I am at the World Technology Summit today. Just finished a panel on accelerating change, where John Smart made the following provocative points:

• Technology learns 100 million times faster than you do.

• Humans are selective catalysts, not controllers, of technological evolutionary development.

• 80-90% of your paycheck comes from automation.

• Catastrophes accelerate societal immunity. The network always wins.

If you want to take a deep dive into these topics with him, John is hosting Accelerating Change 2004 at Stanford, Nov 6-7. He is offering a $50 discount to readers of this blog (discount code “AC2004-J” with all caps).

Update: For those not subscribing to the Feedburner RSS feed, here are some new photos from WTS 2004 and the Awards Dinner.

2 responses to “More Things Change”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Steve:
    Here's an interesting piece from Robin Hanson.
    best,
    Steve Waite

    http://www.futurebrief.com/robinhanson.asp

    Reply
  2. Steve Jurvetson Avatar
    Steve Jurvetson

    Thanks for the interesting pointer.

    Some of Robin's material reminds me of Sagan's Cosmic Calendar.

    Update: Smart's slides from the conference are now available for download.

    Also, the earlier discussion here of accelerating change and societal shock may be relevant.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *