Dungeons & Dragons (not Star Trek) Predicts Our Future Rob Coneybeer Shasta Ventures
Why Dungeons & Dragons (not Star Trek) Predicts the Future of Technology
Sep 05, 2014
As the Internet of Things becomes the Internet of Everything, we're entering a world where every object becomes an enchanted object. With the advent of essentially free computation, memory, and wireless technology, Internet connectivity will be woven into everything valuable enough to be bought, sold, or stolen. People who write code are the sorcerers of tomorrow.
Humanity’s future as a spacefaring species isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Fundamental physical constraints are held back by advances in energy technology that increase at only 3-5% per year, versus the 18-month doubling in electronics due to Moore’s Law. Together with advances in biotechnology, and virtual reality headsets that (literally) make your head spin, our future technology of the next 100 years is going to follow a virtual and literal path of Dungeons and Dragons, not spaceflight.
A world of enchanted objects is already arriving – thermostats that program themselves, phones that retrieve and display information based on voice commands, cars and planes that drive themselves – all of these things impact every part of our lives.
Humanity’s future as a spacefaring species isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Fundamental physical constraints are held back by advances in energy technology that increase at only 3-5% per year, versus the 18-month doubling in electronics due to Moore’s Law. Together with advances in biotechnology, and virtual reality headsets that (literally) make your head spin, our future technology of the next 100 years is going to follow a virtual and literal path of Dungeons and Dragons, not spaceflight.
A world of enchanted objects is already arriving – thermostats that program themselves, phones that retrieve and display information based on voice commands, cars and planes that drive themselves – all of these things impact every part of our lives.
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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
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