Innovation, Learning, and Sustainability A Framework for Thinking about the Universe, You, and Foresight in a World of Accelerating Technological Change Ten Years Hence Mendoza College of Business Jan 2009 University of Notre Dame John Smart, President, Acceleration Studies Foundation Slides: accelerating.org/slides.html
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Innovation, Learning, and Sustainability A Framework for Thinking about the Universe, You, and Foresight in a World of Accelerating Technological Change.
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Innovation, Learning, and Sustainability
A Framework for Thinking about the Universe, You, and Foresight in a World of Accelerating Technological Change
Ten Years HenceMendoza College of BusinessJan 2009 University of Notre Dame
John Smart, President, Acceleration Studies FoundationSlides: accelerating.org/slides.html
ASF (Accelerating.org) is a small nonprofit community of scholars (est. 2003) exploring accelerating change in:1. Science, Technology, Business, and Society
(STBS), at
2. Personal, Organizational, Societal, Global, and Universal (POSGU) levels of analysis.
We practice evolutionary developmental (“evo devo”) futures studies, a model of change that proposes the universe contains both: 1. Convergent and predictable developmental forces and
trends that direct and constrain our long-range future and 2. Contingent and unpredictable evolutionary choices we
may use to create unique and creative paths (many of which will fail) on the way to these highly probable developmental destinations.
Some developmental trends that may be intrinsic to the future of complex systems on Earth include:– Accelerating intelligence, interdependence and immunity
in our global sociotechnological systems– Increasing technological autonomy, and – Increasing intimacy of the human-machine and physical-
Q: How many of the lowest net-worth Americans would it take to approximate Bill Gate’s net worth?
Roughly 110 million Americans in 1997, when his net worth was $40 billion. At $30 billion presently (2005), Mr. Gates ranks roughly as the 60th largest country, and the 55th largest business. When MSFT went public in 1986, Bill was worth $230 million.
NYU economist Edward Wolff (See also Top Heavy, 2002)
Q: Disney and Sony (respectively) produce and launch one new product every _________?
Three minutes for Disney.Twenty minutes for Sony.
Elizabeth Debold, What is Enlightenment?, March-May 2005
Our Topics
1. Foresight Development 2. Evolution and Development 3. The Evo Info Devo Triad 4. Our Global Goal: Sustainable Innovation 5. Accelerating Change 6. Automation and Tech Curves 7. 2020-2050 Scenarios
Foresight DevelopmentWhat It Is and Why You Want It
● Foresight, also known as futures studies (FS) is a transdisciplinary educational program that seeks to reliably improve one's ability to anticipate, create, and manage change.
● It can be practiced in a variety of domains (scientific, technological, environmental, economic, political and societal), on a variety of levels/scales (personal, organizational, societal, global, universal), and with a variety of disciplines/specialties (theories and methods).
● Anticipating, creating, and managing change in our increasingly fast-paced, technological and globalized world is a difficult yet worthy challenge.
Alternative FuturesCross Impact and Pattern AnalysisCritical Futures and CLADevelopment and Acceleration StudiesEmerging Issues/ Technology AnalysisEthnographic FuturesForecasting and Modeling (basic)Foresight Frameworks and FoundationsHistory and Analysis of PredictionHorizon Scanning and Competitive Intell.Images of the FuturePersonal Futures/ Foresight DevelopmentPrediction MarketsPredictive Surveys/ DelphiRoadmappingScenario Development and BackcastingScenario PlanningStrategic ForesightSystems ThinkingTranshumanist/ Ethics of Emerging TechTrend Extrapolation and Learning CurvesVisioning, Intuition, and CreativityWeak SignalsWildcards
Actuarial Science and Risk AssessmentCognitive and Positive PsychologyCollaboration, Facil., and Peace/Conflict StudiesComplexity, Evo Devo and Systems StudiesCritical and Evidence-Based ThinkingEthics and Values StudiesEvolution StudiesForecasting and Modeling (advanced)Futures, Sci-Fi, Utopian, and Dystopian Lit StudiesInnovation and Entrepreneurship StudiesIntegral Studies and ThinkingInvesting and Finance (Long-Term)Leadership Studies and Organizational DevelopmntLibrary Science, KM, and Decision SupportLong-Range and Urban PlanningPolitical Science and Policy StudiesProbabilistic (Statistical) PredictionPreferential Surveys/Polls and Market ResearchReligious Studies (Future Beliefs)Science and Technology StudiesSocially Responsible / Triple Bottom Line Mgmt.Sociology, Demographics and Social ChangeStrategic PlanningSustainability Studies
Other Foresight-Related Specialties (45, a partial list) Anthropology | Architecture | Astrobiology | Biological Sciences | Bioethics | Biotechnology | Business Administration | Chemical Sciences | Cliometrics | Computer Modeling and Simulation | Computer Science | Contemporary/Cultural Studies | Cybernetics | Decision Analysis/Decision Theory | Defense/National Security Studies | Development | Disaster/ Catastrophic Risk Management | Economics and Econometrics | Education | Engineering | Evolutionary Biology | Game Theory | Gambling Studies | Generational Studies | Geography | History | History and Philosophy of Science and Technology | Information Science | Investing and Finance (Short-Term) | Knowledge Management | Library Science (general) | Management | Management Science | Media and Communications | Marketing | Mathematics | Operations Research | Philosophy | Physical Sciences | Psychology (general) | Psychographics | Statistics (general) | Technology Policy | Tourism | Urban Studies
Primary and Secondary Specialties Classified by Amara’s 3P’s/Evo Devo Foresight Framework
Roy Amara's 3P's framework can be used to group specialties that explore the Possible future (what could happen), the Preferable future (what we want) and the Probable future (what seems likely, even in spite of our personal plans). This is also an Evo Devo framework, dividing foresight into "Evolutionary" (possible), "Developmental" (probable), and "Evo Devo" (preferable) futures.
Three Primary Foresight SkillsFuture Creation, Discovery, and Management
Futures Studies is concerned with “three P’s and a W”, or Possible, Probable, and Preferable futures, plus Wildcards (low-probability but high-impact events).
In other words, futurists try to create, discover, and manage (“CDM”) the future.
Creation (“Possible”)– personal, collective, and entrepreneurial tools and strategies
for imagining and creating experimental futures, innovation, exploratory research and development, creative thinking, social networking
Discovery (“Probable” and “Wildcards”)– forecasting methods, metrics, statistical trends, history of
prediction, technology roadmapping, science and systems theory, risk analysis, marketing research
Evo Devo Universe: For Scholars of Evolutionary and Developmental Processes in the Universe
EvoDevoUniverse.com is a global community of physicists, chemists, biologists, cognitive and social scientists, technologists, philosophers, and complexity and systems theorists who are interested in better characterizing the relationship and difference between evolutionary (mostly unpredictable) and developmental (significantly predictable) processes in the universe and its subsystems.
Evolutionary processes in biology, and perhaps also in physical, chemical, cultural, technological, and universal systems, are stochastic (random within constraints), creative, divergent (variation creating), contingent, nonlinear, and unpredictable.
This intrinsic unpredictability may be our most useful quantitative definition and discriminator of evolutionary processes at all systems levels.
Note: Evolution is NOT natural selection, in this definition. Its fundamental dynamic is change and variation (within constraints). It is a creativity generator, and thus a precursor to natural selection.
Example: Genetic drift in neutral theory (Kimura 1983; Leigh 2007).
Developmental processes in biology, and we assume also in physical, chemical, cultural, technological, and universal systems, are directional, hierarchical, constraining, convergent, integrative, self-assembling/self-organizing, and statistically predictable if you have the right empirical or theoretical aids.
This systemic predictability may be our most useful quantitative definition and discriminator of developmental processes at all systems levels.
Development also has a cyclical hierarchy: birth, growth, maturation, reproduction, senescence, death (recycling).
Note: Development is NOT natural selection, in this definition. It is convergent unifier, and thus a specialized outcome of natural selection.
Evo-devo biology seeks to resolve the differences between evolutionary and developmental processes spanning the scales of cells, organisms and ecologies (Carroll 2005, many others).
Recalling Teilhard’s (1955) evocative phrase, ‘cosmic embryogenesis,’ if the Big Bang acts like a seed, and the expanding universe like an embryo, it must use both stochastic, contingent, and local/micro ‘adaptational’ processes—what we are calling evolution—in its elaboration of form and function, just as we see at the molecular scale in any embryo.
Embryos also transition through a set of statistically predictable, convergent, and global/macro differentiation milestones, then reproduction, senescence, and the unavoidable termination of somatic (body) life—what we are calling development.
If the evo devo analogy has homology, there must be unpredictable creativity and predictable developmental milestones, reproduction, and ending to our universe.
An EDU Analogy: Genetically Identical Twins and Parametrically Identical Universes
• In genetically identical twins, organogenesis, fingerprints, brain wiring, learned ideas, behaviors, many local, microscopic processes are unpredictably unique in each twin (Jain 2002). Yet many global, macroscopic processes are predictably the same.
• Would parametrically identical universes also be mostly and locally unique, yet with predictable global and macroscopic similarities? This is a question for future simulation science.
The Hypothesis: (Predictable and conservative) development is always different from but works with (unpredictable and creative) evolutionary processes. Both seem fundamental to universal complexity.
We can begin to model our universe as an information processing, evolutionary and developmental systemas an evo info devo universe (abbrev. evo devo universe hereafter). Our framework will try to reconcile the majority of unpredictable, evolutionary features of universal emergence with a subset of potentially statistically predictable and developmental universal trends, including:
Acceleration in universal complexity (e.g. Aunger 2007), a pattern seen over the last half—but not the first half—of the universe’s history
Increasing spatial and temporal locality of universal complexity development
Hierarchies of increasingly matter and energy efficient and matter and energy dense ‘substrates’ (platforms) for adaptation and computation
The apparent accelerating emergence, on Earth, of increasingly postbiological (technological) systems of physical transformation and computation.
Smart, John M. 2008. Evo Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture. In: Cosmos and Culture, Steven J. Dick (ed.), NASA Press (est. 2009).
Assumption: A universe of information (computationally complex patterns of physical STEM as adapted structure), with evolution and development as complementary modes of information processing in all complex adaptive systems, including the universe as a system.
Evo Devo Theory in Politics:Innovation vs. Sustainability (Both are Fundamental!)
Evo devo theory argues for process balance in political dialogs on Innovation and Sustainability
Developmental sustainability without continuous change/creativity creates sterility, clonality, overdetermination, and adaptive weakness (Maoism).
Evolutionary creativity (innovation) without sustainability creates chaos, entropy, and volatility that is not naturally stable/recycling (Unregulated Capitalism).
Evo Devo Theory in Politics:Republican vs. Democrat (Both are Fundamental!)
Evo devo theory suggests that both Republican and Democratic platforms bridge the evo devo political center in two complementary ways. That would make each integral, fundamental dialogs (among other integral evo devo mixes) that are likely to be long-term stable all cultures.
Republicans are Devo/Maintenance/Tradition on Social-Political IssuesEvo/Innovation/Freedom on Economic Issues
Democrats areEvo/Innovation/Freedom on Social-Political IssuesDevo/Maintenance/Tradition on Economic Issues
The Evo Info Devo TriadUniversal Values for Complex Systems?
Three functional processes(telos) can be observed in:
Physical Systems Chemical Systems Biological Systems Societal Systems Technological Systems Our Universe as a System
Using the EID model, we can look at complex adaptive systems as either: 1. Info Systems (making their evo and devo processes implicit), 2. Evo Devo Systems (making their info processing implicit), or3. Evo, Info and Devo Systems (keeping all three perspectives explicit).
Evo Info Devo (EID) Triad: At Least Three Universal Telos (Values/Goals/Drives/Ethics) Exist in Complex Systems
Innovation, Learning and Sustainability: They Are Not Phases, But Lifestyles.Systemic Imbalances in Western Society
We think Creativity is a “phase,” not a lifestyle. We emphasize it only in the first five years of life, and don’t try to develop it systematically during this phase or much after. Exceptions: Montessori, Waldorf.
We think Learning is a “phase,” not a lifestyle. It starts in “school” and ends when we “graduate.” Nevertheless, we get no training for innovation and sustainability behaviors to come. Exceptions: Continuing ed, personality assessments, lifelong learning communities, policies, metrics, and tests.
We think Sustainability is a “phase,” not a lifestyle. It starts when we graduate and get a job. It also takes a very narrow view of the term (org., economic and status quo ‘sustainability’). It neglects, not only personal, national and global sustainability, but also innovation and learning behaviors during and after our careers.
Evo Devo Foresight:Some Implications of the EDU Framework
Our History, Present, and Future can be rewritten as:– Evolutionary choices (Evo, 95%), developmental forces
(Devo, 5%) and the Learning/Simulation increase (Info, 100%) from their interaction
Evo, Info, and Devo Teleology. Innovation, learning, and sustainability goals, drives, and values constrain humans and our tech, and will constrain AIs to come.
Sustainable Innovation. Devo and evo polarized countries, parties, and people exist. We need both.
Seed, Org, Envir (SOE) Intelligence Partitioning. – Biological immortality is a major, mistaken fantasy– We need a new theory of identity/intelligence
Evo Devo Foresight:Some Implications of the Framework - II
Hierarchy and Acceleration. – We are in a purposeful, accelerative, emergent process.– Humans aren’t the end of the line. We will ‘pass the baton.’
STEM Compression will continue on Earth– Human cities will only get more STEM efficient/dense– STEM dense tech (nanotech) will continue to deliver
unreasonable returns Inner Space increasingly encompasses Outer Space
– Increasing importance of the human mind and heart (education, beliefs, philosophy) in culture, politics, economics
– Increasing growth in the value and capacity of the virtual, increasing virtual-physical and human-machine interface
– Importance of ‘gardening’ our technological extensions (they are the next inner space), and guiding their interaction with the current inner space (human consciousness).
The Costs of Accelerating Social Innovation:The Rise and Fall of Complex Societies
Mesopotamia, “Cradle of Civilization” (Modern Iraq: Assyrians, Babylonians, Sumerians) 6000 BC – 500 BC. Mineral salts from repeated irrigation, no crop rotation decimated farming by 2300 BC). Fertile no more.
Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde (Anasazi), 800 – 1200 CE (New Mexico, Colorado: trading, ceremonial, and industry hubs, wood depleted (100,000 timbers used in CC pueblos!), soil depleted (Chaco and Mesa Verde). No crop rotation. Unsupportable pop. for the agrotech.
Empire Developmental Progression: (Phase II: America to Asia)
American
Japan(Temporary: Pop density,Few youth, no resources.
East Asian Tigers(TaiwanHong KongSouth KoreaSingapore)
India
ChinaExpect a Singapore-style “Autocratic Capitalist” transition. Population control, plentiful resources,stunning growth rate, drive, and intellectual capital. U.S. science fairs: 50,000 high school kids/year. Chinese science fairs: 6,000,000 kids/year. Science is a strongly positive-sum game.
Big Question: If World Pop. is Saturating, & Energy Use Saturates with Income, Will Total Global Per Capita Energy Use Saturate?
In biological systems, energy flow stabilizes when a developmental phase is completed.
When will the development of our cybertwins outcompete development of our planet’s physical infrastructure?
When will per capita energy use become sustainability issue globally? It already is in sentinel countries like Switzerland (2,000-Watt Society).(Ausubel, J.H. et. al. (1988) Carbon dioxide emissions in a methane economy. Climatic Change 12:245-263)
Climate Sustainability and “Renewistan”: A Collossal Undertaking
Avg global citizen uses 2,000 watts. Europeans 6,000 watts. Americans 12,000 watts.Preindustrialization Atmospheric CO2: 296 ppm. Today: 385 ppm.Global TPES 16 tera(trillion)watts. 85% of this is fossil fuels, 15% renewables.What would limit increase to 450 ppm (and est. 2 °C temp increase?)To stop us at 450 ppm we’d have to reduce fossil fuel use to 3 terawatts by 2035. We
presently get 0.5 tw from hydro, 1 from nuclear.Renewable Energy “Wedge Strategy” Commitments If No Other Strategies: 2 tw from photovoltaic: “100 square meters of 15-percent-efficient solar cells
installed every second (30,000 sq. miles/yr x 25 yrs).” 2 tw from solar thermal: “50 square meters of 30-percent-efficient systems installed
every second (600 sq. miles/yr x 25 yrs).” 2 tw from wind: “One 300-foot-diameter wind turbine every five minutes
(105,000 turbines/yr x 25 yrs).” 2 tw from geothermal: “Three 100-megawatt steam turbines every day
(1,095 turbines/year x 25 yrs).” 3 tw from nuclear: “A three-reactor, 3-gigawatt plant every week
(52 plants a year x 25).”The land area needed for all these renewables (“Renewistan”) would occupy an area
the size of Australia and involve multi-trillion dollar global commitments.
Brand, S. (2009) Saul Griffith, “Climate Change Recalculated,” Long Now Blog.Morrow, K.J. (2008) Switzerland and the 2,000-Watt Society, Sustainability 1(1):32-33.
Socolow Wedges and Climate Mitigation: Fortunately a Range of Other Strategies Also Exist
Pacala S and Socolow R (2004) Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies, Science 305(5686):968-972.
Global Energy Consumption per Capita Saturation (Energy Intensity)
When per capita GDP reaches:• $3,000 – energy demand explodes as
industrialization and mobility take off,
• $10,000 – demand slows as the main spurt of industrialization is completed,
• $15,000 – demand grows more slowly than income as services dominate economic growth and basic household energy needs are met,
• $25,000 – economic growth requires little additional energy.
Later developers, using “leapfrogging technologies”, require far less time and energy to reach equivalent GDP.[1]
1. Energy Needs, Choices, and Possibilities: Scenarios to 2050, Shell Intnat’l, 2001;2. Exploring and Shaping International Futures, Hughes and Hillebrand, 2006, p. 29.
Alternative measure: In recent decades, global energy consumption has been growing increasingly slower than GDP (1% 1.5% ??).[2]
DOE/EIA data shows total world energy use growth rate peaked in the 1970’s. Real and projected total consumption is progressively flatter since.
Saturation factors: 1. Major conservation after OPEC (1973)2. Stunning energy efficiency of each new
generation of technological system3. Saturation of human population and
human needs for tech transformation
Royal Dutch/Shell notes that energy use declines dramatically proportional to per capita GDP in all cultures.
Steve Jurvetson notes (2003) the DOE estimates solid state lighting (eg. the organic LEDs in today's stoplights) will cut the world's energy demand for lighting in half over the next 20 years. Lighting is approximately 20% of energy demand.
Expect such STEM efficiencies in energy technology to be multiplied dramatically in coming years. Technology is becoming more energy-effective in ways very few of us currently understand.
Our Electric Future: Coal & Natural Gas Gen., Nanobatteries, and Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles
Nanobatteries can make electric car recharging almost as fast as gas tank filling. Tomorrow's capacitance-enhanced power grids have the ability to be even more decentralized than today's gasoline stations. Such decentralization will support even greater city densities.
“Driving Toward an Electric Future,” John Smart, 2006
Natural gas, already 20% of US energy consumption, is the fastest growing and most efficient component.
Nanobatteries recharge 80% in 60 seconds,keep 99% of their duty after 1,000 cycles.
Innovation, Patents, and Policyin Large vs. Small Companies
Large companies have an incentive to innovate and patent, but no incentive to implement unless:
a. Others can get around their innovation-blocking patentsb. Political efforts to eliminate or slow competition are failingc. Existing product lines are presently being threatenedd. Another large company is implementing (rare occurrence)
Toyota has announced a 100 mpg hybrid (the 1/X). They have no incentive to produce it until another big carmaker is doing the same. Meanwhile Toyota will lobby the US government to lower CAFÉ 2020 targets from 35 to 32 mpg. Laughable but grim.
Car co’s form innovation-blocking “partnerships” to promote premature, controllable, slow-to-deploy tech (H2 fuel cells) vs. effective, low-barrier-to-entry tech (electrics and plug-in hybrids).
Toyota will develop but won’t deploy a next-gen plug-in hybrid until forced to by other giants, rapidly growing small carmakers, or some other factor. Big leader’s strategy: “innovate and wait”
Some Solutions:Minimize oligopolies, mergers, size concentrationsLower barriers to entry (promote creative destruction) in industryMandate tough and increasing performance standardsLitigate against collusions to delay mandated technologies.Promote consumer information and informed buying decisionsPromote buying consortiums based on performance specsPromote corporate transparencyPromote public stock ownership
Marketing “The door-to-door airline alternative.” “Your inner and inter-city shuttle bus. For trips 8 hours or less.” “Free Wi-Fi, Movies, and First Class Sleeper/Work Seats.” “1/3 the cost, 5X better passenger MPG. Handle your own luggage gently.” “No ripoffs for last minute bookings. No cellphone/laptop bans. No TSA!”
Details Dodge (Mercedes) Sprinter conversions (like UPS conversion above). Super Shuttle automation (GPS and computerized routing systems). 210 passenger mpg (avg. 140 for buses, 40 for planes, 35 for solo cars). Five doors/side, nine passengers, each in visually separable compartments Four point harnesses (so you can sleep in a reclining position). Air shocks, seat shocks, and seat springs (3 layers of vibration insulation) Luggage stored directly above you, viewable through roof and lockable. Natural gas (60% of CO2, 80 cents less / gal. equiv). Proofs of Concept: Megabus, CA Shuttle Bus.Deserves Federal Leadership (Subsidies, Initial Marketing)Tens of billions in annual consumer savings, efficiencies.
Innovations and Learning that May Take Us to the Next Level of Sustainability
Science, Technology, Engrg, & Math (STEM) A national report card on “Technical Productivity” growth. Far more important
than GDP growth. We are “taxing the machines” (Faraday) far more than each other. Our annual National and Global growth in real technical wealth is far more important than growth in abstract economic wealth. Money is fiat, fickle and a proxy. Technical productivity/ intelligence is concrete. It is our primary survival variable.
Economy Dethrone Wall Street. 70-80% of our economy is private business, which need not
be short-term and growth-at-all-costs oriented, (public companies). Democratize/ improve access to private equity markets, social responsibility investing. 50% corp. tax reduction for US manufacturing. Require use of Other People’s Money by public corps to include invest. by corp. mgmt (skin-in-the-game). More corp. transparency.
Governance Accelaware govt leadership. Tie global development to zero (intrinsic) population
growth and tech productivity growth metrics. Revisit the constitution once a generation (Jefferson). More representative democracy (no electoral college, more parliamentary model). Politicians must fundraise 80% from (represent) their own districts, no prior campaign war chests, two-term limits.
Demographics Immigrate! Three million / yr x 40 yrs. US pop. 400-500M in 2050. End the “lazy
politician’s immigration system” currently in effect. Close the border, give easy asylum path for current illegal immigrants. Expand and clarify immigrant classes (guest worker, resident alien, citizen). Make 50% meritocratic. Allow many formal paths to citizenship (standard, PhD, business creation, political asylum, etc.). First and second gen. immigrants make the small businesses, learn and innovate harder. Recognize them for these natural advantages.