist,

president, Banco de Tecnologias, and

Institute for Alternative Futures

chairman, Grupo Coraza, Mexico

Arnold Brown

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller

chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

visiting senior research fellow, ISEAS, Singapore

Adolfo Castilla

Ramez Naam

economist, communications professor, Madrid

computer scientist and author

Marvin J. Cetron

John Naisbitt

president, Forecasting International Ltd.

trend analyst and author

Hugues de Jouvenel

Burt Nanus

executive director, Association

author and professor emeritus of management,

Internationale Futuribles

University of Southern California

Yehezkel Dror

Joseph N. Pelton

professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

founder and vice chairman,

Esther Franklin

Arthur C. Clarke Foundation

executive vice president and director of cultural

Timothy M. Persons

identities, Starcom MediaVest Group

chief scientist, U.S. Government Accountability Office

William E. Halal

John L. Petersen

professor of management science and

president, The Arlington Institute

director of Emerging Technologies Project, George Washington University

president, Ming Pai Consulting BV

Peter Hayward

Carol D. Rieg

program director, Strategic Foresight Program,

corporate foundation officer, Bentley Systems Inc.

Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Les Wallace

Barbara Marx Hubbard

president, Signature Resources Inc.

president, The Foundation for Conscious Evolution

Jared Weiner

Sohail Inayatullah

vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan

Global Advisory Council

Zhouying Jin

Stephen Aguilar-Millan European Futures Observatory

Raja Ikram Azam

president, Beijing Academy of Soft Technology

Francis Rabuck director, Technology Research, Bentley Systems Inc.

Paul Saffo managing director of foresight, Discern Analytics

Robert Salmon former vice president, L’Oreal Corporation, Paris

Marcio de Miranda Santos executive director, Center for Strategic Studies and Management in Science, Brasilia, Brazil

Eleonora Barbieri Masini professor emerita, Faculty of Social Sciences, Gregorian University, Rome

honorary chairman, Pakistan Futuristics Foundation

Sandra L. Postel director, Global Water Policy Proj­ect

Maurice F. Strong secretary general, U.N. Conference on Environment and Development

Graham May

Raj Bawa

principal lecturer in futures research,

president/patent agent, Bawa Biotech LLC, and

Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.

adjunct professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Alvin Toffler author

Heidi Toffler author

The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific association dedicated to promoting a better understanding of the trends shaping our future.

Founded in 1966, the Society serves as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future; it takes no stand on what the future will or should be like. The Society’s publications, conferences, and other activities are open to all individuals and institutions around the world.

For more information on membership programs, contact Society headquarters Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Telephone: 1-301-656-8274, Toll free: 1-800-989-8274, Fax: 1-301-951-0394 Web site: www.wfs.org • E-mail: info@wfs.org

World Trends & Forecasts AI • Measures • Space • Climate Change • Product Development • Behavior

AI | Sci/Tech

Putting Machine Testing to the Test Next-generation educational standards meet next-generation scoring methods, but with controversy.

By Randall Mayes

© GUDRON / BIGSTOCK

The goal of raising academic achievement in the United States has led to a number of remedies, ranging from the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) to the Common Core State Standards (2010).

This has meant not only more testing, but also more-complex testing of students. In order to keep up with grading these tests, a growing trend is to use machine scoring—even on the essay portion of standardized tests.

The need to do something about declining and mediocre standardized scores means that future testing and assessment in K-12 will require more- Robotic testing? Artificial intelligence could speed up the grading of standardized tests, complex tasks than the current selected- offering more-consistent and unbiased assessment of essays. response method, where students can derive correct answers by guessing.

New testing methods will utilize more performanceadmissions process, and the emergence of MOOCs— based tasks and constructed responses. Essay questions have created a new business model in testing, and sevwill require students to demonstrate independent eral scenarios could potentially develop for assessing thinking, selecting and organizing information from students. provided references, and using reasoning skills for deThe market for standardized educational testing has velopment. led to commercial ventures and has become a multimilSince 2005, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for collion-dollar business. Through bidding, educational testlege entrance has included an essay section to measure ing companies have entered into contracts with indiwriting skills. Graduate and professional schools are vidual states and private schools using thousands of also utilizing writing as part of the admissions process. readers.

A more recent phenomenon is universities experimentFor overall student assessment, grading essays is the ing with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), most expensive component of standardized educasome with more than 100,000 students. Testing in these tional testing. For the last three decades, essay scoring educational programs generates an extremely large has relied on human readers, who have college degrees number of essays. from different fields, have demonstrated writing ability, All of these trends—new educational standards, and are qualified through scoring-agreement rates with compulsory statewide student assessments, the college other readers in practice sets.

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In addition to paying readers for training and scoring essays, educational testing companies develop rubrics that address which features they want to score and the characteristics of each score on a scale of 1 to 6 points.

Assessing essays also requires the time-consuming process of developing prompts that pose essay questions.

With the demands on teachers’ time, the need for quick feedback, and the labor costs for human scoring, educational researchers need to determine the most efficient way to assess standardized essays. From a business perspective, using artificial intelligence dramatically reduces the cost and time required to evaluate student writing. The algorithm developed by Educational Testing Service for the General Management Aptitude Test can score 16,000 essays in 20 seconds.

Given the efficiency of AI scoring, it is unlikely that using only human readers will make business sense or satisfy the requirements for next-generation educational assessment.

Yet, technological innovation is often disruptive. AI evaluators unfortunately will displace thousands of reader jobs. On a positive note, this disruption in the existing market creates new opportunities in computer programming, artificial intelligence, linguistics, business development, psychometrics, and Web design.

The History and Future of Machine Scoring In 1967, former high school English teacher Ellis Page developed Project Essay Grade (PEG), the first successful automated essay scoring system, but it required IBM punch cards and mainframe computers. In the 1990s, this would all change with advances in computing, AI, and natural language processing. With the number of essays and the length of time it takes for human reader evaluations, educational testing companies began taking interest in AI scoring.

In 2002, upon retiring as a professor at Duke University, Page sold PEG software to Measurement Inc., based in Durham, North Carolina. Measurement Inc. and other educational testing companies are using AI software to provide faster scoring and diagnostic feedback, and to do it more affordably.

Automated essay scoring involves the development of algorithms that amplify human intelligence. Given examples already scored by expert human readers, the iterative algorithms learn how to evaluate writing; they add new capabilities incrementally as they learn more from each sample essay.

Learning from these sample essays, AI researchers build statistical models enabling them to predict human scores. The scoring algorithms look for assigned linguistic features, such as organization, word choice, sentence fluency, punctuation, word count, sentence

Human versus AI Scoring Strengths • Common sense • Reasoning ability

• Inconsistency • Subjectivity • The Halo effect • Fatigue • Delayed feedback • Labor intensive • Expensive

• Consistency • Objectivity • Immediate feedback

• Lacks common sense • Lacks reasoning ability

Human Scoring

AI Scoring

Weaknesses

count, number of long words, grammar, vocabulary, transitions, etc. The features are weighted and result in a composite score.

Not everyone is happy with the idea of using AI to score essays—of machines judging humans. Not all school systems and families have access to computers and Internet, creating a technology gap, so some educators have questioned the fairness of machine scoring in high-stakes assessments. For handwritten essays, educational testing companies can only use machine scoring when handwriting recognition technology evolves to the point where it is error free.

Backlash against machine scoring comes from such groups as Professionals Against Machine Scoring of Student Essays in High-Stakes Assessment, which consists primarily of English teachers. This group has gathered more than 3,000 signatures of those skeptical of AI scoring, including noted MIT linguist Noam Chomsky.

They argue that computers cannot read essays and that the student–teacher interaction is lost, but are these criticisms valid?

For assessing style components of essays, one weakness of human readers is that they are subjective, potentially influenced by different backgrounds. Human readers may be inconsistent, becoming more lenient or stricter over time—a phenomenon referred to as drift.

For assessing the content of essays, human readers have the advantage of common sense and reasoning ability. Humans are able to recognize essay development through irony, rhetoric, creativity, logical development, cause and effect, and narrative. A human would know that a sentence such as “Queen Isabella sailed 1,492 ships to Columbus, Ohio” is simply wrong.

And humans can’t easily be tricked, as when some years ago MIT researcher Les Perelman wrote an essay

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World Trends & Forecasts that was essentially gibberish but received a high score from a computer.

However, this is not an issue for modern AI scoring systems. With advances in machine learning, AI scoring algorithms’ agreement rates for content surpass human readers most of the time.

“One of the benefits of AI is that you, in some sense, average out all of the inconsistencies of the human readers, says Shayne Miel, director of AI at Measurement Inc. “This is how AI is able to surpass the quality of scoring that existed in the training data.”

As for the criticism that the student–teacher interaction is lost, AI scoring is not meant to replace teachers as teachers. Rather, it is a tool to let students know their level of fundamental skills and to identify weaknesses.

AI scoring is beneficial to students because research shows that the best way to improve writing skills is with practice and immediate diagnostic feedback. Lowscoring students, who typically benefit the most, are able to use the online scoring algorithm and rewrite multiple drafts based upon the feedback before being tested.

For example, Measurement Inc. designed its Web sites for using the PEG software to facilitate student– teacher interaction. Teachers can add comments to a student’s essay, similar to the grammar and spelling advice that PEG generates. Teachers and students can also communicate through the Web site via a forumlike tool. Though some people remain skeptical of the technology, AI scoring is capable of grading and providing feedback on content and facilitating student– teacher interaction.

Currently, hybrid scoring prevails because of the limitations of solely human or AI scoring. Human strengths in scoring of essays are the computer’s weaknesses, and vice versa. For low-stakes assessments, such as scoring and feedback on practice tests, it is probable that students will rely more on AI scoring in the future. For high-stakes assessments, hybrid human and AI scoring will become more commonplace. In addition to Educational Testing Service’s machine scoring

Corrections

The article “A Requiem for Lost Futures” in the November-December 2013 issue misspelled neuro­s cientist Moshe Bar ’s name. The editors ­regret the error.

The Outlook 2014 report (November-December 2013) erroneously cited University of Michigan as the source of the forecast on phytoplankton death.

The source was Michigan State University.

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for university admissions and some end-of-grade testing for elementary and high-school students, Pearson and Measurement Inc. are using machine scoring with 20% human read behind.

With time and more AI research, machine scoring will only become more efficient. If AI scoring can surpass human capabilities, it could provide a case as a sole source of assessment.

However, as Miel points out, “I imagine that if you were able to make a machine capable of Strong AI (a fully functioning human brain), you would probably wind up losing all of the benefits of AI scoring as it currently exists (standardization, cost efficiency, speed, etc.).”

Randall Mayes is Wild Cards Field Editor at TechCast Global, www.techcast.org, and the author of Revolutions: Paving the Way for the Bioeconomy (Logos Press, 2012).

Measures | Commerce

Modeling Green Economics A Finnish researcher offers a new tool for assessing ­environmental impacts of businesses practices.

Some critics have argued that you can’t protect the environment without hurting the most profitable sectors of the economy. New research suggests, however, that the sectors with the worst effects on the planet don’t contribute as much to economic growth as had previously been thought.

Tuomas Mattila, an industrial ecologist and researcher at the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), took a deep dive into how the economic sectors of Finland interacted with ecosystems and with the climate.

He found that Finland’s worst industries, from the perspective of biodiversity loss, land use, and environmental stress (ecotoxicity), were energy production, logging, fishing, and farming. The commercial activities that added the most value to the economy were related to real estate, retail, and public services—and these had little environmental impact.

“It was surprising to note that the gross domestic product and ecological footprint are caused by different parts of the economy. It is often thought that reducing environmental impacts would strain the economy,” Mattila says in a press release from SYKE. More importantly, of the 23,000 different businesses, business practices, and other variables that Mattila examined for his study, only 0.3% were related to big car-

and this would not influence GDP much. The trade balance would have to be balanced, however, for example by importing less oil products (which are the largest single import item),” Mattila said in an e-mail.

The statistical study of how humans, products, economics, and nature interact is called environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) modeling. The recent existence of EEIO models for a variety of different economies around the world will, in the years ahead, lead to a better understanding of consumption, production, and the environment. The problem with this modeling technique as it’s typically practiced, according to ­Mattila, is complexity. If you want to get a glimpse of the environmental impacts of any one product or business practice, you need an input–output model for several global regions involving thousands of variables.

“Imagine seven billion people throwing 57 trillion

bon-dioxide emissions. The finding suggests that regulators and business leaders have room to reduce the environmental harms associated with a growing economy without hurting a significant number of business practices.

In their current form, some industries contribute too little economic benefit for the price they extol. For instance, while most would agree that people need wood products, Mattila found that Finland was producing too much wood for foreign buyers for too little profit.

That’s a problem, because more than 86% of the forest industries’ CO2 output in Finland comes from wood products created for exports.

“In the Finnish economy, the export industry consumes considerable amounts of energy and land area, but provides little value added. So emissions could be dropped by producing less of these export products,

The “bot revolution” that started on Wall Street has now spread to all corners of our lives. Music that sounds as if it could have been written by Bach was, in fact, composed by an algorithm. The best analysis at the CIA doesn’t come from experienced agents, but from an algorithm. The best mind reader in the world is a set of five million algorithms that knows what you’ll do in almost any situation.

Automate This shows how we got here.

“Steiner excels at bringing a dry subject to life.”—The Financial Times “Read this book if you want to understand the most powerful force shaping the world today and tomorrow.”—Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist, MIT “A fascinating exploration of how the mathematics behind automated trading revolutionized business worldwide.”—USA Today

Visit www.chrissteiner.com Now in paperback from Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Group.

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World Trends & Forecasts U.S. dollars into the global system of production and consumption,” writes Mattila in his thesis. “The patterns of production fluctuate, supply networks cross continents, resources are consumed and pollution generated. The overall pattern is too complicated to comprehend.”

Mattila’s research shows that green modeling need not be such an arduous affair. A few key features, such as ecotoxicity, cause some of the biggest effects and are more easily measured.

“This is good news for managing environmental problems,” he says, “since the systems can be simplified to the extent that they are understandable.”

—Patrick Tucker Sources: Tuomas Mattila, personal interview and paper, “Input-output analysis of the networks of production, consumption and environmental destruction in Finland,” Aalto University, The Finnish Environment Institute, www.syke.fi.

Space | Sci/Tech

Chemical Fingerprints of Alien Life

Theoretically, if we can identify atmospheric biomarkers on a distance planet, we should be able to determine that the planet supports life.

Biomarkers affect light passing through a planet’s atmosphere, which means that we don’t need a physical sample of a planet’s air to learn about an atmosphere’s chemical makeup. All we need is a really powerful telescope.

Because our existing telescopes are just too weak, we haven’t had the opportunity to detect any of these “chemical fingerprints” that would signal the presence of life, explains Grenfell, who presented the research at this year’s EPSC. As we develop stronger telescopes, such as the European Extremely Large Telescope that’s under construction in Chile, researchers are preparing to take advantage of the advanced technology to search for signs of life.

“The main aim of our work is to assess the possible range of biomarker signals that might be detected by future telescopes,” says Grenfell. “To do this, we developed computer models of exoplanets which simulate the abundances of different biomarkers and the way they affect the light shining through a planet’s atmosphere.”

Even with the aid of highly sophisticated telescopes, astronomers will face several challenges in this search for life. An ozone layer, for instance, is hard to detect if EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY, NASA, M. KORNMESSER (ESA/HUBBLE) AND STSCI

Distant planets’ atmospheres may give us a glimpse at life contained within.

Astronomers have long searched for conclusive evidence of life beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Research presented at the 2013 European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) may lead us one step closer to answering the question, “Are we alone in the universe?”

According to Lee Grenfell, a professor at the German Aerospace Center ’s Institute of Planetary Research, signs of life on Earth are found not only on its surface, but also in its atmosphere. For example, microbes produce nitrous oxide and methane, and oxygen from plants contributes largely to our ozone layer. These biomarkers can tell us a lot about the kinds and quantities of life on a planet’s surface, the researchers explain.

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Artist’s impression of the Jupiter-size exoplanet HD 189733b, eclipsed by its parent star.

Analyzing an exoplanet’s atmospheric makeup may allow us to determine if it is capable of sustaining life.

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ultraviolet radiation is too weak or too strong, Grenfell says. Additionally, relying on biomarkers requires several assumptions to be true: namely, that conditions for life are the same as on Earth, and that certain chemical patterns definitely signify the presence of life.

—Keturah Hetrick Source: Europlanet, www.europlanet-eu.org.

Climate Change | Earth

Why Some Plants Can Take the Heat As climate changes, many plants are retaining more carbon and using less water.

Plants appear to be ingesting greenhouse gas emissions in growing quantities, according to a new study of long-term forest and plant growth. The study finds that forests across the globe are retaining both more water and more carbon dioxide in the face of rising CO2 levels. This rising water-use efficiency and carbon uptake will not stop global warming, but it may help blunt climate change‘s worst effects.

“We know that the terrestrial biosphere is taking up more CO2 than it used to. So, currently plants are slowing climate change to some extent,” says Andrew Keenan, a Harvard University doctoral student who teamed up with Harvard University professor Andrew Richardson and researchers from Harvard, Indiana and Ohio State universities, the U.S. Forest Service, and Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

This would all depend, nonetheless, on carbon emissions not rising too much higher. Keenan and his colleagues warn that, if human-caused carbon emissions continue to rise at their present rates, the consequent warming-related droughts and heat waves will more than cancel out any benefits to the plants that higher CO2 levels might bring them.

“There is little doubt that as carbon dioxide continues to rise—and last month we just passed a critical milestone, 400 parts per million for the first time in human history—rising global temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns will, in coming decades, have very negative consequences for plant growth in many ecosystems around the world,” Keenan said in a statement.

The team evaluated forests in the northeastern

United States and across the globe. Many previous studies, backed by computer-simulated models, had predicted that forests everywhere would become more water-efficient as CO2 concentrations grew. Keenan and his team found that plants’ water-use efficiency and CO2 uptake increased by even larger margins than the computer models had predicted.

According to the study, plants always lose some water during photosynthesis, because to ingest carbon dioxide from the air, they must first open their stomata— tiny pores in their leaves. As the stomata open, water vapor escapes.

When there is more carbon dioxide in the air, however, the stomata don’t need to open as wide or stay open for as long. More water thus stays in the plants, and the plants grow faster.

Keenan and his colleagues examined more than 20 years’ worth of data on water and CO2 intake and release from forest sites across the globe. The data repeatedly showed more carbon dioxide going in and less water going out.

Some researchers suggest that plants’ carbon uptake could help mitigate CO2 rise and slow down climate change. Keenan is not fully convinced of this, however.

Climate change has many contributing factors, such as CO2 emissions; emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane; and deforestation. Plants taking up more CO2 clearly cannot solve all of these.

Nonetheless, the plants might at least be upping their own odds of survival in the face of climate change, even if they cannot stop the climate shifts themselves, according to Anthony Walker, doctoral fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The patterns of climate change include an exacerbation of droughts in many parts of the globe. Plants that withstand dry spells better than others will be at a clear advantage.

Like Keenan, Walker cautions that it will depend on how a number of variables within Earth’s ecosystems play out.

“The increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere itself may end up counterbalancing some of the negative effects of climate change—you could say that. But where one trend will take over from the other is difficult to say,” he says. “I think it’s a factor of the ecosystem as a whole.”

Walker’s institution has been testing the effects of rising carbon-dioxide levels on plant growth since the mid-1990s in the Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiment. The researchers pumped large volumes of CO 2 into several large plots of sweetgum trees on a nearby plantation and observed the trees’ growth over time.

The experiment ran from 1997 to 2009, according to ORNL environmental scientist Colleen Iversen, a proj-

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World Trends & Forecasts ORNL

Researchers spent 11 years testing the effects of rising carbondioxide levels on this sweetgum tree plantation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Generators pumped extra carbon dioxide onto the site until its air was as carbon-heavy as the air everywhere on Earth is projected to be by mid-century. Initially, at least, the trees responded well.

ect participant, and coincided with two other Department of Energy–sponsored FACE experiments: one on a loblolly pine tree plantation at Duke University in North Carolina, and one on an aspen plantation in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.

The ORNL experiment raised the carbon-dioxide concentrations within the targeted plantation zones to 550 parts per million—the exact concentration that researchers say global atmospheric CO2 levels will reach by mid-century if trends continue. The experiment was,

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essentially, a test case for forests everywhere.

“We’re projecting what could happen in the future, using this experiment,” says Iversen.

The results were mixed. The sweetgum trees grew faster for the first few years, with most of the growth occurring in the roots, which enhanced the plants’ access to nutrients in the soil. With more roots, there was also more uptake of carbon dioxide into the soil.

Then the growth hit a ceiling: the finite amounts of soil nutrients. By 2009, the “carbon-enriched trees” exhibited no more growth than similar plots of trees that had not received extra doses of carbon dioxide.

“When plants grow more, they’re not just made of carbon. They also need nitrogen and other compounds.

They got to a point where they were taking up more carbon and more nitrogen, and there just wasn’t enough nitrogen to sustain their growth,” Iversen explains.

On the other hand, accelerated growth continued on the Duke and Rhinelander plantations. The carbon-­ enriched trees on both showed ongoing growth advantages over nonenriched trees in other plots of land nearby.

It could be that some forests just respond to rising carbon dioxide better than others, Iversen suggests.

Different species of trees growing in different soils—as the Duke and Rhinelander forests were—might not be subject to the same growth limits that the Tennessee sweetgums were. So some forests may keep growing when others will not.

Whether the Earth’s plant life as a whole will exhibit more sustained growth, however, is unknown. So is the overall effect that this will have on atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Iversen and her colleagues will strive to answer these questions in the next few years. They and other researchers are now integrating data from each FACE experiment to figure out how carbon–plant interactions differ in each and why. From this, they hope to create a starting point for modeling what might happen as all kinds of plant life everywhere respond to climate change. It’s a hugely challenging but exciting new area to explore, she says.

“The best thing that’s happened is all the data that we’ve gotten from these FACE experiments being used to inform models,” Iversen says. “The data that we’ve gotten from these models are really rich, not just in terms of understanding CO2, but also in terms of understanding plant–soil interactions.”

—Rick Docksai Sources: Trevor Keenan, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, www.oeb.harvard.edu.

Anthony Walker and Colleen Iversen, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, www.ornl.gov.

Product Development | Commerce

Grasses for a Greener World Lawns and fields are costly for communities to maintain, but researchers are developing alternatives.

The grass isn’t always greener, as towns and cities across the globe are learning. Lawns and parks are under growing strain from a changing climate and increasing populations, resulting in dry spells, heat waves, surging foot traffic, and a range of other problems.

New grasses are now being developed to help cope with these challenges to urban greenery. Researchers in dozens of institutions have been breeding and genetically engineering new grass strains that stay healthy and green with less water, less maintenance, and minimal use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

“There’s no perfect grass, but certainly with work and research, we can make a better grass. And hopefully save people money and hassle,” says Brian

Schwartz, assistant professor and turf breeder at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, one of many U.S. colleges that are researching improvements in turf grass.

The program’s achievements in the last few years include the generation in 2009 of TifGrand, an improved version of Bermuda grass that is commonly sown in sports fields, public parks, and golf courses. TifGrand grows better in cool or shaded areas than the average Bermuda grass does and shows more resistance to insects and diseases. Additionally, it grows more slowly, so fewer gas-burning runs with the lawnmower are necessary.

Another, newer Bermuda grass strain called DT-1 could show even more durability to rough weather and shade. Schwartz and his colleagues are still working on this one and may release it to the marketplace in the next few years. They are also pursuing newer and better zoysia grasses—yet another grass strain that grows more slowly, is more shade-tolerant, and has a solid track record of surviving droughts.

Grasses that are better-suited for overused sports fields are another goal. These need to withstand much

A provocative tour of cutting-edge nanotechnology and its implications, by the field’s founder and master “ Nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler bids us to leap in at the technological deep end. We can transform the way we make everything from bridges to circuit boards, he argues, by harnessing molecular machines that operate on digital principles. The result? Desktop or garage facilities that use less fuel, land and energy than today’s vast factories and supply chains. The technical and political challenges of unleashing ‘atomically precise manufacturing’ are substantial, but Drexler cuts deftly through the complexities.” —Nature Magazine

Available in hardcover and e-book from www.publicaffairsbooks.com

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World Trends & Forecasts © 2009 JOHN KAMINSKI / PENN STATE UNIVERSITY

The latest innovations in turf grass research, including newly developed strains of grasses and new methods for growing and maintaining them, go on exhibit at the annual Turfgrass Field Day at Penn State University’s Joseph Valentine Turfgrass Research Facility.

SHARON DOWDY / UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

New cultures of grasses, the products of ongoing cross-pollinating, take root and await planting and further study at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences campus in Griffin, Georgia. The university is one of many in the United States where researchers look for ways to grow and maintain more durable strains of turf grasses.

proved and as the means to genetically modify the grass strains went into effect. Improvements include grasses that need less water due to longer roots, don’t need to be mowed as often, are resistant to pests, and thrive in shade.

The last decade has also seen heightened interest among the customer base. The market was slow going in those earlier years, since the new grasses had higher price tags that consumers were reluctant to pay. Growing concerns about water shortages, gasoline consumption, and lawn chemical use have prompted customers to give the new grasses another look.

“A survey we did found a certain percentage of home­owners will pay more up front, for a new grass, given the option, knowing it would save them more in the long run,” Schwartz says. “If you can budget out even a year or two more, these newer grasses can pay you back.”

Synthetic Solutions?

repeated foot traffic and to regrow quickly after athletes’ shoes have torn them up. Schwartz and his colleagues are customizing some grass strains to improve durability.

The science of engineering better grasses isn’t new.

Novel strains have been arising from turf facilities over the last four decades. Progress has picked up in the last decade, however, as breeders’ technical capabilities im-

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Many communities are also exploring synthetic turf as a green option. Synthetic field installations in the United States have grown from 400 in 2003 to about 7,000 currently. The Synthetic Turf Council projects global synthetic-turf layouts approaching 100 million square meters, up from 71 million square meters in 2006.

Since synthetics require no watering, mowing, or

pesticide control, many municipalities anticipate saving money. However, the synthetic turf may carry some hidden costs. Kevin Morris, executive director of the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program, cautions that properly maintaining and cleaning a synthetic-turf field can run as much as $20,000 a year. When the field eventually wears out and needs to be disposed, it will leave toxic chemical residues that could cost more than $200,000 to clean up, compared with just $40,000 a year to plant and maintain a natural turf field.

“The synthetic turf looks like an easy sell,” says ­Morris. “People think, ‘I can just lay it [synthetic turf] out and I don’t have to do anything with it.’ You do have to maintain it. And you may have to spend 20 grand a year to do it right. Communities don’t always think about that.”

Synthetic turf may also have long-term negative impacts on the health of the ecosystem. Wayne Hanna, a University of Georgia plant geneticist who has been researching and developing new grass strains since the 1970s, explains that natural grasses filter out unhealthy particles from the water in a way that no synthetic field could ever replicate.

Hanna does see a supplementary role for synthetic turf, however. Communities that have many youth sports leagues and schools but a limited number of natural turf fields can keep them from wearing out by adding a few synthetic fields for intermittent use. This way, the grass in natural fields can regrow and recover from heavy play.

As new grasses continue to develop, communities will have more options available for field layout, both natural and synthetic, he adds. But every community will have to carefully assess each one and determine what to use and where to use it.

“Like most decisions we need to make, we need to evaluate the pros and cons from unbiased research and then make a decision that is best for our particular use,” Hanna says. “Communities need to look at reliable data, and not just sales pitches.”

—Rick Docksai Sources: Brian Schwartz and Wayne Hanna, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia, www.cropsoil.uga .edu.

Kevin Morris, National Turfgrass Evaluation Program, www.ntep.org.

The future is created today International Master’s Degree Programme in Futures Studies Finland Futures Research Centre, Turku, Finland “The programme provides me with the possibility to not only add a futures focus to my own educational background, but also to work in multidisciplinary teams and gain experience in coping with problem solving.”

The Master’s Degree Programme in Futures Studies is designed to educate foresight experts who help organisations to harness future opportunities and avoid unnecessary risks.

The programme includes plenty of rehearsal, case-studies and real-life experiences. The graduates will have the qualifications to implement futures thinking in a wide array of expert positions in companies, organizations and government institutions.

Nina Jentl, Austria

• Master of Arts

• Major: Futures Studies

“I am happy to be training as a futurist because I have realized the importance of futures consciousness in planning, decision making and even in everyday life.”

• Minor: Economic Sociology, Entrepreunership, Management and Organisation or Sustainable Development

Martins Kwazema, Nigeria

• Duration: 2 academic years (120 ECTS) • Language of instruction: English

• Annual application period December–January. For application requirements and procedure, please visit: www.utu.fi/ffrc/masters

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World Trends & Forecasts UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

Behavior | Futuring

Planning among the Primates Humans aren’t the only ones who make future plans—and share them with others.

We have long assumed that animals have no awareness or understanding of the future, or that their awareness is unsophisticated. Their future-directed actions may simply be responses to present needs, such as thirst. But new research from the University of Zurich suggests that orangutans are in fact capable of making future plans.

In previous studies, captive orangutans have demonstrated their ability to remember the past and anticipate the future. It was unclear, however, whether this awareness was found naturally in their wild counterparts. To find out, the University of Zurich anthropologists spent five years following male Sumatran orangutans through the jungles of Indonesia. They discovered that the animals actually plan their travels up to a day in advance and communicate their routes to other orangutans in the area.

Apes maintain relationships with other apes, but they tend to spend most of their time roaming through jungles on their own. The researchers found that male orangutans give off long calls in the direction in which they plan to travel, so they can let others know where they are going.

The calls have a dual effect: If a female hears a male’s call, she knows where he will be so she can meet up with him later. If another male orangutan hears a dominant male’s call, he knows to temporarily avoid that area and stay out of the alpha ape’s way.

In most cases, a long call indicates where an orangutan plans to travel over the course of the next few hours. Sometimes, the animal will call before bedding down for the night to communicate where he plans on traveling the next evening. If he changes his route, he will emit a new call to communicate his updated plans.

“Our study makes it clear that wild orangutans do not simply live in the here and now, but can imagine a future and even announce their plans. In this sense, they have become a bit more like us,” concludes Carel van Schaik, study co-author and director of the University of Zurich’s Anthropological Institute and Museum.

—Keturah Hetrick Source: University of Zurich, www.uzh.ch. The study, “Wild Orangutan Males Plan and Communicate Their Travel Direction One Day in Advance” by Carel P. van Schaik, Laura Damerius, and Karin Isler, was published September 11, 2013, in PLOS ONE. www.plosone.org/article/ ❑ info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0074896.

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“Arno,” a male orangutan whose apparent planning ability ­impresses anthropologists at the University of Zurich.

UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

Planning by orangutans as mapped by researchers. Although female orangutans A and B are the same distance from the male orangutan, female A knows from the male’s call that he plans to travel in the opposite direction. She can then change her own route accordingly.

Institutional Members A Complete List of the World Future Society’s Member Organizations Associations/Foundations

Pacific Foods of Oregon, Charles Eggert, Tualatin, Oregon

Arcos Cielos Research Center, Elliott Maynard, Sedona, Arizona

TO Production, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Canadian Centres for Teaching Peace, Robert Stewart, Shediac, New Brunswick, Canada

Educational Institutions

Center for Strategic Management & Studies (CGEE), Lucia Melo, Brasilia, Brazil

Duke NUS Graduate Medical School, Sandy Cook, Singapore

Finland Futures Research Center, Juha Kaskinen, Turku, Finland

EBS Business School SMI, Heiko A. von der Gracht, Wiesbaden, Germany

Finnish Society for Futures Studies, Helsinki, Finland

Elon University School of Law, Chris Smith, Greensboro, North Carolina

Finpro, Niko Herlin, Helsinki, Finland Futures Foundation, Charles A. Brass, Fairfield, Victoria, Australia Institut Royal des Etudes Strategique, Rabat-Chellah, Morocco Institute for Alternative Futures, Clement Bezold, Alexandria, Virginia Business Firms Audio-Tech Business Book Summaries, Fred A. Rogers, Willowbrook, Illinois Bentley Systems, Carol Rieg, Exton, Pennsylvania CHRISTUS Health, Anne P. Messbarger-Eguia, San Antonio, Texas

Join the Honor Roll!

Institutional Members of the World Future Society are ­acknowledged on the Society’s Web site.

For information about Institutional Membership, see page 18 of this issue of THE FUTURIST or visit www.wfs.org/renew.

Fachhoshschule Salzburg, Elmar Schuell, Salzburg, Austria Moraine Valley Community College, Margaret Lehner, Palos Hills, Illinois Red Deer College, Elaine Vandale, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Government/Public Agencies Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, Hengsi Wilson Lin, Singapore NATO HQ SACT, Norfolk, Virginia Singapore Housing & Development Board, Er Lau Joo Ming, Singapore U.S. Air Force, Maxwell AFB, Alabama US Air Force STRATCOM, Carl Dodd, Offutt AFB, Nebraska www.wfs.org

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Businesses, Nonprofits, Foundations, Educational Institutions, and Governments Get the Most Out of the World Future Society!

The Institutional Membership Program of the World Future Society will help you lead your organization into the future by participating in the Society’s activities to a greater extent than would be possible with an individual membership.

Key Benefits of Institutional Membership: • Subscriptions to THE FUTURIST, Futurist Update, and World Future Review.

• Web access to wfs.org, including THE FUTURIST archives, for up to 20 team members.

• Invitations to Professional Members Forums, held at least once per year.

• Invitations to Society meetings at special members’ rates, extended to up to 20 team members.

• Free copies of any books published by the World Future Society during the term of your membership.

• Preferential rates for advertising and promotional opportunities. (Contact World Future Society business manager Jeff Cornish, jcornish@wfs.org, for details.)

• Recognition as a forward-thinking institution, acknowledged in THE FUTURIST and online at wfs.org.

• Contacts! Institutional membership will help your organization make valuable connections with other professionals and organizations. The Society also helps Institutional members ­locate sources of information, consultants, and speakers for conferences and meetings, tailoring information specifically to your organization’s needs.

Heiko A. von der Gracht of EBS Business School SMI, an Institutional Member of the World Future Society.

AARON M. COHEN FOR WFS

Yes! I’d like the World Future Society’s support in leading my organization into the future.

Please enter my membership as follows: ❑ New

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Signature Name Organization Address City/State ZIP/Country E-mail (for receiving Futurist Update electronic newsletter) Mail to: Institutional Membership Program, World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Telephone 1-800-989-8274 or 1-301-656-8274 • E-mail info@wfs.org • To order online, go to: www.wfs.org/benefits

Water Futures: An Islamic Perspective

By Syeda Mariya Absar © JAHMAICAN / DREAMSTIME

Water has immense spiritual importance to Muslims; it is a symbol of purity and cleanliness.

The progressive ideals of Islam may therefore offer alternative solutions for future water resource management. Using the futurist technique of Causal Layered Analysis, a climate-change researcher explores the trends and potential futures of freshwater availability and usage in the Muslim world. www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 19 © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

© SWISSHIPPO / DREAMSTIME

M

uslims have a unique relationship with water.

Praying five times a day is one of the five pillars of Islam.

Each prayer is preceded with ablution: a ritual cleansing of hands, feet, and face with water. Without this ritual, a prayer stands void. In addition, Muslims also wash themselves thoroughly with water after urination or defecation. This signifies the importance of water and the need for accessing clean water in toilets.

These personal hygiene practices increase the per capita water demand and consumption of all Muslims.

Also according to Islamic prin­ ciples, humans may consume and utilize natural resources, but should not manipulate nature in a way that irreversibly degrades the environment. This principle is consistent with the notions of sustainable development and intergenerational ­equity.

The Muslim world experiences varying environmental, economic, and political challenges, but it is united by its common religious and ethical guidelines. These principles can help form the bases of water management policies. Globally, there is a greater recognition of resource management and policy influenced by traditions and knowledge of indigenous people; however, religion’s potential role in policy making is underestimated. In countries where the majority of people are practicing Muslims, a water management policy that is grounded in the tenets of Islam has greater potential for being effective.

Water tower in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While water is significant in the lives of Muslims everywhere, approaches to solving water challenges differ among wealthier regions like Saudi Arabia, tension-driven places like Pakistan, and regions that are burdened with economic scarcity like sub-Saharan Africa.

The Muslim World’s Six Zones Countries in the Muslim world fall into six distinct socioeconomic and hydrogeological zones, based on geographical location, the natural occurrence of water in that location, and how the water is managed.

These distinct categories help us understand what water means to different cultures and to people in disparate geographic zones, and how these meanings affect a culture’s ap20

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proach to water use.

Zone 1: Oil Barons in the Desert.

This zone includes all the Muslim countries that are rich in oil and located in the arid desert belt of the Middle East and Western Asia (e.g., Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman). This is one of the driest regions of the world, where

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precipitation is expected to drop further by 2015. As a result, average crop yields in the region are expected to decline. To meet the growing demand for water, most of these countries are tapping into non­ renewable transboundary groundwater aquifers, as well as investing in seawater desalination and waste-

© REBECCA CONWAY / IRIN

prove water management.

Zone 3: Mediterranean to Tropical. The countries in

this zone have high freshwater access, are rich in biodiversity, and have low to medium GDP. These countries include Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Mediterranean region and Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei Darussalam in Southeast Asia. These countries do not face water shortages.

They have allocated substantial resources for the development and management of water in order to attain significant economic growth and poverty reduction. Despite adequate water availability, however, some social and environmental problems still exist in the river basins, such as population growth, non-point source pollution, and degradation of water resource quality.

A woman draws water from a supply tank near a refugee camp in Nowshera, ­Pakistan. © MARC-ANDRÉ BOISVERT / IRIN

Zone 4: Global Charity.

Refugees carry water, in short supply at a camp in northern Burkina Faso.

water treatment systems.

Zone 2: Water Stressed. Muslim

countries with low GDP and low freshwater access, located in North Africa and parts of South and Central Asia (e.g., Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, and the Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union), are experiencing or are ap-

proaching physical water scarcity.

This means that their water resource development is approaching or has exceeded sustainable limits. In this region, more than 75% of river flows are withdrawn to meet agricultural, industrial, and domestic needs. Substantial resources have been diverted to expand irrigation systems and imwww.wfs.org

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Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing economic water scarcity. This means that human, institutional, and financial capital constraints limit access to water, even though water is available locally to meet human demands. Most of these nations are dependent on foreign aid for food and medicines. Investment in water management infrastructure has been slow and inadequately financed. The resulting droughts and famine are attracting considerable attention of international donor agencies.

Zone 5: Tension Driven. This zone comprises countries sharing transboundary rivers and/or groundwater aquifers with their neighboring countries. These include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, to list a few. Increasing water shortages in

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most of these countries are leading to conflicts as the management and allocation of water resources goes beyond local communities and border regions.

Zone 6: Disaster Prone. Nations in this zone face natural or man-made disasters, such as floods, droughts, glacial melts, and sea level rise (e.g., Indonesia, Maldives, and Kazakh-

stan). Most countries that are expected to experience such disasters lie in South and Central Asia. They have a long history of floods and more recently are affected by glacial melt in the upper reaches of their river basins. Maldives’ existence is also directly under threat from ocean level rise due to global warming and the resulting polar ice melt. These

nations are largely low-income countries, and the onslaught of any disaster is likely to further weaken them economically.

Futuring Water Management in the Muslim World A futurist technique called Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) allows us to

Societal

CLA Level

Zone 1: Oil Barons in the Desert

Litany

Water is an expensive commodity, but the nation is wealthy. Desalination, groundwater withdrawal, and virtual water trade are the means for sustenance.

Damming the rivers and pumping groundwater provides water for competing uses. Agriculture takes up the biggest share of freshwater usage.

Water will continue to be in as abundant supply as it has always been, as rainy season never fails. Water sustains food, income, and economy.

Social Causes

Society accepts the need to conserve water. Using oil reserves to desalinate seawater for drinking and pumping fossil water to grow food are the means for meeting the population’s drinking and food requirements.

Building dams, reservoirs, and tube wells ensures future supply of water for the population’s drinking, food, and energy needs. Water is seen as a right for agricultural and domestic use; disposal is seen as the government’s ­problem.

Water drives the plantations, so more forests are cut for palm tree plantations to export wood. Natural habitats are lost. Most waterborne diseases are avoidable, but precautions are not always taken. The gap between rich and poor grows as the rich pocket the wealth.

Worldview

More water reserves need to be established through desalination to increase living standards. Drinking imported bottled water, the purest form of drinking water, is a status symbol.

Downstream impacts of dams and the diversion of water from rivers for agriculture are ­ignored in order to preserve self-benefit. Agricultural productivity is the only way to prosperity. Traditional irrigation methods are timetested, no matter how wasteful.

Rain-forest timber brings instant rewards. Water degradation is seen as minimal, due to abundant water supply. The West will buy natural assets, feeding many more mouths.

“Power from oil.” Wealth from oil means power. As long as there is oil there will be drinking water for a healthy society. “Power from fossil water.” Future generations will find their own solutions to water shortages.

“Power from dams.” Water abundance and control indicates wealth and security—a right assigned by Allah. “We have the right to exploit water.”

“Wealth from the rain forest.” Water helps grow trees that are a source of wealth and have medicinal and healing qualities. Meeting Western demands helps feed the domestic populations. “Nature will provide.”

Metaphor

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Zone 2: Water Stressed (physical scarcity)

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Zone 3: Mediterranean to Tropical

examine emerging trends in each zone, along with cultural, gender, and location-­specific interpretations of how water resources are perceived, used, and managed. CLA has four levels of analysis: • Litany is essentially the unquestioned popular acceptance of stated facts or perceptions—what we say.

• Social, or systemic, causes interpret quantitative data to determine what a society stands for and why things happen in a certain way—what we do.

• Worldview is the unconsciously held ideological perceptions and discursive assumptions shared by a particular class of society—how we think.

• Myth or metaphor is the collective archetypes of how a society sees itself—who we are.

An Islamic Alternative for Water Management The CLAs deconstruct the cultural practices and societal approaches revolving around water management

Approach Zone 4: Global Charity (economic scarcity)

Zone 5: Tension Driven

Water provision is the role of the government on a national level and a role of women on a local level, who carry water over long distances. Education on disease is limited. Water is seen as a gift from Allah. Tainted water is a curse from Allah. Oceans and rivers supply food.

If a river passes our land or if there is groundwater available below our land, we have the right to its water. Increasing demographic pressures on the water require us to make the most of available water resources. Most multilateral treaties fail to reach a far-reaching agreement or framework, especially when there is a contentious issue.

There is drought and then there is flood. There is lack of effective use of water. Population increase and competing uses put stress on water resources.

Water quality and access are a major concern. Men work to earn a living, while women are responsible for fetching water. Waterborne disease has huge impact on survival rates, medical costs, and self-­sustainability. Means are limited, so we make do with what we have.

Low water access reduces food supply, increasing dependence on foreign aid.

River basins transcend national boundaries. Exclusive ownership of water is preferred. Unilateral agreements that do exist are not holistic or inclusive, especially those on shared groundwater aquifers.

Watersheds are not managed properly, so are prone to disasters. Each sector of society has distinct and unquestioned beliefs about water that are at times in conflict with each other. What gets flushed is out of sight and out of mind.

Women carrying water for the household is an androcentric worldview.

Birthrates remain high to combat high mortality rates. Western scientific interventions are seen as a silver bullet.

Food aid always comes in time to save the masses.

Upper riparian nations have the right on water. The country with the most power to exert has the right over water in a given basin. “Might is right.”

Our society is confounded by how or when to tackle a problem. Industry in denial looks for most cost-effective methods. Someone else is responsible for environmental degradation. We repeat mistakes made by other nations, but we have been making use of our rivers in this manner for centuries.

“Water means life and death—the prayer to Allah brings rain.” Every drop is a gift, and water is sacred, no matter how dirty.

In a patriarchal rural society, women are ­water suppliers and men are water consumers. Changing seasons bring hope or despair.

“Power from individual ownership of nature” and “Might is right.” The proverbial idea of the sovereign individual/state as a single entity. Inequitable sharing due to political strength one nation exerts over another.

“Wrath of mother nature—punishment of our sins.” We are in denial about our dying rivers, inefficient water usage, and melting glaciers. Success means a bountiful crop and plenty of water for agriculture.

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Alternative Zone 1: Oil Barons in the Desert

Zone 2: Water Stressed (physical scarcity)

Zone 3: Mediterranean to Tropical

Solar and tidal-powered desalination plants and water treatment help augment sustainable water supplies.

Environmental flows in rivers allow for healthy watersheds. Treated effluent and water preserves rivers and bio­ diversity.

Extensive water treatment prevents waterborne diseases and preserves health of the watersheds.

The oil industry invests in renewable energy technologies.

We are exploring alternative methods of augmenting water supply in times of water shortages, such as rainwater harvesting, water treatment, and putting available resources to their most efficient uses.

Preserving the quality of water bodies helps preserve human health.

Worldview

Fossil water and oil are limited in supply and are blessings from Allah. They should be preserved for future generations. Sustainability is the way forward.

Water is finite, and increase in demand does not always come with increase in supply. We need to conserve the available water resources and the health of watersheds.

Human and environmental health are interlinked and are blessings from ­Allah. All other life-forms upon which humans depend are sacred and are all Allah’s creations.

Metaphor

“Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.”

Taking ownership of our future and ­securing our resources will help us achieve a desirable water future.

“Among the most beloved of deeds to Allah is the one that is continuous, even if it is little.” Water is a blessing from Allah and should be preserved in a manner that would allow future generations to benefit from it.

“Cleanliness is half the faith.” Water is precious; it brings life and purifies sins, and its sanctity should be preserved.

CLA Level

Litany

Social Causes

© NANCY PALUS / IRIN

into four levels, or layers, of analysis. The goal is to discern that, although Islam is a common factor in each of the zones, there are diverse value systems, cultures, and lifestyles playing a part in how they manage water.

Understanding these cultural and geographical underpinnings allows us to construct alternative futures and solutions for future water management that are specific to each zone.

Toward a Better Future for Water

A man washes his hands during a cholera-prevention session in the ­Guinean capital Conakry, August 2012.

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The Muslim world cannot afford to waste a single drop of water. Governments should urgently imple-

Approach Zone 4: Global Charity (economic scarcity)

Zone 5: Tension Driven

Zone 6: Disaster Prone

Rainwater harvesting and the introduction of water markets help alleviate the effects of droughts.

Countries unite to create neutral water-management bodies for transboundary integrated water resource management.

Integrated watershed management, sewage and drinking water treatment, and better planning of urban settlements help reduce the impacts of natural disasters.

Civil society joins hands with the government to find local solutions to water shortages. Female empowerment through education increases domestic health and wealth and stabilizes fertility rates.

Equitable distribution of water resources can prevent water wars.

Protection against all the stressors on water systems is the key to protecting our water resources.

For long-term solutions to water shortages, one needs to look beyond what the government and foreign aid have to offer. Men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah; they should share domestic and social responsibilities and move toward social equity.

Joint management of watersheds provides synergistic solutions. Reduced political and social tension supports domestic harmony.

Access to water is the fundamental right of every human being, and this blessing should be sanctified and equitably d­ istributed.

“Allah helps those who help themselves.”

“Share in the abundance (as well as the scarcity) of all the blessings of Allah because they are finite, and people as inheritors are accountable to Allah for their actions on Earth. Human beings are stewards of ­Allah on Earth.”

“Disowned future shows no mercy.”

We need to address the issues in a sustainable manner now to mitigate the impacts of natural disasters on our populations and future generations.

We can create ­better futures.

ment sustainable water-management policies that rationalize demand to ensure more-efficient use. This can be achieved by attaching an economic value to water, measured by the value of the end product from each drop.

Governments should: • Implement water-efficiency measures.

• Shift from irrigation by flooding to more-efficient irrigation systems, including drip irrigation and introducing crop varieties that are resilient to salinity and aridity.

• Recycle, treat, and reuse wastewater.

• Develop affordable technologies for water desalination.

Given the importance of water in Islam, a management instrument that broadens traditional economic water-management approaches to include nontraditional cultural and spiritual approaches is more likely to succeed in the Islamic world. This would involve looking for solutions beyond the litany level and changing the worldview and metaphor around water management by incorporating the Islamic principles into water management policies or public awareness campaigns.

This grassroots, bottom-up, culture- and religion-based approach to water conservation and protection may help the Muslim world look beyond the neoliberal globalization of www.wfs.org

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water, where water is just a commodity. ❑

About the Author Syeda Mariya Absar is a research associate at the Climate Change Science ­Institute of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, climatechangescience.ornl .gov/content/mariya-absar.

She holds a master’s degree in environmental management from Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

This article is adapted from “The Future of Water Resource Management in the Muslim World,” originally published in the Journal of Future Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3, March 2013, www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/17-3/A01.pdf.

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Causal Layered Analysis Defined

By Sohail Inayatullah Complexity requires us to examine futures-related issues from many angles and at multiple levels.

Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is a theory of knowledge and a methodology for creating more-­effective policies and strategies. Since its invention in the late 1980s, it has been used successfully with governments, corporations, international think tanks, communities, and cities around the world. It has also been used as the primary research method for dozens of doctoral and master ’s students around the world.

CLA works at a number of levels, delving deeper than the litany, the headline, or a data level of reality to reach a systemic-level understanding of the causes for the litany. Below that level, CLA goes still further, searching for worldview or stakeholder views on issues. Finally, it unpacks the deepest metaphor levels of reality. Each subsequent level below reveals a deeper cause.

Take quality and safety issues in health care, for example. At the litany level, a problem in the United States is the more than 100,000 deaths per year related to medical mistakes.

If we do not go deeper in understanding causation, almost always the business-asusual strategy is to focus on the individual: more training for particular doctors. By going deeper, however, we discover that safety issues lie not just with particular doctors making mistakes, but rather with the medical and hospital system as a whole. Long working hours, hospitals poorly designed for a maturing society, and lack of communication among different parts of the health system are among other key issues.

Below the systemic level is the worldview, the deep structure of modern medicine. At this level, the reductionist approach, while brilliant at certain types of problem solving, is less useful for connecting with patients, with seeing the whole. Thus, patients opt for other

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systems that provide a deeper connection.

Patients thus intuitively move to the deepest level, that of myth and metaphor: “The patient will see you now” or “I am an expert of my body” challenge the modernist view of “the doctor is always right” as organizing metaphors.

CLA broadens our understanding of issues by creating deeper scenarios. We can explore deep myths and new litanies based on the points of view of different stakeholders— nurses, peer-to-peer health networks, future generations, caregivers, etc.—and then see how they construct problems and solutions.

Finally, CLA is used for implementing new strategies to address issues. Does the new strategy ensure systemic changes (incentives and fines)? Does it lead to worldview-cultural change? Is there a new metaphor, a narrative for the new strategy? And, most importantly, does the new vision have a new litany, a new way to ensure that the strategies reinforce the new future and are not chained to the past?

Causal Layered Analysis thus can be used to deepen our understanding of strategy. Mapping reality from the viewpoint of multiple stakeholders enables us to develop more-robust scenarios. It helps us to understand current reality, and, by giving us a tool to dig deeper and more broadly, it allows us to create an alternative future that is robust in its implementation. ❑ About the Author Sohail Inayatullah is a ­professor at Tamkang University, University of the Sunshine Coast, Macquarie University, and Metafuture.org. He is also a member of the World Future Society’s Global Advisory Council.

When the Economy Transcends Humanity

By Robin Hanson What will our economy, workplaces, and society look like when we can copy our brains and build virtual workers to do our jobs? An economist looks at the next great era, a world dominated by robots.

LISA MATHIAS

What might a world full of robots as smart as humans look like? Experts in robotics and artificial intelligence have given a lot of thought to if and when such robots might appear. Most say it will happen eventually, and some say it will happen soon.

Knowing when advanced robots will appear doesn’t tell us how they will change the world. For that, we

need experts in social science, like economists.

Here, I outline a scenario of what a new robot-based society might look like. Some people say I shouldn’t do this, because it’s impossible, while others just say it is unscientific. Even so, I’m doing it anyway, because it seems useful—and it’s fun.

Keep in mind, however, that I’m not arguing that this scenario is

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good; I’m just applying basic economics to make best guesses about what things would actually be like.

While most of you have probably seen movies depicting worlds with smart robots, as an economist I intend to show you we can do a lot better by using careful economic analysis. We can actually say quite a lot about this new world.

Rise of the Em There is a vast variety of possible robot minds, and a robot world will depend greatly on which minds inhabit it. Will these robots look like the Terminator or R2D2? Will they kill like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey? These images of artificial intelligence are rooted in science fiction, but they don’t represent what I think is the most likely form that future AI will take.

Picture a robotic mind of the future as though it were a digital version of a regular human, inhabiting a world that looks exactly like the one in which you actually live.

The AI, in a very real sense, is you.

With computers today, we often “port” software running on old machines to get software that can run on new machines. To port software, we write an “emulator” to make the new machine look like the old machine to the software. Instead of writing new software for robot computers, we could instead try to port software from the old computer that is the human brain.

How could we take the memories, skills, hopes, dreams, and personality that are in a human brain and turn it into software for a computer?

First, we need to take a particular human brain and scan it in great spatial and chemical detail, seeing which cell types are where, connected to what, and with what relevant internal states. Second, we need adequate models of each type of human brain cell—models saying how input signals are translated into output signals and internal state changes. Third, we need lots of parallel computer hardware.

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scanned brain, then if the cell models are good enough the whole model must also be good enough. That is, it must have the same input-output signal behavior as the original brain.

So, if you hooked it up to artificial eyes, ears, hands, etc., you could ask it to do a job and hope it might cooperate and do the job much like the original human.

Now, it isn’t clear just how much cell detail we’ll need in order to emulate brains. The more detail, the more computing hardware we’ll need, and the longer it would take before computers are cheap enough to emulate brains cost-effectively.

The best analysis so far—Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom’s 2008 paper “Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap”—suggests that, if com-

world looks and feels to us. Sometimes they see the same physical world that we see. At other times, they see an entirely virtual world running on computer hardware.

As in advanced economies today, most em jobs would be “desk” jobs.

They would solve complex problems, develop strategies, publicize, and so on. Unlike today, however, most em offices would sit in virtual realities. Some ems, like plumbers, would need physical bodies to do their jobs. They may spend part of their day inhabiting a physical robot shell, but they would spend most leisure time in virtual realities. It should be cheap to give ems virtual realities that are spectacularly comfortable, engaging, beautiful, and inspiring. Ems also need never experi-

“Picture a robotic mind of the future as though it were a digital version of a regular human, inhabiting a world that looks exactly like the one in which you actually live. The AI, in a very real sense, is you.” puter hardware continues to improve at past rates, we will have cheap emulations in about 30 to 75 years. And if computer hardware gains slow down by a factor of two, it will take 60 to 150 years.

Robots are likely to arrive first in the form of brain emulations, before smart software written by humans.

Because they’d be digital copies of humans, we can say a lot about what their world will be like. I’ll call them “ems” for short.

Not All Robots Are Robotic.

Ems Feel Human When I say that ems are psychologically human, I mean that they remember a human life and retain the usual human inclinations. Ems love, laugh, fight, cry, joke, envy, work, play, and take pride. They have friends, lovers, bosses, and colleagues. Their world looks and feels to them much like our

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ence hunger, pain, or disease, unless they want to do so. In virtual reality, nothing needs cleaning or replacing, since there is no grime or wear. It would often be good to be an em.

On the downside, however, ems would spend most of their waking hours working. Because copying ems is easy, a single good em worker could take all the jobs in a profession. As we will see, this makes em labor markets very competitive. A few very productive em workers, each willing to work long hours at near-subsistence wages, would each be copied billions of times. Furthermore, most ems would be temporary copies created to do a task lasting several hours, and then end or retire.

When choosing which humans to scan, or which ems to train and copy for new tasks, firms would select the smartest, hardest working, most flexible, and cooperative folks with the best-matched attitudes. They’d

also select the most productive “tweaks” to the emulation process itself, to make ems especially attentive, inspired, energetic, etc.

So, while ems would be recognizably human in having mental features that fall near the usual range of human variation, ems would be distributed quite differently within those ranges. The typical em would be more productive than the best humans today. Ems might sympathize with, and be grateful to, their human ancestors, but ems would feel and be superior in most ways they care about.

The human-to-em selection process would be highly unequal. While the em economy would quickly grow to have billions and then trillions of ems (since virtual space is limited only by computer memory size), most of these would be copies of a dozen to a thousand of the most-suitable humans. While those best humans could each have a “clan” of billions of em copies, most humans would give rise to just a few ems. These clans would represent towns or nations of the same ems (think Agent Smith in The Matrix, but nicer).

The copy clan would be a natural unit of em organization. Because copies are similar and share many interests, ems would tend to trust their clan’s advice on love, work, finances, and so on. Each em might feel like a visitor from a planet full of folks just like her. Just as politics in ancient cities often consisted of shifting coalitions of great families, em politics might consist of shifting coalitions of copy clans.

With only a few hundred important clans, the em social world becomes more like the social world of our forager ancestors, where people only ever met one or two hundred people in a lifetime and knew each one very well. An em meeting with a George might know George’s basic personality and style well, even if she had never met this particular George before.

Slow Human Computers and Fast Em People Computers can be fast or slow; faster computers are more expensive, but do more calculations per second. This ability to pay more for

speed works especially well when calculations can be done in parallel, with many processors running at the same time. For parallel calculations, it costs about twice as much for a machine that calculates twice as fast.

The fact that the human brain calculates in parallel implies a very wide range of speeds where emulation calculations can be done twice as fast if one uses a computer that costs twice as much. This range includes kilo-ems and milli-ems, who think and execute tasks a thousand times faster or slower than humans, and may include mega-ems and ­micro-ems, who run a million times faster or slower.

Human brains have a reaction time of about a tenth of a second, because human body parts can’t change position faster than that.

Since body parts half as long oscillate twice as fast, you’d need a ­d ouble-speed em to react fast enough for a body that is half of a human’s height. For a body 2 millimeters tall, you’d need a kilo-em.

Most ems, however, would live in virtual reality without a physical body. Such ems could meet in the same virtual room even when their brains (i.e., emulation hardware) are far apart. This would greatly cut travel, and hence travel congestion, which is the biggest limit to city size today. Thus, em cities may be much bigger and denser, perhaps holding populations in the trillions. Em cities may instead be limited in size by difficulties in cooling lots of dense, fast computer servers. Such cities might look somewhat like the dense tall cities of The Fifth Element or Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones.

Em minds would run at speeds matched to the jobs they perform.

Ems controlling fast machines, like nanotech factories, must run fast, while those controlling slow machines, like boats, can run more slowly. Ems in product-development races might run as fast as possible, while poor em retirees might run as slowly as possible. Ems who take their leisure time much faster than work can offer near 24/7 service to clients, and bosses who run faster than subordinates can better coordinate big organizations.

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meet together virtually but actually have brains on opposite sides of a city, would notice signal delays due to the speed of light. On the other hand, for ems slower than kilo-ems, their subjective century-or-so careers would have hardly started before job practices change, wasting their job-training investments. Together, these delay and career effects suggest that kilo-ems are near the typical em speeds.

You might wonder, would these virtual people ever die? And if not, how long would they work? Why not keep them working forever?

I estimate that an em career would last only a subjective century or so.

After that, the em would “retire” and spend the rest of his or her virtual days playing virtual shuffleboard (or doing anything else he or she liked). Why such a low job halflife? Human minds are like most complex adapting systems: As they adapt to an environment, they get more complex and fragile, and less able to adapt later to very different environments. We see this effect in software “rot,” in manufactured products, in biological cells and species, and in human minds today. So we expect this pattern to continue with em minds. Even though they could last forever, old em minds would still become obsolete.

Faster ems would have many features we associate today with higher status. They would tend to be richer, be bosses, win arguments, host meetings, and sit at central locations.

Em speeds would also clump, because ems running at different speeds couldn’t interact naturally, unless one of them temporarily ran at the others’ speeds. Thus, ems would be ranked into a discrete hierarchy of social classes running at different speeds.

The Copy Economy and Runaway Economic Growth The most important feature that all these artificial brains share is being easy to copy. This has many big implications. First, it makes training much cheaper. You can train one robot and then make millions of copies having that skill. Second, easy copying would greatly reduce the wages of robots and of the humans who

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compete with them. This is simply a matter of supply and demand. When anyone can easily make many robots, the cost to rent robot workers must fall to near the cost of renting robot hardware.

Human workers competing with very cheap and productive robots

“The population of robotic minds might quickly reach trillions, greatly outnumbering humans. ”

could not live on the resulting wages. Humans will need income from charity, or from stocks, bonds, and real estate, whose values would skyrocket. Otherwise, they’d starve.

Today, we don’t kill unproductive retirees and take their stuff, partly from fear of destroying the financial, legal, and political institutions we rely on to keep the peace among the rest of us. Humans might similarly hope to survive as marginalized “retirees” in a robot economy.

How much faster could an economy of easily copied robots grow?

Standard economic theory says that even a one-week doubling time isn’t crazy. It takes both workers and tools together to make things; because we are slow at growing and improving workers, our economy now grows mainly by inventing better tools. While our factories can make more tools quickly, those don’t help much without more workers to use them. A robot economy, however, can quickly add both more tools and more workers to use them.

Compared to growth today, robot growth depends less on increasing quality and more on increasing quantity. The population of robotic minds might quickly reach trillions, greatly outnumbering humans.

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Note, however, that this need not imply philosophical, political, or military conflict with humans. Remember the type of robots we are talking about here. Psychologically speaking, ems feel human.

An economy that grows faster would be different in some predictable ways. For example, faster economic growth implies higher interest rates, which is bad for projects and activities that take a long time to produce an economic return. These may include huge construction projects, space travel, or shipping goods long distances. A faster economy would thus have faster construction, less space travel, and more local production. Long regulatory delays would also be expensive; fast, agile governance would be necessary.

A fast-growing economy would quickly grow big, and bigger economies are also different in predictable ways. For example, they have more room for specialization, and they could pay for better and more varied movies, music, novels, and art. A larger total population can hold bigger versions of organizations like firms and cities.

A bigger future economy can also contain more inequality: bigger differences in nations, firms, and cities; between the richest and poorest; and between the largest and smallest.

How the Previous Eras of Man Suggest a New Robot Era Is the dawning of a robot economy at all believable in the foreseeable future? It may be if we consider the robot economy to be the next step in a pattern of previous eras of human activity, following the eras of foragers, farmers, and industry. First, foragers wandered the land in search of food, then farmers grew their food while staying in one place, and finally industrial folks had machines to help them make food and much more.

These eras are distinguished by how fast we grew in our capacity and power. Each era is characterized by the speed at which innovations could be shared. Starting about 2 million years ago, foragers learned to share their innovations via culture; their economy (which tracked their population) doubled every

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quarter million years. Starting about 10,000 years ago, farmers learned to share innovations much faster, perhaps via long-distance trading networks. The farming economy doubled every thousand years.

Finally, a few hundred years ago, we learned to share innovations even faster, via communication among networks of technical experts. Our industrial economy has since doubled about every 15 years.

This growth has been faster even than our population grew, allowing a great increase in wealth per person for the first time in history. Each new era grew faster but lasted a shorter time, to encompass a similar amount of total growth. Each era has seen seven to nine doublings in capacity, and similar jumps in growth rates relative to preceding eras.

If we try to extend this pattern to eras before humans, we find something that roughly fits: Animal brains doubled roughly 16 times every 30 million years, starting a half billion years ago. Might this pattern also extend into the future? If another era comes after ours, and fits this historical pattern, it would appear sometime in the next century or so; within a few years, its economy would ­double every few weeks. That new economy might be a robot economy.

I warned at the start of this article that I’m just applying basic economics to make best guesses about what a future robot world would actually be like. I’m not saying this scenario is good or bad.

If this future actually happens, it will, of course, be very important to think carefully about which aspects of this scenario are good and to be encouraged, and which are lamen­ table and to be minimized. Surely, the first task is to figure out what is likely to happen if we do nothing.

This is the task I have begun. ❑ About the Author Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, hanson.gmu.edu. He is known as a founder of the field of prediction markets, and also has interests in signaling, health, politics, law, disagreement, hypocrisy, and the future. He is writing a book on the subject of this article.

© 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

The Best Predictions of 2013 Compiled by the staff of THE FUTURIST

Forecasting the future is not the exclusive domain of futurists, so we looked at what experts in a wide variety of areas have had to say in the past year about what tomorrow may bring.

T

he end of Moore’s law … bad news for allergy sufferers … good news for secular humanists … and everything in the world will talk to

everything else. These are just a few of the best predictions we heard in 2013.

For this special report, the editors of THE FUTURIST turned our attention outward to what business and government leaders, top scientists, major institutions, and even celebrities were saying about the future and how we’ll get there.

A prediction can be “good” for a variety of reasons besides a likelihood of coming true. We looked for boldness, soundness, urgency, and perhaps the revelation of a previously unseen trend.

No prediction is absolute. We offer these to you as ideas that speak to the future we are creating, but it’s only the future that exists at this moment in time.

—Patrick Tucker, deputy editor, THE FUTURIST © VECTOR-RGB / BIGSTOCK

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Science and Technology Big data will make more big business decisions.

The story: We’ll be generating more data—35ZB in 2020, or 44 times more data than in 2009. The industry analyzing all that data will more than triple by 2018 ($46.3 billion, up from $14.9 billion now). Big data is able to flout the laws of basic economics and become more valuable as more of it exists, because it’s useless without the ability to collect, analyze, and execute on it.

Bottom line: Big data will heavily shape the next era of humanity and will determine tomorrow’s winners and losers.

Sources: Forbes, IDC, MarketsandMarkets, eWeek.

—PT

Moore’s law will be dead and buried by 2022.

The story: Moore’s law refers to the

ability to pack twice as many transistors on the same sliver of silicon every two years. Bob Colwell, former chief architect at Intel, argues that businesses will cease to invest in raising computational power further and further, so the rapid pace at which information technology has been evolving for the past century is going to fizzle out.

It will be an anticlimactic future for us all if he’s right. Technological change is going to continue, but at a

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Bob Colwell.

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much slower rate, and the near future may end up looking much more like the present than many might hope. Anticipated game changers like intelligent machines and ubiquitous Web-connected cars will all take much longer to roll out.

BUT … History is full of pessimistic predictions about technology’s limits that turned out to be wrong: No one will want a personal computer … Humans will never fly … There will never be more than a few hundred automobiles. Who’s to say—maybe progress awaits only one new technical breakthrough to keep on going.

Quantum computing could be the next step after silicon.

Bottom line: They say all good things must come to an end. Perhaps that includes the ongoing acceleration of computational processing power. Time and human inventiveness will tell.

Source: Bob Colwell, quoted by WCCF Tech.

—RD

By 2028, your eyes and pulse will tell your teacher if you are learning.

The story: Educators (or education

systems) will measure their students’ biological responses, including pulse, sweat, and eye position, for a realtime understanding of how their students are mentally interacting with material, according to Terry Heick, director of TeachThought.com.

Educational institutions are not always eager to embrace the opportunities of technological change, yet no field is going to feel the influence of this change more in the next 10 years than is education.

Heick backs up his prediction with a road map explaining how we get to there from here. First, in 2015, adaptive computer-based testing replaces those terrible no. 2 pencil tests, and game-based learning truly catches on. Next, in 2018, opensourced learning models replace standard curriculums as we know them today.

BUT … The field of education has seen a number of fads come and go

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over the years. In decades past, some claimed that at-home correspondence-based education would close the schools; then it was the advent of at-home lectures and classes on VHS; then, computers for every student; today, MOOCs (massively open online courses). All of these innovations are important, but they never succeeded in replacing the classroom model.

Bottom line: The world will always need educators, but the definition of education could change significantly, hopefully for the better, in the coming decade.

Source: “30 Incredible Ways Technology Will Change Education by 2028” by Terry Heick, TeachThought .com.

—PT

Your dreams will be programmable within the next 15 years.

The story: People will be able to im-

merse themselves in gaming environments and control their own entertainment experiences. They will even control their own dreams: “You’re just going to put a hat on or plug into the computer and create your own world,” George Lucas said in a recent panel discussion at University of California’s School of Cinematic Arts. “We’ll be able to do the dream thing 10, 15 years from now.

It’s not some pie-in-the-sky thing.”

BUT … Storytellers still need to come up with content. “You still have to tell stories,” Lucas said.

“Some people will want to be in a game … and some people will want to have a story told to them. Those are two different things. But the content always stays the same. The content hasn’t changed in 10,000 years.”

Source: “George Lucas & Steven Spielberg: Studios Will Implode; VOD Is the Future” by David S. ­Cohen, Variety, June 12, 2013. —CGW

Astronauts will be in Mars orbit by 2030.

Who said that: U.S. President Barack

Obama.

Why great: His quote on the sub-

© JOHAN SWANEPOEL / BIGSTOCK

ject, made to a crowd gathered at the Kennedy Space Center, says it all: “I believe that space exploration is not a luxury; it’s not an afterthought in America’s quest for a brighter future.

It is an essential part of that quest.”

BUT … Barack Obama is not the first president to make bold promises about the U.S. space program.

Nor is he the first politician to date those promises far enough into the future as to escape any accountability for the failure of said space aspirations to come to fruition. George H.W. Bush forecast a manned mission to Mars by 2019. His son, George W. Bush, took expectations down a notch by promising a return to the Moon by 2020. In the late 1960s and 1970s, various politicians and NASA managers believed it possible to send a human to Mars by the mid-1980s. The cost of the Vietnam War and the Great Society programs relegated such ambitions to the back burner. Even under the Reagan boom years, the United States never did get around to building the Star Wars defense shield.

Bottom line: Politicians promise the moon but only sometimes deliver. We would stand a better chance of sending a person to Mars if the planet showed signs of harboring registered voters.

Sources: Phys.org, Space.com.

—PT

Everything will eventually talk to every other thing, via ubiquitous Internet connections.

The story: There will be more than

50 million machine-to-machine con-

nected devices in the year 2020, according to Cisco. But what will they do?

Intelligent devices could allow you to “put a chicken in the oven, and the oven says, ‘ah ha, chicken,’” explains Nicholas Negroponte, cofounder of MIT’s Media Lab and founder of One Laptop Per Child.

“Or you arrive at your door carrying bundles, and the door recognizes you even if you’re wearing a ski cap.

It opens the door without letting seven dogs in behind you.” It’s a

heartening vision of a future where more computers actually make computation less intrusive.

BUT … This vision of the Internet of Things has “almost gone by the wayside,” Negroponte says, because of the spread of iPhone apps that allow for the remote control of everything from car doors to security systems. The result is that the app “sucks the intelligence out of the device.”

What would be better would be to imbed actual smarts into our environment, not just turn our living world into one big extension of a device not everyone owns. The latter may be easier to develop for as a programmer, but as Negroponte asks, “What if you forget your phone?”

Bottom line: The world around us is about to get a lot smarter and more interactive. The jury is out on whether it gets better.

Source: Nicholas Negroponte, speaking at WorldFuture 2013. —PT

Governance Living in “Cloud Cuckoo Land”: Risks of Predicting in Public Tasked last summer with describing the state of their nation a mere decade hence, ministers in French President Francois Hollande’s cabinet came up with some inspiring forecasts—and a healthy dose of ridicule.

The housing minister declared that all will be housed. The finance minister predicted that all will have jobs. And the minister for industrial recovery foresaw “a factory of the future” and super-fuel-efficient cars.

Sample sound bite from Cécile Duflot, housing minister: “Everyone will have a roof over their heads in a quality environment.… Access to housing will no longer be a TARDIVON JEAN CHRISTOPHE / SIPA / NEWSCOM stress factor. Finding a home will even become a pleasant step in people’s lives.”

The reaction, as reported by the London Daily Telegraph: “Le Figaro scoffed at the ‘idyllic vision,’ l’Express called them ‘self-congratulatory,’ and France TV said: ‘Ministers are in Cloud Cuckoo Land.’” —CGW French Minister of Housing Cécile ­Duflot.

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appear, but it will lose clout as it becomes the minority view in more societies. Bellwethers of this trend include Sweden and Japan.

Source: “‘Atheism to Replace Religion by 2041’: A Clarification,” Huffington Post, August 2, 2013. —CGW

Marriage could be extinct by 2042. © JGROUP / BIGSTOCK

The world will become predominantly secular by 2041.

Who said that: Nigel Barber, an evolutionary psychologist and author of Why Atheism Will Replace Religion: The triumph of earthly pleasures over pie in the sky (Amazon Digital Services, 2012).

The story: Secularism in general is an indicator of a nation’s economic development. It’s associated with quality-of-life factors like improved education, longer lives, and more ­equitable income distribution, says Barber. To make his forecast, he examined GDP and the human development index (HDI) to compare rates of economic development and average religious views—measured as those who believe in God or view religion as important.

“I calculated four estimates of when the average country in the world is likely to transition to a secular majority, and the average estimate was 2041,” he writes. “The more reliable HDI method predicts an earlier transition than does GDP alone.”

Barber ’s book was published in 2012, but thanks to liberties taken by journalists anxious to cite an expert opinion on the “end of religion,” Barber was able to clarify himself in a 2013 Huffington Post piece: He did not say religion would disappear by 2041. Rather, he projected that religious people would become a minority, “which is a very different prediction,” he observes.

BUT … “All such extrapolation is notoriously risky, of course, and all bets would be off if the world fell into a 20-year depression,” Barber warns.

Bottom line: Religion will not dis34

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The story: UN statistics show that

“87% of the world’s population lives in countries with marriage rates that have fallen since the 1980s,” writes Philip Cohen in The Atlantic. And that decline has accelerated since 1990. “If we just keep going on the same path, … marriage will hit zero at around 2042.”

Why great: Young women have more education, independence, and options. Interestingly, however, it is college-educated women who are slowing the decline in marriage.

BUT … Widening acceptance of same-sex marriage may give the trend at least a short-term uptick.

There is no denying the powerful appeal of weddings—and the revenues they generate for business.

Trend extrapolation is a risky business, especially when it comes to social values, and “major demographic trends usually don’t just smash into 0 or 100 percent, so I don’t expect that,” notes Cohen.

Bottom line: Society has transferred many of the family’s roles to markets and public services. Relationships still matter, but the symbolic gesture of putting a ring on it may become passé.

Source: The Atlantic (“How to Live in a World Where Marriage Is in Decline,” online June 4, 2013).

—CGW

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World population will reach 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion in 2100.

The story: The raw numbers reflect a

great deal of complex global and regional data, and the UN offers ranges of predictions based on changes in many variables. The most important variable in projecting global population growth may be the female fertility rate, which generally declines as economies develop, but longevity has become an increasingly significant factor.

BUT … Like many predictions, this one is conditional. The numbers offered here are the UN’s mediumvariant projection and assume continued fertility decline. In the low-variant projection, world population begins to decline around midcentury and fall to around 5 billion or 6 billion in 2100. In the high-variant, 16.6 billion people will expect accommodations in 2100.

Bottom line: This projection translates to an average of 81 million additional humans a year. And it’s not © ALASKAJADE / BIGSTOCK just that there will be more of us; we’ll also be poorer and older.

Source: World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision. Key Findings and Advance Tables, June 2013, United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.

—CGW

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VIA FACEBOOK

Tobacco could kill as many as 1 billion people this century.

“This Baby Will Live to Be 120.”

Why great: We’ve been warned, and

magazine’s May 2013 cover story.

BUT … Most people don’t believe it and don’t want it; we simply can’t envision ourselves as happy at age 120.

Two-thirds of U.S. adults surveyed by Pew said they thought other people might undergo life-­extending medical procedures, but 56% said they themselves would not. More than half (51%) said radical life extension was “bad for society.”

Bottom line: The long-term trend is toward increased human life spans. When put in terms of breakthroughs such as “cure for cancer” or “artificial limbs,” people are generally positive about potential life-

we can act. Deaths from diseases stemming from tobacco use are preventable, and more nations are putting more effort into helping citizens break their addiction. Strategies include banning tobacco advertising, taxing tobacco products, requiring warning labels, and restricting smoking in public buildings, including (in the United States) subsidized housing.

BUT … Two words: Big Tobacco.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the cigarette industry spends about $23 million a day on advertising and promotion. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the tobacco industry’s influence, as are less-developed nations with fewer public-health resources to fight it.

Bottom line: Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable deaths, the CDC reminds us. The current global rate of approximately 6 million tobacco-related deaths a year will grow to 8 million a year by 2030, if current trends continue.

Sources: CDC; World Health Organization, WHO framework convention on tobacco control (WHO fctc), WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2013.

—CGW © STOCKSNAPP / BIGSTOCK

Who said that: National Geographic

extending developments. Afraid of being bored, lonely, or broke as a ­supercentenarian? Deal with it.

Sources: National Geographic, “On Beyond 100” by Stephen S. Hall; Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Forum.

—CGW

Oh Snap, Gingers! Worst Prediction of the Year Redheads could be extinct in 100 years.

BAS CZERWINSKI / EPA / NEWSCOM

The story: Natural red hair is a

genetic mutation; global population increase and intermingling will significantly reduce the chances of auburn futures.

Who said that: National Geographic—allegedly. More likely, a bored news bureau’s Department of Making Stuff Up. The rumor lit up the Internet for a while in August.

Why great: The stories came with lots of pictures of beloved celebrity redheads, like Prince Harry, Nicole Kidman, and Clay Aiken. Throw the year 2100 and an extinction threat into the mix, and we’re hooked. It got us to think about genetics, population growth, and the future, and we didn’t have to buy anything.

BUT … National Geographic seems to have predicted nothing of the kind. The search results for “redheads” are empty at ngm.nationalgeographic.com. None of the news stories naming NG as the source includes a link to it or cites the specific issue in which

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Red Hair Day, Breda, Netherlands.

the “prediction” appeared. And it’s not true.

What the expert said: “People really shouldn’t believe everything they read on the Internet,” Joshua Akey, associate professor of genome sciences at University of Washington, told MSN News. “There is no scientifically compelling basis to the claim that redheads will become extinct in 100 years.”

Bottom line: Credit goes to intrepid, responsible, and entertaining reporting by Sally Deneen of MSN News for reassuring us of this prediction’s unreliability.

Whew!

Source: MSN. —CGW

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Commerce British economic growth will outpace that of the United States every year from 2014 through 2020.

Who said that: Toscafund chief economist Savvas Savouri.

The story: Savouri’s optimism is based partly on his forecast for population growth in Britain. In an interview with Reuters, he predicted that, by 2045, the UK’s population will be bigger than Germany’s. More people means more homebuilding and more manufacturing of products—all good for economic growth.

BUT … Savouri is clearly bullish on Britain and, as an investor, has an interest in being a booster. He told Reuters: “I can’t think of another country on this planet that is the nexus of emerging world growth more than the UK.” (He also predicts the euro zone “will stumble back into recession.”) But the economists whom Reuters polled were less sanguine, expecting the United States to grow at a feverish 2.9% in 2014, compared with 1.8% for Britain.

Bottom line: People with money on the line tend to be very good forecasters; those who actually build the futures they forecast are the best kind of self-fulfilling prophets.

Source: “Hedge fund Toscafund bets UK growth will outpace U.S.”

by Laurence Fletcher, Reuters, August 21, 2013.

—CGW

More than 6 million years’ worth of video will be available to watch online by 2016.

The story: More than half (55%) of current Web traffic is already video based, and individuals spend an average of 2,000 minutes each month watching video, observes Heather Taylor, vice president of Ogilvy.

The videos are shorter, thanks to apps like Vine and Instagram. Social media is putting more visual communicators to work, and the most creative “vine-ographers” are gaining huge followings—attracting the attention of advertisers.

BUT … Audiences know when 36

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they’re being sold. The trick for brands is to engage without abusing the attention that consumers are willing to pay, however fleeting.

Bottom line: The pressure is on all communicators to get attention and get to the point. Commercials on t e l e v i s i o n a re a l re a d y g e t t i n g shorter—even a 30-second ad seems long-winded to many viewers. Beware the ever-shrinking attention span of the general public.

Source: Fox Business.

—CGW

The market for printed books will collapse by 2020.

W h o s a i d t h a t : Stephen Cole,

founder of eBooks.com.

What he said: “There will always be a market for printed books, just as there is still a market for vinyl rec­ ords and fountain pens. But the real future, a golden future, for books and reading is digital. All things considered, I expect the print book market to collapse on September 12, 2020.”

Why great: In reporting on the recent plateauing of ebook sales (due to early adopters and a quick saturation of the market), Cole observes several trends that may still prove troubling to traditional book publishers—principally the rise of digital natives to economic power.

Today, people buy books wherever they are exposed to them—physical books when they’re in bookstores or libraries, and ebooks when they’re reading online. Physical and digital books have different feels, and eventually, Cole believes, ebooks will simply “feel” right to most readers,

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because that’s what will have dominated their reading choices.

BUT … Consider the source. Cole’s eBooks.com, founded in 1997, is a leading independent ebook-store, and his Ebook Library, founded in 2004, is a global leader in ebook publishing for academic and research libraries.

Bottom line: Demographics and technology are preceding economics here. The cost of a digital platform makes ebooks seem more marketable, but readers actually pay for content, not platform. Knowledge, ideas, and stories contained in books—both commercial and academic—have inherent value, and most authors still expect to be paid accordingly.

Authors with other means of support may be willing to go the Creative Commons route and surrender royalties for the convenience of reaching a large digital audience.

The fact that many authors already bypass the slow-moving process of traditional book publishing in favor of self-editing and publishing their work should be more troubling to © MAXXYUSTAS / BIGSTOCK

the print industry—and to readers who appreciate quality.

Source: Today, a Singaporebased newspaper.

—CGW

African agricultural output will nearly double by 2020, to $500 billion a year.

Who said that: Erastus Mwencha,

deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission.

Why great: If Mwencha’s right, then huge numbers of new jobs might open up. The continent’s youth demographic is growing fast and will need as many as 2.4 million new jobs a year, by some estimates.

BUT … Africa still has much catching up to do on infrastructure building. Also, governance problems in many of the republics could make sustained economic growth and reliable food distribution difficult. Finally, political upheavals and ecological disruptions related to climate change are ongoing risks that could strike at any time, setting back development significantly when they do.

Bottom line: Africa may be a late bloomer in terms of global development, but it may have hit a new growth spurt. Let’s hope that it lasts.

Source: Invest in Africa 2013, African Union.

—RD

By 2023, the United States will have 5% more jobs than it does today, thanks to technology.

Who said that: Robert Atkinson,

president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, writing in MIT Technology Review.

What he said: “Far from being doomed by an excess of technology, we are actually at risk of being held back by too little technology.”

BUT … The premise that most jobs are safe from automation remains a controversial one among some very smart people.

Nick Bostrom, director of the

Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, has forecast that as much as 45% of the jobs that currently exist in the United States will be taken over by computers or AI systems by 2045. The team at Oxford ran detailed models on 702 different occupations to assess the effects of computerization on U.S. labor to make that determination. But the Oxford folks had a hopeful takeaway: “Wages and educational attainment exhibit a strong negative relationship with an occupation’s probability of computerization.” So the smarter you are, the safer your job.

Bottom line: The best way to prepare for either employment future is to build up technical skills, today.

Sources: Robert Atkinson, in MIT Technology Review. Nick Bostrom and the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology.

—PT

A movie ticket will cost up to $150, but going to the movies will be like going to a Broadway show.

Who said that: George Lucas.

What he said: “Going to the mov-

ies will cost 50 bucks or 100 or 150 bucks, like what Broadway costs today, or a football game. It’ll be an expensive thing,” says Lucas. Movies “will sit in the theaters for a year, like a Broadway show does. That will be called the ‘movie’ business.”

DAVID GADD / ALLSTAR / NEWSCOM

The world will reach the end of strong economic growth.

The story: The International Mone-

tary Fund (IMF) has revised down several of its recent economic growth forecasts, reflecting declining confidence in the global economy.

“We are entering an age of permanently slow growth—at best,” predicts international security specialist Nafeez Ahmed in The Guardian. Several factors are to blame: Environmental regulations, taxes, inequality, and the rising cost of resources.

BUT … A transition to renewable energy sources could speed up economic growth. As resources become cheaper, new technology will be less costly to develop and manufacture, leading to greater technological innovation.

Bottom line: Many variables will factor into global growth rates, and it’s hard to predict whether the slow economic growth that the world has experienced in recent years is a bump in the road or part of a longterm trend.

Source: Nafeez Ahmed, in The Guardian, July 19, 2013.

—KH www.wfs.org

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Filmmaker George Lucas.

Why great: The blockbuster mentality of big studio filmmakers (a paradigm that Lucas popularized in the 1970s, along with Steven Spielberg) may have finally hit the wall.

Rather than investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single movie that might fail within weeks of opening, studios could be releasing a larger number of small, independent films that stay in theaters far longer.

BUT … Those audiences will need to be pulled away from their constantly streaming iPads.

Bottom line: We love to be told stories and always will. But for audiences who simply cannot be lured to public entertainment venues, Lucas envisioned a new paradigm: programmable dreams. (See Science and Technology, above.)

Source: Variety, June 12, 2013.

—CGW

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Energy and Transportation A successful test of nuclear fusion will occur by 2017.

The story: The world desperately

needs highly productive energy sources that don’t emit toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases. Nuclear fusion, on paper at least, is just such an energy source. Fusion reactions are essentially carbon-free, like conventional nuclear fission reactions, but they also deliver much more energy per reaction and leave virtually no deadly radiation in their wake.

This energy source could be just what our species needs to finally make a long-term break from fossil fuels.

BUT … Nuclear fusion has some of the same downsides as nuclear fission. First, developing it is hugely expensive, due to the huge amounts of energy needed to catalyze fusion reactions and sustain them. Second, fusion reactions will leave some volumes of nuclear waste—less waste than fission reactions do, but still too much for a hypothetical fusion plant to conveniently stash in a depot on site. So nuclear fusion reactors won’t necessarily be easier to roll out on a worldwide scale than fission plants, and they may face very similar waves of public opposition.

Bottom line: Commentators have expressed sky-high expectations for nuclear fusion for more than 45 years. In just a few more years, we may find out if this hypothetical energy source lives up to them.

Source: Brian Wang, Kaiser Permanente business consultant and author of the futurist blog Next Big Future.

—RD

tutes a sizable increase from 2006, when renewables constituted just 2% of energy use.

That’s good news for the earth: Renewable energy sources have far less environmental impact than conventional energy sources like oil and natural gas. And we don’t really have to worry about exhausting the planet’s supply of, for example, solar energy the way we do with coal and other fossil fuels.

BUT … Energy consumption is still increasing. So even though we’ll be using more renewable energy, we’ll still be using a lot of energy from nonrenewable sources.

Renewable energy also faces policy hurdles. Many policies favor fossil fuels over clean energy sources.

For instance, governments subsidize fossil fuels at rates six times greater than those given for renewables.

Would-be investors are less likely to back renewable energy sources when policies don’t provide a reliable and predictable framework for investment.

Bottom line: Renewable energy sources are better for the planet, and we’re going to continue using more of them. But policy uncertainty could dampen growth.

Source: The International Energy Agency.

—KH

sources—solar energy, wind power, hydroelectricity, geothermal heat, and so on—are growing faster than any other energy sector. By 2018, they’ll likely comprise a fourth of all energy consumption. This constiJanuary-February 2014

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W h y g r e a t : Renewable energy

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Why great: Courage. Nissan is making the hard choice to embrace a very different future from the car era of the past. Audi has also pledged to make self-driving cars available by 2020, so Nissan has company. Electric car manufacturer Tesla has also been looking to build self-driving car capability. What’s more exciting than an all-electric super sports car?

One that drives itself to you.

BUT … The resistance to autonomous vehicles doesn’t just come from car companies worried about selling fewer cars when they can be more easily shared (see below).

Many groups, from taxi drivers to delivery workers to street pavers, may soon start fighting to keep these out of the United States.

Different countries and cultures will react differently. Japan is more comfortable with autonomous sys-

Andy Palmer of Nissan.

Renewables will account for a quarter of global energy consumption by 2018.

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tems of all types, and there are far fewer legal restrictions on them.

Also, consider that acceptance of drones in a particular country could telegraph the popularity of self-driving cars. China is outpacing the United States in the deployment of drones for delivering goods.

Bottom line: Self-driving cars are coming, but the United States may not be their first stop.

Sources: Nissan Executive Vice President Andy Palmer; reported in The Wall Street Journal, Wired. —PT

The number of car sharers will quintuple in the next five years.

The story: Membership in car-shar-

ing programs worldwide will grow from 2.3 million members today to 12 million in 2020.

Why great: Compared with owning a car, it’s much more affordable to call up vehicles on an as-needed basis from Zipcar, Car2Go, or any of the myriad other car-sharing services that have sprung up in the last few years. It’s also a more resourceconscious way to meet one’s transit needs. And self-driving cars will make car sharing much easier (see above).

BUT … Car ownership is set to increase worldwide. In China and India, in particular, the ranks of fastgrowing middle-class professionals are projected to buy millions of new cars in this same time frame. So more car sharing may not necessarily translate to fewer cars on the world’s roadways overall.

Bottom line: More people using fewer cars is a good thing. If nothing else, it shows that consumers are adapting to the financial and natural-resource limitations of our era.

Source: Navigant Research. —RD

U.S. crude oil imports will fall 32% by 2020.

The story: Oil and natural-gas extraction in North America will increase while China’s imports rise 360%, making China the biggest oil consumer on the planet.

Why great: A massive shakeup in world oil markets appears to be in the works, and its implications are many. A one-third drop in oil imports would be big enough to alter U.S. relations with the oil-rich Middle East and may lessen U.S. involvement in Middle Eastern affairs.

There may also be a substantial growth in jobs related to natural gas in Canada and the United States. Europe may gain a more stable supply of fuel imports from the United States than the often-volatile supplies it now receives from Russia and central Asia. Meanwhile, China may become more intertwined with the Middle East and other oil-exporting states than ever before.

BUT … It’s always possible, albeit not likely, that some wild-card breakthrough in renewable energy in the next few years could make for another and even bigger shakeup, one that tilts world demand away from fossil fuels.

Bottom line: For now, at least, it’s clear that fossil-fuel extraction everywhere will keep increasing.

The whole world risks sinking into a deeper ecological hole and suffering even bigger shocks once fuel supplies tap out. The markets for fossil fuels are just going to keep getting bigger, but the supplies of those fossil fuels are not. The world needs to step up development of clean alternatives sooner and not later.

Source: Wood Mackenzie, global energy and metals industry consultants, quoted in Forbes, August 25, 2013.

—RD

The number of fast-charging electric vehicle stations worldwide will grow a hundredfold, from around 2,000 today to 200,000 in 2020.

Why great: Most consumers recognize combustible fuel engines’ environmental harms, and the high price of gasoline hits many household budgets hard. Until now, electric vehicles have not been a very popular alternative, due in large part to the difficulty of finding places to recharge their batteries. It looks like www.wfs.org

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businesses are now working to solve the problem and put the missing infrastructure in place. If this continues, then petroleum-free transportation could at last become a realistic option for car owners everywhere.

BUT … It will take a lot of electricity to keep all those new electric vehicles charged and running. We’ll have to get that electricity from somewhere. What will the source be, if not fossil fuels? We’ll have to work that out.

Bottom line: The era of electric vehicles may finally be upon us, and not a moment too soon, considering the pace of climate change and oil supply depletion.

Source: IHS Automotive.

—RD

Transportation-related energy consumption will double worldwide by 2050.

The story: Traffic is getting worse,

not better. It’s a clear net positive for car manufacturers and their workforces, but it’s a troubling development for everyone else.

All those added cars are going to emit more and more climate-altering greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and aggravate an already serious global warming problem. They will also consume greater volumes of oil with prices already higher than consumers everywhere would like.

Residents in cities will have it even worse, in that their lungs will contend with the extra smog coming from those cars’ tailpipes.

Bottom line: The world’s cities have many, many cars in their future, and they had better think ahead on what they will do with all of them.

Source: International Energy Agency, “A Tale of Renewed Cities.”

—RD

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Environment and resources The North Pole will become a shipping lane by 2040.

The story: Arctic sea ice, already at

record lows, is predicted to recede even more in the future. With its disappearance comes new possibilities for a trans-Arctic shipping path.

Transporting goods along the Northwest Passage would shave thousands of miles off current routes. By 2040, enough ice will be melted that light icebreakers should be able to journey through most of the Arctic Ocean with ease, at least during September, when ice is at its lowest levels.

BUT … Ice is not the only obstacle to traversing the Arctic Ocean. Infrastructure and services are minimal, the area is poorly charted, and safety concerns lead to high insurance rates.

Bottom line: Shipping companies aren’t about to use trans-Arctic paths for all their shipping needs. But as the routes become more feasible, companies will find ways to overcome other hurdles and save big on shipping costs.

Source: U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

—KH

The number of severe heat waves will quadruple by 2040.

The story: A 2009 heat wave over southern Australia resulted in more than 400 fires across the region. In 2010, a Russian heat wave left 15,000 dead. Severe heat waves have been cropping up more often in recent years. The cause? Global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It’s estimated that about 5% of the earth’s land is currently covered by “extreme” heat waves—up from just 1% in 1960. By 2040, severe heat waves will quadruple, covering about a fifth of land, no matter how much we curb greenhouse gas emissions. If emissions keep increasing, that number could jump to 85% by the end of the century.

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harm’s way. The consequences are dire: Heat waves can kill people and animals, set fire to forests, and cause large-scale crop failure.

Bottom line: Heat wave increases through 2040 may be unavoidable now, but if we limit greenhouse gas emissions, we may be able to limit their spread in the years after that.

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

—KH

Allergies will worsen over the next three decades.

The story: If you suffer from seasonal allergies, brace yourself. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects allergies to flare up more than usual in the coming years, thanks to two effects of global warming: Many allergen-producing plants thrive in warmer temperatures, and higher carbon-dioxide levels cause plants to produce more pollen.

By 2040, pollen counts are projected to double. This won’t be your run-of-the-mill ragweed allergy: Pollen formed under these conditions contains more proteins than usual and is a super potent allergen. Meanwhile, mold and dust also thrive under warm, carbon-dioxide-rich conditions, leading to even more severe allergies and asthma—conditions that can sometimes lead to death.

BUT … We can hope for a medical breakthrough to control allergies and asthma, but, barring that, there’s not really a silver lining here.

Bottom line: About 50 million Americans currently suffer from sea-

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sonal allergies. That number is going to increase over the next few decades.

Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Live Science. —KH

Global sea level will rise up to four feet by 2100.

The story: Since 1880, sea level has risen by eight inches—the fastest it’s increased in at least 2,000 years. But this record rate is about to be eclipsed, thanks to climate change.

As atmospheric temperature rises, so does the earth’s water temperature.

Water molecules expand as they heat up, causing the ocean to rise and shorelines to recede. Melting glaciers and ice sheets at the poles will only exacerbate matters.

Forecasting just how much sea level will rise is difficult. In its most conservative estimates, NASA predicts that oceans will rise about 11 inches. If greenhouse gas emissions are on the high end of estimates, an increase of four feet is completely possible. And it won’t just stop in 2100. Because oceans respond slowly to changes in atmospheric temperature, we can be sure that sea level will continue to rise for centuries to come.

BUT … Certain weather conditions can delay, though not prevent, oceans’ expansion. From 2010 to 2011, three atmospheric patterns converged over the Pacific and Indian oceans, creating so much rain in Australia that global sea levels actually dropped by 7 millimeters for a year and a half. © B-D-S / BIGSTOCK Bottom line: Although sea level isn’t always rising at a consistent pace, it seems that significant increases are inevitable.

Source: NASA’s National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee.

—KH

© MADY70 / BIGSTOCK

2016

More than 6 million years’ worth of videos online.

2017

Successful test of nuclear fusion.

2018

Renewables account for a quarter of global energy consumption.

2020

The market for printed books collapses.

African agricultural output nearly doubles.

U.S. crude oil imports fall by about one-third over 2014 levels.

“Superstorms” like hurricanes Katrina and Sandy will become ten times more common by 2100.

Greenland could actually become green by 2100.

The story: Niels Bohr Institute

tation can be found in the country’s southern region, but Greenland is mostly barren: It has only four indigenous species of trees, an ice sheet that covers three-quarters of its land, and a climate that isn’t exactly nurturing. Climate change could heat this Arctic country to temperatures capable of sustaining far more flora.

Ecological changes could boost the country’s economy. Agriculture, forestry, and tourism could all become viable sources of revenue in a verdant Greenland.

BUT … Unfortunately, while the transformation will allow for the growth of lush forests, it will likely result in the death of some existing plant and animal species.

Bottom line: Whether Greenland’s environment flourishes or falters over the next century will be determined by the actions it takes, including efforts to promote new plant growth and to take advantage of new commercial opportunities.

Sources: Research from Denmark’s Aarhus University, led by Jens-Christian Svenning, published in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B; Royal Society; Independent.

—KH ❑

warns that global warming could lead to a greater number of destructive hurricanes by the end of the twenty-first century. Warmer air temperatures mean that ocean temperatures will rise, too. Warmer oceans lead to more water vapor, which leads to stronger storms occurring more often.

If the atmosphere heats up by 1°C, we can expect three to four times as many superstorms. But if forecasts hold true and temperatures rise by 2°C, the number of superstorms will increase tenfold by 2100. With the rise of superstorms, we’ll experience a surge in hurricane-related devastation to infrastructure, the environment, and human life.

BUT … Whether strong hurricanes increase is conditional. If the earth’s temperature doesn’t rise as projected, we won’t see as dramatic a rise in superstorms. If ocean water does warm as projected, there are still other factors, such as climate cycles, that play a role in hurricanes’ formation.

Bottom line: By century’s end, we’re going to deal with strong hurricanes more often. Exactly how often is still up in the air.

Sources: Niels Bohr Institute, reported in Science Daily, The Guardian, Live Science.

—KH

Why great: A small amount of vege-

2022

The end of Moore’s law is reached.

2023

Technology adds 5% more new jobs to U.S. economy.

2030

Astronauts are in Mars orbit.

2040

The number of severe heat waves quadruples.

2041

The world becomes predominantly secular.

2042

Marriage becomes extinct.

2045

Computers or AI systems take over 45% of U.S. jobs that existed in 2014.

2050

Global population reaches 9.5 billion.

Global energy consumption for transportation needs will be double 2014 levels.

2100

Global population reaches 10.9 billion.

Superstorms like hurricanes Katrina and Sandy become ten times more common.

Greenland becomes green.

About the Authors This report was compiled by the editorial staff of THE FUTURIST magazine, including Cynthia G. Wagner, Patrick Tucker, Rick Docksai, and Keturah Hetrick.

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Tobacco will have killed a total of 1 billion people in the past century.

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By Timothy C. Mack

Privacy and the Su As surveillance technologies become more ubiquitous, are we using them for good or for evil? The answer is Yes. The president of the World Future Society offers an overview of who is watching us and why.

I

t has long been a cliché that evolving technologies drive social change. In part, this process is energized by expanded capabilities for responding to a perceived problem or need. But the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, also certainly qualify as a change driver, especially in the area of proactive intelligence—i.e., early identification and effective response to security threats.

One of the leading areas of technological response to this perceived need has been the explosive growth of surveillance capability (especially video surveillance). This has happened largely at the government level, but the technologies are increasingly used by commercial enterprises and private citizens, as well.

Surveillance encompasses the monitoring of behavior, movement, or other dynamic states (mostly involving people) for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting. While most often used in crime and terrorism prevention, surveillance is also used for such work as epidemiological oversight by the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example. Construction sites, warehouses, commercial office buildings, and parking lots also commonly have surveillance technology installed for the protection of property.

One of the challenges facing surveillance technology is its common political association with negative images of continual spying on citizens in George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. Since 9/11, however, public acceptance of surveillance has risen in the United States, and the rate of approval for public surveillance cameras continues to rise (now around 70%). Products like Microsoft’s ­K inect, which offers movement, voice, and gesture recognition (largely for video game applications), have also increased public comfort and acceptance.

On the other hand, state laws that regulate audiotaping and videotaping of individuals, especially in public settings, are more in flux. The practice continues to face challenges from pro-privacy organizations.

Surveillance is a costly activity for

cities. New York City’s “ring of steel,” which consists of 200 cameras in lower Manhattan, has already cost the city $200 million. And it’s not just “Big Brother” (government) watching us: “Little Brother” surveillance is also growing—e.g., private systems installed in places such as retail stores. For example, critical Boston Marathon bombing footage came from a nearby Lord & Taylor department store, and footage of the shooting of U.S. Representative ­Gabrielle Giffords came from an adjacent Safeway grocery store.

Of course, as the use of this technology increases, so do related public policy questions. Many feel that camera systems are most effective in the investigation stages of criminal activity, where parameters are clearly established, rather than the deterrent stage, where the boundaries on use are much vaguer. Supporters of these systems point to the lack of adequate public education on the deterrent side.

Cost effectiveness and privacy issues will definitely continue to be debated as camera systems grow. For example, urban camera and drone systems are often installed for the stated purposes of traffic control, but then converted later to general surveillance. In fact, 12 U.S. states have banned speed cameras, and nine have banned red-light cameras. The District of Columbia announced plans in September 2013 to double its traffic-camera system, which had added $85 million to District coffers in traffic enforcement fines during FY2012. In a Washington Post survey, 63% of respondents supported redlight cameras and 53% supported speed cameras. System defenders cite an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety report finding that redlight cameras have reduced fatal crashes from running lights by 24% in all cities, and reduced all types of fatal intersection crashes by 17%.

42 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

rveillance Explosion Information Enhancement and Interpretation Surveillance cameras can already track thermal differences, distinguish details and color in very dark and low-light situations, detect motion, control access, and provide retail point of sale (POS) observation, as well as identification and recognition. Using biometrics at POS does not require central storage. You carry the biometric information on a card with your ID and then use it to verify identity as part of the authentication process.

What now represents the cutting edge of surveillance technology is intelligent analysis of the visual images being collected. A federal research program called Mind’s Eye is part of a visual intelligence program that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing. Mind’s Eye is a series of visual algorithms designed to predict human behavior, including threatening behavior or dangerous situations.

While it is still several years from full deployment, Mind’s Eye will describe actions in surveillance areas using text messages and offer possible interpretations. It is also designed for use by unmanned vehicles in dangerous or uncontrolled areas. The program is even able to interpolate unobserved off-camera actions to make judgments. DARPA’s research partner in this program is Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center.

Operating in parallel to this is the development of a Spatiotemporal Activity Reasoning Engine at SUNY at Buffalo, which focuses on pulling out and assessing the “nouns” and “verbs” in any visual image. Inherent questions in this process are: What are we seeing? What is happening here? and What should we be doing in response?

One special area of interest in this arena is the prediction of, and response to, potential sexual assault and other interpersonal crimes in public and commercial spaces. Interpreting and reacting to social interaction as it slides into assault or larceny is a potential challenge even for human monitors; it may prove difficult to establish viable guidelines that navigate the boundaries between failure to flag criminal activity and excessive false positives.

Enhancing Visual Surveillance With Biometric Identification When we consider the identification and recognition aspects of visual surveillance, we still need to ask Who are we seeing? and Are they who NATAN DVIR / POLARIS / NEWSCOM

Cluster of cameras overlooks Times Square in New York, part of the city’s “Ring of Steel” surveillance system.

The network of cameras is designed to spot suspicious behavior or unattended packages, for example, reporting in to a central police command center.

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they seem to be? This challenge is being addressed by melding biometrics with video surveillance, and some highly creative solutions are under development.

Biometrics of all types are already being used for identification and verification, including fingerprint, face, iris, speech, and DNA analysis using hand-held portable devices in combination with fixed systems. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is now working on protocols for Web biometric systems and cross-modality testing, such as simultaneous face and iris capture plus no-touch fingerprint capture. These biometric and visual tools could also be used to authenticate e-commerce and POS transactions. The U.S. federal standard is now a maximum of 20 seconds to capture a fingerprint scan, and the commercial market is likely to push this limit much lower.

This growing role of software in analyzing video feeds in real time naturally leads to a decreased need for 24/7 personnel, with their wellknown limits in attention span. This software never sleeps, and it notifies supervisors and response personnel to a critical incident immediately.

In essence, human memory is being outsourced to mobile technology for the capture and assessment of still and video images and decision making based on their content. Or to put it another way, decision support is moving increasingly toward decision automation in commercial ­settings.

• Facial-recognition technologies. Verification is matching a realtime image against a claimed identity by utilizing a library of certified images. Recognition involves matching an image against an identity library to provide a name. The average person has the capacity to recognize at most 1,500 faces at any one time. A NIST report from 2012 states that the capacity of facial-­ recognition technology has improved by two orders of magnitude over the last 10 years, while recognition errors have been dropping by 50% every two years. Clearly, its use will continue to increase.

U.S. programs are modest compared with those in China. The na44

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DARPA

DARPA’s Mind’s Eye program attempts to develop visual intelligence for unmanned surveillance systems.

In essence, human memory is being outsourced to mobile technology for the capture and assessment of still and video images and decision making based on their content. tional Golden Shield program aims to use facial recognition to track every one of China’s 1.3 billion people. The state of the art in China is now the ability to verify identity using facial-recognition software from up to 500 feet away.

Another public-policy question that is gaining momentum is the practice of building third-party facial-recognition files from Facebook personal profiles. While social networks now connect one-third of the world population, these connections are often informal and abbreviated, directed to everyone and to no one.

Nonetheless, they greatly facilitate data mining.

Data mining is the use of statistical techniques and programmatic algorithms to discover previously unnoticed relationships involving data, usually relating to individuals or groups. This includes economic and social behavior patterns, which may be suggestive of other less constructive activities and therefore useful in surveillance.

This data mining capability has

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been called “big data” in the media, and it is perceived as being able to peel away the social covering and reveal the personal secrets of us all.

Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson argued in a 2008 issue of his magazine that big data has now rendered the scientific method obsolete.

If one throws enough data into an advanced machine learning technique, he argues, all correlations will b e re v e a l e d , t h u s e x p l a i n i n g everything.

While a preference for observation over modeling is still evolving, the definition of big data offered by IBM seems useful in its clarification: Big data is characterized by volume, variety, veracity, and velocity. This means that volume (data set size) alone is not enough. These massive data sets must be sufficiently rich to cover the range of factors one wants to investigate, sufficiently dependable to accurately reflect real-world factors, and sufficiently nimble to avoid it taking the rest of one’s life to answer a large data question.

• Other biometrics developments.

The future of biometrics seems quite extravagant. For example: - Body-odor research, under way at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including its use as a lie detector (tracking odor changes, like galvanic skin response in the polygraph).

- 3-D imaging being developed in Japan to capture gait and walking style (90% accurate) and barefoot print analysis (99.6% accurate).

- Keystroke signature (how a password is entered) using speed and rhythm patterns in combination with other factors.

- Palm vein patterns (already being used in some U.S. schools) scanned by a near-infrared reader without physical contact.

- Nose profile based on shape and size (not as accurate as iris scan).

- Japanese use of human posterior patterns, developed for antitheft systems in the seats of automobiles (98% accurate).

- Ear print of outer and inner ear (99.6% accurate).

- DNA, which is still too expensive but is coming down in cost very rapidly.

Portable smartphone platforms for biometrics are also developing rapidly, as is the market penetration of the smartphone itself, which recently surpassed the “feature” cell phone in global unit sales.

Smartphone prototypes in development include capabilities such as 3-D viewing (without special glasses), above-screen projection, and a maneuverable viewer point of view. All of these capabilities will allow security-system monitoring at much greater levels of detail.

Secure data and secure sites will be accessible through multiple-level biometric authentication and verification tools. Fingerprint identification from screen touch, facial recognition from phone cameras, and voice recognition are all expected to be part of this package. Screenless smartphones (which reduce battery size and weight) will be activated by touch or voice via a cloud interface.

When a screen is needed, any nearby computer will allow display of that data on its screen.

In the past, identity could be established by things we carry (driv-

er ’s license, passport, etc.) and things we remember (passwords, PINs, etc.). But these are quite vulnerable to theft and hacking. Biometrics, while more secure, will also follow an individual through a lifetime, thus raising concerns about privacy and unauthorized uses.

Physical attributes such as retina patterns, vein patterns, and hand configuration are harder to alter than behavioral attributes. But behavioral biometrics programs will be able to assess emotional states from such factors as facial cues, posture, gestures, and the tone, pitch, and speed of speech. The International Biometrics and Identification Association is working toward identity-management protocols that will be both appropriate and effective.

So far, however, the rate of technical innovation has far outpaced the rate of social invention, especially outrunning legal and ethical structures, as Chris Dede of the Harvard Graduate School of Education has observed. A working protocol now exists whereby U.S. and UK law enforcement and intelligence services can activate the speaker on a cell phone and thus listen to any conversations taking place nearby. RFID (radio frequency identification) chips normally used for warehouse security, now also enable employers to track personnel.

• Drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles and aerial surveillance drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper can identify the heat signature of a human body from a distance of 60 kilometers (about 37 miles). The prospect of such drones in private hands is alarming. Who will be empowered to use them, and who will be observed? At present, drones are still treated by the FAA like model planes. No flights are permitted above 400 feet (about 122 meters), and commercial use is prohibited.

The ever-greater use of domestic drones in law enforcement raises the policy possibility of cameras now, weapons later. At what point might public demonstrations become target-rich environments?

An interesting industry that has sprung up in response to the private sector surge in commercial drones is in countersurveillance equipment. www.wfs.org

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These include heat-signature-cloaking garments (initially funded on Kickstarter) and face paint (known as CV Dazzle), plus mouth inserts to foil facial recognition. In addition, privacy Web sites and blogs dispense advice about turning off cell phones and removing the battery to foil GPS tracking, or encasing the phone in a customized foil packet marketed under the name OFF. Privacy Issues and Public Concern U.S. courts have ruled that the use of facial-recognition technology may be restricted under the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable search and seizure.” Yet, at the same time, Americans’ First Amendment rights may cover the capturing of images as a protected form of self-expression, so long as this does not involve tracking an individual in a public space. The question here is the reasonable expectation of privacy in specific situations.

U.S. Senator Al Franken (Democrat– Minnesota) strongly supports the position that people have a fundamental right to privacy, but regulation is lagging behind technology— which is not desirable.

Public opinion swings widely in the United States, as seen in responses to revelations concerning massive surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA). Those disclosures have increased public concerns about protection of privacy rights, as reflected by an August 2013 poll by the Associated Press– NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. This survey shows a continued concern about public safety and terrorism (related to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent events), but many people have reservations.

Only 53% said that the U.S. government does a good job of ensuring freedoms, compared with 60% two years ago. And 61% felt that the impact of 9/11 has grown to the level of “a great deal,” compared with 50% in 2011. On the disapproval side, 61% surveyed said they oppose government collection of the online communications of citizens.

In many cases, U.S. government policies seem contradictory. For example, NSA practice between 2006

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NIST

and 2009 directly violated guidelines set by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act limits the release of student records and personal identifying information to third parties. On the other hand, the use of cameras in U.S. public schools (often operated by private contractors) has grown steadily—to well over 50% today.

Another concern is the rapid transfer of surveillance monitoring to the cloud. While this may decrease overhead and installation costs—Internet protocol (IP) versus closed circuit television (CCTV), or digital versus analog—questions about data security remain. The digital IP pathways provide easier access to the surveillance stream for users, two-way communications, inexpensive and easy digital storage, improved image quality, ease of maintenance, and system scaling. Of course, open IP frameworks also offer easier access 46

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by unwanted third parties, which has been a downside of the digital cloud since its inception.

It is common for public opinion surveys in the United States to report that, while most responders think the government should be able to collect DNA in order to catch criminals and terrorists, they also object to that government having samples of their own specific DNA. However, one recent Supreme Court ruling, which defined DNA collection as a legitimate police practice, reinforces its use even by local police departments. The Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act also enables searching of a wide range of conversations for trigger words or phrases that suggest suspicious behavior, as well as monitoring visits to certain Web sites or communications with suspicious individuals or groups. This is largely done through text scanning, capture, and analysis programs, such as Carni-

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Among the biometric technologies that the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been developing for identity verification are (clockwise from top left) iris scanning, wireless fingerprint data transmission, voiceprint matching, and personal identity verification cards.

vore and Coolminer, both developed by the FBI. In response to the growth of these sorts of capabilities, groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which was founded in 2001, have grown up to deal with such issues as airport body scanners and biometric data collection and retention. Also influential is the Identity Counsel International, headed by Joseph Atick, which focuses on the social impact of technology and the commoditization of identity data.

The definition of what constitutes identity data continues to expand. It now includes the ability to track smartphone user location, personal networks, likes/dislikes, and commercial behavior. It is coming to include a fuller understanding of how connected humans influence and persuade one another, such as how word-of-mouth marketing could be efficiently managed and even be used to build networks that provide

With the growth of Smart Cities and other technology-driven policy endeavors, the integration of interactive video into a wide range of governmental services seems very likely.

peer-to-peer purchasing advice.

Finally, there are potential political consequences to consider, including developing the ability to identify influencers in any network, track behavioral indicators of growing mental illness, and track the spread of memes, especially political ones (based on the epidemiological concept that disruptive ideas are a form of social contagion).

Actual epidemiological behavior (e.g., the spread of influenza) can also be tracked, based on electronic movement and communications patterns using smartphone information.

Even obesity is becoming somewhat predictable through social patterns.

Accordingly, public health, urban planning, and marketing strategies might be guided by examining behavior relating to the use of smart tech.

In the same manner, disaster-relief monitoring could be shaped using mobile-phone tracking and reporting (during the last Haitian earthquake), and geo-tagged media could be used to enhance public safety at a variety of levels (as after the Boston Marathon bombing).

Surveillance for Health and Social Services One of the great challenges for services in the twenty-first century is their cost. Medical testing without doctor visits is one of the developments under way to meet this challenge. Medical assessments such as sonogram and blood work can now be managed at home by the patient through innovative smartphone apps.

Less-expensive medical-monitoring environments can be provided at home by what have been called Granny Pods in the United States.

These are portable manufactured housing, or auxiliary dwelling units, that can be equipped with cameras, vital sign sensors, Internet connections, and climate management.

Most commonly placed adjacent to a family home, they provide additional bed space that was otherwise unavailable. A number of private companies are now offering them in the United States and Europe.

All of these technical stopgaps rely on the growing acceptance of telehealth and the belief that computers continually tracking blood pressure, glucose levels, and other indicators can yield adequate health-care monitoring 24/7. The biggest criticism is that such remote monitoring is sterile and unnuturing and thus unlikely to improve a patient’s physical or psychological well-being. This may be especially true for patients with heart disease or other serious chronic conditions, such as diabetes and pulmonary disorders.

On the cost side, evidence from the UK suggests that such monitoring could produce a yearly savings of some £2,300 per patient (about $3,600), compared with the cost of traditional institutional care. This is certainly relevant in this age of government fiscal constraint.

From Big Brother to E-Government The growth of e-government initiatives around the world has been steady and transformative. Starting in cities such as London, the initial role of surveillance was largely related to public and traffic safety. But with the growth of Smart Cities and other technology-driven policy endeavors, the integration of interactive video into a wide range of governmental services seems very likely. www.wfs.org

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Some analysts see 2020 as the year where broadband connectivity hits the 4G level (100+mbps) for all smart personal devices worldwide, allowing public interfaces to function at a new level. This is already being demonstrated in the growing cloud capacity of governments, such as the UK’s G Cloud. It would also enable the fully measured society and the Internet of Things planetwide. A sensor network like the one being prototyped by HP Labs—where such factors as light, temperature, humidity pathogens, pesticides, etc., can be measured and recorded at nearly every point on the globe—will enable us to test models and monitor patterns in a wide range of fields.

Zoom panoramic technology capturing actual cityscapes could be combined with digital modeling to update planning documents in real time.

On the interactive side, smartphone application interfaces could enable two-way citizen input and dialogue. Civic organizations providing repositories for crowdsourced data could serve as “urban observatories.” Systems already in place include LIVE Singapore!, which runs real-time open data streams that ­allow city residents to tag and track trash pickups. Transport systems for food, energy, or water services could also become part of a transparent tracking system as the world’s cities get smarter.

One of the few downsides to this vision is that most of this tracking will likely be done via the Internet.

While management of the Internet is internationalized, its regulation and restrictions are still largely national.

What’s next for e-government at the regional and global level remains unclear. However, both the governmental and market-based motivations are robust, and solutions are likely to be crafted in relatively short order. ❑ About the Author Timothy C. Mack is president of the World Future Society and executive editor of World Future Review.

His last article for THE FUTURIST, “Foresight as Dialogue,” was published in March-April 2013. E‑mail tmack@wfs.org.

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listing of consulting futurists. For infor­mation about being listed in the directory, published in every issue of THE FUTURIST and available on the Web at www.wfs.org, call Jeff Cornish toll free at 1-800-989-8274 or 301-656-8274, or e-mail jcornish@wfs.org.

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Common Sense Medicine

San Diego, CA U.S.A. Phone: 858-836-1500 E-mail: futures@KarlAlbrecht.com Web: KarlAlbrecht.com Contact: Dr. Karl Albrecht Planning a conference? Include a “Futures Update” keynote by renowned futurist Dr. Karl Albrecht.

46 B/4 Jerusalem St., Kfar Saba, Israel 44369 Phone: 972-54-558-7940 Fax: 972-9-766965 Web: www.futurist-thinking.co.il E-mail: bisk@futurist-thinking.co.il Contact: Tsvi Bisk Strategic futurism: “Getting from Here to There” (Keynote speaker) Jewish, Mid-East and Mediterranean Futures (consulting).

Alsek Research Economic Futures

Christensen Associates, Inc.

812 W. 8th St., Suite 2A, Plainview, TX 79072 Phone: 806-291-0700 Fax: 806-293-8229 E-mail: drjonzdo@yahoo.com Web: www.commonsensemedicine.org Contact: Lon Jones DO, Jerry Bozeman M.Ed., LPC Adaptations today are the future. The authors of The Boids and the Bees tell how to guide adaptations in our living systems: healthcare, education, economy, even us.

7650 S. McClintoch Dr., #103-233 Tempe, AZ 85284 Phone: 480-225-2507 E-mail: jfoltz@alsekresearch.com Web: www.alsekresearch.com Contact: Joan Foltz Keynotes, workshops, and anticipatory analysis of global markets, investing, and business structures. Author of Market Whipped: And Not By Choice.

8168 Manitoba St., No. 2, Playa Del Ray, CA 90293-8291 Phone: 310-578-0405 Fax: 310-578-0455 E-mail: chris@camcinc.com Web: www.camcinc.com Contact: Chris Christensen, CMC Avoid devastating surprises! Exploit ANY future! Stimulating and entertaining keynotes, workshops, assessments, and consulting.

Alternative Futures Associates 100 N. Pitt St., Suite 307, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134 Phone: 703-684-5880 Fax: 703-684-0640 E-mail: futurist@altfutures.com Web: www.altfutures-afa.com Contact: Clement Bezold, Jonathan Peck, Eric Meade Vision and scenario development, strategic planning, trend analysis, workshop design and facilitation, presentations, keynotes, consulting.

Atlas Safety & Security Design, Inc. 770 Palm Bay Ln., Suite 4-I, Miami, FL 33138 Phone: 305-756-5027 Fax: 305-754-1658 E-mail: ratlas@ix.netcom.com Web: www.cpted-security.com Contact: Dr. Randall Atlas, AIA, CPP Pioneers in crime prevention through environmental design. Design of jails, prevention of premises liability lawsuits.

Aviv Consulting 15363 NE 201st St. Woodinville, WA 98072 Phone: 425-415-6155 E-mail: avivconsulting@gmail.com Web: www.avivconsulting.com Contact: Aviv Shahar Helping leaders and teams develop their vision and design the future. Innovation, strategy, coaching, consulting, retreats.

Joseph F. Coates, Consulting Futurist, Inc. 5420 Connecticut Ave. NW, #619 Washington, DC 20015-2832 Phone 202-363-7440 Fax 202-363-4139 Email: joe@josephcoates.com Web: www.josephcoates.com The future is my business: futures research, consultation, trend analysis, scenario development, visioning, scientific, technological and social forecasting, training, briefings, workshops, presentations and keynotes. Coates has been one of the most frequently cited authors in Future Survey and one of the most popular speakers at the World Future Society annual meetings. He is the author or co-author of six books, most recently A Bill of Rights for 21st Century America, and of 2025: Scenarios of US and Global Society Reshaped by Science and Technology. He has had assignments from half of the Fortune 100 firms, and has had published 290 articles on the future since 1990. He is also responsible for 200 proprietary reports to business, government and association clients. Coates will enlighten you on the future of any subject. Prepare for an unforgettable encounter.

Creating the Future, Inc. with Edward D. Barlow, Jr. 2907 Division St., Suite 109, St. Joseph, MI 49085 Phone: 269-982-1830 Fax: 269-982-1541 E-mail: info@creatingthefuture.com Web: www.creatingthefuture.com Contact: Ed Barlow (staff: Sandy, Tammy, and Tresea) Relating influences of a changing world to industries, organizations, professions, communities.

Presentations, strategic planning facilitation.

de Bono For Business 248 W. Loraine St., #103, Glendale, CA 91202 Phone: 818-507-6055 E-mail: info@LyndaCurtin.com Web: www.deBonoForBusiness.com Contact: Lynda Curtin, the Opportunity Thinker Lift your thinking. Learn breakthrough futurist tools—lateral thinking, six thinking hats. Workshops. Keynotes. Facilitation.

FutureManagement Group AG Wallufer Strasse 3a, Eltville, Germany D-65343 Phone: 49-6123-7 55 53 Fax: 49-6123-7 55 54 Web: www.FutureManagementGroup.com E-mail: Office@FutureManagementGroup.com Contacts: Pero Micic, Claudia Schramm Use the “Eltville Model” of FutureManagement to see more of the future than your competitors!

Future Problem Solving Program International, Inc. 2015 Grant Pl., Melbourne, FL 32901 Phone: 321-768-0078 Fax: 321-768-0097 E-mail: mail@fpspi.org Web: www.fpspi.org Contact: Marianne Solomon, Executive ­Director FPSPI is an established educational program that provides a 6-step problem solving process to assist students as they think about the future.

48 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

The Futures Corporation

Innovation Focus Inc.

Leading Futurists LLC

1109 Main St., Ste. 299A, Boise, ID 83702 Phone: 208-345-5995 Fax: 208-345-6083 E-mail: JLuthy@futurescorp.com Web: www.futurescorp.com Contact: Dr. John Luthy Strategic thinking/planning; evolving leadership; organization redesign/development; trend analysis; scenario planning; business growth ­strategies.

111 E. Chestnut St., Lancaster PA 17602-2703 Phone: 717-394-2500 Web: www.innovationfocus.com Contacts: Christopher W. Miller, Ph.D.; Anne Orban, M.Ed. Innovation Focus is an internationally recognized consulting firm that brings innovation to all stages of product life cycle management and provides proven processes for deep customer understanding and meaningful innovation. Clients include: Kraft Foods, Kimberly Clark, WD-40, Bristol-Myers Squibb.

4420 49th St., NW, Washington, DC 20016 Phone: 202-271-0444 E-mail: jbmahaffie@starpower.net Web: www.leadingfuturists.biz Contacts: John B. Mahaffie, Jennifer Jarratt Futures consulting, workshops, scenarios, research, keynote talks to help organizations ­discover new opportunities and challenges.

Members, Association of Professional Futurists.

The Futures Lab 2130 Goodrich Ave., Austin, TX 78704 Phone: 512-468-4505 E-mail: dwoodgate@futures-lab.com Web: www.futures-lab.com Contact: Derek Woodgate International futures-based consultancy specializing in consumer, business futures. Leaders in the future potential business.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey DaVinci Institute, 511 E South Boulder Road, Louisville, CO 80027 Phone: 303-666-4133 E-mail: deb@davinciinstitute.com Web: www.futuristspeaker.com Contact: Debra Frey Thomas Frey is Google’s top-rated futurist speaker and IBM’s most award-winning engineer. Author of Communicating with the Future—the book that changes everything.

Speaking topics: future of business, work, education, transportation, government, and more.

The Greenway Group 25 Technology Pkwy. South, Suite 101, Norcross, GA 30092 Phone: 678-879-0929 Fax: 678-879-0930 E-mail: jcramer@di.net Web: www.greenway.us Contact: James Cramer, chairman Strategic change, trends, forecasts, research.

Architecture and design technology. Journals: Design Intelligence. Publications: The Almanac of Architecture & Design, How Firms Succeed, Design + Enterprise, Leadership by Design, Communication by Design, Value Redesigned.

H.G. Hudson and Associates 34 Warren Dr., Newport News, VA 23608 Phone: 757-874-5414 E-mail: HUDSON2059@msn.com Contact: Henry G. Hudson, president and CEO Management consulting help in advanced administrative services, operations, systems, methods, procedures, policies, strategy, and management.

MG Rush Performance Learning

Institute for Alternative Futures 100 N. Pitt St., Suite 307, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134 Phone: 703-684-5880 Fax: 703-684-0640 E-mail: futurist@altfutures.com Web: www.altfutures.com Contacts: Clement Bezold, Jonathan Peck, William Rowley, MD Uses research reports, workshops, scenarios, and visioning to help organizations understand future possibilities and create their “preferred future.”

Institute for Global Futures 2084 Union St., San Francisco, CA 94123 Phone: 415-563-0720 Fax: 415-563-0219 E-mail: info@globalfuturist.com Web: www.GlobalFuturist.com Contact: Dr. James Canton Futures based keynotes, consulting and research for any vertical industry by leading futurist James Canton.

P.O. Box 1937, Monterey, CA 93942-1937 Phone: 831-373-4292 Fax: 831-373-0760 E-mail: ipmp@aol.com Web: www.ipmp-bleiker.com Contacts: Annemarie Bleiker, Hans Bleiker, Jennifer Bleiker We offer a Leadership Boot-Camp for guiding complex problem-solving and decision-making efforts.

P.O. Box 804, S-10136 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: (46 8) 545 225 00 Fax: (46 8) 545 225 01 E-mail: info@kairosfuture.se Web: www.kairosfuture.se Contacts: Mats Lindgren, Anna Kiefer Values, work, technology, marketing. Methods: scenarios, studies, lectures, seminars, consulting. Public and private sectors.

Minkin Affiliates 135 Riviera Dr., #305, Los Gatos, CA 95032 Phone: 408-402-3020 E-mail: barryminkin@earthlink.net Web: minkinaffiliates.com Contact: Barry Minkin Keynote speaker, bestselling author, global manage­ment consultant, three decades linking emerging trends to consumer and market strategy.

Next Consulting

Institute for Participatory Management and Planning

KAIROS Future AB

1301 W. 22nd St., Suite 603, Oak Brook, IL 60523 Phone: 630-954-5880 Fax: 630-954-5889 E-mail: futurist@mgrush.com Contacts: Terrence Metz, 630-954-5882; Kevin Booth, 630-954-5884 Facilitation of, and facilitator training for: scenario planning, strategy development, group decision-making, workshop design, ideation, option development and analysis, and training of facilitative leadership.

104 Timber Ridge Rd., State College, PA 16801 Phone: 814-237-2575 Fax: 814-863-4257 E-mail: g7g@psu.edu Web: nextconsulting.us Contact: Geoffrey Godbey, Ph.D. Repositioning leisure/tourism organizations for the near future. Speeches, ideation, imagineering. Client list on request.

Jim Pinto Technology Futurist 2805 Ocean St. #2, Carlsbad, CA 92008 Phone: 858-353-5467 E-mail: jim@jimpinto.com Web: www.JimPinto.com Contact: Jim Pinto Speaker and consultant: technology futures, industrial automation, global business trends, ­Internet business relationships.

More consultants and services, next page www.wfs.org

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THE FUTURIST

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Consultants

and

Services

Pinyon Partners LLC

SynOvation Solutions

140 Little Falls St., Suite 210, Falls Church, VA 22046 Phone: 703-651-0359 E-mail: pshoemaker@pinyonpartners.com Web: www.pinyonpartners.com Contacts: Peter B.G. Shoemaker; Dan ­Garretson, Ph.D. Quantitative and qualitative. Art and Science.

However you want to characterize it, our distinctive combination of the hard-nosed and the deeply intuitive is perfectly suited for those navigating over the horizon. Expansive explorations of what’s next; engaging engagements with change; consultations, workshops, research, and talks aimed at creating future-oriented clarity, purpose, insight, and confidence. Member, Association of Professional Futurists.

455 Hazelwood Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 Phone: 415-298-3008 E-mail: info@synovationsolutions.com Web: www.synovationsolutions.com Contacts: Bruce L. Tow, David A. Gilliam Future-is-now resources to help you achieve key and mission-critical breakthroughs or creatively evolve your business to meet future challenges.

Qi Systems 35 Seacoast Terr., Apt. 6P, Brooklyn, NY 11235 Phone: 718-769-9655 E-mail: QiSys@msn.com Web: www.qisystems.org Contact: Ronn Parker, Ph.D. Spectrum Counseling: conflict resolution, conscious evolution, martial arts, meditation methods, mindbody strategies, transformational learning.

David Pearce Snyder, Consulting Futurist The Snyder Family Enterprise, 8628 Garfield St., Bethesda, MD 20817-6704 Phone: 301-530-5807 Fax: 301-530-1028 E-mail: david@the-futurist.com Web: www.the-futurist.com Contact: Sue Snyder High-impact motivating presentations.

Strategic assessments, socio-technologic forecasts/scenarios. Keynote addresses, strategic briefings, workshops, surveys.

Strategic Futures® Strategic Futures Consulting Group, Inc. 113 South Washington St., Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: 703-836-8383 Fax: 703-836-9192 E-mail: info@strategicfutures.com Web: www.strategicfutures.com Contact: Ron Gunn or Jennifer Thompson Strategic planning, succession planning including mentoring, executive coaching, organizational change facilitation, and matrix management assistance.

Connect!

Link to futurist consultants and services online at www.wfs.org/consultants

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THE FUTURIST

Synthesys Strategic Consulting Ltd. Belsize Park, London NW3 UK Phone: 44-207-449-2903 Fax: 44-870-136-5560 E-mail: www.hardintibbs.com Web: www.synthstrat.com Contact: Hardin Tibbs, CEO Synthesys specializes in using futures research to develop innovative strategies. Based in London UK, with international experience in both the public and private sectors, across many different industries. Projects include horizon scanning, strategic sense-­making, scenarios, vision building, assumption testing, and strategy formulation, either as expert input or by co-production directly with leadership teams.

The TechCast Project Department of Information Systems & Technology Management, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052 Phone: 202-994-5975 E-mail: Halal@gwu.edu Web: www.techcast.org Contact: William E. Halal, professor, George Washington University; president, Techcast LLC TechCast is an online research project that pools the knowledge of 100 experts worldwide to forecast breakthroughs in all fields of science and technology. Results are updated in real time and distributed to corporations, governments, and other subscribers to aid in their strategic planning. The project has been featured in The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Futurist, and various journals. The National Academies consider TechCast among the best systems available, and Google ranks it No. 2 or 3 out of 45 million hits. TechCast also gives presentations, conducts customized studies, and performs most types of consulting related to technology and strategic change.

Town and Gown Relations Kemp Consulting, LLC P. O. Box 342, Meriden, CT 06450-0342 Phone: 203-686-0281 E-mail: rlkbsr@snet.net Web (consulting): www.rogerlkemp.com Web (background): www.rogerkemp.org Contact: Roger Kemp, MPA, MBA, PhD, ­President Dr. Kemp has been author and editor of over a

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dozen books dealing with issues relating to cities (towns) and colleges (gowns). He gives keynote speeches, strategic briefings, and does futures research and consulting on emerging trends dealing with the dynamic and evolving field of town-gown relations.

21st Century Learning LLC 10 Jamaicaway, Suite #18, Boston, MA 02130 Telephone: 978-204-2770 Email: charlesfadel@gmail.com Web: www.21stcenturyskillsbook.com Contact: Charles Fadel, founder and best-selling author: 21st Century Skills; visiting scholar, Harvard GSE and MIT ESG. Education’s futures, as impacted by Technology, and along the dimensions of Knowledge, Skills, Character, and Metacognition. Keynotes and seminars on global education; education technology; neuroscience of learning; creativity & innovation; artificial intelligence & augmented intelligence.

van der Werff Global, Ltd. 4958 Crystal Circle, Hoover, AL 35226 Phone: 888-448-3779 Fax: 888-432-9263 E-mail: terry@globalfuture.com Web: www.globalfuture.com Contact: Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC Confidential advisor to corporate leaders worldwide on global trends, executive leadership, and strategic change.

Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. 200 E. 33rd St., Suite 9I, New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-889-7007 Fax: 212-679-0628 E-mail: info@weineredrichbrown.com Web: www.weineredrichbrown.com Contact: Arnold Brown, Edie Weiner For over two decades, the pioneers in detecting emerging trends and linking them to a ­ ction.

Xland sprl 111 Av Grandchamp, Brussels, Belgium 1150 Phone: 32-475-827-190 Fax: 32-2-762-46-08 Web: www.xland.be E-mail: xland@skynet.be Contact: D. Michel Judkiewicz Trend analysis, scenarios, forecasting opportunities/threats based on strong and weak signals for resilient strategies.

Reviews Edited by Rick Docksai Speaking of a Better World 22 Ideas to Fix the World: Conversations with the World’s Foremost Thinkers edited by Piotr Dutkiewicz and Richard Sakwa. New York University Press. 2013.

466 pages. $27.95.

Steep economic, political, and ecological challenges grip the world, and it’s far from clear whether the existing institutions of business and politics are equipped to address them. On this, the scholars contributing to 22 Ideas to Fix the World largely agree.

The anthology was edited by Piotr Dutkiewicz, a politicalscience professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, and Richard Sakwa, a University of Kent professor of Russian and European politics. In a series of conversational interviews, the editors and contributors explore the reforms that the world’s governance and market systems may need to take, and the social movements that might intervene in their place if they fail to act.

The contributors include Nobel Prize winners—microcredit pioneer Mohammad Yunus and economist Joseph Stiglitz—and nearly two dozen recognized scholars of business, economics, political science, and ecology from the United States, South America, Russia, Europe, Israel, Kazakhstan, and China. Each lends his expertise on such issues as global warming, economic turmoil, poverty and inequality, and efforts to win equal rights and opportunities for the world’s migrant and minority populations.

Yunus discusses how to channel business enterprise to uplift impoverished communities, while Stiglitz attests to the necessity of reducing income inequalities and of developing new economic theories that more clearly account for how real-life humans and marketplaces behave. He points out that the existing theories failed to predict the 2008 collapse.

Other scholars explore topics such as the future growth of the world’s cities, the state of the “Arab Spring,” and risk factors for new outbreaks of conflict across the globe.

Shifting balances of global power—namely, the decline of U.S. hegemony and the counterbalancing rise of China—receive attention, as well. So do the future growth trajectories of China, Russia, and other developing countries, and how they compare and contrast with those of developed nations.

A few scholars posit potential solutions for enhancing intergovernmental cooperation at the regional and global levels, and for strengthening local associations and cooperatives to tackle problems that political parties cannot. Most others refrain from offering clear-cut action plans but do offer valuable starting points for discussion.

All contributors show an in-depth understanding of the present and future outlook for global business, geopolitics, and environmental health, and the dynamics at work within each. Readers who seek intellectually rigorous assessments of where the international community is heading will find 22 Ideas to Fix the World to be a very rewarding read.

The Science of Remaking Life Creation: How Science Is Reinventing Life Itself by Adam Rutherford. Current.

2013. 278 pages. $27.95.

New industries based on molecular biology— the engineering of living cells—are poised to play leading roles in treating diseases, ending world hunger, and even facilitating humanity’s colonization of other planets, according to Adam Rutherford, Nature editor

and science writer. In Creation, he explores this branch of scientific research and the innovations that it may yield in coming years.

Rutherford starts at the very beginning of life on Earth: the formation of the first single-celled microbes more than 3 billion years ago and their evolution into multicelled life—and, eventually, us. Then he presents the very rapid evolution of scientific understanding of cells and molecules, from eighteenth-century observations of microbia l l i f e through simple optical microscopes, and continuing with the discoveries in the twentieth century of key properties of DNA, chromosomes, and the amino acids that are life’s basic building blocks.

Molecular biology, Rutherford explains, arose in the late twentieth century from this foundation of knowledge and expanded it in remarkable directions. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, molecular biologists have learned to copy, alter, and manipulate all of these composite molecules and substrates. In so doing, they reengineer the genetic makeup of virtually any form of life on Earth. At this point, they are close to being able to reconstruct genes, amino acids, and whole organisms.

The real-life applications of such breakthroughs are many. Rutherford describes one research group’s use of a bacterium that can form construction-capable bricks out of dust.

Future space habitations could put this microbe to work churning out the building blocks for permanent space colonies. In another experiment, goats with spider genes produce bulk quantities of spider’s silk, which manufacturers can use as building materials or as a medical adhesive for patients who need skin grafts or ligament repairs. Other synthetic-­ biology procedures offer means toward synthesizing clean-burning fuels and boosting global crop production.

Rutherford covers an

www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 51 © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

Reviews

immense amount of scientific ground, but he does so in an exceptionally approachable and conversational tone. Even readers with little scientific background will have very little difficulty following along. For those who take a keen interest in agriculture and life sciences, and all others who are simply curious about the future directions of scientific research and development, Creation is a highly recommended read.

Global Scenarios, and How to Envision the Future Futurevision: Scenarios for the World in 2040 by Richard Watson and Oliver Freeman.

Scribe. 2013. 330 pages. $29.95.

Life on Earth is increasingly volatile and changeprone, and anxiety abounds worldwide over where humanity is heading, note Richard Watson and Oliver Freeman, two of the co-founders of the strategy consulting firm Futures House Europe. They explain how they use scenario planning to help their clients manage and flourish amid the upheavals.

The authors present four scenarios for life on Earth in 2040, all created in light of the world economic crisis of 2007–2009. None is idyllic, but some are definitely worse than the others: 1. The “World of Intelligence” scenario, consisting of enhanced automation, data utilization, and mobile connectivity accelerating the pace of life while also upping the efficiency of resource use across the board and solving many of society’s longstanding problems.

2. The “Please Please Me” scenario, consisting of crass materialism, egoism, extreme inequality, and the disappearance of the last vestiges of social capital and civic responsibility.

3. The “Dear Prudence” scenario, consisting of hyperlocalized economies, strong community and civic life, and strict limitations placed on 52

THE FUTURIST

personal consumption and travel, reinforced by legal penalties.

4. The “Helter Skelter” scenario, in which civic order has universally broken down and alienation and mistrust reign.

The authors lay out the sequences of precipitating developments that would lead to each future Earth, then explain their own approach to scenario planning. Using easy-to-­ follow bullet-point lists and sets of instructions, they present how they first identify and focus the concerns, then clarify the environmental influences and change agents, build alternative futures, and use these futures to guide strategy action plans.

Watson and Freeman also show how retail bankers, insurers, teachers, and other professionals can apply this scenario-planning process to chart their own organizations’ futures. Being open to perspectives other than your own is paramount, as is objectively trying to comprehend the future as it may truly be unfolding, rather than as you want it to unfold. You can take action and shape the future to better ends, but you need to be aware of the trends and their causes first.

Futurevision is a useful how-to guide for thinking about and planning for the future. Leaders of all types of organizations and industries will find its advice highly pertinent.

Transforming Life on Earth, One Garden at a Time Green Wizardry: Conservation, Solar Power, Organic Gardening, and Other Hands-On Skills from the Appropriate Tech Toolkit by John Michael Greer. New Society. 2013. 234 pages. $18.95.

Ecologist John Michael Greer calls for studious and conscientious people everywhere to be “green wizards,” who will guide their communities toward sustainable living methods.

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Wizards are not magicians. In medieval times, Greer explains, villages called wise individuals “wizards” if they had studied and mastered forgotten skills, using them for the betterment of communities everywhere.

These skills include methods of healing and farming, for instance. As our world now heads toward resource exhaustion and the collapse of industries as we know them, Greer states, it will need green wizards who have taken up the arcane studies of organic gardening, small-scale livestock cultivation, home aquaculture, and household renewable-­ energy systems.

He anticipates world agriculture systems falling apart as the raw materials for fertilizer and equipment fuel grow scarce.

This means we’ll need to quickly ramp up localized farming far and wide.

Greer guides would-be green wizards through all the practical steps that they might take to cultivate their own gardens, manage pests without chemicals, and derive fertilizer and fuel naturally from compost and recycled manure. He also lays out how to generate heat and electricity from clean-energy stoves, wind turbines, and solar apparatus. Livestock keeping is optional, he explains, but he includes copious notes on how to tend to them, as well.

Green Wizardry is a bold vision of how we might eventually remake life on Earth from—literally—the ground up. Greer cautions that the vision may be polarizing. Many readers may strongly approve of it and perhaps even look forward to becoming “green wizards” themselves. Others may object and prefer no green wizardry in their future at all. No matter what their point of view, however, they will find this a highly intriguing and provocative read. ❑

WORLDFUTURE 2014:

What If

The Annual Conference of the World Future Society • July 11-13, 2014 Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek • Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. The future is not a destination. It’s the end result of the actions that we take today. If we can dare to envision the widest number of potential futures, then perhaps we can plan our actions more wisely, today. In this spirit of ambitious imagineering, open thinking, and active exploration, the World Future Society will host its 2014 conference in Orlando, Florida, under the theme What If. We’ve already booked what are sure to be amazing presentations from: JONATHAN WILSON • Futurist Paul Saffo, co-founder and managing director of Foresight at Paul Saffo DISCERN, consulting associate professor at Stanford University, visiting scholar at Stanford Media-X. • Nanotechnology pioneer Raj Bawa.

• Hazel Henderson, founder of Ethical Markets Media and the creator and co-­executive producer of its TV series. She is a world-renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, and author.

• Arnulfo Valdivia, director of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad.

• Karen Moloney, a Chartered Psychologist, consultant, writer and Hazel Henderson Gil Meyer speaker, and the founder and director of Moloney Minds.

• Joergen Oerstroem Moeller, visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, and adjunct professor at Singapore Management University and Copenhagen Business School.

• Delos Smith is working on new initiatives by the dyslexic community that connect brain and cognitive development research, early childhood evaluation and development, and education system reforms.

Karen Moloney • Juan F. “Kiko” Suarez, vice president of Communications and Innovation, Lumina Foundation.

• José Cordeiro, founder of the WFS Venezuela Chapter and chair of the Venezuela Millennium Project. He is a faculty member of Singularity University at NASA. Juan F. “Kiko” Suarez • Gil Meyer, director of Global Issues Management & Trend Analysis, DuPont Company. He has been with DuPont for 26 years, serving in a wide range of public affairs and regulatory affairs roles. His current assignment includes nanotechnology issues management, recall preparedness, chemicals risk management, synthetic biology, crisis preparedness, and pandemic planning.

Sci-Fi Symposium At WorldFuture 2014, the Society will host its first ever symposium to consider the relationship between science fiction and futuring. Authors, fans, and others in the sci-fi community will come together to discuss how fiction can provide a

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller

vision of the future, and how it creates and is created by reality. Confirmed speakers include: • Brenda Cooper, author of The Creative Fire and The Silver Ship and the Sea, is a futurist, conservationist, and the Chief Information Officer of the City of Kirkland, Washington.

• Ramez Naam, author of Nexus and its sequel Crux, is a professional technologist, a former software developer at Microsoft, and the author of several nonfiction books.

• Brad Aiken, author of medical technothriller Mind Fields, is a doctor specializing in rehabilitation medicine who has written several medically oriented sci-fi stories.

Brenda Cooper

Ramez Naam

PHOTOS: SANDRA ARCH FOR WFS

The World Future Society’s annual conference brings together the world’s premier minds to discuss the longrange future of science, technology, humanity, government, education, and many other topics. Like a “World’s Fair of Ideas,” the conference will feature more than 60 sessions, workshops, and special events over the course of two and a half days. Don’t miss out on your chance to learn about the future of the world and network with like-minded futurists.

Previous conference attendees have included Gerald Ford, Ted Kennedy, Betty Friedan, behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, age-wave expert Ken Dychtwald, U.S. comptroller general David M. Walker, and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Many attendees are business leaders, government officials, scientists, corporate planners, doctors, and forecasters from around the globe.

Futurists: BetaLaunch Opening night kicks off with ­Futurists: BetaLaunch, a technology petting zoo where engineers, designers, and others will present their ­inventions to the 900 futurists expected to gather for the conference.

We hope to see you there!

Innovators mingle with futurists during the 2013 conference’s opening reception and F:BL expo.

WORLDFUTURE 2014: What If The Annual Conference of the World Future Society July 11-13, 2014 • Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek • Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. Yes! I want to meet, exchange ideas with, and learn from my futurist ­colleagues. Please reserve my place at the World Future Society’s WorldFuture 2014. I understand registration ­includes admission to all ­sessions, the welcome reception, entrance to exhibits, and a list of pre-registrants. And if for any reason I am unable to attend, I may cancel and receive a full refund until June 13, 2014.

Register by December 31, 2013

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$490

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$150

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(Please attach appropriate documentation.)

2-day Luncheon Package (with speakers) — $124.......................................................................................................................................................

Single Luncheons — $69 Select one:

❑ Saturday

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MAIL TO: World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. • FAX TO: 1-301-951-0394 • CALL TOLL-FREE: 1-800-989-8274 (If outside the toll-free calling area, call 1-301-656-8274.) • E-MAIL: info@wfs.org • WEB SITE: www.wfs.org

Covering all issues from January-February 2013 through November-December 2013 (Volume 47)

2013 Subject/Author Index to

THE FUTURIST

Feature Articles, Book Reviews, and World Trends & Forecasts SUBJECT INDEX BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS Building the Global Innovation Economy, Robert D. Atkinson and Stephen J. Ezell, January-February 2013.

Five Economies That Work: Global Success Stories, Rick Docksai, March-April 2013.

Robots at Work: Toward a Smarter Factory, Rodney Brooks, May-June 2013.

Women 2020: Our Selves, Our Worlds, Our Futures, The Futures Company [Elisa ­Birtwistle, principal author], May-June 2013.

COMMUNICATIONS Pop Goes the Algorithm, Christopher Steiner, May-June 2013.

EDUCATION Educating the Future: The End of Mediocrity, Rob Bencini, March-April 2013.

ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES Biodiversity “After Earth,” Patrick Tucker, September-October 2013.

Disappearing Forests? Actions to Save the World’s Trees, Rick Docksai, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Food, Fuel, and the Global Land Grab, Lester R. Brown, January-February 2013.

How Innovation Could Save the Planet, ­Ramez Naam, March-April 2013.

Turkish Futurists Association: Networking, Dreaming, Digitalizing [Future Active], Fatma Çalişkan, March-April 2013.

• Losing the Ability to Get Lost, Josh ­Lindenger

GENERAL TRENDS AND FORECASTS

• More Missing Futures [box], Dave Allman, Douglas Cornish, Peter Eder, LuAnne Feik, Thomas Frey, Virginia Holbert, Lester Kuhl, Jonathan C. Lippe, Frank McDonough, Werner Mittelstaedt, Gregory Pashke, Michael Rees, Garry Schulz, Alexandru Tugui, and Ruth Wise

Outlook 2014, FUTURIST staff, NovemberDecember 2013.

Top 10 Disappearing Futures [special report], September-October 2013: • Bad Mood Is History: A Scenario, Liz Leone and Jean Georges Perrin • Car Crashes Will Disappear by 2030, Tom Schaffnit • The Coming Demise of Teamwork, Paul Rux • Computing’s Future Is Wearable, Harish Shah • The Concurrent Evaporation of Hardware and Privacy, E. Scott Denison • Counterpoint: Europe, Tear Down Your Borders, Neill Perry • Counterpoint: Why Cultural Understanding May Disappear, Daniel Egger • The Death of Reflection, Lisa Gualtieri • Disappearance of Endangered Languages, Economic Immigration Barriers, and Mass Religious Intolerance, John M. Smart • Disappearing Doctors, Joe Thomae • Disappearing Public Education, Jason Siko • Education Abandons the Factory Model, Jason Swanson • The End of Anonymity, Brenda Cooper

FUTURISM AND FORESIGHT

• The End of Grade Point Averages, Dan ­Tuuri

Asimov’s Embarrassing Robot: A Futurist Fable, Irving H. Buchen, March-April 2013.

• The End of Religion, the Rise of Spirituality, Alan Nordstrom

Foresight as Dialogue, Timothy C. Mack, March-April 2013.

Healthier Foresight Diets, Alireza Hejazi, MayJune 2013.

Science and a New Kind of Prediction: An Interview with Stephen Wolfram, Patrick Tucker, January-February 2013.

Sci-Fi and the Trans-simian Future, Cynthia G. Wagner and Patrick Tucker, May-June 2013.

• The End of the Art of Medical Diagnosis, Morton Chalfy

• “Mommy, What’s a Store?” Consumerism in the Connected Age, John P. Sagi

• No More Waiting, Apala Lahiri Chavan • Nothing Left to Try? The End of Jury Trials, Clayton Rawlings • Obsolescence of Fixed Pay-Per-Time Compensation, Carrie Anne Zapka • Operating without Surgeons, Benjamin C. Yablon • Paper Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Karl Albrecht • Paperless, Cashless, and Wireless by 2030, David Pearce Snyder • Passing of the Dumb Interface, Keyboard, and Mouse, Alexandre Pupo and William ­Halal • The Private Library, Lane Jennings • Say Goodbye to News at 6:00, Rob Bencini • Two Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030, Thomas Frey • Vanishing Languages and the Rise of ­English and Chinese, John F. Copper • Whatever Happened to Free Will? Richard Yonck • Whither the Board of Directors? Lawrence Loh • A World without a Unified Europe, Manuel Au-Yong Oliveira GOVERNANCE

• The End of Theft, Thomas Frey

Anticipatory Governance: Winning the Future, Leon S. Fuerth with Evan M. H. Faber, July-August 2013.

• Farewell, Smartphone, We Hardly Knew Thee, Paul Saffo

Crime in the Year 2030, Gene Stephens, JanuaryFebruary 2013.

• Goodbye, Macho Man, Jed Diamond

The End of Public Promises? Governments and the Pension Deficit Disorder, Rob ­Bencini, November-December 2013.

• Highway Signs, Jim Breaux • Locations, Locations, Locations, Barry Minkin

Securing the Cyber City of the Future, Indu B.

56 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

Singh and Joseph N. Pelton, NovemberDecember 2013.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY The Coming of Intelligent Green Vehicles: A Report from the TechCast Project, Laura B. Huhn, Kenneth W. Harris, and Dexter Snyder, January-February 2013.

Connecting with Our Connected World, ­Richard Yonck, November-December 2013.

The Great Comeback: Bringing a Species Back from Extinction, Ben J. Novak, September-October 2013.

How to Make a Mind, Ray Kurzweil, MarchApril 2013.

Mapping the Future with Big Data, Patrick Tucker, July-August 2013.

New Tools for War and Peace: Technology Game Changers [interview with John Watts], Rick Docksai, July-August 2013.

A Radical Future for Nanotechnology, K. Eric Drexler, September-October 2013.

The Rise of Citizen Science, Kathleen Toerpe, July-August 2013.

10 Future-Changing Inventions Ready to Launch, Patrick Tucker, July-August 2013.

Transition Engineering: Planning and Building the Sustainable World, Susan Krumdieck, July-August 2013.

Office of publication: 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-3032 (Montgomery County).

Publisher: World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont ­Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814.

Founding Editor: Edward Cornish, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814.

Editor: Cynthia G. Wagner, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814.

Owner: World Future Society (a nonprofit corporation with no stockholders).

Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1% or more of the total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: None.

Tax Status: The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during the preceding 12 months.

Average No. Actual No.

Copies Each Copies of

Issue During Single Issue

Preceding 12 Published

Months Nearest to

Filing Date

(Sep.-Oct. 2013) A. Total No. Copies Printed 12,416 12,200 B. Paid Circulation 1. Mailed Outside-County Subscription 8,219 8,073 2. Mailed In-County Subscription 0 0 3. Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors & Counter Sales 619 642 4. Other classes mailed through USPS 811 834 C. Total Paid Circulation 9,649 9,549 D. Free Distribution 1. Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies 101 106 2. Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies 0 0 3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS 57 30 4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail 0 0 E. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution 158 136 F. Total Distribution 9,807 9,685 G. Copies Not Distributed 2,609 2,515 H. Total 12,416 12,200 I. Percent Paid 98.39% 98.60% I certify that the statements made above by me are correct and complete. — Jefferson Cornish, Business Manager.

A Madding Crowd’s Ignoble Strife, November-December 2013.

Powering the World with Artificial Photosynthesis, Thomas Faunce, May-June 2013.

FUTURING Predicting Obesity at Birth, March-April 2013.

Saving Bucky’s Dome Home, SeptemberOctober 2013.

SOCIETY AND VALUES Commentary: Women and the “Soft” Side of Innovation [box], Zhouying Jin, May-June 2013.

Eldering: Aging with Resilience, James H. Lee, January-February 2013.

Statement required by the Act of August 21, 1970, Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code, showing the ownership, management, and circulation of THE FUTURIST.

EARTH Climate Disruption and Plankton Destruction, March-April 2013.

Evolution or Extinction? Humanity’s Future Legacy, Jan Taylor, November-December 2013.

Life Imitates Art: Cyborgs, Cinema, and Future Scenarios, Ramona Pringle, JulyAugust 2013.

The New Renaissance Is In Our Hands, Rolf Jensen, September-October 2013.

GOVERNANCE Kenya’s Youth Take Charge, July-August 2013.

Partnering for a World Free of Mercury, MayJune 2013.

Putting More Stock in Agricultural R&D, March-April 2013.

Toward a More Predictable Union, JanuaryFebruary 2013.

The U.S. Supreme Court Takes On Gene Patents, Randall Mayes, July-August 2013.

HUMANITY Dancing with the Crowds, July-August 2013.

WORK AND CAREERS Game Plan for a Future-Ready Workforce [interview with Ed Gordon], Rick Docksai, November-December 2013.

Highly Human Jobs, Richard Samson, MayJune 2013.

WORLD AFFAIRS Commentary: Women’s World Beyond the Marketplace [box], Sheila R. Ronis, May-June 2013.

Forecasting Violent Behavior in Psychiatric Emergencies, March-April 2013.

A Mindful Approach to Learning, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Predicting Pedophilia, September-October 2013.

A Requiem for Lost Futures, NovemberDecember 2013.

Virtual Empathy, May-June 2013.

SCI/TECH

WORLD FUTURE SOCIETY Futurists Explore the Next Horizon, Rick Docksai, November-December 2013.

The Brain as Health Forecaster, JanuaryFebruary 2013.

Building a Quantum Computer, Geordie Rose, May-June 2013.

Catching a Pandemic, Online, May-June 2013.

WORLD TRENDS & FORECASTS [Written by staff editors Rick Docksai, Keturah Hetrick, Patrick Tucker, and Cynthia G. Wagner, except where noted.]

COMMERCE Adaptation Is Job One, Joerg Schrottke, Sandra Niewiem, Thomas Weber, and Wiebke Hoffmann, November-December 2013.

China’s Closed Circuits, March-April 2013.

Consumption 2.0, Hugo Garcia, JanuaryFebruary 2013.

www.wfs.org

•

Harnessing the Power of Osmosis, JulyAugust 2013.

Integrated Interfaces for Intelligent Furnishings, January-February 2013.

Long-Term Risks of Psychiatric Drugs, MayJune 2013.

The Neurotechnology Revolution Has Arrived, Gray Scott, September-October 2013.

Smarter Software’s Impacts on Human Privacy, November-December 2013.

The Tsunami Whisperer, September-October 2013.

THE FUTURIST

January-February 2014

57

ness, Rolf Jensen and Mika Aaltonen [reviewed

by Rick Docksai], September-October 2013.

REVIEWS 25 Things You Need to Know About the Future, Christopher Barnatt [reviewed by Rick Docksai], March-April 2013.

2012 State of the Future, Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, and Elizabeth Florescu [reviewed by Rick Docksai], January-February 2013.

2050—Tomorrow’s Tourism, Ian Yeoman [reviewed by Rick Docksai], January-February 2013.

Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace, Ronald J. Deibert [brief review by Rick Docksai], September-October 2013.

Cultivating Peace, James O’Dea [reviewed by Rick Docksai], January-February 2013.

The Digital Rights Movement, Hector Postigo [reviewed by Rick Docksai], March-April 2013.

Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering, Clive Hamilton [reviewed

by Rick Docksai], July-August 2013.

The Efficiency Trap: Finding a Better Way to Achieve a Sustainable Energy Future, Steve Hallett [reviewed by Rick Docksai], MayJune 2013.

Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts, Emily Anthes [reviewed

by Rick Docksai], July-August 2013.

The Future, Al Gore [reviewed by Michael Lee], July-August 2013.

The Singularity, Doug Wolens [DVD reviewed

by Cynthia G. Wagner], NovemberDecember 2013.

The Technology of Nonviolence: Social Media and Violence Prevention, Joseph G. Bock [reviewed by Rick Docksai], July-August 2013.

Think Like a Futurist: Know What Changes, What Doesn’t, and What’s Next, Cecily Sommers [reviewed by Rick Docksai], May-June 2013.

The White Planet: The Evolution and Future of Our Frozen World, Jean Jouzel, Claude Lorius, and Dominque Raynaud [reviewed by Rick Docksai], May-June 2013.

Word of Mouse: 101+ Trends in How We Buy, Sell, Live, Learn, Work, and Play, Marc ­Ostrofsky [brief review by Rick Docksai], September-October 2013.

AUTHORS Albrecht, Karl, Paper Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, September-October 2013.

Atkinson, Robert D., and Stephen J. Ezell, Building the Global Innovation Economy, January-February 2013.

Future Perfect, Steven Johnson [reviewed by Patrick Tucker], January-February 2013.

Bencini, Rob, The End of Public Promises? Governments and the Pension Deficit Disorder, November-December 2013; Say Goodbye to News at 6:00, September-October 2013; Educating the Future: The End of Mediocrity, March-April 2013.

Global Trends 2030, National Intelligence Council [reviewed by Robert Moran], MarchApril 2013.

Birtwistle, Elisa [see The Futures Company].

The Infinite Resource, Ramez Naam [reviewed

by Rick Docksai], March-April 2013.

Breaux, Jim, Highway Signs, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Brooks, Rodney, Robots at Work: Toward a Smarter Factory, May-June 2013.

The Future of Futures, edited by Andrew Curry [reviewed by Rick Docksai], JanuaryFebruary 2013.

Intervention in the Brain: Politics, Policy, and Ethics, Robert H. Blank [brief review by Rick Docksai], September-October 2013.

Knowing Our Future: The Startling Case for Futurology, Michael Lee [reviewed by Rick Docksai], May-June 2013.

The Last Myth: What the Rise of Apocalyptic Thinking Tells Us About America, Mathew Barrett Gross and Mel Gilles [reviewed by David H. Rosen], May-June 2013.

Brown, Lester R., Food, Fuel, and the Global Land Grab, January-February 2013.

Buchen, Irving H., Asimov’s Embarrassing Robot: A Futurist Fable, March-April 2013. Çalişkan, Fatma, Turkish Futurists Association: Networking, Dreaming, Digitalizing [Future Active], March-April 2013.

Chalfy, Morton, The End of the Art of Medical Diagnosis, September-October 2013.

Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die, Eric Siegel [reviewed by Patrick Tucker], NovemberDecember 2013.

Chavan, Apala Lahiri, No More Waiting, September-October 2013.

Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, K. Eric Drexler [reviewed by José Cordeiro], September-October 2013.

Copper, John F., Vanishing Languages and the Rise of English and Chinese, SeptemberOctober 2013.

The Renaissance Society: How the Shift from the Dream Society to the Age of Individual Control Will Change the Way You Do Busi-

58

THE FUTURIST

Cooper, Brenda, The End of Anonymity, September-October 2013.

Cordeiro, José, Book Review: The Atomically Precise Revolution [review of Radical Abundance by K. Eric Drexler], September-October 2013.

January-February 2014

•

www.wfs.org

Denison, E. Scott, The Concurrent Evaporation of Hardware and Privacy, September-October 2013.

Diamond, Jed, Goodbye, Macho Man, September-October 2013.

Docksai, Rick, Futurists Explore the Next Horizon, November-December 2013; Game Plan for a Future-Ready Workforce [interview with Ed Gordon], November-December 2013; Disappearing Forests? Actions to Save the World’s Trees, September-October 2013; Book Review: The Next Renaissance Is Global [review of The Renaissance Society by Rolf Jensen and Mika Aaltonen], September-October 2013; New Tools for War and Peace: Technology Game Changers [interview with John Watts], JulyAugust 2013; Of Mice and Men, Cats and Jelly­ fish [review of Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts by Emily Anthes], July-August 2013; Discovering How to See the Future [review of Knowing Our Future: The Startling Case for Futurology by ­Michael Lee], May-June 2013; Five Economies That Work: Global Success Stories, MarchApril 2013; A Better World Is Just a Series of Innovations Away [review of The Infinite Resource by Ramez Naam], March-April 2013; High Stakes for Humanity’s Future [review of 2012 State of the Future by Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, and Elizabeth ­Florescu], January-February 2013.

Drexler, K. Eric, A Radical Future for Nanotechnology, September-October 2013.

Egger, Daniel, Counterpoint: Why Cultural Understanding May Disappear, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Ezell, Stephen J., and Robert D. Atkinson, Building the Global Innovation Economy, January-February 2013.

Faber, Evan M. H., and Leon S. Fuerth, Anticipatory Governance: Winning the Future, July-August 2013.

Faunce, Thomas, Powering the World with Artificial Photosynthesis, May-June 2013.

Frey, Thomas, Two Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030, September-October 2013; The End of Theft, September-October 2013.

Fuerth, Leon S., with Evan M. H. Faber, Anticipatory Governance: Winning the Future, July-August 2013.

The Futures Company [Elisa Birtwistle, principal author], Women 2020: Our Selves, Our Worlds, Our Futures, May-June 2013.

FUTURIST staff, Outlook 2014, NovemberDecember 2013.

Garcia, Hugo, Consumption 2.0, JanuaryFebruary 2013.

Gordon, Ed, Game Plan for a Future-Ready Workforce [interview by Rick Docksai], November-December 2013.

Gualtieri, Lisa, The Death of Reflection, September-October 2013.

Halal, William, and Alexandre Pupo, Passing of the Dumb Interface, Keyboard, and Mouse,

September-October 2013.

the Cyber City of the Future, NovemberDecember 2013.

Harris, Kenneth W ., Laura B. Huhn, and ­D exter Snyder, The Coming of Intelligent Green Vehicles: A Report from the TechCast Project, January-February 2013.

Perrin, Jean Georges, and Liz Leone, Bad Mood Is History: A Scenario, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Hejazi, Alireza, Healthier Foresight Diets, MayJune 2013.

Perry, Neill, Counterpoint: Europe, Tear Down Your Borders, September-October 2013.

Hoffmann, Wiebke, Joerg Schrottke, Sandra Niewiem, and Thomas Weber, Adaptation Is Job One, November-December 2013.

Pringle, Ramona, Life Imitates Art: Cyborgs, Cinema, and Future Scenarios, July-August 2013.

Huhn, Laura B., Kenneth W. Harris, and Dexter Snyder, The Coming of Intelligent Green Vehicles: A Report from the TechCast Project, January-February 2013.

Pupo, Alexandre, and William Halal, Passing of the Dumb Interface, Keyboard, and Mouse, September-October 2013.

Jennings, Lane, The Private Library, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Jensen, Rolf, The New Renaissance Is In Our Hands, September-October 2013.

Jin Zhouying, Commentary: Women and the “Soft” Side of Innovation [box], May-June 2013.

Rawlings, Clayton, Nothing Left to Try? The End of Jury Trials, September-October 2013.

Ronis, Sheila R., Commentary: Women’s World Beyond the Marketplace [box], May-June 2013.

Rose, Geordie, Building a Quantum Computer, May-June 2013.

Krumdieck, Susan, Transition Engineering: Planning and Building the Sustainable World, July-August 2013.

Rosen, David H., Worst Expectations [review of The Last Myth: What the Rise of Apocalyptic Thinking Tells Us About America by Mathew Barrett Gross and Mel Gilles], May-June 2013.

Kurzweil, Ray, How to Make a Mind, MarchApril 2013.

Rux, Paul, The Coming Demise of Teamwork, September-October 2013.

Lee, James H., Eldering: Aging with Resilience, January-February 2013.

Saffo, Paul, Farewell, Smartphone, We Hardly Knew Thee, September-October 2013.

Lee, Michael, Gore’s “Future” and the Trends Driving It [review of The Future by Al Gore], July-August 2013.

Sagi, John P., “Mommy, What’s a Store?” Consumerism in the Connected Age, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Leone, Liz, and Jean Georges Perrin, Bad Mood Is History: A Scenario, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Samson, Richard, Highly Human Jobs, MayJune 2013.

Lindenger, Josh, Losing the Ability to Get Lost, September-October 2013.

Schaffnit, Tom, Car Crashes Will Disappear by 2030, September-October 2013.

January-February 2013.

Swanson, Jason, Education Abandons the Factory Model, September-October 2013.

Taylor, Jan, Evolution or Extinction? Humanity’s Future Legacy, November-December 2013.

Thomae, Joe, Disappearing Doctors, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Toerpe, Kathleen, The Rise of Citizen Science, July-August 2013.

Tucker, Patrick, Expanding the Predictable Universe [review of Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die by Eric Siegel], November-December 2013; Biodiversity “After Earth,” SeptemberOctober 2013; Mapping the Future with Big Data, July-August 2013; 10 Future-Changing Inventions Ready to Launch, July-August 2013; Science and a New Kind of Prediction: An Interview with Stephen Wolfram, January-February 2013.

Tucker, Patrick, and Cynthia G. Wagner, Sci-Fi and the Trans-simian Future, May-June 2013.

Tuuri, Dan, The End of Grade Point Averages, September-October 2013.

Wagner, Cynthia G., Debating the Singularity [review of The Singularity directed by Doug Wolens], November-December 2013.

Wagner, Cynthia G., and Patrick Tucker, Sci-Fi and the Trans-simian Future, May-June 2013.

Watts, John, New Tools for War and Peace: Technology Game Changers [interview by Rick Docksai], July-August 2013.

Weber, Thomas, Joerg Schrottke, Sandra Niewiem, and Wiebke Hoffmann, Adaptation Is Job One, November-December 2013.

Loh, Lawrence, Whither the Board of Directors?, September-October 2013.

Schrottke, Joerg, Sandra Niewiem, Thomas Weber, and Wiebke Hoffmann, Adaptation Is Job One, November-December 2013.

Wolfram, Stephen [interview], Science and a New Kind of Prediction: An Interview with ­Stephen Wolfram, Patrick Tucker, JanuaryFebruary 2013.

Mack, Timothy C., Foresight as Dialogue, March-April 2013.

Scott, Gray, The Neurotechnology Revolution Has Arrived, September-October 2013.

Yablon, Benjamin C., Operating without Surgeons, September-October 2013.

Mayes, Randall, The U.S. Supreme Court Takes On Gene Patents, July-August 2013.

Shah, Harish, Computing’s Future Is Wearable, September-October 2013.

Minkin, Barry, Locations, Locations, Locations, September-October 2013.

Siko, Jason, Disappearing Public Education, September-October 2013.

Yonck, Richard, Connecting with Our Connected World, November-December 2013; Whatever Happened to Free Will?, September-October 2013.

Moran, Robert, Four Scenarios for 2030 [review of Global Trends 2030 by the National Intelligence Council], March-April 2013.

Singh, Indu B., and Joseph N. Pelton, Securing the Cyber City of the Future, NovemberDecember 2013.

Naam, Ramez, How Innovation Could Save the Planet, March-April 2013.

Smart, John M., Disappearance of Endangered Languages, Economic Immigration Barriers, and Mass Religious Intolerance, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Niewiem, Sandra, Joerg Schrottke, Thomas Weber, and Wiebke Hoffmann, Adaptation Is Job One, November-December 2013.

Nordstrom, Alan, The End of Religion, the Rise of Spirituality, September-October 2013.

Novak, Ben J., The Great Comeback: Bringing a Species Back from Extinction, SeptemberOctober 2013.

Oliveira, Manuel Au-Yong, A World without a Unified Europe, September-October 2013.

Pelton, Joseph N., and Indu B. Singh, Securing

Snyder, David Pearce, Paperless, Cashless, and Wireless by 2030, September-October 2013.

Snyder, Dexter, Laura B. Huhn, and Kenneth W . Harris, The Coming of Intelligent Green Vehicles: A Report from the TechCast Project, January-February 2013.

Steiner, Christopher, Pop Goes the Algorithm, May-June 2013.

Stephens, Gene, Crime in the Year 2030,

www.wfs.org

•

Zapka, Carrie Anne, Obsolescence of Fixed PayPer-Time Compensation, September-October 2013.

Back Issues Online WFS members may read THE FUTURIST online for free (issues from 2010 to the present), or access ProQuest archives (issues from 1992 to the present).

Nonmembers may order print or PDF copies at www.wfs.org/backissues.

THE FUTURIST

January-February 2014

59

Future Active News for the Futurist Community “Town-Gown” Relations in Europe

By Roger Kemp The first-ever Uni-Town Network Conference was held October 2-4, 2013, at the University of Ferrara in northeastern Italy. It was designed for representatives of more than a dozen universities and municipalities from throughout the European Union.

Both the mayor of Ferrara and the president of the university opened up this session. The goal was to discuss best practices in the dynamic and evolving field of town (municipalities) and gown (universities) relations.

“Uni-Town already associates 13 universities from Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, ­Poland, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands,” according to Paolo ­C eccarelli, UNESCO Chair of the University of Ferrara. The association aims to face the challenges of the European economic crisis and to analyze the new strategies posed by university towns to overcome these challenges.

Many university and public offi-

cials talked about joint town-gown best practices in their respective communities from throughout Europe. The goal is to initiate a UniTown Network Web site, to codify information in this field, and to come up with a listing of worldwide online town-gown resources.

I was asked to attend this conference and give a keynote speech ­t itled “Town and Gown Best and Evolving Practices.” My presentation was based on the research I did for my latest book, Town and Gown Relations: A Handbook of Best Practices (McFarland and Co. Inc., 2013), which focuses on the best towngown practices in the United States and Canada.

The Uni-Town Network is the first multinational organization of its type in the world, whose efforts will help bring forth best practices. The network will make this information available to other town-gown officials throughout the world in the near future.

Roger Kemp is a former city manager ­(Meriden, Connecticut, 1993-2005), futurist, and faculty member at the University of New Haven. © VALERIA73 / BIGSTOCK

COURTESY OF APALA LAHIRI CHAVAN

The organizing meeting of the WFS Pondicherry chapter was held on Google Hangout.

WFS India Chapter Is Born The first organizational meeting of the World Future Society’s chapter in Pondicherry, India, was held as a Google Hangout on September 29.

According to chapter coordinator Apala Lahiri Chavan of Human Factors International, the goal of the meeting was to outline strategies for raising awareness about futures studies in India and to begin envisioning the future for India and Asia generally.

The mission for WFS Pondicherry thus proposed is: • Create a community interested in futures studies and research.

• Reach out and involve the community through various online and offline interactions.

To help publicize the field, the chapter proposes to interview wellknown futurists from around the world to showcase their specialties, generating content for the chapter, as well as attracting sponsors who may support bringing these futurists to India.

—CGW For more information, contact Apala@humanfactors.com. See also Institute for Customer Experience, ice.humanfactors.com.

The Future as a Board Game

Aerial view of Ferrara, Italy, host of the first Uni-Town Network Conference of universities to promote best practices in town-gown relations.

The Dutch Future Society recently gathered 30 futurists and strategic planners to play Future iQ, a simulation board game that is gaining popularity. This game centers on regional development in a fictional

60 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FREIJA VAN DUIJNE, DUTCH FUTURE SOCIETY

right now. The two-axes model is no longer taken for granted.”

—Jay Herson Sources: Future iQ, future-iq.com/productsand-services/futuregame. Dutch Future Society, dutchfuturesociety.com.

Egypt’s Online ISIS

David Beurle, CEO of Future iQ, introduces the game to participants at a Dutch Future Society meeting in June 2013.

Freija van Duijne, president of the Dutch Future Society.

rural area. Players make policy decisions up to the year 2030. Each decision leads to a new scenario, which may contain external events and reveals the consequences of the decisions.

“The game acts as a primer for strategic thinking,” explains Freija van Duijne, president of the Dutch Future Society. “At the end of the process, it also serves as a reflection tool.”

The game typically takes 90 minutes to play. The Dutch Future Society divided its participants into

six teams with five players each. At the end of the game, players reflected on the decisions they made and compared their strategies with other teams. They then began to think of other topics for future simulations, such as implementation of new technologies and risks of carbon storage.

“As true scenario experts, [the participants] had many questions on the scenarios underlying the game,” according to van Duijne. “To me, that reflects the evolutionary process that scenario thinking is experiencing www.wfs.org

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Working with the Egyptian Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, The Millennium Project will create what CEO Jerome C. Glenn describes as “the first national public collective intelligence system in the world.”

The Integrated Synergistic Information System, or ISIS, will integrate Egyptian scientific, governmental, and public information with outside data from the World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Monetary Fund, and the EU. It will offer the public the ability to comment and use the rest of the features of The Millennium Project’s recently announced Global Futures Information System.

These are difficult times for Egypt, but it is for that reason that most parties agree it is the right time for ISIS. When it is completed, Egyptian officials will have a system that supports viewing the nation’s situation as a whole, its future options, and its citizens’ views on government programs and priorities.

A panel of experts, identified by the Academy, will continually review ISIS to see suggestions made by others, get an update of the current situation, and develop a desired situation and the policies needed to achieve it. ISIS provides tools such as computer models, identification of relevant new research around the world, and real-time Delphi surveys.

Glenn considers ISIS “a great step forward for The Millennium Project and, if successful, could be adapted to other countries, as well.”

—JH For more information, contact The Millennium Project, www.millennium-project.org. Global Futures Intelligence System, www.themp.org. ❑

THE FUTURIST

January-February 2014

61

News

from the

World Future Society

By the WFS Board of Directors

Are You the Next CEO of the World Future Society?

The World Future Society ignites the exchange of ideas about the future and offers members an opportunity to connect with others to create better futures for themselves and for the world. The Society has served this purpose since its founding on October 28, 1966. The Society’s recent efforts in this area have been led by its president, Timothy Mack. After an impressive 10 years of leadership and service to the Society and its members, Tim has announced his intention to retire next summer. The Society is now looking for a new CEO to lead the Society as it pursues its mission in the years to come.

An extraordinary purpose requires an extraordinary leader. The new CEO will be someone drawn from a pool of highly diverse candidates who can represent the Society externally with intelligence, energy, and enthusiasm. Internally, the new CEO will provide the fresh eyes, compelling vision, strategic thinking, and enlightened leadership to advance the Society’s purpose in ways that may be invisible today. This person will join the Society’s staff around June 1, 2014, and will take over as CEO on July 14, 2014, immediately following the 2014 conference.

This leaves just one question: Is this person you?

Looking back, we find that the Society was founded in a time of both peril and promise—the peril of impending nuclear war and the promise of prosperity in an age of technological advance.

In a series of articles that appeared in THE FUTURIST in 2007, founding President Edward ­Cornish described how the Cuban Missile Crisis and the threat of nuclear war had prompted his desire to create a publication about the future. His anxieties about a nuclear conflict forced him to ask, “Is there any way to decide what may happen in the future?”

Ed discovered others who were actively thinking about the future, including American architect ­Buckminster Fuller, French economist Bertrand de ­J ouvenel, and German futurist Robert Jungk. To unite these visionaries, all working in different fields and different places, the World Future Society was born.

Peril and promise are both as evident today as they were in 1966. We find peril in climate change, economic crisis, and governance failures around the world. We find promise in a growing interest in sustainability, communication technologies that link us as never before, and transcendent visions that have excited many Society members from the very beginning.

In fact, the peril and promise are so great that, if there were not already a World Future Society, we would need to invent one. But there is much to be done to take the Society from where it is now to where it needs to be to meet this need.

Thus, the Society’s new CEO will need an ability to think conceptually, globally, and strategically about how the Society can sustainably meet the world’s needs. He or she should be willing to shake things up and able to provide a compelling vision that prompts the collaboration necessary to make it happen. The new CEO must be able to think creatively about the use of technology, since the Society should embody the best that the future has to offer.

Institutionally, the new CEO will have great leeway in making the decisions necessary to move the Society toward a new vision of what it could be. The Society’s Board of Directors expects that the new CEO will take the lead in setting this vision and formulating the appropriate strategies, with the Board as partner and attending to its fiduciary role.

For some candidates, being the CEO of the World Future Society at this point in its evolution may be a ­career-making opportunity that will propel them to still greater heights in the years to come. For other candidates, it may be an opportunity to apply well-honed skills from other sectors to an organization with higher meaning and purpose than the places they have worked in the past.

Whatever your reasons, the World Future Society needs you. If you would like to heed this call, please contact the leadership search committee by e‑mail to leadership@wfs.org.

62 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

World Future Society Programs The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization chartered in the District of Columbia, U.S.A., and is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization. The Society has about 25,000 members and subscribers in 80 nations.

PUBLICATIONS

• The Futurist: A magazine published bimonthly, covering trends, forecasts, and ideas about the future.

• Futurist Update: An e-mail newsletter available monthly to all ­members, covering a range of future-oriented news and useful links.

• World Future Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight: A journal for futures practitioners and scholars, with articles on forecasting techniques and applications, profiles of futurists and organizations, and abstracts of current futures-relevant literature.

ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCES

• Conferences: The Society holds at least one major conference per year, to which all Society members are invited. Most conferences cover a wide range of topics related to the future. Most conferences are in the United States, but the Society has also held meetings in Canada and Austria.

• Groups: Futurist groups are active in a number of U.S. cities, such as Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta, and in more than two dozen countries.

• Books: New books of special interest to members may be purchased through the Society’s partnership with Amazon.com.

MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMS

• Regular Membership: Includes THE FUTURIST magazine; discounts on conferences and books published by the Society; and such other benefits as may be approved for members. Discounted memberships are also available for full-time students under age 25.

• Professional Membership: Programs and publications are available to meet the special needs of practitioners, researchers, scholars, and others who are professionally involved in forecasting, planning, or other futureoriented activities, including education and policy making. Professional members receive all the benefits of regular membership, plus a subscription to the journal World Future Review, as well as invitations to Professional Members Forums, and other benefits.

• Institutional Membership: The World Future Society’s Institutional Membership program offers special services for business firms, educational institutions, government agencies, associations, and other groups. Members receive all of the benefits of Professional Membership, plus copies of all books, monographs, conference proceedings, special reports, and other publications produced by the Society during the year of the membership; special discounts on bulk purchases of Society publications; assistance in locating sources of information, consultants, and speakers for conferences and meetings, getting information tailored specifically to the organization’s needs; and inclusion in the Society’s list of institutional members published on the Society’s Web site and annually in THE FUTURIST. For more information and an application, contact Membership Secretary, World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814 www.wfs.org.

www.wfs.org

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THE FUTURIST

January-February 2014

63

Visions

By Patrick Tucker PHOTOS: PATRICK TUCKER

Riding the Power Jacket Exoskeleton technology will one day help soldiers to carry more and the disabled to walk, but first it needs to break out of the garage.

How much would you pay for the opportunity to stand two feet taller and reach out with an iron grip? In a small garage outside of Chiba, Japan, engineers are looking to sell you the experience for ¥12.5 million (about $127,700). Sagawa Electronics has created an experimental “power jacket” that will lift you up, extend your arm reach, and make you feel a bit like Iron Man. The Power Jacket MK3 is an example of what’s more commonly called an exoskeleton, derived from the Latin root exo, or outside. Testing an experimental robosuit is not the easiest thing to do in the United States, where most of this technology is under development by the military. Japan is a different story.

On a recent trip to Tokyo, I had the opportunity to drive the jacket and feel for myself what it’s like to have the body of a giant droid. Verdict? Empowering, but there’s room for improvement.

The suit uses fly-by-wire controls, very similar to the navigation system on an airplane. As I put my hand into the grip and moved the armlike joystick, my movements were transformed into electronic signals and sent to the whirring motors in the robot arms. These arms mimicked my gestures as I shot out my hands, swiped at the air like a boxer, and played air guitar. The delay between my movements and those of the jacket was slight but noticeable.

Yet, even in this very early example of wearable robotic technology, the sensation of being taller, stronger, and partially composed of metal and wire was palpable and otherworldly. The suit really does feel like an extension of the self, and it’s awesome. The Power Jacket’s creator, Kosuke Machi, took ¥5 million and a year to build it. Though he has yet to sell one, he hopes to bring an improved (and cheaper) version to market in January 2014. While exoskeletons have a number of applications, the purpose of the Power Jacket, according to Machi, is simple fun.

Future exoskeleton suits will make their way into combat settings where they will help soldiers carry heavier loads across longer distances. They will also enable a growing elderly population to retain more mobility later in life. Today, they exist mostly in lab settings like this Chiba garage, but they’re quickly making their way to showrooms near you. Buckle up. ❑ About the Author Patrick Tucker is the deputy editor of THE FUTURIST magazine and the author of the forthcoming book The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (March, 2014).

FUTURIST magazine deputy editor Patrick Tucker takes a spin in Sagawa Electronics’s Power Jacket MK3 in a garage in Chiba, Japan.

Power Jacket MK3 creator Kosuke Machi.

64 THE FUTURIST January-February 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.