Jamais Cascio

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Photo by Bart Nagel

Interviews and Talks

Wired for Anticipation talk at Lift 10
(video)          May 2010

Soylent Twitter talk at Social Business Edge 2010
(video)          April 2010

Hacking the Earth without Voiding the Warranty talk at State of Green Business Forum 2010
(video)          February 2010

Manipulating the Climate interview on "Living on Earth" (public radio)
(audio)          January 2010

Bloggingheads.TV interview
(video)          January 2010

Homesteading the Uncanny Valley talk at the Biopolitics of Popular Culture conference
(audio)          December 2009

Sixth Sense interview for NPR On the Media
(audio)          November 2009

If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want to be Part of Your Singularity talk for New York Future Salon
(video)          October 2009

Future of Money interview for /Message
(video)          October 2009

Cognitive Drugs interview for "Q" on CBC radio
(audio)          September 2009

How the World Could (Almost) End interview for Slate
(video)          July 2009

Geoengineering interview for Kathleen Dunn Show, Wisconsin Public Radio
(audio)          July 2009

Augmented Reality interview at Tactical Transparency podcast
(audio)          July 2009

ReMaking Tomorrow talk at Amplify09
(video)          June 2009

Mobile Intelligence talk for Mobile Monday
(video)          June 2009

Amplify09 Pre-Event Interview for Amplify09 Podcast
(audio)          May 2009

How to Prepare for the Unexpected Interview for New Hampshire Public Radio
(audio)          April 2009

Cascio's Laws of Robotics presentation for Bay Area AI Meet-Up
(video)          March 2009

How We Relate to Robots Interview for CBC "Spark"
(audio)          March 2009

Looking Forward Interview for National Public Radio
(audio)          March 2009

Future: To Go talk for Art Center Summit
(video)          February 2009

Brains, Bots, Bodies, and Bugs Closing Keynote at Singularity Summit Emerging Technologies Workshop (video)          November 2008

Building Civilizational Resilience Talk at Global Catastrophic Risks conference
(video)          November 2008

Future of Education Talk at Moodle Moot
(video)          June 2008

G-Think Interview
(text)          May 2008
"In the best scenario, the next ten years for green is the story of its disappearance."

A Greener Tomorrow talk at Bay Area Futures Salon
(video)          April 2008

Geoengineering Offensive and Defensive interview, Changesurfer Radio
(audio)          March 2008

Wired interview
(text)           March 2008
"The road to hell is paved with short-term distractions. "

The Future Is Now interview, "Ryan is Hungry"
(video)          March 2008

G'Day World interview
(audio)          March 2008

UK Education Drivers commentary
(video)          February 2008

Futurism and its Discontents presentation at UC Berkeley School of Information
(audio)          February 2008

Metaverse: Your Life, Live and in 3D talk
(video)          December 2007

Singularity Summit Talk
(audio)          September 2007

Political Relationships and Technological Futures interview
(video)          September 2007

NPR interview
(audio)          September 2007
"Science Fiction is a really nice way of uncovering the tacit desires for tomorrow...."

Spark Radio, CBC interview
(audio)          August 2007
Spark Radio, part 2 CBC interview
(audio)          August 2007

True Mutations Live! roundtable Part 1
(audio)          July 2007
True Mutations Live! roundtable Part 2
(audio)          July 2007

G'Day World interview
(audio)          June 2007

NeoFiles interview
(audio)          June 2007

Take-Away Festival talk
(video)          May 2007

NeoFiles interview
(audio)          May 2007

Changesurfer Radio interview
(audio)          April 2007

NeoFiles interview
(audio)          July 2006

FutureGrinder: Participatory Panopticon interview
(audio)          March 2006

TED 2006 talk
(video)          February 2006

Commonwealth Club roundtable on blogging
(audio)          February 2006

Personal Memory Assistants Accelerating Change 2005 talk
(audio)          October 2005

Participatory Panopticon MeshForum 2005 talk
(audio)          May 2005

Activate!

On July 1, I spoke in London at the Guardian "Activate Summit 2010," a day-long collection of talks about the Internet and its possible futures. They've now started posting the talks, and lo and behold, my talk was among the first group.

Here it is -- the whole video runs just under 15 minutes, but the first 30 seconds or so are an ad for "Ushahidi."

#alttext#

Warren Ellis linked to the video yesterday with the following statement, upon which I cannot improve:

14-minute video of Jamais Cascio speaking at the Activate conference, demanding money from fellow speakers and terrifying people with his shoes while talking about the futures of the internet. Is very good.

A Response to Dale...

[Dale Carrico, at Amor Mundi, wrote a thought-provoking piece on whether geoengineering should be considered "futurological greenwashing," covering aspects including the fuzziness of the concept, who's behind efforts to promote the concept, and its non-democratic nature. Chris Mooney (the original trigger for Dale's piece) wrote one response; here's mine.]

Not everyone who writes or speaks about geoengineering has the same perspective, even those of us who approach it from a "futurological" point of view. But as geoengineering has moved from fringe fantasy ("space mirrors") to sober consideration, one thing has become abundantly clear:

Geophysics doesn't care about politics.

Climate systems are slow-change systems; we could stop putting any carbon into the atmosphere right this very second, globally and totally, and still see another 20-50 years of warming due to the carbon that's already there, and the thermal inertia of heat accumulated in the oceans. That translates into at least another 1° C of warming guaranteed, and potentially another 3° C. And 3° C translates into catastrophe.

There's no doubt that continuing to spew greenhouse gases will make things even worse, so don't read that as a "nothing we do matters" argument. But it's very important to recognize that doing all of the right things, for all of the right reasons, may at this point no longer be sufficient to hold off disaster -- a disaster that will hurt most the people least responsible for its causes, least able to survive short-term shocks, and least able to adapt to long-term changes.

So we need to ask ourselves what our options are to minimize harm. Unfortunately, the list of what's technically feasible and what's ethically palatable don't necessarily line up -- and some choices that are both technically and ethically attractive (such as radical emission reductions) are very likely insufficient at this point. So what do we do? We can't just hand-wave that question away: I increasingly believe that this will be the defining question of how we deal with global warming.

The definition of geoengineering that I've been using for quite awhile is "intentional intervention in geophysical systems in order to alter the global climate." This comprises the three key elements: purpose -- geoengineering is something done willfully and with climate modification as the primary goal; scale -- geoengineering focuses on manipulation of complex geophysical processes; and scope -- the results aren't limited to or focused on a particular locality. This helps to clarify both what is and isn't geoengineering. Spewing carbon into the atmosphere via industry and transportation is certainly global and has complex effects, but the primary goal isn't to change the climate; cloud-seeding is intentional and complex, but local; planting trees is intentional and has a (very small) global impact, but is (arguably) not systemic manipulation.

A science-fiction parallel that might illuminate is to think of it as terraforming the Earth. And yes, that's a massive and fraught endeavor.

This definition does illuminate one surprising benefit, however. Because geoengineering operates at a global scale, efforts by the rich to save their own skins through (say) sulfate-injection to keep temperatures down would potentially do more to protect the poor nations than would more locally-focused adaptation efforts.

Dale is absolutely right that geoengineering should be considered and (if embarked upon) managed democratically. The political and ethical questions that geoengineering prompts have long been the focus of my own writing on the subject -- hell, it's the entire reason I wrote Hacking the Earth. And there may be ways of handling it that are reasonably transparent and democratic; see A Survival Guide to Geoengineering, a piece I wrote for the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, or the video of my talk "Hacking the Earth Without Voiding the Warranty", to see some of the guidelines for trying to keep a democratic handle on something this massive.

But here's the ugly truth: nature doesn't care about democracy, or who's right, or what's fair. And because of the slow-change aspect of climate, we can't wait until the worst effects are upon us to make a decision -- by then, it would be far, far too late. The scenario we may be faced with is one where doing something for the wrong reasons, run by the wrong people, may still save more lives than holding out for a more appealing option.

This doesn't mean geoengineering is the right thing to do, or is wise, or will be cost-free -- only that there's a disturbingly high possibility that it's the least-bad of a set of very bad options.

Interview at Futuro e Sostenabilita -- Rome

I spoke recently at an event in Rome entitled "Futuro è Sostenabilita" (Futures and Sustainability, unsurprisingly). After the talk, the organizers took me aside for a brief video interview.

Nice, short summation of why thinking about the future is useful.

Diesel Sweetness

I know that I'm a success, now that I've been immortalized as a comic strip character. In the Friday, July 30 edition of r. stevens' Diesel Sweeties, there appeared:

DS-strip-me.png

...and that difference? Head over to Diesel Sweeties to find out (and to see it in its full, glorious size)!

Thank you, Richard!

Hiatus

In case it's not already apparent, I'm on a blogging break at the moment, while I work on some big projects.

Yes, including a book.

In the meantime, I've gone ahead and shut off comments for now, as an overwhelming majority of the incoming comments are just attempts at spam. As I hand-approve every comment that goes up, none of that spam has gotten through. My spam-blocking is mighty.

If any interesting talk videos or TV stuff rolls around, I'll post, so don't take me off your RSS list. And I will get back to blogging in the weeks or months to come.

#alttext#

Email still works, and if you can't stand to be without my textual voice, I'm on Twitter as @cascio.

A Dilemma

Is something still meaningful and true, even when it's been turned into a marketing slogan?

(Spotted in London, in the window of a brand marketing agency.)

Hey, Look

I was asked awhile back to put up a list of my favorite pieces; I've finally gotten around to doing so (and, in the course of the clean-up, making some long-planned modifications to the layout of the OtF home page).

However, I am well aware that what I found most interesting or fun to write may not match with what other folks particularly liked.

So -- what's wrong with the list? Is there a piece that you're just stunned I didn't include? Is there an item that you're baffled as to why I thought it was worth reading in the first place?

Tell me.

Synthetic Genome: TL;DR

If you already understand what's happening with the Venter Institute synthetic genome announcement, and just want to see my response, here's the money quote from the end of the previous post:

One suggestion that we know is possible, because a variation appeared in the Venter announcement: all synthetic genomes should be signed. According to Wired:

“They rebuilt a natural sequence and they put in some poetry,” said University of California at San Francisco synthetic biologist Chris Voigt. “They recreated some quotes in the genome sequence as watermarks.”

What Voigt refers to as a "watermark" should instead be thought of as a "DNA signature." We should require that all synthetic genomes include something like this, unique sequences following a designated pattern, identifying the organization behind the genome, the lab responsible, the date, and any other useful bits of information. Multiple copies should appear throughout the synthetic genome, so it doesn't get mutated away.

That way, if something unexpected happens, we know whom to talk to.

Give My Creation... Life!

The Venter Institute announcement that it had successfully crafted the first self-replicating synthetic organism caused quite a stir, even among people who are otherwise pretty jaded about emerging tech.

It's useful to understand exactly what is -- and what isn't -- going on here.

Where we are:

  • Synthetic genome copied from natural genome and transplanted into existing cell structure.

    This is a moderately big deal, but only that; it's a stepping-stone to a real big deal down the road. What the Venter Institute has done is synthesize a genome that reproduces the genome of an existing organism, then insert that genome into the body of an existing cell, replacing its own DNA. That cell was then able to self-replicate, indicating that the synthetic DNA copy was sufficiently complete.

    "Synthetic" here doesn't mean artificial, by the way. The DNA of the synthetic genome comprises the same base pairs and nucleotides as a natural genome, but was synthesized in the lab rather than replicated from an earlier cell. The best analogy I can think of is if, rather than copying the MP3 of your favorite song, you pulled together a really sophisticated music creation application and reproduced the song yourself, exact in every detail. It's the same, but a synthetic version.

    If that sounds like a lot of work to get something that is essentially the same as the natural/original version, you're right. But this step was never the real goal -- it's just preparation. The real goal is to create an entirely novel life form, comprising both entirely new DNA and an entirely new cell. That's still to come.

    Where we aren't:

  • Transgenic synthetic genome (natural genome copy with genetic code from other kinds of organisms).

    The synthetic genome created by the Venter Institute is a streamlined version of the original Mycoplasma mycoides bacteria, containing enough of the original code to replicate and function as M. mycoides. Adding transgenic features -- that is, genetic material copied from non-M. mycoides species -- should be fairly straightforward, as it's essentially doing standard bioengineering.

    In principle, this should actually be somewhat safer than current transgenic biotech, as they'll have much more precise control over the engineered genomes.

  • Novogenic synthetic genome (entirely constructed novel genome).

    The ultimate goal would be to create an entirely new bacterial species by creating genes that do new things, or by combining diverse known DNA sequences to create a functional, replicating bacteria that doesn't mimic any existing species. This will be hard, but clearly not impossible.

    The bonus goal:

  • De novo creation of cell structure.

    The cell in which the synthetic DNA is housed already existed, but with different DNA (it was the cell of a related species of Mycoplasma). One likely future step will be to create an entirely synthetic cell by throwing together the right set of proteins in just the right way. Like the latest breakthrough, that will undoubtedly start out by simply reproducing an existing cell structure. Ultimately, they'll want to create cellular bodies that have novel features, such as (conjecture here) additional mitochondria for added power.

    Where we go:

    So what does this all mean?

    The idea is to turn bacteria into microscopic machines, carrying out designated tasks in massively-parallel operations. Given the extreme range of things that bacteria can do in nature, the extent to which bacterial machines might be used is pretty staggering, particularly concerning environmental response. This would be a perfect platform for methanotrophic remediation of melting permafrost, for example; the Venter folks are already talking about building synthetic bacteria to do carbon capture. Biofuels are also high on the agenda.

    The big concern about synthetic biology is the potential for the creation of hazardous materials -- aggressive, infectious bacteria, for example. We should also consider, at the same time, its biomedical potential. Are there ways of delivering drugs via synthetic bacteria?

    One advantage of the big splash this relatively modest development has made is that it opens up the possibility of laying out the parameters of what ethical, responsible management of this technology would look like before have to confront its fully-developed form.

    Should we require a "shut-off" gene in any novogenic organism, one that kills the cell if certain conditions are (or aren't) met? A reproduction-limiting set of genes that only permits replication in the presence of a rare chemical? Public registration of all novogenic genomes?

    One suggestion that we know is possible, because a variation appeared in the Venter announcement: all synthetic genomes should be signed. According to Wired:

    “They rebuilt a natural sequence and they put in some poetry,” said University of California at San Francisco synthetic biologist Chris Voigt. “They recreated some quotes in the genome sequence as watermarks.”

    What Voigt refers to as a "watermark" should instead be thought of as a "DNA signature." We should require that all synthetic genomes include something like this, unique sequences following a designated pattern, identifying the organization behind the genome, the lab responsible, the date, and any other useful bits of information. Multiple copies should appear throughout the synthetic genome, so it doesn't get mutated away.

    That way, if something unexpected happens, we know whom to talk to.

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