Endnotes

Endnotes for The Singularity Principles

This page contains clickable versions of all the endnotes in The Singularity Principles.


  1. London Futurists: “Previous meetings” https://londonfuturists.com/previous-meetings/
  2. “History of London Futurists” https://londonfuturists.com/2016/07/10/about-london-futurists/
  3. David W. Wood: Vital Foresight: The Case For Active Transhumanism https://transpolitica.org/projects/vital-foresight/
  4. Meetup: “London Futurists” https://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/
  5. “Books authored or edited by David Wood” https://deltawisdom.com/books/
  6. “Eclectic thoughts on technologies, markets, innovation, openness, collaboration, disruption, risks, and solutions” https://dw2blog.com/
  7. Delta Wisdom: “Radical real-world futurism” https://deltawisdom.com/
  8. Wikipedia: “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom
  9. dw2blog: “A wiser journey to a better Tomorrowland” https://dw2blog.com/2015/09/15/a-wiser-journey-to-a-better-tomorrowland/
  10. Dan Milmo, The Guardian: “Rohingya sue Facebook for £150bn over Myanmar genocide” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence
  11. Wikiquote: “Upton Sinclair” https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
  12. Science Museum: “Thalidomide” https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/thalidomide
  13. React: “The global threat of antibiotic resistance” https://www.reactgroup.org/antibiotic-resistance/the-threat/
  14. Environmental Protection Agency: “DDT – A Brief History and Status” https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/ddt-brief-history-and-status
  15. Tim Harford, BBC News: “Why did we use leaded petrol for so long?” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40593353
  16. “Asbestos Cover-Up” https://www.asbestos.com/featured-stories/cover-up/
  17. UK Research and Innovation: “The story behind the discovery of the ozone hole” https://www.ukri.org/news-and-events/responding-to-climate-change/topical-stories/the-story-behind-the-discovery-of-the-ozone-hole/
  18. Olivia Smith, New Security Beat: “Big Dams, Big Damage: The Growing Risk of Failure” https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2018/08/big-dams-big-damage-growing-risk-failure/
  19. World Nuclear Association: “Chernobyl Accident 1986” https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspx
  20. Jay Elwes, Prospect: “Financial weapons of mass destruction: Brexit and the looming derivatives threat” https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/economics-and-finance/financial-weapons-of-mass-destruction-brexit-and-the-looming-derivatives-threat
  21. The Vital Syllabus: “Transhumanism” https://londonfuturists.com/education/transhumanism/
  22. Anders Sandberg, Aleph: “Definitions of Transhumanism” https://web.archive.org/web/19970712091927/http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Intro/definitions.html
  23. Michael Eisen: “Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies” https://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358
  24. AutoML: “What is AutoML?” https://www.automl.org/automl/
  25. AutoML: “Team” https://www.automl.org/team/
  26. Tom Simonite, Wired: “Google’s Learning Software Learns to Write Learning Software” https://www.wired.com/story/googles-learning-software-learns-to-write-learning-software/
  27. Will Owen, Venture Beat: “AI tech drives transformation of F1 racing” https://venturebeat.com/2021/11/14/ai-tech-drives-transformation-of-f1-racing/
  28. Pallav Aggarwal: “Automated PCB design using Artificial Intelligence (AI)” https://pallavaggarwal.in/automated-pcb-design-using-ai/
  29. Jonah Comstock, Pharma Phorum: “Insilico’s AI-discovered, AI-designed IPF drug enters Phase 1 trials” https://pharmaphorum.com/news/insilicos-ai-discovered-ai-designed-ipf-drug-enters-phase-1-trials/
  30. European Defence Agency: “Stronger communication & radar systems with help of AI” https://eda.europa.eu/news-and-events/news/2020/08/31/stronger-communication-radar-systems-with-help-of-ai
  31. Richard W. Byrne and Nadia Corp, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: “Neocortex size predicts deception rate in primates” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691785/
  32. Stuart Russell: Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44767248-human-compatible
  33. IMDb: “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/
  34. Corporate Finance Institute: “Flash Crashes” https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/finance/flash-crashes/
  35. Nicole Perlroth: This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49247043-this-is-how-they-tell-me-the-world-ends
  36. Wikipedia: “Tay (bot)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(bot)
  37. Leo Gao, Twitter: https://twitter.com/nabla_theta/status/1502783399622111234
  38. Rob Bensinger, Twitter: https://twitter.com/robbensinger/status/1503220020175769602
  39. Wikipedia: “Halting problem” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem
  40. Stephen M. Omohundro: “The Basic AI Drives” https://selfawaresystems.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/ai_drives_final.pdf
  41. Bruce Schneier: “Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard” https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_tex.html
  42. Wikipedia: “Three Laws of Robotics” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
  43. Wikipedia: “Trolley problem” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
  44. Social Progress Imperative: “Index Action Impact” https://www.socialprogress.org/
  45. Wikipedia: “Goodhart’s law” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
  46. Wikipedia: “Campbell’s law” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law
  47. Science Direct: “Gaia Hypothesis” https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/gaia-hypothesis
  48. Nick Bostrom: “Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?” https://www.simulation-argument.com/
  49. Ray Kurzweil: “The Law of Accelerating Returns” https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
  50. Stanislaw Ulam, American Mathematics Society: “John von Neumann, 1903-1957” https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1958-64-03/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5/S0002-9904-1958-10189-5.pdf
  51. Tim Harford, Forbes: “A Beautiful Theory” https://www.forbes.com/2006/12/10/business-game-theory-tech-cx_th_games06_1212harford.html
  52. William Poundstone: Prisoner’s Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29506.Prisoner_s_Dilemma
  53. Wikipedia: “Schrödinger’s cat” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
  54. Greg Hammett: “James Clerk Maxwell, essay on Determinism and Free Will (1873)” https://w3.pppl.gov/~hammett/Maxwell/freewill.html
  55. Wikipedia: “Maxwell’s equations” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations
  56. Singularity Group: “Our mission” https://www.su.org/about
  57. Ray Kurzweil, Penguin Books: “An Excerpt From The Singularity Is Near” https://web.archive.org/web/20180923051145/https://www.penguin.com/ajax/books/excerpt/9780143037880
  58. Alan Turing: “‘Intelligent machinery, a heretical theory’, a lecture given to ’51 Society’ at Manchester” https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk/publications-lectures-and-talks-amtb/amt-b-4
  59. Wikipedia: “Vernor Vinge” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge
  60. Nikola Danaylov, Singularity Weblog: “When Vernor Vinge Coined the Technological Singularity” https://www.singularityweblog.com/when-vernor-vinge-coined-the-technological-singularity/
  61. Vernor Vinge” “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” https://edoras.sdsu.edu/~vinge/misc/singularity.html
  62. David Brin: “Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism and Pessimism About the Human Future” http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/singularity.html
  63. Wikipedia: “David Brin” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brin
  64. LinkedIn: “David Wood: Futurist, catalyst, author, singularitarian” https://www.linkedin.com/in/dw2cco/
  65. OpenAI: “Jukebox” https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/
  66. OpenAI: “DALL·E 2” https://openai.com/dall-e-2/
  67. Carlos E. Perez, Medium: “AlphaZero: How Intuition Demolished Logic” https://medium.com/intuitionmachine/alphazero-how-intuition-demolished-logic-66a4841e6810
  68. Ferris Jabr, Scientific American: “Does Thinking Really Hard Burn More Calories?” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calories/
  69. Intel: “Neuromorphic Computing: Beyond Today’s AI” https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/research/neuromorphic-computing.html
  70. Hello Future (Orange): “Towards a less data and energy intensive AI” https://hellofuture.orange.com/en/towards-a-less-data-and-energy-intensive-ai/
  71. Wikipedia: “William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin
  72. Zapatopi: “Interview: Utter Impracticability of Aeronautics & Favorable Opinion on Wireless” http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/interview_aeronautics_and_wireless.html
  73. Tony Czarnecki, Sustensis: “Immature Superintelligence” https://sustensis.co.uk/malevolent-immature-superintelligence/
  74. Wikipedia: “Great Disappointment” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment
  75. Jo Walton, Tor: “Murder in deep time: Vernor Vinge’s Marooned in Realtimehttps://www.tor.com/2009/08/07/vernor-vinges-marooned-in-realtime/
  76. Graeme MacKay, MacKay Cartoons: “Be sure to wash your hands and all will be well” https://i0.wp.com/mackaycartoons.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020-0311-NATrevised2sm.jpg
  77. Graeme MacKay, MacKay Cartoons: “Wednesday March 11, 2020” https://mackaycartoons.net/2020/03/18/wednesday-march-11-2020/
  78. Alexander Kruel, Twitter https://twitter.com/XiXiDu/status/1261607019720646657
  79. Wikipedia: “The Denial of Deathhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death
  80. Vital Syllabus: “Top Level Areas” https://londonfuturists.com/education/vital-syllabus/
  81. Rob Toews, Forbes: “Synthetic Data Is About To Transform Artificial Intelligence” https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2022/06/12/synthetic-data-is-about-to-transform-artificial-intelligence/
  82. Hal Hodson, New Scientist: “Google’s DeepMind AI can lip-read TV shows better than a pro” https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113299-googles-deepmind-ai-can-lip-read-tv-shows-better-than-a-pro/
  83. Stanislas Dehaene: How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine… for Now https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46064083-how-we-learn
  84. Alex Eben Meyer, The New York Times: “Meet GPT-3. It Has Learned to Code (and Blog and Argue).” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/science/artificial-intelligence-ai-gpt3.html
  85. nullc, YCombinator Hacker News: “It seems that GPT-3 has its own sense of humor, more of an anti-humor in fact. It is better in bulk.” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24007784
  86. Jason Brownlee, Machine Learning Mastery: “18 Impressive Applications of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)” https://machinelearningmastery.com/impressive-applications-of-generative-adversarial-networks/
  87. Insilico Medicine, “Combining GANs and reinforcement learning for drug discovery” https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/imi-cga050918.php
  88. Wikipedia: “Genetic algorithm” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm
  89. Sam Shead, Business Insider: “The incredible life of DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis, the computer whiz who sold his AI lab to Google for £400 million” https://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-life-of-deepmind-cofounder-demis-hassabis-2017-5
  90. Demis Hassabis, Dharshan Kumaran, Christopher Summerfield, and Matt Botvinick, DeepMind: “Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence” https://www.deepmind.com/publications/neuroscience-inspired-artificial-intelligence
  91. Jeff Hawkins: A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54503521-a-thousand-brains
  92. Liqun Luo, Nautilus: “Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient?” http://nautil.us/issue/59/connections/why-is-the-human-brain-so-efficient
  93. Intel: “Neuromorphic Computing: Beyond Today’s AI” https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/research/neuromorphic-computing.html
  94. Will Knight, MIT Technology Review: “Quantum computing should supercharge this machine-learning technique” https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/13/136628/quantum-computing-should-supercharge-this-machine-learning-technique/
  95. BBVA: “How may quantum computing affect Artificial Intelligence?” https://www.bbva.com/en/how-may-quantum-computing-affect-artificial-intelligence/
  96. Affectiva: “Humanizing technology to bridge the gap between humans and machines” https://www.affectiva.com/
  97. Mark Solms: The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53642061-the-hidden-spring
  98. Susan Schneider: Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44526011-artificial-you
  99. Anil Seth: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53036979-being-you
  100. David J. Chalmers: Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58085215-reality
  101. Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie: The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204378-the-book-of-why
  102. Jesus Rodriguez, Medium: “A Gentle Introduction to Probabilistic Programming Languages” https://medium.com/swlh/a-gentle-introduction-to-probabilistic-programming-languages-bf1e19042ab6
  103. Stuart Russell, CogX2021: “Cutting Edge: The next wave: Probabilistic programming” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYFbPQiLlxk
  104. “About SingularityNET” https://singularitynet.io/aboutus/
  105. Steven Levy, Wired: “Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s Future, From Virtual Reality to Anonymity” https://www.wired.com/2014/04/zuckerberg-f8-interview/
  106. Stuart Russell: Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44767248-human-compatible
  107. Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, Big Think: “What AI cannot do” https://bigthink.com/the-future/what-ai-cannot-do/
  108. Adam Satariano and Cade Metz, New York Times: “A Warehouse Robot Learns to Sort Out the Tricky Stuff” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/technology/warehouse-robot.html
  109. Wikipedia: “Christopher Columbus” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
  110. Wikipedia: “Bartolomeu Dias” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias
  111. Irving John Good: “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine” http://web.archive.org/web/20010527181244/http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/Authors/Computing/Good-IJ/SCtFUM.html
  112. I. J.Good, “Speculations on Perceptrons and other Automata” https://dominoweb.draco.res.ibm.com/reports/rc115.pdf
  113. Wikipedia: “68–95–99.7 rule” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rule
  114. Peter Thal Larsen, Financial Times: “Goldman pays the price of being big” https://www.ft.com/content/d2121cb6-49cb-11dc-9ffe-0000779fd2ac
  115. John B. Taylor and John C. Williams, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco: “A Black Swan in the Money Market” https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/files/wp08-04bk.pdf
  116. Dawn Connelly, The Pharmaceutical Journal: “A history of aspirin” https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/infographics/a-history-of-aspirin
  117. Wikipedia: “Category: Drugs with unknown mechanisms of action” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drugs_with_unknown_mechanisms_of_action
  118. Matt Turek, Darpa: “Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)” https://www.darpa.mil/program/explainable-artificial-intelligence
  119. Arvind Narayanan: “Tutorial: 21 fairness definitions and their policies” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIXIuYdnyyk
  120. Javier Zarracina, Vox: “The case against equality of opportunity” https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunity
  121. Peter Strozniak, Industry Week: “Toyota Alters Face Of Production” https://www.industryweek.com/operations/continuous-improvement/article/21947002/toyota-alters-face-of-production
  122. JBS Haldane: “Daedalus, or, Science and the Future” https://www.marxists.org/archive/haldane/works/1920s/daedalus.htm
  123. David W. Wood: Sustainable Superabundance: A Universal Transhumanist Invitation https://transpolitica.org/projects/abundance-manifesto/
  124. Daniel Susskind: A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51300408-a-world-without-work
  125. The United Nations: “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
  126. Wikipedia: “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights
  127. David W. Wood: Sustainable Superabundance: A Universal Transhumanist Invitation https://transpolitica.org/projects/abundance-manifesto/
  128. David W. Wood: “Introduction to Landmines” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zsUedvrVnY
  129. UK Office for National Statistics: “Well-being” https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/
  130. pjammer: “Accelerating Change 2005” https://web.archive.org/web/20060327005000/http://pjammer.livejournal.com/151502.html
  131. Nick Bostrom: “The Vulnerable World Hypothesis” https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf
  132. Mothers Against Drunk Driving: “No More Victims” https://www.madd.org/
  133. Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office https://www.ipco.org.uk/
  134. The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament https://isc.independent.gov.uk/
  135. Bruce Schneier, New York Intelligencer: “Click Here to Kill Everyone” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/01/the-internet-of-things-dangerous-future-bruce-schneier.html
  136. David W. Wood: “Transcending Politics Preview” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lJYyEdiwOM
  137. Thomas W. Malone: Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36204268-superminds
  138. David W. Wood: Transcending Politics: A Technoprogressive Roadmap to a Comprehensively Better Future https://transpolitica.org/projects/transcending-politics/
  139. Vital Syllabus: “Top Level Areas” https://londonfuturists.com/education/vital-syllabus/
  140. Vital Syllabus: “FAQ” https://londonfuturists.com/education/vital-syllabus/faq/
  141. Clemency Burton-Hill, The Guardian: “The superhero of artificial intelligence: can this genius keep it in check?” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/16/demis-hassabis-artificial-intelligence-deepmind-alphago
  142. David Silver, Satinder Singh, Doina Precup, and Richard S. Sutton, Artificial Intelligence: “Reward is enough” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370221000862
  143. Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten: “My Bet: AI Size Solves Flubs” https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/my-bet-ai-size-solves-flubs
  144. Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell, Operations Research: “Heuristic Problem Solving: The Next Advance in Operations Research” https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/opre.6.1.1
  145. A.M. Turing Award: “Allen Newell, United States – 1975” https://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/newell_3167755.cfm
  146. The Nobel Prize: “Press release: Studies of Decision-Making lead to Prize in Economics” https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1978/press-release/
  147. Alan Levinovitz, Wired: “The Mystery of Go, the Ancient Game That Computers Still Can’t Win” https://www.wired.com/2014/05/the-world-of-computer-go/
  148. Cade Metz, Wired: “What the AI behind AlphaGo can teach us about being human” https://www.wired.com/2016/05/google-alpha-go-ai/
  149. Metaculus: “Welcome!” https://www.metaculus.com/
  150. Anthony Aguirre, Future of Life Institute: “Predicting the Future (of Life)” https://futureoflife.org/2016/01/24/predicting-the-future-of-life/
  151. IARPA: “ACE: Aggregative Contingent Estimation” http://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/ace
  152. Good Judgment: “See the future sooner” https://goodjudgment.com/
  153. Metaculus: “FAQ” https://www.metaculus.com/help/faq/
  154. Metaculus: “Date Weakly General AI is Publicly Known” https://www.metaculus.com/questions/3479/date-weakly-general-ai-system-is-devised/
  155. Metaculus: “‘Silver’ Turing Test be passed by 2026” https://www.metaculus.com/questions/73/will-the-silver-turing-test-be-passed-by-2026/
  156. Metaculus: “What will be the best score in the 2019/2020 Winograd Schema AI challenge” https://www.metaculus.com/questions/644/what-will-be-the-best-score-in-the-20192020-winograd-schema-ai-challenge/
  157. Keisuke Sakaguchi, Ronan Le Bras, Chandra Bhagavatula, and Yejin Choi, Computer Science: “WinoGrande: An Adversarial Winograd Schema Challenge at Scale” https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.10641
  158. Metaculus: “Date of Artificial General Intelligence” https://www.metaculus.com/questions/5121/date-of-general-ai/
  159. Model Space: “Ferrari 312 T4 | 1:8 Model | Full Kit” https://web.archive.org/web/20210613075708/https://www.model-space.com/us/build-the-ferrari-312-t4-model-car.html
  160. Dan Hendrycks, Collin Burns, Steven Basart, Andy Zou, Mantas Mazeika, Dawn Song, and Jacob Steinhardt, Computer Science: “Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding” https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.03300
  161. Dan Hendrycks, Steven Basart, Saurav Kadavath, Mantas Mazeika, Akul Arora, Ethan Guo, Collin Burns, Samir Puranik, Horace He, Dawn Song, and Jacob Steinhardt, Computer Science: “Measuring Coding Challenge Competence With APPS” https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.09938
  162. J. Mehra: “‘Golden Age of Theoretical Physics’: P.A.M Dirac’s Scientific Work from 1924 to 1933” https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/4661346
  163. Theodosius Dobzhansky, The American Biology Teacher: “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/2/text_pop/l_102_01.html
  164. Gary Marcus, Substack: “Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI” https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/dear-elon-musk-here-are-five-things
  165. Michael Shick, Fast Company: “Wozniak: Could a Computer Make a Cup of Coffee?” https://www.fastcompany.com/1568187/wozniak-could-computer-make-cup-coffee
  166. Stanford University AI Index: “Ground the conversation about AI in data” https://aiindex.stanford.edu/
  167. Tortoise Media: “The Global AI Index” https://www.tortoisemedia.com/intelligence/global-ai/
  168. OECD AI Policy Observatory: “AI Index Report 2021” https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/documents/ai-index-report-2021
  169. Lord Acton Quote Archive: “Power and Authority” https://www.acton.org/research/lord-acton-quote-archive
  170. Transpolitica: “Anticipating tomorrow’s politics” https://transpolitica.org/
  171. London Futurists: “Serious analysis of radical scenarios for the next 40 years” https://londonfuturists.com/

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Since its formation, Transpolitica has run a number of different projects aimed at building momentum behind a technoprogressive vision for a better politics. For a new decade, it’s time to take a different approach, to build on previous initiatives.

The planned new vehicle has the name “RAFT 2035”.

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When turbulent waters are bearing down fast, it’s very helpful to have a sturdy raft at hand.

The fifteen years from 2020 to 2035 could be the most turbulent of human history. Revolutions are gathering pace in four overlapping fields of technology: nanotech, biotech, infotech, and cognotech, or NBIC for short. In combination, these NBIC revolutions offer enormous new possibilities – enormous opportunities and enormous risks:…

Rapid technological change tends to provoke a turbulent social reaction. Old certainties fade. New winners arrive on the scene, flaunting their power, and upturning previous networks of relationships. Within the general public, a sense of alienation and disruption mingles with a sense of profound possibility. Fear and hope jostle each other. Whilst some social metrics indicate major progress, others indicate major setbacks. The claim “You’ve never had it so good” coexists with the counterclaim “It’s going to be worse than ever”. To add to the bewilderment, there seems to be lots of evidence confirming both views.

The greater the pace of change, the more intense the dislocation. Due to the increased scale, speed, and global nature of the ongoing NBIC revolutions, the disruptions that followed in the wake of previous industrial revolutions – seismic though they were – are likely to be dwarfed in comparison to what lies ahead.

Turbulent times require a space for shelter and reflection, clear navigational vision despite the mists of uncertainty, and a powerful engine for us to pursue our own direction, rather than just being carried along by forces outside our control. In short, turbulent times require a powerful “raft” – a roadmap to a future in which the extraordinary powers latent in NBIC technologies are used to raise humanity to new levels of flourishing, rather than driving us over some dreadful precipice.

The words just quoted come from the opening page of a short book that is envisioned to be published in January 2020. The chapters of this book are reworked versions of the scripts used in the recent “Technoprogressive roadmap” series of videos.

Over the next couple of weeks, all the chapters of this proposed book will be made available for review and comment:

  • As pages on the Transpolitica website, starting here
  • As shared Google documents, starting here, where comments and suggestions are welcome.

RAFT Cover 21

All being well, RAFT 2035 will also become a conference, held sometime around the middle of 2020.

You may note that, in that way that RAFT 2035 is presented to the world,

  • The word “transhumanist” has moved into the background – since that word tends to provoke many hostile reactions
  • The word “technoprogressive” also takes a backseat – since, again, that word has negative connotations in at least some circles.

If you like the basic idea of what’s being proposed, here’s how you can help:

  • Read some of the content that is already available, and provide comments
    • If you notice something that seems mistaken, or difficult to understand
    • If you think there is a gap that should be addressed
    • If you think there’s a better way to express something.

Thanks in anticipation!

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