Introduction
We stand at the most critical moment in human history since the Big Bang. After 250 years of accelerating technological change, the intelligence explosion is arriving decades ahead of schedule, offering humanity unprecedented power to transform our world. Where we harness these revolutionary technologies to create a post-scarcity, solved world where humanity thrives—or watch as […]
#1: Understanding Exponentials
As mentioned in our introduction one of the goals with this book is to bring readers key concepts without which it is virtually impossible to understand today’s world. One such concept is understanding the importance of exponential change as compared with linear change. Indeed, we believe that it is impossible to understand today’s world using […]
#2: The Future Has Been Arriving for 75 Years
Understanding the Intelligence Explosion Leading to the ChatGPT Moment While for some, today’s obsession with Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to have happened overnight, you may be surprised to discover that the development of this intelligence explosion has been discussed and anticipated since the 1950s. In this chapter, we will highlight the thinking of five polymaths […]
#3: The Future is Here!! The Age of AI has Begun!!
Generative & Agentic AI are Transforming our World When historians look back on our day, they will conclude that November 30, 2022, was the day that human beings kicked off the creation of new forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that launched the most consequential transformation of our world in human history. If humanity learns how […]
#4: The Future is Here and So Is Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)
Superintelligence Has Arrived or is Imminent The big debate among technologists for decades has been about when humanity will achieve the more powerful forms of machine intelligence, such as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), where AGI can perform any intellectual task that a human can do, across a wide range of domains, […]
#5: Living Into Super Abundance
Is It Time to Rethink the Field of Economics? Economics is often described as the study of the distribution of scarce resources. In a world of exponential technological change, shouldn’t we be teaching about the possibility of living in a world of abundance? Or of living in a world where there is no need to […]
#7: The Great Filter Theory
From the Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961 “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” Max Tegmark of MIT’s Future of Life Institute is far more succinct. In his book […]
#8: Long Termism: Living at the Hinge of History
In his book Our Final Hour, Lord Martin Rees suggested that those of us alive today are living at the most important time since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. We agree 1,000 per cent with Lord Rees and think it is fundamentally important that every educator, every parent, and every human being understand […]
#9: 125 Years of Successful Technological Transformation is Coming to a Head
From Homo Technicus to Homo Sapiens Introduction Many of the challenges we face today are a result of our success as a species or more accurately our success as Homo Technicus. There would be no climate change challenge if we had continued on the same path we had been on for the previous 200,000 years […]
#10: The Urgent Need to Generate a Global Conversation on the Future of Humanity
One of the ways humanity will need to build wisdom worthy of the name of our species will be to build a global wisdom and sense of connectedness that has not been with us in the past. In the opening of his 2008 book Common Wealth, Jeffrey Sachs made clear how important the development of […]