Ray Hammond Looks At The Future Of The Virtual Ape

 Futurology

For futurist Ray Hammond, predictions beyond the Singularity are extremely difficult.  "The name 'Smart Phone' is as helpful to us understanding the future as the phrase 'horseless carriage' was to explaining the future of the automobile," he says.

Ray Hammond is one of the world's most experienced and most widely published futurists. For over 30 years he has researched, written and spoken about how future trends will affect society and business.

As global warming, globalization and the environmental threat continue to be priorities on the world's agenda, Hammond is one of a few commentators equipped to communicate how these massive challenges will affect our futures, the way we do business and the far reaching implications both socially, economically and politically.

Hammond is a visiting lecturer at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, a visiting lecturer at the London Business School and a contributing editor to the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland.

In 2010 the Intel Corporation commissioned Ray to write a short story based on Intel's research for The Tomorrow Project. A podcast of Ray's story 'The Mercy Dash' can be heard here. He is also the author of The World in 2030 which is available for free download here.

In the TEDx Talk below, Hammond presents a view of the technological Singularity from ancient history to the next few decades, and explains why predictions beyond the Singularity are extremely difficult.  "The name 'Smart Phone' is as helpful to us understanding the future as the phrase 'horseless carriage' was to explaining the future of the automobile."

"We have no idea what [post-Singularity] machines will be able to do," says Hammond.  "The technological Singularity is such a barrier ahead of us that for futurists it represents a point in which we cannot speculate. We cannot imagine what such machines maybe be able to create, what problems they may solve or indeed problems they may cause."




SOURCE  TEDx Talks, Top Image: Discover Magazine

By 33rd Square

Subscribe to 33rd Square