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Advancing beneficial technology
Foresight Institute is a non-profit organization focused on emerging world-shaping technologies. It was founded in 1986 on a vision of coming revolutions in technology that will bring extraordinary opportunities, as well as unprecedented challenges. Foresight’s mission is to steer towards positive futures, futures of Existential Hope.
If we push in the right directions — learning, teaching, arguing, shifting directions, and pushing further — then we may yet steer the technology race toward a future with room enough for our dreams.
—K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation
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News and Updates
Our friends at Transformative Technology Conference are hosting their 5th annual, two-day conference on Nov. 15-16. Join 800+ innovators & entrepreneurs in this space. @ttconf ➡
Use this link to get 15% off your ticket: ttc-2019.eventbrite.com/?discount=ForesightVIP
Thanks for sharing! So excited to welcome your community to the event!
Updated Link: Vision Weekend Speakers, Program & Tickets! - mailchi.mp/foresight/vision-weekend-speakers-program-tickets-online-907287
Vision Weekend Speakers, Program & Tickets Online! - mailchi.mp/foresight/vision-weekend-speakers-program-tickets-online
Vision Weekend Speakers, Program & Tickets Online! - mailchi.mp/a6a8ceb76549/vision-weekend-speakers-program-tickets-online-907283
Thank you Peter Ecklesurname for an eye opening presentation and talk on the use of AI in the US Criminal Justice System. .
Next salon will be October 1st on Lunar Settlements!
This is where we keep you posted about upcoming events: bit.ly/foresightupdates
In this fantastic introduction to Atomic Precision, Jonathan Barnes discusses the wide variety of molecular machines researchers have created, and how they compare with such machines assembled and used in nature.
In this excellent talk, Patrick Mellor describes several significant climate changes in earth’s history, providing context for the scale of changes required to significantly affect climate.
In “Nanotechnology and the Resource Fallacy” Steven Gillett showed how nanotechnology could improve the environment by creating better filtering technologies:
Atomically-precise manufacturing could make molecular-scale filters that precisely separate desired materials from unwanted byproducts, and do at with much lower energy use than current methods.
Such capabilities could turn the mixture of materials we discard as garbage into economically valuable feedstock for new products.
This observation means pollution is a resource in disguise because we currently lack the technology to utilize it.
This amazing talk was given during the interactive technical competition “Healing the Planet: Atomic Precision for Clean Energy & Clean Air”.
You can watch all the other presentations and projects on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH78wfbGI1x0LhgDmwwAzEVZbsTP4I-z1
Join Peter Eckersley on Algorithms in the US Criminal Justice System, August 20th, San Francisco - mailchi.mp/foresight/your-invite-to-peter-eckersleyalgorithms-in-the-us-criminal-justice-system-a...
The Birth of the Carbocene - a winning project proposal from our workshop on Atomic Precision for Healing the Planet presented by Patrick Mellor.
youtu.be/jtR-rtkpuT8
Removal of significant amounts of carbon from the air and sequestering it for a long time are important aspects of addressing climate change. Current carbon offset schemes for planting trees focus on removal. But trees return the CO2 to the atmosphere when they die and then rot. For example, typical trees in commercial forests remove 360 tons CO2 per acre per year. But 30% of the captured carbon returns to the atmosphere when trees die and rot.
This project aims to improve bio-sequestration with large-scale deployment of a biomaterial that extracts carbon from air as it grows, but does not release the carbon when the organism dies. To do so, the project will genetically modify lignin (a component of wood) so it doesn’t degrade. The necessary mechanism already exists in some plants, making them resistant to rot. This ability arises from a gene complex. Transferring this complex to fast-growing commercial trees will improve sequestration. The mechanism involves the plant absorbing and using metals, so the modified trees would have the additional benefit of removing metals from the soil, thereby partially remediating contaminated soils.
This is one of the five projects that were proposed as outcomes of Foresight's 2019 Healing the Planet Workshop, a competition held from April 27- 28 in Palo Alto, CA.
Watch all other videos from this workshop: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH78wfbGI1x0LhgDmwwAzEVZbsTP4I-z1
For more information on these workshops,
see our workshop page: goo.gl/tCBrLB
see a recent workshop video: goo.gl/fMXqkq
see a recent workshop white paper: goo.gl/8CBRWq
