Epiphanies aren’t unique to Frey. He writes that billions of them occur every day. We see their end results in new products, films, books, software apps and science discoveries. Eureka moments are what make humans such an interesting species, constantly moving forward, letting our fertile mind drive us to new direction.
Frey frets about the many times in our human past when we have allowed eureka moments to vanish because we failed to act on vision. He states, “every grand problem humanity faces today has been solved a million times over inside the minds of people unprepared to move them forward.” Frey hypothesizes, however, that in our digital age we have a distinct advantage. Where advancements in the past worked on doubling per decade timescales, today we follow an accelerating curve with advancements doubling in increments of two years. That means over a decade a 32-times factor in advancements as opposed to a mere factor of two. This scale of advancement, states, Frey, can be applied to any industry undergoing digital transformation. It can apply to cities as they become “smart.” And, states Frey, it can apply to his epiphanies, something he calls Epiphany Z, a framework for achieving the future.
Frey thinks of the future as a “definable force.” He believes we can prepare, define and design it. He has established a set of 12 laws that govern it.
If this all sounds like mystery meat you have to read on to see how the remaining epiphanies unfold.
Frey covers optimizing purpose. He asks ten questions that neither science nor religion can answer. Then he goes on to outline the forces driving the world around us and how we interact with them.
His next epiphany focuses on optimizing learning. In this section of the book he speculates on what future learning will be fueled by the explosion of knowledge and knowledge gathering presented by the Internet and the sensate automata world connected to it. Frey describes an age of learning standing before us where degrees no longer apply, where learning tools are ubiquitous, and where education is a lifetime pursuit, of “preparing our minds for thoughts unthinkable and preparing our resolve for struggles unimaginable.”
In his exploration of optimizing out tools Frey talks about robots and jobs. He describes the robot taking our jobs scenario as a myth, that for every automated process we gain efficiencies as human beings as well as new jobs to meet new purposes. These include inventing new medical cures, developing better mitigation methods to deal with disasters, solving deviant behaviour, colonizing space and other planets, ending poverty, and overall extending our human capabilities. Yes automated vehicles will kill taxi and limo drivers jobs and meter maids. Drones will replace delivery services. 3D printing and contour crafting will disrupt manufacturing and construction. Big data plus artificial intelligence will impact doctors, financial planners, lawyers and even writers like me. These are just some of the examples he gives of disruptive impacts but with each displacement comes the opportunity to begin anew.
In his epiphany about optimizing systems he talks about knowing the past, finding value in it, and preserving its legacy. He talks about generational knowledge as a means to get organized. From there he moves on to a discussion on our legacy sense of time. Frey proposes the rethinking of our 24 hour day as an assist to regulating and leveraging the future. Frey believes our future lies in global systems. After all we are already subject to them from GPS location systems to the Internet, social networks, universal search and other technological advances. To these Frey adds the possibility of global accounting standards. Think blockchain. And global currency. Think bitcoin. And global patent, ethics standards, genealogy, ocean authority, air authority and more.
In tackling optimizing government, Frey’s epiphany begins with the understanding that governments are antique players on the world stage. They are slow to change and move at a snail’s pace. But the future is driving us to global mandates with national governments less meaningful as we tackle planet-wide challenges. Today we already see the impact of global systems on governments. The Internet alone with social media transcends borders and creates causes around issues supported by hundreds of millions of people from multiple countries. Our future through the Internet is one where the empowerment of people will shape society in new ways. Frey talks about the potential for prisons to become illegal, where society will automate monitoring of deviant behaviour, its correction, punishment if recidivism occurs, and even “brain wipes” in extreme cases. He talks about a future where we create a social operating system for our planet, one that replaces the millions of laws we currently have to negotiate in dealing with government and authority. It is a world where digital awareness will force governments to rethink everything or disappear.
In his chapter on optimizing infrastructure, Frey’s epiphany is all about engaging in disruptive technologies rather than attempting to correct age-old systems. Here are some examples. Instead of restoring rail systems he proposes building the hyperloops that Elon Musk proposes, and maglev systems like those in Japan and China. Instead of desalination he looks at technologies to draw freshwater directly from the air. Instead of university campuses he proposes micro colleges that focus on hot skill needs and in short lead-time create people qualified to meet industry demands. Instead of ground-based power stations he talks about putting them in space. The hyperloop alone, if developed, could employ 100 million of us over a 50-year span.
Frey tackles optimizing ourselves looking at the exponential increase in our own personal value. he states “our lives will never be about who we are today, but who we have the potential to become.” He asks the question, “how much is brain power worth?” He also poses the issue of our future immortality asking if death can become an option rather than a certainty. If humans have no end how will that change our sense of purpose, our drive, our ambitions? Frey states, “our generation may well be the last where death is not optional.”
In his statement of the ultimate epiphany, Frey describes eight critical skills we individual humans need to master to excel in the future. These include:
These are very human and personal behavioral and functional skills that we recognize today as a challenge for many young people. But mastering them all will pay huge dividends in achieving positive future outcomes.
Through mastery of these skills we will be able to tackle the future, rethinking cities and our civilized infrastructure, moving off world, overcoming the forces of nature, reaching the speed of light, time travel, or even traveling to the centre of the Earth and controlling a fundamental force called gravity. This is our human promise if we embrace knowability and tackle the unknowable.
Frey ends with a new prime directive for our species and the challenges awaiting us:
“Preparing humanity for worlds unknown, preparing our minds for thoughts unthinkable, and preparing our resolve for struggles unimaginable.”
So what lies ahead?
If the first decade of this century is any indicator we are in for a roller coaster ride with technology being a source of our problems as well as a means to save our species and the planet. For in our technology we have sowed much that is wrong in our world today. We have in overcoming disease created unprecedented population growth. The consequence for our species includes shrinking biodiversity, stressed environments, and perennial food challenges. Through technology we have created weapons of such power and consequence that we hold the keys to global destruction.
But we have also accomplished so many wonderful technological achievements. The computer and telecommunications revolution has changed our human world forever. We are connected as never before. We are used to being always on, always connected. Our sources of news have changed. We are switching from paper to electronic. We can choose what news we want rather than accept what is published for all. My website home page feeds me an encapsulated summary of many subjects that I track. Every day I receive over 100 emails from businesses I work with, and from friends and acquaintances. My social networking Internet sites, of which I have too many to recall these days, provide me with daily postings, tweets, wall messages, and friend requests. I am involved in Internet debates on several sites responding to commentary on issues and themes of interest to me. I have my own website, another blogging site other than this one. I also publish articles on several other sites. I have a PayPal account and send and receive money from clients this way.
For the past three years I have become an investor in the developing world providing micro loans to small business entrepreneurs that I vet through an Internet link. What a rush — to help people achieve success $25 at a time.
We have mapped the human genome and found that much of what we thought we knew about our bodies, and disease, has been wrong. We have started down the path of creating nanotechnology with no clear idea of where we will end up with these new micro molecular toys. We have robot dogs and robot butlers to amuse us, knowing that these are the first steps in the development of android artificial mechanical intelligence.
Although our foray to the moon in the 1960s and 70s united all of humanity in our pursuit of the impossible, the fascination with human space travel has been overtaken by earthly concerns and today only a few of us inhabit a low-Earth orbit space station. Meanwhile our robots travel to the planets of our Solar System and our satellites show us a Universe that we could have scarcely contemplated a half-century ago.
We have created machines with the potential to help us unlock the mysteries of sub-atomic particles, dark matter and dark energy.
We are told that our collective knowledge is doubling every five years. The hope is that so is our collective wisdom.
We have planted so many of the seeds I have described above. We sit in the latter part of the first decade of this 21st century poised to continue the tech revolution that we started in the last. What will it look like?
This blog is dedicated to exploring where we are and where we are going, always through the technology that has inherently become an extension of who we are as a species. Because it is technology that separates us from other intelligent species on this planet, and it is upon technology that we must rely on ensuring that the planet continues to be a place on which we, as a species, and all other species thrive.
