Category Archives: Arts

An AI Manifesto

Or: How to Survive the Technological Singularity

This may be a slightly mad idea!

It may also contain obvious flaws beyond being somewhat fanciful. Most grand schemes do. But, given that the subject is the possible end of human control over the future – or even just humans, it might at least be worth thinking about. That it may also address environmental concerns and issues of creative plagiarism is a bonus.

The basic idea is this. We spend a great deal of time worrying about whether future Artificial Intelligence (AI) will treat human beings ethically. But we spend rather less time considering whether human beings currently treat AI ethically.

Perhaps the two questions are connected?

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ESPELETIA: The Complete Framework

In previous posts, we’ve introduced the ESPELETIA dimensions (Ethics, Society, Politics, Environment, Legislation, Economy, Technology, International and Arts) and the ‘key drivers’ (AI, IoT, Big Data, Robotics, Communications and the ‘X Factor’). We now build this into a complete futurology tool for projecting into the future, and provide a complete set of documentation for research and/or classroom exercises.

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The Futurology Grid

The previous post introduced the ESPELETIA futurism tool. Here this is combined with key emergent and future technology drivers to deliver The Futurology Grid, a useful framework for practical futurism.

The nine dimensions of the ESPELETIA tool are the coloured column headings in the table below.

The details of each are as follows:

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A New Futurism Tool: ESPELETIA

Over the decades, we’ve seen PEST extended to PESTLE to STEEPLED, but have we now got all the angles covered for practical 21st century futurism? Perhaps not.

We’ve used the STEEPLED model before several times on this site, with some success. It’s undoubtedly a useful tool. But it’s not perfect: it’s time to recognise its limitations and introduce something new.

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