Singularity Weblog

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt assembled what was then the most credentialed group of forecasters in the world. He called it the Brain Trust. He asked them to map out the next 25 years for the United States, through 1958. They missed transistors. They missed atomic energy. They missed antibiotics. They missed faster-than-sound travel. They missed […]

The Expansion of Technological Power Human civilization is entering a period in which the scale of technological capability is increasing faster than the frameworks used to guide it. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, global data systems, and emerging neurotechnologies are expanding the range of actions available to individuals, institutions, and governments. This shift represents not merely an […]

A CEO calls. The board wants a futurist on stage at the next strategy offsite. The brief is short. Tell us where the industry is going. Tell us what AI will do to our business. Tell us what to bet on next. It sounds like preparation. It looks like rigor. It is, in fact, the […]

When you have a hammer, the world is full of nails. There is no clearer description of Silicon Valley’s view of AI. The result is what I call the Hammer of AI: a single tool wielded against every problem we face, regardless of whether the problem yields to computation at all. There is a now-familiar […]

There is no formula for predicting the future. No formula for dealing with change. No formula for living a good life, for success, for great art, for writing a great book, or for producing a great film. Every time we reach one of those, even when following a formula, we have to break the pattern […]

Some people see a world coming apart. Peter Leyden sees an old world dying so a better one can be born. That, in essence, is The Great Progression, the thesis of Peter Leyden’s forthcoming HarperCollins book and the spine of our conversation. Peter is the OG Silicon Valley futurist who came to San Francisco at […]