We live in an era of rapid changes, when scientific and technological advances appear, before you even have time to blink an eye. As a result, we are creating a new language that describes our civilization as it develops. Here are 20 terms and concepts that you will need on your way to the future. Some of them are represented by prominent futurists of our time, some have gone through some transformation, although they were invented seven to ten years ago. George Dvorsky with io9 collected all these terms for many years, and we could not pass by.
Co-veillance
Futurist and science fiction writer David Brin coined such a term. It's kind of a mixture of Steve Mann's 'sousveillance' and Jame Cachio's panopticon of participation, mirrored by his own notion of Transparent Society. Breen describes co-surveillance as "mutual vision and surveillance, combining surveillance with aggressive, effective surveillance." He says this is "close observation from below." This is how Brin himself describes his term:
“People are rightly concerned about the surveillance capabilities that are growing and gaining power day by day. Cameras are getting faster, better, smaller, more numerous, and more mobile, much faster than Moore's Law. Liberals see oligarchy and faceless corporations as Big Brother, while conservatives worry that Orwellian "masters" will take control of academies and faceless bureaucrats. What's more scary? Yes all. While millions take Orwell's warnings seriously, the usual reflex is to whine: stop watching us! But it doesn't work. What if, instead of whining, we look back? Contrast surveillance with aggressive, effective surveillance - close observation from below? For example, let's put civil cameras in rooms with monitors, start watching observers?"
Breen says that mutual vision and oversight will be difficult to set up and maintain, but they have one advantage over “look at us” laws: they can work.
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Multiplex parent
This particular meme - suggested by Jame Cashio of the Institute for the Future - hit the radar quite recently. "It's in vitro fertilization," he says, "but with a genetic change at the fetal level." Not so long ago, in the UK, it was allowed to use a biotechnological breakthrough, according to which a child can have three genetic parents - from a sperm, an egg and (separately) mitochondria. It was originally advertised as a way to combat annoying genetic diseases. But it can also be used to practice breeding human traits, or so-called "designer babies". The US is already considering using this method. The era of the multiplex parent is coming.
Technological unemployment
Futurist and science fiction writer Ramez Naam says we have to worry about the possibility of "technological unemployment." He describes unemployment created by the development of technologies that can replace the black labor of people:
“For example, there may be an increase in unemployment among taxi drivers, trucks and so on along with the proliferation of self-driving cars. This is an old phenomenon, hundreds of years old, and with it arose the Luddite movement, when Ned Ludd destroyed the looms in fear that they would replace the weavers among the people. Technological unemployment in the past has always yielded (in the long run) through the creation of new value from automation and the emergence of new niche jobs for people, ever higher levels of abstraction. The question of the modern era is whether the growing displacement of workers can be counterbalanced by changes in the social system and the emergence of new skills that will allow people to stay at the old level of well-being or to raise it through the spread of new created values.
Indeed, the potential for replacing workers in all industries with robots and AI is very high and raises some concerns. These problems have led to the emergence of another term worth knowing that could serve as a potential antidote: guaranteed minimum income.
Substratum-autonomous personality
In the future, people will not be limited by their meat bodies. This is what the futurist and transhumanist Natasha Vita-Mor describes as a “substrate-autonomous personality”. Ultimately, she says, humans will be able to form identities in multiple substrates, such as a “body for different platforms” (a future body that can be worn / used in the physical / material world, but which will also exist in virtual systems) to define its essence in the biosphere, cybersphere and virtual environment.
“Such a person will shape identities,” she says. "But he will also believe that his personality, or sense of identity, should be associated with the environment, and not with one exclusive body." Depending on the platform, the substrate-autonomous person will upload and download a body shape that is appropriate for the environment. Thus, in the biosphere environment, a person will use a biological body, in the metaverse - an avatar, and in virtual reality - a digital form.
Explosion of intelligence
It's time to retire the term "technology singularity." The reason for this, according to Stuart Armstrong of the Institute for the Future of Humanity, is that the term has accumulated too much baggage, including quasi-religious connotations. This is not the best description of what can happen when artificial intelligence catches up and then surpasses human capabilities, he says. Moreover, different people interpret it differently, and it only describes a limited aspect of a broader concept. Armstrong recommends using a term coined by Irving John Goode in 1967: an explosion of intelligence.
“He describes the observed sudden increase in intelligence of an artificial system like AI. There are several scenarios: a system might radically improve itself by discovering that the smarter it gets, the easier it becomes to get smarter. There is also the possibility that the human mind is not very different from individual to individual, so that slowly improving AI can quickly close the distance that separates the rural idiot and Einstein. It may be that an entity must be not much smarter than a person in order to become much more powerful. In any case, the fate of life on Earth is likely to be determined by precisely this kind of "superintelligence."
Longevity dividends
While many futurists applaud radical life extension for humanitarian reasons, few appreciate the astounding financial benefits that biotechnology should bring to combat aging. The longevity dividend cited by IEET bioethicist James Hughes is "the biogerontologists' assumption that the cost savings in a society that prolongs healthy life through anti-aging therapies will far exceed the cost of developing and sustaining them." Long, happy lives will reduce the need for medical and nursing costs, Hughes argues, while allowing more older people to remain independent and productive. Against the backdrop of potential financial gains, a corporate race for technology and cost savings through preventive medicine will unfold.
Repressive desublimation
This concept was proposed by Anna-Lee Newitz, chief editor of io9. The idea of repressive desublimation was first developed by the political philosopher Herbert Marcuse in his book Eros and Civilization. Newitz says:
“The idea is related to the type of soft authoritarianism favored by societies with rich consumer cultures that want to suppress political dissent. In such societies, pop culture encourages people to desublimate or express their desires, whether it's sex, drugs, or violent video games. At the same time, they do not question the actions of corporate and government bodies. As a result, people feel as if they are living in a free society, even if they are under constant surveillance and are forced to work in jobs they do not like. Essentially, consumerism and free values distract people from social repression.
Intelligence enhancement
Intelligence amplification (IA) is a specific form of human enhancement by supplementing human intelligence with technology. “It is often positioned as either an addition to or as a competitor to artificial intelligence,” says Ramez Naam. "In reality, there is no mutual exclusion between these technologies." Naam notes that IA may be a partial solution to the problem of technological unemployment - it will allow humans, or posthumanity, to "keep up" with the achievements of AI and stay on top.
Effective altruism
This is another term coined by Stuart Armstrong. He describes it like this:
“… Effective spending on charity and other altruistic endeavors. Just as some engineering approaches can be thousands of times more effective at solving problems than others, some charitable methods are thousands of times more effective than others. Greater efficiency translates into more lives saved, benefits and opportunities for people around the world. It is believed that if charity can be more effective, it is a moral duty to do it like this: inefficiency is akin to letting people die.”
Moral (moral) strengthening
James Hughes says moral empowerment is another important term for 21st century futurists. Also known as virtuous engineering, this technique involves the use of drugs, wearables, and implantable devices to enhance and enhance self-control, empathy, empathy, honesty, mindfulness, intelligence, and well-being.
The principle of proactivity
The term was invented by Max More, President and CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. This is partly a special case of the precautionary principle. “Our freedom in technological innovation is very valuable - even important - to humanity,” he said. “This imposes several imperatives for proposing precautions: assess risks and opportunities in line with the science available, rather than relying on popular perceptions. Consider, on the one hand, the cost of the restrictions themselves, and on the other, missed opportunities. Prefer measures that are proportional to the likelihood and magnitude of the impact and that have a high expectation value. Protect people's freedom to experiment, innovate and progress."
Mules
Jamet Cashio coined the term, although he admitted that it was not used often. Mules are unexpected events (parallel with the "black swans") that not only lie outside our knowledge, but also beyond our understanding of how the world works. This is a reference to Mulu Asimov from the Foundation series.
Anthropocene
Another term is Kashio, referring to "the current geological era, characterized by significant changes in ecosystems due to human activity."
Eroom's Law
Unlike Moore's Law, which speeds things up, Rum's Law describes (at least in the pharmaceutical industry) things that slow down. In fact, this is Moore's Law in reverse. Ramez Naam notes that the rate of development of new drugs per dollar spent in this industry has dropped 100 times over the past 60 years. “Many explanations have been offered for this, including over-regulation, low-hanging fruit harvesting, diminishing returns in understanding more complex systems, and so on,” he said.
Evolvability risk
Natasha Vita-More describes this as the ability of a species to produce variants that are more resistant or stronger than existing ones within the species:
“One way to understand evolution is to consider any system, society, or culture, for example, that has properties that can evolve. Modern culture is more emergent and changeable than the physiological changes taking place in human biology. For several thousand years, people's tools, language and culture have changed, evolved many times. The use of tools within a culture was determined by that culture and showed observable signs of evolution - from stones to computers - while the physiology of humans remained essentially the same."
Artificial womb
“It's any device, biological or technological, that allows humans to reproduce without using a woman’s uterus,” says Anna-Lee Newitz. Sometimes referred to as the "uterine replicator", this device can free women from the biological difficulties associated with pregnancy and relieve the very act of reproduction from the traditional mating of men and women. "Artificial wombs will be able to develop alongside social structures that support families with more than two parents and homosexual marriages," says Newitz.
Complete brain emulation
“Complete brain emulation,” says Stuart Armstrong, “is human brains that have been copied into a computer and then launched in accordance with the laws of physics in order to digitally reproduce the behavior of the human mind.
Such brain emulation depends on certain (light) assumptions about how the brain works and requires certain promising technologies, such as scanning devices, to recreate a model of the original brain; a good understanding of biochemistry to make it work properly, and powerful enough computers to run it. There are plans that could allow such emulations to be created by the 2070s or so, with many uncertainties. If this emulation is developed, it will revolutionize healthcare, society and the economy. For example, it will allow people to live digitally and copy 'human capital': experienced, trained and efficient workers who can be multiplied if necessary."
Armstrong says complete brain emulation raises a number of concerns, not surprisingly.
Weak AI
Ramez Naam says the term has lost its popularity but remains extremely important. It refers to the vast majority of all "artificial intelligence" work that involves producing useful templates or processing useful information, but without the need to create a sentient entity with self-awareness. "Google search, IBM's Watson, self-driving cars, autonomous drones, facial recognition, medical diagnostics, algorithmic traders are all examples of 'weak AI,'" says Naam. “The vast majority of all commercial and research work in AI, machine learning and related fields is“weak AI”.
Neural coupling
Imagine the fantastic prospect of creating interfaces that connect the brains of two (or more) people. Already today, scientists have created interfaces that allow humans to move the limb - or in this case the tail - of another animal. First, such technologies will be used for therapeutic purposes; with their help, you can retrain people to move or use previously paralyzed limbs.
Computational edge
This means any situation in which new algorithms can suddenly and abruptly use existing computing power much more efficiently than before. This is likely to happen when tons of computing power is left untouched and when previously used algorithms are sub-optimal. This is an important concept in light of the development of AGI (General Artificial Intelligence).
Suppose that computing power continues to double according to Moore's Law, but figuring out how general human intelligence works will be too difficult. When software for general artificial intelligence finally arrives, there will be a "computing edge" available: huge amounts of available and cheap computing power to run AI. The AI population will quickly surpass the human population.
There will be an explosion of intelligence or simply a massive increase in the number of AGIs, since they will simply multiply on countless computers. There will be a risk to the existence of humanity.