What, Who, When… Program Confirmed Speakers Debate of the Decade: Kurzweil vs. Stock‘Comments on previous events Press Policy Registration Special Interest Group (SIG) Meetings Audio now available for selected talks Press coverage of the Gathering
Senior Associates at Work and/or Play: Photos from previous Gatherings
Photo coverage of this Gathering in Update 49
What: Foresight’s Annual Brainstorming-Planning-Actionfest & Nanoschmoozathon Huge revolutions in technology are expected to show up in the next 5-to-30 years — come hear what they are, how they’ll change your life, and how to influence them.
Who: 200 of those most able to see what’s ahead — and consider what to do about it. As a group we have technical skill, entrepreneurial drive, financial resources, experience in effecting change, and the sheer pigheaded determination to make a difference.
When: April 26 evening through April 28, 2002. We’ll start with a reception at 7 PM Friday and wrap up at about 5 PM Sunday.
Where: Palo Alto in Silicon Valley — the birthplace of disruptive new technologies — at the Hotel Crowne Plaza Cabaña
How: No passive listening — the emphasis is on intense interaction.
Why: To plan the future of your career, your family, and your organization, you need to know what’s coming.
Thinking about the coming changes — even the positive ones — can be intimidating when done solo. Join us as we take our annual group swim into the memepool of the future.
Come exercise your foresight muscle. There’s nowhere to get a better view of the wild decades ahead.
Tom W. Bell: controversial law prof who keeps challenging society’s fundamental beliefs — and succeeds
Stewart Brand: multidisciplinary pioneer; author, How Buildings Learn; founder, Whole Earth Catalog; co-founder, All Species Inventory, Long Bets Foundation
Eric Drexler: nanotechnologist; author, Engines of Creation, Nanosystems
David Friedman: maverick economist; author, The Machinery of Freedom
Leon Fuerth: former National Security Advisor to Vice President Gore
Steve Jurvetson: managing director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson; “The Valley’s Sharpest VC”
Ray Kurzweil: author, The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines; winner, National Medal of Technology
Ralph Merkle: nanotechnologist; winner, Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology; co-inventor, public key cryptography
Tim O’Reilly: open source advocate, Internet commerce pioneer, protester against bad patents, best computer book publisher in world
Christine Peterson: coauthor, Unbounding the Future, Leaping the Abyss; named ‘open source software’
Paul Saffo: technology forecaster, quoted everywhere; a World Economic Forum “Global Leader for Tomorrow”
Gregory Stock: author, Redesigning HUMANS: Our Inevitable Genetic Future
Fred Turner: poet laureate of nanotechnology; aesthetic theoretician
“BioFuture vs. MachineFuture”
Greg Stock vs. Ray Kurzweil
BioFuture
Over the next few decades, Gregory Stock foresees a rapid improvement in our ability to identify, screen, and manipulate genes. He believes that people will want to protect their future children from diseases, help them live longer, and influence their looks and abilities, and that neither governments nor religious groups will be able to stop this and other reworkings of human biology. As for our increasingly intelligent computer technology, in his view we will by and large be wearing rather than implanting it.
MachineFuture
Ray Kurzweil‘s view is that by 2030, advances in nanotechnology will enable the routine integration of machine-based computation into the human brain, enabling full immersion virtual reality and a direct interface to forms of nonbiological intelligence. By 2040, the nonbiological portion will be far more powerful than the biological portion: we will have become cyborgs.
Greg and Ray both have radical views of humanity’s coming decades, but these views differ even more radically. Which will it be: BioFuture or MachineFuture? Join us and find out!
For the first time since the launch of the Senior Associates Gatherings, presentation files are being released. We’ve selected several of our favorites for your listening pleasure:
For links to press coverage of the Gathering, see the Nanodot post of May 21, 2002: Coverage of Foresight Gathering focuses on Kurzweil-Stock debate
