8 recommendations to improve the public conversation
David Wood @dw2
Chair, London Futurists londonfuturists.com
Principal, Delta Wisdom deltawisdom.com
Lessons from 10 years of public meetups addressing existential risk
Cambridge Conference on Catastrophic Risk 2016
@dw2 Page 2
Is it wise to discuss existential risks with “the public”?
• No!
• It’s bound to alarm people
• They will over-react
• Populist politicians will inexpertly impose inappropriate constraints
• The discussion will result in more harm than good
• Yes!
• It’s risky, but doing nothing is also risky :-o
• A discussion will happen, whether or not x-risks professionals are involved
• We can learn to apply good skills from the fields of marketing and politics
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Technology marketing lifecycle
Laggards, sceptics
Early adopters,
visionaries Technology enthusiasts
Early majority
Late majority
Geoffrey Moore: Crossing the Chasm; Everett Rogers: The Diffusion of Innovations
Initial messaging
Initial messaging, amplified (louder) ?
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Technology marketing lifecycle
Laggards, sceptics
Customers want technology and
features
Customers want complete solutions, reliability,
and convenience
Early adopters,
visionaries Technology enthusiasts
THE
CH
ASM
Early majority
Late majority
Can accept poor usability
Won’t accept poor usability
Ready to walk a solitary path
Require social validation
Geoffrey Moore: Crossing the Chasm; Everett Rogers: The Diffusion of Innovations
Credible, comprehensive solutions to real-world problems
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Theoretical problem
• A future AGI consciously choosing values different to those programmed into it by humans
• Climate change will cause drastic rise in sea water level by end of 21st century
• Synthetic biology causes a split of the human species
• Physicists create black hole
Real-world problem
• Near-future software systems with bugs, design flaws, or security defects, with pervasive impact
• Climate change is already causing increasingly chaotic weather: floods, droughts…
• Experimental genetics creates fast-spreading pathogen
• Terrorists obtain new WMD
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Real-world solutions
• Cessation of all science?
• World government?
• Software companies must accept more responsibility for defects in their products – Like the car companies raising
priority of safety in 1960s+
• Borrow features of safety culture from nuclear industry – NB still will be hard
– Most change programmes fail
Real-world problem
• Near-future software systems with bugs, design flaws, or security defects, with pervasive impact
• Climate change is already causing increasingly chaotic weather: floods, droughts…
• Experimental genetics creates fast-spreading pathogen
• Terrorists obtain new WMD
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Eight reasons why change initiatives fail 1. Lack of a sufficient sense of urgency
– Perceived pain of change vs. Perceived pain of status-quo
2. Lack of an effective guiding coalition for the change – Aligned management – a team with the ability to make things happen
3. Lack of a clear appealing vision of the new method – Otherwise it may seem too vague – too many unanswered questions
4. Lack of communication for buy-in, keeping the change in people’s mind 5. Lack of empowerment of the people who can implement the change
– Lack of skills, wrong org structure, wrong incentives, bureaucracy…
6. Lack of celebration of small early wins – No momentum established
7. Lack of follow through – may need wave after wave of change to stick 8. Lack of embedding the change at the cultural level
– Otherwise management changes can unravel the change
From John Kotter, “Leading Change”
Over 70% of organisational
change projects fail
Pick the right battles
Not a “world gov’t” but an open lean alliance
Work out the details of positive scenarios
Create x-risk solutions in sprints (Agile)
Art!
Management!
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Skills that need to be developed • Compelling narrative
– Inject urgency, and also positive hope – Learn from Hollywood, soap operas, box sets, memes
• Scenario development – Map out likely interactions: tech, social, political – Partner with futurists
From John Kotter, “Leading Change”
Over 70% of organisational
change projects fail
Pick the right battles
Not a “world gov’t” but an open lean alliance
Work out the details of positive scenarios
Create x-risk solutions in sprints (Agile)
Art!
Management!
@dw2 Page 9 http://valleywag.gawker.com/the-biggest-bullshit-job-titles-in-tech-1521536472
Fashion Evangelist at Tumblr
Digital Prophet at AOL
Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The Atlantic
Hacker-in-Residence at LinkedIn
Chief Curator at eBay
Chief Happiness Officer at Delivering Happiness
Anyone who self-describes as a
Futurist – which is barely even a word,
let alone a job.
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Data driven, hypotheses formed & tested
Wishful thinking Futurology
Futurism
Astrology
Astronomy
Alchemy
Chemistry
A community of reflective, critical, evidence-based practitioners
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The set of credible future
scenarios
Futurists…
Trend analysis
1. Identify scenarios
2. Assess scenarios
Brakes
Extrapolation
Interactions
3. Explore actions
Accelerators
Disruptions
Opportunities
Threats
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Skills that need to be developed • Compelling narrative
– Inject urgency, and also positive hope – Learn from Hollywood, soap operas, box sets, memes
• Scenario development – Map out likely interactions: tech, social, political – Partner with futurists
• Political alliance building – Can’t insist on “purity”; Avoid burning bridges – Identify & prioritise “key influencers”
• Agile development – More than just a software technique
From John Kotter, “Leading Change”
Over 70% of organisational
change projects fail
Pick the right battles
Not a “world gov’t” but an open lean alliance
Work out the details of positive scenarios
Create x-risk solutions in sprints (Agile)
Art!
Management!
@dw2 Page 13
Inertia (Waterfall)
• Elaborate planning
• Painstaking execution
• Stick to the plan!
• Big Design Up Front
• Executives’ intuition
• Secrecy
• Execute a single scenario
• Typically disappoint market
Agile / Lean
• Experimentation
• Sprints deliver incrementally
• Be ready to pivot!
• Iterative Design
• Customer feedback
• Customer feedback
• Search for insight on scenarios
• Anticipate market delight
(early & often)
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Drawback of non-Agile execution
What the market
would, in the end,
like to have
What the initial plan
estimated the
market would like
Time
in the (non-agile) case
when “the plan is king”
Delivery
Measure of
market
dissatisfaction
Don’t lock into
scenarios too
early
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With Agile development (and regular customer feedback)
What the market
would, in the end,
like to have
What the initial plan
estimated the
market would like
Time
following agile
(adaptive) planning
Delivery
Measure of
market
delight
Improve your foresight
planning with regular
feedback from wider circle
@dw2 Page 16
Skills that need to be developed • Compelling narrative
– Inject urgency, and also positive hope – Learn from Hollywood, soap operas, box sets, memes
• Scenario development – Map out likely interactions: tech, social, political – Partner with futurists
• Political alliance building – Can’t insist on “purity”; Avoid burning bridges – Identify & prioritise “key influencers”
• Agile development – More than just a software technique
From John Kotter, “Leading Change”
Over 70% of organisational
change projects fail
Pick the right battles
Not a “world gov’t” but an open lean alliance
Work out the details of positive scenarios
Create x-risk solutions in sprints (Agile)
Art!
Management!
@dw2 Page 17
Paradigm shift
Thomas Kuhn – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
Duck? Rabbit?
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Paradigm shift
Need higher level, integrative vision
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The post-scarcity vision
• An abundance of clean energy (via greentech++)
• An abundance of healthy food (via synthetic biotech++)
• An abundance of material goods (via nanotech++)
• An abundance of affordable health (via rejuvenation biotech++)
• An abundance of all-round intelligence (via cognotech++)
• An abundance of time for creativity (via automation++)
• Supported by cooperative robots, value-aligned AI, better collabtech
• Underpinned by wise use of accelerating technology – Enabled by directing and utilising positive feedback cycles
Technoprogressive transhumanist vision
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• An abundance of human flourishing and freedom – Underpinned by wise use of accelerating technology – Enabled by directing and utilising positive feedback cycles
1. Sustainable (not transient) – Resources come from renewable sources
2. An “extropia”, not a “utopia” – A journey (a progression)
3. A possibility, not an inevitability – Many things could go badly wrong en route – But the basis of the positive journey can be secured well before 2040… – Via improved foresight and corresponding action
The post-scarcity vision Technoprogressive transhumanist vision
New dark age
ahead?
@dw2 Page 21
8 recommendations to improve the public conversation
Lessons from 10 years of public meetups addressing existential risk
1. Prepare to “cross the chasm”: real-world problems, ready solutions 2. Focus – pick the right battles; target selected key influences 3. Engage story-tellers – partner with the best of Hollywood, Netflix… 4. Evolve credible scenarios (tech + human) – partner with futurists 5. Skilfully transcend paradigms – beyond “simply telling the truth” 6. Paint a compelling vision – technoprogressive transhumanism 7. Agile development – incrementally deliver updates to scenarios 8. Embrace politics – little can be achieved without smart alliances