The deep future? It starts with believing in it | Walter Van De Velde | TEDxLeuven
-
0:20 - 0:23A long time ago,
I tried to be a mathematician. -
0:23 - 0:24I didn't succeed very well,
-
0:24 - 0:29but I was studying
strange spaces and surfaces. -
0:29 - 0:31The term "hyper-reflective space"
-
0:31 - 0:34probably doesn't mean
anything to most of you, -
0:34 - 0:37but an example I remember is a sphere
-
0:37 - 0:41in which the distance, if you go
right through it to the other side, -
0:41 - 0:45is exactly the same as the distance
you would walk if you'd go around it. -
0:45 - 0:47(Laughter)
-
0:47 - 0:50This is obviously impossible;
on Earth this would not work. -
0:51 - 0:53But in math these things are possible.
-
0:53 - 0:56And the amazing thing is,
once you start working on that -
0:56 - 0:59and thinking about it
day and night, on and on, -
0:59 - 1:01after a while it becomes possible.
-
1:01 - 1:04Your mind makes these things possible.
-
1:04 - 1:07And you see a space
where those things work. -
1:08 - 1:12And then, the next step
is easy: oh, why not? -
1:13 - 1:17And maybe there are aspects
of our reality that are like that. -
1:17 - 1:22Let's try and find some;
why wouldn't we then investigate that? -
1:22 - 1:25And so, utopian visions,
they are a bit like that. -
1:25 - 1:27Maybe that's why I like them so much.
-
1:27 - 1:33Utopian visions, they have
this provocative novelty -
1:33 - 1:35with respect to where we are now,
-
1:35 - 1:39and they make you think, well,
what if this could be possible, -
1:40 - 1:42and then, why not, why wouldn't we try?
-
1:42 - 1:45So, who would have thought,
and definitely not me, -
1:45 - 1:46that now, years and years and years -
-
1:46 - 1:50I'm talking about 30 years
after these mathematics experiences - -
1:50 - 1:54the visionary thinking
and these utopian visions, -
1:54 - 1:59they are really the stuff I'm working with
every day in the Commission. -
1:59 - 2:02So, novel ideas, radical things,
-
2:02 - 2:05a "wow-factor" to make you
fall off your chair; -
2:05 - 2:07that's the bread and butter
of my research. -
2:07 - 2:10Not my research,
but my work in the Commission. -
2:10 - 2:14I've done research as well before
on wow-factors, but that's another thing. -
2:14 - 2:18So, indeed in the Commission
we received in that program -
2:18 - 2:21that was just mentioned, FET,
Future and Emerging Technologies, -
2:21 - 2:24- I've worked there for 10–12 years now -
-
2:26 - 2:30we receive proposals
with these crazy ideas, -
2:30 - 2:33on average, two - three per day.
-
2:33 - 2:39So, in the ten years, I think, I can say
I've seen a couple of thousands of them. -
2:40 - 2:43Can you imagine,
a couple of thousand crazy ideas? -
2:43 - 2:46Not all crazy, not all
equally breakthrough, -
2:46 - 2:48not all equally realistic,
-
2:48 - 2:52but things that make you think,
things where you say, "Wow!" -
2:52 - 2:55Now, don't ask me to name the individuals,
-
2:55 - 2:59but what sticks in the mind
is how it all fits together, -
2:59 - 3:05what are the big schemes that come out
of these different proposals. -
3:07 - 3:11So, 500 years ago, every speaker
will probably repeat this, -
3:12 - 3:13"Utopia."
-
3:14 - 3:16When Thomas More wrote this,
-
3:17 - 3:20there wasn't much of technology around,
-
3:20 - 3:24but it reminds me of something
that I received this morning -
3:25 - 3:29and I have a suspicion - ah, indeed -
-
3:29 - 3:35Thomas More sent his "Utopia"
as a proposal to my program. -
3:35 - 3:39He's looking for money.
Hm, would we fund it? -
3:39 - 3:40Let's see. Let's have a look.
-
3:41 - 3:43Oh, my God, this doesn't look good.
-
3:44 - 3:47No deliverables, no timeline,
-
3:48 - 3:50resource table missing,
-
3:50 - 3:51(Laughter)
-
3:51 - 3:54collaborative research among -
what is it? - three member states -
3:54 - 3:58or associated countries,
the third country is called "Utopia?" -
3:58 - 4:01I couldn't find it in my databases,
it probably doesn't exist. -
4:01 - 4:04This is a hoax, no, this cannot be true.
-
4:04 - 4:07So, no, no way, we should not
fund this kind of stuff. -
4:07 - 4:09Of course, that's the cynical answer.
-
4:09 - 4:13Cynical answer in how you imagine
maybe how we work. -
4:13 - 4:18But if the question would be:
Should this kind of work be funded, -
4:18 - 4:19and are we funding it?
-
4:19 - 4:22Then my answer's definitely "Yes."
-
4:22 - 4:25We need more attention
to utopian thinking, -
4:25 - 4:28other than the nitty-gritty kind
of innovation work -
4:28 - 4:31that we now do much too often
in our projects. -
4:33 - 4:35That's really what the work of me
-
4:35 - 4:38and the colleagues that I work
with is all about: -
4:38 - 4:41to come up with more of these visions.
-
4:41 - 4:43It's incredibly important.
-
4:43 - 4:47It was already said in the introduction:
Today, more than ever, -
4:47 - 4:50we need alternatives
to the status-quo of our societies. -
4:51 - 4:54If not, we will be prone
to populist things, -
4:54 - 4:57we will have only
a few alternatives to think about, -
4:57 - 5:00we will not inspire the young
to explore new directions, and so on. -
5:00 - 5:03So, it's extremely important to do that.
-
5:03 - 5:06And of course, when More
wrote his "Utopia," -
5:06 - 5:09he didn't have so much
technological elements, -
5:09 - 5:12so he had to use the tools that he had.
-
5:12 - 5:17And the tools at that time, for him,
were laws, institutions, social practices. -
5:17 - 5:20So he described his Utopia in those terms.
-
5:20 - 5:24Today it's very different,
we have mass technologies, -
5:24 - 5:29and they are, to a large extent,
the ways that shape our societies. -
5:29 - 5:33We have to take that aspect now
completely on board, -
5:33 - 5:36and create completely new utopian visions
-
5:36 - 5:41that are both societal, and take
those tools that More used, -
5:41 - 5:46but that also take technologies
as a shaping power into account. -
5:46 - 5:47And in fact, they do.
-
5:47 - 5:51I mean, our current democracies
wouldn't work without printing, -
5:51 - 5:55without fast communication,
without transport, it simply doesn't fit. -
5:55 - 5:59And when technologies change,
societies change, -
5:59 - 6:01and then, the policies have to follow.
-
6:01 - 6:04For the moment that's what they do;
they always scramble behind -
6:04 - 6:08because there is no anticipative thinking
of what the world might be like. -
6:08 - 6:14And so, thinking about these Utopias
in a constructive and proactive way -
6:14 - 6:16is something that we dearly need.
-
6:16 - 6:20Now, the link between utopias
and technology is not new. -
6:20 - 6:22There are many examples around.
-
6:23 - 6:27This is the focus that we take
in the program that I work for: -
6:27 - 6:31What are these utopian visions
inspired by technology -
6:31 - 6:35that are sometimes, and often, dystopian -
Big Brother is a well-known example, -
6:35 - 6:38and Thomas More would have been
more than happy to incorporate -
6:38 - 6:42Big Brother's visions into his Utopia,
because it fits perfectly. -
6:42 - 6:46But he didn't have those things
at that time, so, that's one thing. -
6:46 - 6:49What are some of these things?
-
6:49 - 6:53We are way behind now the age
of the machines, -
6:53 - 6:57we are now in much more sophisticated
machines, and the best known example, -
6:57 - 6:59is of course, is the computer.
-
6:59 - 7:03If I look at many of these ideas
that we receive, -
7:04 - 7:08then there is an underlying assumption
that comes in a few variations, -
7:08 - 7:09that is really very important.
-
7:11 - 7:17The button to reset your world comes
actually from Telecom Italia advertisement -
7:17 - 7:19where they had that in a newspaper.
-
7:19 - 7:21Now, I saw that and, well,
-
7:21 - 7:25the underlying assumption there is really,
that the world is a kind of a computer, -
7:25 - 7:30that you can push a button and reset it
like your laptop or anything else. -
7:30 - 7:33This comes in many variations:
the world as a computer. -
7:33 - 7:35Can you think of the world as a computer
-
7:35 - 7:37without necessarily claiming
that it is a computer? -
7:37 - 7:42This is inspiring you by the word
"computer" to study the world. -
7:43 - 7:46A bit more sophisticated
is the world in a computer. -
7:46 - 7:49Many, many projects,
and project proposals for that matter, -
7:49 - 7:50that we receive are about that;
-
7:50 - 7:54about every discipline
that is currently studied in science -
7:54 - 7:57has its computational variety:
computational biology, -
7:57 - 8:01computational economy,
computational "x", computational anything. -
8:01 - 8:05That is all that you can do,
all those things are also in a computer. -
8:05 - 8:10But the most fundamental one
is to claim that the world is a computer. -
8:10 - 8:14And in the true sense, namely
it's not a machine, but a computer, -
8:14 - 8:16and the difference is that
the computer is programmable, -
8:16 - 8:20it's a general programmable
machine, right? -
8:20 - 8:24So, if you take that then it means
that you can program the world. -
8:24 - 8:27The world, this world, you can program it.
-
8:27 - 8:30And if we could understand how
we would be able to create our future, -
8:30 - 8:36because the only thing that this world
that is a computer computes is the future. -
8:36 - 8:38Every time, tik-tik-tik,
it computes its future. -
8:38 - 8:42So, if you'd be able to program it,
you could steer the future. -
8:42 - 8:46These are underlying visions
that we really see in our programme, -
8:46 - 8:52often made explicit in bits and pieces,
rarely on the whole made explicit. -
8:52 - 8:54But it's important
to capture them, I think. -
8:54 - 8:57Another one is the NBIC-Convergence.
-
8:57 - 9:01This is an old one: It's 15 years
or older, it comes from the US, -
9:01 - 9:05and much of Silicon Valley
still strives on this kind of idea. -
9:05 - 9:09It's the idea that at the lowest level
of the building blocks - -
9:09 - 9:13of neurons, materials,
thinking and so on - -
9:13 - 9:16the things become interchangeable
if you do it right. -
9:16 - 9:20So, you could replace
a human neuron by a chip, -
9:20 - 9:25assuming it has exactly the same
functionality, it will not matter to you. -
9:25 - 9:28Then, this interchangeability
between bits, atoms, neurons, genes - -
9:28 - 9:31BANG, as we sometimes call it as well -
-
9:33 - 9:35is the underlying thing there.
-
9:35 - 9:38Lots of projects trying
to materialise that. -
9:38 - 9:42And it leads to things
that are not only human repair, -
9:42 - 9:46which is what a lot of it is inspired for,
for the medical care, -
9:46 - 9:49but also human augmentation;
making people better. -
9:49 - 9:53This is an example of a project where
we really managed to, not we, -
9:53 - 9:57but people really managed to put
a bi-directional link with feeling -
9:57 - 10:01unto a human prosthesis,
a world-first that was done. -
10:02 - 10:05A bit more crazy and more recent
is this kind of thing: -
10:05 - 10:08hyper-interaction, connected brain,
read-write brain. -
10:08 - 10:10Lots of projects that we now see
-
10:10 - 10:13are starting to look at how to get
information out of the brain, -
10:14 - 10:17and that's getting
more or less easy, technologically. -
10:17 - 10:18Interpreting it remains difficult,
-
10:18 - 10:21but also how to get information
into the brain. -
10:21 - 10:23And the vision that is behind that,
-
10:23 - 10:27for instance, is direct brain-to-brain
communication; no censors, no wires, -
10:27 - 10:30no language, no whatever,
maybe a cable or wireless, -
10:30 - 10:32and my thinking goes into your heads.
-
10:32 - 10:36I don't have to stand talking here,
you already know what I'm going to say, -
10:36 - 10:39because - swoosh - our brains communicate.
-
10:40 - 10:43This is done in projects
with the real results -
10:43 - 10:46published in very high-level journals,
so in all these things you see -
10:46 - 10:52the co-evolution of the science,
the technology, and the proof of concept: -
10:52 - 10:56making it work in a very simple way,
but at least making the case -
10:56 - 10:59that it could work
in a very general sense. -
10:59 - 11:04So, that's the vision to show the ambition
of some of our projects. -
11:04 - 11:08Synthetic life: this is a project
that is now over, project BION, -
11:08 - 11:11where it was tried to build
a synthetic snail. -
11:11 - 11:16And I don't mean a simulated snail,
but a real physical thing -
11:16 - 11:19that is made of polymers
and all kind of stuff, -
11:19 - 11:23and that behaves as a snail,
that is really alive like a snail. -
11:23 - 11:26And if you can do a snail,
maybe you can do other things, -
11:26 - 11:27and maybe you can go on and on.
-
11:27 - 11:29This idea of a synthetic life
-
11:29 - 11:32is fairly new in terms
of concrete results. -
11:32 - 11:35There have been things
on small cells, and things like that, -
11:35 - 11:41but to do it on complex device,
on complex beings -
11:41 - 11:44is something that is fairly new.
-
11:44 - 11:48Expanding from that,
and these are labels that I put there: -
11:48 - 11:53the Hybrid nature, Gaia++,
inspired by plants. -
11:53 - 11:56These are robots that behave like plants.
-
11:56 - 11:59Who would think of a plant as a robot?
-
11:59 - 12:05But these are actually moving, they find
their way, find water, and so on. -
12:05 - 12:10And in fact, it turns out that there was
a wave of projects, uncoordinated, -
12:10 - 12:13of people proposing ideas
inspired by plants. -
12:13 - 12:17Plant biology became the discipline
that suddenly popped-up in our projects. -
12:17 - 12:19Never seen before.
-
12:19 - 12:22So, you see that there are things
in the world that happen -
12:22 - 12:25and then - pop - these visions,
they crystallize. -
12:25 - 12:28And then, there are what I call
"Les accidents de parcours," -
12:28 - 12:32that sometimes visions disappear,
they merge, they do all kind of things. -
12:32 - 12:36I'm not going to the details of this
but you can analyse those things, -
12:36 - 12:40that's what we also do: You take visions
like the disappearing computer, -
12:40 - 12:4520 or more years old, that find
their ways in different variations -
12:45 - 12:48that now lead to what is now called
the Internet of things, -
12:48 - 12:54with certain twists, and certain things,
and combinations, and splits, and so on. -
12:54 - 12:57This is a very interesting work
that has value in itself. -
12:57 - 13:03It has value to come up with these visions
and to document them, to label them, -
13:03 - 13:05to create languages to describe them.
-
13:05 - 13:11Because if you don't, if you just talk
about the vision, you have no words -
13:11 - 13:13to describe what those things mean.
-
13:13 - 13:17Even More had to invent all kinds
of words that didn't exist in English -
13:17 - 13:20to describe what his vision was all about.
-
13:20 - 13:23So that's a very interesting work,
it's provocative novelty, -
13:23 - 13:27deep interdisciplinarity; none of these
visions comes from a single discipline, -
13:27 - 13:31and I think the Golden Age
of interdisciplinarity still has to come. -
13:32 - 13:36That is, now the low-hanging fruit
of interdisciplinarity is gone: -
13:36 - 13:38a bit of inspiration here,
bits of biology there, -
13:38 - 13:42but the real deep collaboration
that's now going to happen. -
13:42 - 13:46Then, they are dynamic entities,
they change, they can be adapted, -
13:46 - 13:48and I think, most important,
they have sweeping implications - -
13:48 - 13:52that's something we in Europe
can learn something about. -
13:52 - 13:56If you think about a company like Google:
There's a core technology -
13:56 - 13:59and then it's applied sweepingly
all over the place. -
13:59 - 14:01I've called it "sweeping innovation."
-
14:01 - 14:05It's not just applied there, or there,
or there -huh! - suddenly cars. -
14:05 - 14:07"My God, why does Google
start doing cars?" -
14:07 - 14:09But if you think about it, it's obvious.
-
14:09 - 14:11Why do they do that, and why they do that?
-
14:11 - 14:13It's a huge diversity of things
in which they invest, -
14:13 - 14:16but the core technology is what they have.
-
14:16 - 14:21So, this brings me
to my own Utopia, if you want. -
14:21 - 14:26My own Utopia is that there is a revival
of working on utopian visions, -
14:26 - 14:29like I and my colleagues do
within the European Commission -
14:29 - 14:31and in other places.
-
14:31 - 14:35Because it's by doing those and putting
the pieces of the puzzle together -
14:35 - 14:38that we see the hundreds, thousands
of ideas that we receive, -
14:38 - 14:41that you can crystalise
these alternatives for today. -
14:41 - 14:47And then, the narrow pipeline
which innovation is today, -
14:47 - 14:51where a little research result,
for instance, leads to a product, -
14:51 - 14:55can be replaced by a much wider,
this wide arrow on the slide, -
14:55 - 14:59by a much wider channel
through which these visions -
14:59 - 15:03actually feed the future society
already today. -
15:03 - 15:07So, these are really tools
to work and to create futures. -
15:07 - 15:09And I think that is my own dream,
-
15:09 - 15:13and that's, I think, why I'm still
motivated to work there. -
15:13 - 15:16I'm going to stop here, thank you,
because now I have to reply -
15:16 - 15:19to Thomas More and see
what he thinks about it. -
15:19 - 15:22(Applause)
- Title:
- The deep future? It starts with believing in it | Walter Van De Velde | TEDxLeuven
- Description:
-
The future holds much potential, whether we'll end up in Utopia or Dystopia will be up to us and the following few generations.
In this talk Walter looks into different examples of high-risk research on the technologies of the future and sketches a path how to cross new technological frontiers.
Walter Vandevelde is the program- and policy officer for the department of Future and Emerging Technologies (FET), the European Commission's deep future technology program.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 15:24
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Retired user edited English subtitles for The deep future? It starts with believing in it | Walter Van De Velde | TEDxLeuven | ||
Retired user edited English subtitles for The deep future? It starts with believing in it | Walter Van De Velde | TEDxLeuven |