Perspectives
Perspectives help us better understand how today’s accelerating and exponential technologies will impact us in the future. Get a new perspective on the future!
Massive Disruption Is Coming With Quantum Computing
Next year, we may see the launch of the first true quantum computers.
The implications will be staggering.
This post aims to answer three questions:
What are quantum computers?
What are their implications?
Who’s working on...
How Transformative Tech Can Bring Out the Best in Us All
We now live in exponential times. Technological ability is accelerating. Communication is instant. Interconnection is global. Great change is coming hard and fast. To navigate these conditions, we need to be present, creative, brave,...
Now Is the Time to Ban Terminator-Like Robots
The United States has on its Aegis-class cruisers a defense system that can track and destroy anti-ship missiles and aircraft. Israel has developed a drone, the Harpy, that can detect and automatically destroy radar...
Designer Babies and the New Technology of Having Children
Recently, we looked at how exponential tech impacts sex and dating.
In this post, we'll look at:
Reproduction without sex
Freezing your eggs to extend your reproductive timeline
Designer babies
Making babies without eggs
Imagine a...
5 Tech Forces That Will Change Insurance for Good
Massive reductions in insurance costs are coming, along with a wave of disruption.
Traditionally, insurance premiums are determined by actuaries, a function of big numbers, statistics and probabilities.
That's what you have to do when you...
How Private Spaceflight Went From Impossible Dream to Epic Space Race
Elon Musk’s rocket-building company SpaceX and Jeffrey P. Bezos’s similar Blue Origins have grabbed the headlines in the space race. But there is a fascinating backstory about how the private space industry came into being. It...
The Future of Sex, Dating, and Finding a Mate
Sex is one of the most powerful, fundamental human drives.
It's caused wars… built and destroyed kingdoms.
It occupies a significant percentage of most people's thoughts.
As such, it's worth a conversation about how exponential technologies will...
If Machines Can Think, Do They Deserve Civil Rights?
Over the past century, we have made massive strides in the rights revolution. These include rights for women, children, the LGBT community, animals, and so much more. Exploring the future, we must ask ourselves:...
3 Big Trends Shaking Up the Energy Industry
We are at the cusp of an energy revolution.
This post is a look at how three technologies — solar, batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs) — are poised to disrupt a $6 trillion energy industry over the...
The Future of Healthcare Is Arriving—8 Exciting Areas to Watch
As faculty chair for Medicine and Neuroscience at Singularity University and curator of our annual Exponential Medicine conference (apply to join us this Oct 8–11th), I cross paths with many technologies which have potential...
Why No Aliens? They Live in Video Game Universes Like a Future ‘No Man’s Sky’
Evidence suggesting that our universe is tailor-made for habitable planets — ones that could reasonably support life — continues to pile up. And as humanity flings cosmos-observing technologies further into the sky, we’re developing...
Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems Are Within Our Reach
At Singularity University (SU) we believe it is possible to solve today’s most pressing problems within the next couple decades. We call these the global grand challenges (GGCs). Our ambition and optimism stem from...
Can We Meaningfully Improve Government With Experimentation?
I often speak about the importance of experimentation.
What about experimenting with how we govern ourselves?
As we enter election season, I'm struck by the question, can we run meaningful experiments with government: how we vote,...
How AI Will Redefine Love
Artificial intelligence is beginning to disrupt entire industries from finance to medicine. Yet the most revolutionary application has yet to arrive—and it’s an existential one.
As thinking machines become more integrated into our lives, we...
This Is How the World’s Poor Are Pioneering the Future of Energy
What if it took you four hours a day to cook all your meals because, in addition to cooking, you also had to search for firewood? What if you could only work and study...
This Is the Olympics On Technology—When Enhancement Is the Norm
For the purpose of this post, I'd like to suspend moral and ethical considerations for a moment — let’s call this a fun thought experiment.
As we enter Olympics season, I find myself thinking about what...
Why the Cost of Living Is Poised to Plummet in the Next 20 Years
People are concerned about how AI and robotics are taking jobs, destroying livelihoods, reducing our earning capacity, and subsequently destroying the economy.
In anticipation, countries like Canada, India and Finland are running experiments to pilot...
The World Depends on Technology No One Understands
“We are in a new era, one in which we are building systems that can’t be grasped in their totality or held in the mind of a single person.” – Samuel Arbesman
As a teenage...
Carpool Apps Are on the Rise—Here’s How to Make Them Go Big
The cell phone ride hail apps like Uber and Lyft are now reporting great success with actual ride-sharing, under the names UberPool, LyftLines and Lyft Carpool. In addition, a whole new raft of apps...
In a Future of Rapid Change, These 7 Things Will Stay the Same
I'm constantly inquiring about the impact of exponential change over the next 20 years. An equally important question is, what won't change over the next two decades?
For entrepreneurs, understanding what is constant and what is changing can...
Man Dies in Collision While Being Driven by Tesla’s Autopilot System
A Tesla blog post describes the first fatality involving a self-drive system. A Tesla was driving on autopilot down a divided highway. A truck taking a left turn off the highway crossed into the...
Why the World Is Better Than You Think in 10 Powerful Charts
When I published Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think in February 2012, I included about 80 charts in the back of the book showing very strong evidence that the world is getting...
This Is the Tech That Will Make Learning as Addictive as Video Games
The way we learn today is just wrong.
Learning needs to be less like memorization, and more like…Angry Birds.
Half of school dropouts name boredom as the number one reason they left.
How do we get our kids to...
Future Urban Cars Will Be Simple, Self-Driving, and Super Cheap
With Mobility on Demand, you don’t buy a car, you buy rides. That’s certainly Uber’s plan, and is a plan that makes sense for Google, Apple and other no-car companies. But even Daimler, with...
Long Promised Artificial Intelligence Is Looming—and It’s Going to Be Amazing
We have been hearing predictions for decades of a takeover of the world by artificial intelligence. In 1957, Herbert A. Simon predicted that within 10 years a digital computer would be the world’s chess...
Vital Lessons on Disruption From the Demise of Corporate Giants
This post is about how to not to be disrupted and, perhaps more importantly, how to disrupt yourself before someone else does.
I had the chance to sit down with Ed McNierney, who came out of...
Machine Learning’s Next Trick Will Transform How Research Is Done
Though research is a slow moving and rigid process, one study shows that the rate of scientific study has exploded in the last 50 years. According to the paper, humanity’s scientific output now doubles...
The Hyperloop Is One Step Closer to a Full Scale Test Later This Year
Would you like to have Hyperloop in your city?
I'm proud to be a founding board member of Hyperloop One (the new name for what was formerly known as Hyperloop Technologies).
Last week, I was in...
Self-Driving Trucks Are Coming—Here’s Why They Make Sense
Today sees the un-stealthing of a new company called Otto which plans to build self-driving systems for long haul trucks. The company has been formed by a skilled team, including former members of Google’s...
Nanorobots: Where We Are Today and Why Their Future Has Amazing Potential
This post is a status update on one of the most powerful tools humanity will ever create: nanotechnology (or nanotech).
My goal here is to give you a quick overview of the work going on in...
Fighting Developing World Disease With AI, Robotics, and Biotech
While CRISPR, nanobots and head transplants are making headlines as medical breakthroughs, a number of new technologies are also making progress tackling some of the toughest age-old diseases still plaguing millions of people in...
Solar Power Is Ready to Dominate Energy Thanks to New Tech
In the next 20 years, between 50 percent to 100 percent of the world's energy production could come from solar.
Today, the global oil and natural gas industry is about a $4 trillion business. It's big...
Disruption’s Dark Side: Lessons From the Misadventures of a Tech-Savvy NBA Executive
“Negative advice is vastly more important than positive advice.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Sam Hinkie, an NBA executive known for his love of advanced sports technologies, just quit his job — ending one of...
Design Sprints — the Secret to Rapidly Developing Products Customers Actually Want
This post will teach you the process of running a design sprint — a method developed by Jake Knapp, a partner at Google Ventures — to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five...
What Would Happen If Elon Musk Ran Apple?
Apple’s dismal earnings announcement shows why it badly needs to rethink its innovation model and leadership. Its last breakthrough innovation was the iPhone — which was released in 2007. Since then, Apple has simply...
These New Technologies Will Be Both Powerful and Planet Friendly
Did you know there is a 25% chance your cause of death will be due to environmental pollution?
According the World Health Organization, some 12.6 million people—or nearly 1 in 4 worldwide—died in 2012 due...
How to Run Wild Experiments Just Like (Google) X
This post explores how to run great experiments in your company, based on recent conversations with my friend Astro Teller, Chief of Moonshots at "X" (formally Google X, Google's R&D factory).
X's mission is to invent and...
How the Next Wonders of the World Will Be Built in Space
On April 12th, 1961 Yuri Gagarin launched into space on a Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, becoming the first person ever to leave the planet.
Here’s the crazy thing: today’s astronauts travel to space...
The Secrets of X: These 5 Principles Will Help Your Company Make Moonshots Happen
This post explores the inside workings of "X" (formally Google X, Google's R&D factory) through conversations with my friend Astro Teller, chief of moonshots.
If you want to create a successful, hyper-growth company around solving tough...
Four Key Ingredients Startups Need to Get Right (Hint: They’re All About Culture)
If you want to create a successful, hyper-growth company, you've got to focus on creating the right culture and learning how to rapidly experiment.
In this blog, I discuss these two key subjects with Jeff...
What Made These Amazing Companies So Disruptive? They All Built Platforms
A trait shared by the fastest growing and most disruptive companies in history — Google, Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, and eBay—is that they aren’t focused on selling products, they are building platforms. The ability to...
The Next Water Crisis Is Looming—How Can Tech Help?
Have you ever wondered if the water in your house is safe to drink? While many have been angered by the news that children in Flint, Michigan were exposed to abnormally high amounts of...
No One Plans Our World—and That’s a Good Thing
“If there is one dominant myth about the world…it is that we all go around assuming the world is much more of a planned place than it is.”—Matt Ridley, The Evolution of Everything
For those...
6 Reasons Why Industry Needs to Be Agile as Software to Survive
On hearing words like “industry” and “manufacturing” most of us probably picture sprawling assembly lines, heavy machinery, groaning metal, and flying sparks. Few of us likely envision gazelles or fighter jets—agility and manufacturing don’t...
Robot Revolution: These Are the Breakthroughs You Should Watch
Unexpected convergent consequences…this is what happens when eight different exponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once. This post (sixth in a series of seven) is a look at robotics. Be sure to read the first five posts if...
How 3D Printing Is Transforming the Way We Make Things
Unexpected convergent consequences…this is what happens when eight different exponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once. This post (five of seven) is a look at 3D printing. Future posts will look at other tech areas, and be...
As Technology Barrels Ahead—Will Ethics Get Left in the Dust?
The battle between the FBI and Apple over the unlocking of a terrorist’s iPhone will likely require Congress to create new legislation. That’s because there really aren’t any existing laws which encompass technologies such...
Google’s Robot Car Crash Is a Very Positive Sign
Reports released reveal that one of Google’s Gen-2 vehicles (the Lexus) has had a fender-bender (with a bus) with some responsibility assigned to the system. This is the first crash of this type —...
Drones Have Reached a Tipping Point—Here’s What Happens Next
Unexpected convergent consequences...this is what happens when eight different exponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once. This post (four of seven) is a look at drones. Future posts will look at other tech areas, and...
The Near Future of VR and AR: What You Need to Know
Unexpected convergent consequences…this is what happens when eight different exponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once.
This post (the third of seven) is a look at virtual and augmented reality. Future posts will look at...
