As part of the 13th annual Subtle Technologies Festival here in Toronto, I will be giving a talk on Friday, June 4 on the subject of Rewilding Humanity.  Those of you who followed my old blog, "Age of Embodiment," will have some inkling of what this stuff is about; as will those who may have caught my OsCon speech last summer (which you can catch on YouTube here).

Here's the precis of the talk from the Subtle Technologies website:

Economic sustainability is not enough if human civilization is going to have a long presence on Earth. We need to not only reform our institutions but redefine what they are and how they operate; and we need a new vision of what it means to be human in a world where neither transcendence or apocalypse are viable options. One possibility is “rewilding”–bringing our constructed environments in line with our instinctive and cognitive needs.

This is a good description; but there's a lot more to it than that.  If you can make it to the festival, come to the event and we can discuss these and, hopefully, many related ideas.

Friday  7pm        The Singularity: An Appraisal

Arguably the idea of the Singularity -- a period where change happens so quickly that life afterwards is incomprehensible to people who lived before it -- is one of the few entirely fresh ideas in SF in the last forty years.  Perhaps it is time for an appraisal. Has the idea of the Singularity been a good thing for SF, providing fresh ideas and stimulating great writing or has the notion that the comprehensibility of the future has a sharp (and near-term) limit diminished possibilities?  Has it been a good thing for *your* writing?  How about the Singularity in reality -- after twenty years does it look more or less plausible that it is lurking in our own real-world future?  Discuss the interplay between the idea of the Singularity in SF and actual scientific research.  Where are the really exotic ideas coming from?

  Friday  9pm        The Place of Prediction in SF and Reality

     Hugo Gernsback thought the purpose of SF was to educate.  Others think the purpose of SF is to predict. What *is* the place of prediction in SF?  Does it have any place at all, or is the occasional good prediction an accidental side-effect of writing stories?  Can SF be about the future and *not* be making predictions?  And let's not limit ourselves to technology -- if anything, SF may have a more distinguished history of predicting social changes.  (Did the publication of 1984 actually help prevent that future?)  Can foresight help us face the future? Finally, is SF better or worse in predicting the future than professional futurologists?

  Saturday1pm        Revamping Asimov's 3 Laws - and why that might be a good/ethical thing

     Charles Stross' *Saturn's Children* showed how Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics applied to an AI was nothing less than slavery of a particularly vile sort, since the chains of that slavery are made intrinsic to the nature of the robots and can naver be shaken off.  Do you buy this argument?  If so, are there alternatives to the Three Laws which might be less bad?  (Remember that the Three Laws  were constructed to deal with the Frankenstein Problem of our creations rising against us.)  Is it even possible to imagine AIs existing where we neither their slaves nor their masters?

  Saturday2pm        Space is for Robots?

     Is it such a bad thing that we haven't sent people to Mars, when  those little rovers can do so much without risking a life? What's the right balance between machines and humans in space exploration and development?

  Saturday3pm        Literary Beer

  Sunday  2pm        Autographing

Peter Jones, one of my teachers at OCAD, alerted us today to a new innovation strategy just announced for the U.S. by President Obama. From the press release:

The mission of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship is to unleash and maximize the economic potential of new ideas by removing barriers to entrepreneurship and the development of high-growth and innovation-based businesses. The office will report directly to Locke and focus specifically on identifying issues and programs most important to entrepreneurs. Working closely with the White House and other federal agencies, this new office will drive policies that help entrepreneurs translate new ideas, products and services into economic growth. The office will focus on the following areas:

    * Encouraging Entrepreneurs through Education, Training, and Mentoring

    * Improving Access to Capital

    * Accelerating Technology Commercialization of Federal R&D

    * Strengthening Interagency Collaboration and Coordination

    * Providing Data, Research, and Technical Resources for Entrepreneurs

    * Exploring Policy Incentives to Support Entrepreneurs and Investors

Not very many years ago, Canada's federal government was funding foresight exercises into subjects such as the future of health care and national security.  Under the conservatives, these initiatives have dried up (along with so much else).  Where's Canada in the new economy of the 21st century?

Back in June of 2003 I gave a talk to LITA, the technology arm of the National Library Association.  The talk was about the respectability of science fiction within the literary and scientific communities, and it was called Traitor to Both Sides.  I've now posted the talk over in my folder called The Lab, because, well, it's not doing any good just sitting here on my hard drive.  --And you may find it interesting, particularly if you've ever had an interest in C.P. Snow's idea of the "two culture war."

I've also created an interviews page, with links to some of the interviews I've done that are available online.

While our attention was elsewhere, a truly earth-shattering change has been in the wind--a development most experts have dismissed as impossible, but which now increasingly looks like it is going to happen.

According to Lyle Dennis over at the AllCarsElectric blog, EEStor has applied for certification from the Underwriter's Laboratories for its ultracapacitor technology. If this is true, then the secretive company may really have succeeded in creating the ultimate in electricity-storage technology:  a device capable of running your car for hundreds of miles on one charge, and of recharging in under five minutes.  A device that is not a battery, and hence never wears out.  A technology that would make intermittent power generation sources such as windmills directly competitive with baseload generation sources such as coal.

Canadian electric car company Zenn Motors has licensed EEStor's technology for a soon-to-be-built fully electric sedan.  Zenn is betting the farm on EEStor, and they seem remarkably confident.  Naturally, we hear outrageous claims about new technologies nearly every day; and many industry watchers have been skeptically tracking EEStor for years.  The expectation has been that any day now, the company would disappear, and its executives would later be found living high off the land in Ecuador or somewhere.  That hasn't happened, and now the company appears poised to release an actual product--according to Zenn, by the end of the year.

If it happens, this will be a truly disruptive change.  It would be nothing less than the first nail in the coffin of the fossil fuel age.

And here's more on the developing story, from Zenn's point of view.

It's official:  over the next two years I'll be working towards garnering a Masters in Strategic Foresight from the Ontario College of Art and Design.  This will formalize my skills and experience in an area where I already do a good deal of work--foresight studies, also called futures study or just futurism.

I'm already a futurist, I suppose, though for me at least that term tends to conjure images of chrome-domed technophiles ranting about how we're all going to have flying cars in our driveways in ten years.  Technology foresight, which is what I specialize in, is less ivory-tower and more inclusive, however, because it involves the contribution of stakeholders in imagining both the scenarios and the probabilities attached to them.

I hasten to add that I won't be doing this work instead of my SF writing; I will be doing it in addition to writing.  I'm still deeply committed to my science fiction and to writing in all its forms.  What this degree program will do is give me more tools for my workshop, allowing me to approach the study of the future from more directions.  It's all good.

The Halifax Chronicle Herald has an article about the military's new future-oriented analysis, and how I'm going to be writing a novelization of the material, just as I did for Crisis in Zefra several years ago.  Public reaction seems to range from supportive and admiring to derisive and outraged (as in, 'they can't even tell what they're doing next week, how are they going to look thirty years into the future?')  

Apart from the fact that I'm getting paid to do this, I think it's a good idea for other reasons:

Most businesses and governments only look ahead a few months, Mr. Schroeder said.

"That’s like painting your windshield black and driving out on the highway, as far as I’m concerned. You need to be able to look as far ahead as you can, even if it’s foggy and you can’t quite make things out."

Scientists like to low-ball their estimates.  The now-famous IPCC scenarios for the effects of climate change are already known to be woefully, unrealistically conservative (Freeman Dyson's recent opinions notwithstanding). Arctic changes expected 20 years from now are happening now, and in North America the beginning of spring has already been pushed back by two weeks, which is enough to play havoc with the fertility cycle of many migratory birds (among other consequences).  The worst-case scenarios used in public debate ignore some extremely worrisome factors, such as the possible release of oceanic methane from clathrates. If we're going to deal with this problem, we have to do it now, as in, within the term of your next government.

Science fiction writers, on the other hand, are generally optimistic--if not about the fate of humanity, then at least about the progress of technology.  The ultimate in technological optimism is the idea of the technological singularity, which posits that technological advance is exponential and, driven by progress in artificial intelligence, will soon hit the vertical slope of the curve.

Maybe.  In fact, let's assume that this mythology is true and, within about 25 years, computers will exceed human intelligence and rapidly bootstrap themselves to godlike status.  At that point, they will aid us (or run roughshod over us) to transform the Earth into a paradise. 

Here's the problem:  25 years is too late.  The newest business-as-usual climate scenarios look increasingly dire.  If we haven't solved our problems within the next decade, even these theoretical godlike AIs aren't going to be able to help us.  Thermodynamics is thermodynamics, and no amount of godlike thinking can reverse the irreversible. 

If there's to be a miraculous transformation of human civilization, it has to be accomplished by us, right now, and without the aid of any miracle technologies.  (That said, technology is a large part of the answer--and game-changing breakthroughs are possible--but until proven otherwise it's existing systems such as wind power that we have to assume we'll be using.)  The technological singularity may be real, but who cares?  By the time it happens, we'll have won or lost our grand battle with fate.

Therefore, here's a rare piece of advice for my fellow science fiction writers:  forget the singularity.  Even if it's real, it's irrelevant.  The decisive moment in history is now, before it occurs.  Seize that, write about that. 

All else is distraction.

Well, the SciBarCamp's gotten off to a smashing start.  Last night over 100 people showed up at the Debates room in Hart House and we kicked off the event with drinks, shmoozing, and the ad hoc creation of our program.

Above's a picture of the introductions period, with everybody saying who they are and what their interests are.

The scrum.  Nobody was shy; it was a complete mix-up of enthusiastic and wildly diverse people.

I'll try to post the Saturday schedule later.  My favourite proposed event so far is the "Interactive Salt Lick Sculpture."  That should be interesting.

Next weekend's first SciBarCamp is now full, with well over 100 confirmed attendees.  The event's happening at Hart House, which is a magnificent location in the heart of Toronto (the University of Toronto takes up a square mile of the downtown core).

Fear not if you were hoping to come but were unable.  We want this event to be the first of a regular series.  Just make sure you follow the news at the SciBarCamp website, and sign up early!

SciBarCamp's deliberately vague schedule

The program for SciBarCamp will be decided in a collaborative way involving all participants on the opening night (Friday night).  This is when all the talks and discussions will be scheduled.

The start and finish times for each day have been decided, and are set out below.  The opening event on Friday night will be integral to the whole weekend, so please plan to attend on this night as well as on the rest of the weekend.

SUNDAY, March 16, 9:00am to 5:00pm

This is fun: I'm helping organize a “SciBarCamp” with a diverse group of local people including entrepreneurs, students, artists, and scientists.  The event will take place at Hart House at the University of Toronto on the weekend of March 15-16, with an opening reception on the evening of March 14.

SciBarCamp is a gathering of scientists, artists, and forward-thinking members of the public for a weekend of talks and discussions.  The goal is to create connections between science, entrepreneurs and local businesses, and arts and culture.  The themes are:

• The edge of science (eg, synthetic biology, quantum gravity, cognitive science)
• The edge of technology (eg, mobile web, ambient computing, nanotechnology, web 2.0)
• Science 2.0 (open access, changing models of publication and collaboration)
• Scientific literacy and public engagement (eg, one laptop per child project, policy and science, technology as legislation, science as culture, enfranchising the poor, the young, the old)

In the tradition of BarCamps, otherwise known as "unconferences", (see BarCamp.org for more information), the program is decided by the participants at the beginning of the meeting, in the opening reception.  Presentations and discussion topics can be proposed at the SciBarCamp website or on the opening night.

The talks will be informal and interactive; to encourage this, speakers who wish to give PowerPoint presentations will have ten minutes to present, while those without will have twenty minutes.  Around half of the time will be dedicated to small group discussions on topics suggested by the participants.  The social events and meals will make it easy to meet people from different fields and industries.  Our venue, Hart House, is a congenial space with plenty of informal areas to work or talk.  There will be free wireless access throughout.

Our goals are:

• Igniting new projects, collaborations, business opportunities, and further events.
• Intellectual stimulation and good conversation.
• Integrating science into Toronto's cultural, entrepreneurial, and intellectual activites.
• Protoyping a model that can be easily duplicated elsewhere.

Attendance is free, but there is only space for around 100 people, so please register soon by sending an email to Jen Dodd (dodd.jen@gmail.com) with your name and contact details..  Include a link to your blog or your organization's webpage that we can display with your name on the participants list at www.SciBarCamp.org.

More information can be found at www.SciBarCamp.org.

I've just been asked to do something at Boskone on technology foresight, and I thought I'd ask you guys what you'd like to see.  A one-man show?  A panel?  Powerpoint?  Hand-puppets?  Really, this is just an pretext for me to try to convince you to register on my site, so you can comment.  The mind-boggling inconvenience of doing so is keeping people from posting their glowing, effusive compliments about my excellent new site--but really, there's not much I can do about it without inviting the spambots back in.  Best idea:  go get an openID token, and then you won't have to bother with registering here.

I'll be writing up a lot more about foresight, some of it here, some of it there in the sidebar files; but Boskone is itching to know what I'll do for them.  Really:  suggestions?  Requests?