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Meshing Developmental Evolution and Technology
Jerry23 writes "IT Conversations has free audio of a very provocative talk by futurist and developmental systems theorist, John Smart. He weaves a big-picture narrative featuring developmental evolution, technological acceleration, computational autonomy, the emergence and behavior of human social systems, why prediction has such a poor history, the unique growth properties of Information and Communication Technology and the limitations of biotech, finally culminating in his case for the inevitability of digital personality capture and a ubiquitous Linguistic User Interface. Among many other things, he asks 'What will Windows (and the Google Browser) of 2015 look like?'"
What will they look like? I really don't care.
Technology is going to progress, and by 2015 we'll have neat stuff, and by 2215 we'll have even neater stuff. End of story. It's not tied to Google or MS or anything else. It's tech.
Anyone theorizing about stuff now might as well go make their "predictions list" along with all the other Nostradmus' and people talking about flying cars.
What will Windows of 2015 look like?'
If history is any indication, it'll be a poorly implemented version of something mac users have been using since 2012. (I kid...only a little).
One massive virus, named meteor, will drive the dinosaur that is Microsoft Windows to extinction. It will seemlessly replace Windows XP with a copy of one of the many mature Linux distributions targeted at the desktop (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.). Microsoft's share of the desktop market will plummet to .2% in a matter of hours. Once the replacement is complete a message will be displayed to the user indicating that their PC has been liberated, and they will be informed of the Linux distribution and the desktop environment they are now using (Unbuntu Linux w/ Gnome for example). After 20 seconds they will be redirected to /. where they will immediately be subjected to someone posting a comment about how Gentoo is better than Ubuntu, or vice versa, and KDE is hands down better than Gnome. Enraged by the insult they will flame back calling the original poster and ass hat imbicile and although they have no idea what KDE is or how it compares with Gnome they're certain it sucks and if they ever do use it will only learn that they're original belief was true. And thus begins the successful entrenchment of Linux on the desktop. Only through the purity of a flamewar will the desktop be purged. 2007 cannot come soon enough. So sayeth the prophecies.
In a way, we do have our flying cars. It just turns out that most of us don't want/need/afford one parked in our driveway. A helicopter is essentially a flying car, but it's noisy, difficult to operate safely, and expensive to operate and maintain. Likewise, a jetliner is just a flying passenger train.
Nobody, including John Smart or Vernor Vinge, can make meaningful predictions any significant distance into the future. I think things are changing so fast now, that even 10-15 years into the future is almost inscrutable unless you're making very broad generalizations. You can say for sure: We'll have computers. They'll be real fast. But who knows what all we'll be doing with them.
Now with some good Intelligence Amplification, giving you the ability to consider the myriad variables and chart out many possibilities in future space, like a decision tree or a chess-playing program, and prune the unlikely ones, you can maybe construct a fuzzy map of the different courses the future will take. But you'll have to wait and see which one actually happens, just like everybody else.
Alright, I have to get back to brainwashing Jabberwacky ...
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Hi /.,
t ml
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For articles on the Linguistic User Interface see:
http://singularitywatch.com/lui.html
http://singularitywatch.com/promontorypoint.html
For more on Evolutionary Development:
http://singularitywatch.com/convergentevolution.h
If you find the topic of accelerating technological change fascinating and important you might enjoy our e-newsletter, Accelerating Times
http://accelerating.org/news/signup.php3
You might also wish to attend our annual fall conference at Stanford, Accelerating Change
Past conference public archives are at the website of our nonprofit, the Acceleration Studies Foundation:
http://accelerating.org/
We are still early in understanding our universal, cultural, and technological records of accelerating change, and this topic may be the most important and valuable one we could consider, as change and its opportunities may come faster every year forward for the rest of our lives.
We'd love any of you with interest in these fascinating topics to join our community.
Hope to meet some of you at Stanford in September.
Best,
John Smart
President, ASF
I always love it when smart people "think" they know biology. They always assume that mammals are the pinnacle of evolution, and that man is the ultimate mammal. Two eyes better than many? Obvioulsy this guy has never actually looked at arthropods. Walking upright is the ultimate? Using that as a rule, his Troodont should have been the master. It did walk upright. Running aint everything. Pluse, Troodont and it's kin lasted for longer than the raptors. Not a fair comparison- the really bad day when a huge chunk of flaming rock wipes out 70% of all life on the planet makes all the "who is better" arguments literally go up in smoke. Why do we have two eyes? Bilateral symmetry does seem to be popular amoung terrestrial vetebrates. Not surprising, since all terestrial vertebrates are descendents of fish. Have not seen any fish with 3 fillets on em. I hate when people try and attach meaning and direction to evolution. Evolution direction. There is no anti-entropy going on, other that the usual eating/sleeping/procreating. Ask Flipper if walking upright is a requirement for sentince. I cannot comment on his views on computing, but he comes across as a poseur to this biologist.