Former GBN co-worker and Worldchanging buddy Jamais Cascio is in the spotlight this month with two simultaneous big media articles: a WSJ story on geoengineering and an Atlantic story on enhanced cognition.
Both have been long-time interest areas of many futurists and foresight groups, but rarely have they gotten airtime like this. Cheers to Jamais for introducing these concepts to a much wider audience while pushing the conversation forward.
My favorite part of the Atlantic piece:
As processor power increases, tools like Twitter may be able to draw on the complex simulations and massive data sets that have unleashed a revolution in science. They could become individualized systems that augment our capacity for planning and foresight, letting us play “what-if” with our life choices: where to live, what to study, maybe even where to go for dinner. Initially crude and clumsy, such a system would get better with more data and more experience; just as important, we’d get better at asking questions. These systems, perhaps linked to the cameras and microphones in our mobile devices, would eventually be able to pay attention to what we’re doing, and to our habits and language quirks, and learn to interpret our sometimes ambiguous desires. With enough time and complexity, they would be able to make useful suggestions without explicit prompting.
Does anyone else see a glimmer of this future in Hunch?
[Possibly related posts]:
- A Snapshot of Vancouver’s Green Future Time: 2020. Place: Mount Pleasant. The business streets look mostly...
- P2P lending org Kiva’s background and future Excellent read for those interested in social entrepreneurship: Kiva co-founder...
- Future Fatigue William Gibson: Say it’s midway through the final year of...
- Envisioning the future of Bombay’s slums Urban Typhoon is a participatory urban planning workshop on the...
