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(Kahn & Wiener, 1967).
© 2004
Lesson 1: Forecasting in certain domains of the modern environment is highly predictable
© 2004

Los Angeles Palo Alto
Intro to Future Studies
Four Types of Future Studies
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Exploratory (Speculative Literature, Art) Agenda-Driven (Institutional, Strategic Plans) Consensus-Driven (Political, Trade Organizations) Research-Predictive (Stable Developmental Trends)
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© 2004
Observation 1: The “Prediction Wall”



The faster change goes, the shorter-term our average business plans. Ten-year plans (1950's) have been replaced with ten-week (quarterly) plans (2000's). Future appears very contingent, on average. There is a growing inability of human minds to imagine some aspects of our future, a time that must apparently include greater-than-human technological sophistication and intelligence. Judith Berman, in "Science Fiction Without the Future," 2001, notes that even most science fiction writers have abandoned attempts to portray the accelerated technological world of fifty years hence.
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© 2004
Relative Growth Rates are Also Amazingly Predictable
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Brad DeLong (2003) noted that memory density predictably outgrows microprocessor density, which predictably outgrows wired bandwidth, which predictably outgrows wireless. Expect: 1st: New Storage Apps, 2nd: New Processing Apps, 3rd: New Communications Apps, 4th: New Wireless Apps © 2004
Thought Question: Is annual economic growth a function of exponential technological surprise interfacing with human expectation? (Remember: Efficient market hypothesis in Economics would predict zero annual growth)
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Richard Albright, ―What can Past Technology Forecasts Tell Us About the Future?‖, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Jan 2002 © 2004
© 2004
Los Angeles Palo Alto
Observation 2: The Prediction Crystal Ball
What does hindsight tell us about prediction? The Year 2000 was the most intensive long range prediction effort of its time, done at the height of the forecasting/ operations research/ cybernetics/ think tank (RAND) driven/ ―instrumental rationality‖ era of future studies

The last is the critical one for acceleration studies and singularity studies
It is also the only one generating falsifiable hypotheses


Accelerating and increasingly efficient, autonomous, miniaturized, and localized computation is apparently a fundamental meta-stable universal developmental trend. Or not. That is a key hypothesis we seek to address.
Los Angeles Palo Alto
© 2004
Institute for the Study of Accelerating Change

ISAC () is a nonprofit community of scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, administrators, educators, analysts, humanists, and systems theorists discussing and dissecting accelerating change.
Example: Information and Communication Technologies
Evaluating the predictions of The Year 2000, technology roadmapper Richard Albright notes:
―Forecasts in computers and communication stood out as about 80% correct, while forecasts in all other fields (social, political, etc.) were judged to be less than 50% correct.‖ Why? Here TY2000 used trend extrapolation (simple). The major ICT change they missed was e massive ―network transition,‖ to decentralized vs. centralized computing.
Many Technology-Related Transformations are Amazingly Predictable
Miniaturization (per linear dimension) Price Performance in Computing (Moore‘s Law) Input-Output, Storage, Bandwidth Network Node Density (Poor‘s Law) Protein Structure Solution (Dickerson‘s Law) Algorithmic Efficiency (Statistical NLP, etc.) Software Performance (6 year doubling) Economic Growth (2-4% year, over long spatial scales)

We practice ―developmental future studies,‖ that is, we seek to discover a set of persistent factors, stable trends, convergent capacities, and highly probable scenarios for our common future, and to use this information now to improve our daily evolutionary choices.
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Systems Theory
Systems Theorists Make Things Simple (sometimes too simple!)
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." — Albert Einstein
Specifically, these include accelerating intelligence, immunity, and interdependence in our global sociotechnological systems, increasing technological autonomy, and the increasing intimacy of the human-machine, physical-digital interface.