Why Dungeons & Dragons (not Star Trek) Predicts the Future of Technology

Dungeons & Dragons (not Star Trek)Predicts Our Future

Rob ConeybeerShasta Ventures

How to Make Big Money

Right 1.5x 20x+

Wrong 0 0

Consensus Contrarian

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”– Peter Thiel

Star Trek

• Spacecraft– Impulse drive (STL)– Warp drive (FTL)

• Teleportation• Robots & AI

Impulse Drive

• Slower-than-light (STL)• Energy to accelerate

one ton to 10% of lightspeed: 0.45 EJ

• Energy released in Tsar Bomba (1961): 0.24 EJ

Warp Drive

• Faster-than-light (FTL)• Estimated energy to

create a small warp bubble: 65 EJ

• Energy used by the entire U.S. in 2013: 103 EJ

Teleportation

• Human body:– 1027 atoms– 1045 bits

• billion-trillion-trillion Terabyte-capacity hard drive

Robots & AI

A computer just passed the Turing Test in landmark trial– June 9, 2014

“We are proud to declare that Alan Turing’s Test was passed for the first time on Saturday,” declared Kevin Warwick, a visiting professor at the University of Reading, which organized the event at the Royal Society in London. “In the field of Artificial Intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human.”

Star Trek

• Spacecraft– Impulse drive (STL)– Warp drive (FTL)

• Teleportation• Robots & AI

Dungeons & Dragons

• Enchanted Objects• Casting Spells• Flying Creatures• Bioengineered

Organisms

Enchanted Objects

Magic Wands

Invisibility

Army tests James Bond style tank that is ‘invisible’– October, 2007

New technology that can make tanks invisible has been unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.In secret trials last week, the Army said it had made a vehicle completely disappear.

Magic Mirrors

Flying Creatures

Bioengineered Organisms

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”– Arthur C. Clarke

“Magic, like everything else, has rules.”– Watt-Evans’ Fifth Law

of Fantasy

Modern Enchanted Objects

• Device energy budgets dominated by wireless• Assume 100mW power draw/device– non-stop, for 1 year

• Each device draws 3.15 x 106 J/yr• One Warp Drive (65 EJ) could power 20 Trillion

modern enchanted objects for a year

Dungeons & Dragons

• Enchanted Objects• Casting Spells• Flying Creatures• Bioengineered

Organisms

So what are the implications?(3:40pm on the “Future Of” stage)

Rob ConeybeerShasta Ventures

@robconeybeerhttp://280.vc