Futureslearning

MegaTrends

2009 Horizon Report

"who owns the sky?"" ... the Future is a Commons

"[N]ot every scientist thinks that evolution as it's now understood and applied is complete," writes Wired's Brandon Keim, "They want to scale it up to the level of populations, even whole ecosystems. Moreover, they say evolution is intertwined with other dynamics that science is just starting to understand."

Both these examples reveal a new push for topsight, or a broader perspective, enabled by a proliferation of scientific data, better computing, and new technologies like sensor networks that allow for the more specific mining of information from the system. The resulting knowledge will yet again refine our view of the system, thus bettering our ability to simulate our future and perhaps turning upside-down our notions of what truly constitutes a human. In turn, it may exert a profound effect on the assumptions we have made in regard to concepts like Artificial Intelligence, nature, technology, singularities, and life itself.