What do you think?
Rate this book
On the Future: Prospects for Humanity
A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees
Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes--good and bad--are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence--if pursued and applied wisely--could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no "Plan B" for Earth--no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet.
Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.
Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes--good and bad--are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity's prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence--if pursued and applied wisely--could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no "Plan B" for Earth--no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet.
Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published October 16, 2018
150 people are currently reading
2651 people want to read
About the author
Martin J. Rees
64 books297 followersMartin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, PRS (born June 23, 1942 in York) is an English cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995, and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge since 2004. He became President of the Royal Society on December 1, 2005.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
June 18, 2020
The Bleakest of Expectations
The substance of this book is scientific, namely the most important threats to human life on Earth and their elimination or mitigation. But Rees’s intention, of course, is political. He understandably wants to contribute to the generation of a consensus and provoke rational cooperative action - on tax, on technological development, on research priorities, on government funding for science, on sociological attitudes and even on the structure of politics itself. It is this last which is probably the most important but about which Rees has almost nothing to say. It is this absence of a remedy for politics that I find the central and most frightening aspect of the human condition.
Rees believes that economics can take care of some issues - just being more efficient in fuel usage and re-cycling of material like steel are “win-win” for everyone involved. Other problems require international coordinated planning and direction - global warming for example. He suggests the United Nations as the central body to supervise such efforts. So one might call Rees a political pragmatist: use the market - including the democratic ‘electoral market’ - where possible and a benign dictatorship where necessary.
There are of course a whole range of political possibilities which sit in between the radical neo-liberal and the radical socialist. But these two set the rough boundaries of the political experience of humanity. The Scylla and Charybdis, one might say, of human potential. Beyond either limit is merely national shipwreck and chaos, including the end of civilized political activity.
I am incompetent to comment on the scientific credibility of what Rees has to say about the technological solutions which seem most promising to keep the planet habitable. Obviously there is a necessary debate which will persist among professionals as they carry out their research and respond to innovations. This debate is conducted within certain rules of accepted scientific method, logic, and other ‘tools of rationality’. Such debate is not without its political aspects - about things like what constitutes evidence, the credibility of individual researchers, and the assessment of the weight of proof on various sides of an argument for example. But science is a constrained politics. Its criteria of value, of what’s important in any discipline, while not fixed, are fairly stable.
Politics outside of science are an entirely different matter. There are no political checklists by which good and bad politics can be distinguished. And certainly whatever values, criteria of correct action, prevail at any moment, there is little hope for their stability. Even just realizing these values - economic growth or more equitable income distribution for example - will change what’s important in general politics. In a sense, therefore, there can be no real or lasting political progress. Politics is a pre-rational activity, one which seeks to establish which criteria, which values, are appropriate in the moment. Rees is making the case that scientific values should prevail.
The problem is that Rees’s case for the interests of science does not cope very well with the wider interests of human beings. Idealists may be concerned about freedom of speech; realists about the degradation of the oceans, ecologists about the loss of species. Most may be simply worried about their chances for survival or employment or advancement. Whatever their situation, it is inevitable that people, and the political groups to which people belong, will have different views on priorities, and the correct actions to address them. Politics is the process by which these views are reconciled, compromised and turned into reality. In this process science is just another set of interests.
This has profound implications which most of us would rather not think about too carefully. One person who has done, however, is the Nobel Laureate economist, Kenneth Arrow. In the early 1950’s Arrow formulated what has come to be called his Impossibility Theorem, a sort of rule of logic for group decision making. Like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Physics, the Impossibility Theorem, although hardly as well known, is at first somewhat difficult to grasp. But once it is understand, it is possible to see its effects everywhere - from democratic politics to corporate decision-making to family feuds.
The proof of the Impossibility Theorem is fairly complex. But its conclusion can be stated simply: For any decision to be made by a group, if the members of that group have even slightly different criteria of correct action, interests, or values, the decision agreed upon will be that which everyone can accept but which no one wants. Once admitted to consciousness, the Theorem explains many otherwise unexplainable phenomena - from the prosecution of wars, to the election of Donald Trump. The consequences of the Impossibility Theorem are not occasional ‘glitches’ in decision-making, they are the rule, that only rarely result in anything that a scientist, or any fully aware person, could call rational.
So Rees’s confidence in either the market or in the capacity of democratic government to address the issues he raises is clearly whistling in the dark. Arrow will prevail as it always has done. Given the urgency of many of these issues, it isn’t at all likely that any kind of rational consensus can be achieved even if all his views about the future were accepted in their entirety. So does the future of the planet lie with the establishment of a benign dictatorship, perhaps, as Rees suggests, executed through the United Nations? Well certainly not if the United Nations operated as it does now as a trans-national committee representing national interests.
But suppose there was a ‘top-man’ at the UN, a world leader who had been given the authority and the military power by its members to enforce Rees’s scientific agenda. Is our global future dependent upon rooting out the roots of the Arrow problem by eliminating the inherent group decision-making irrationality of democratic politics?
Unfortunately, even such a dictatorship is incapable of pursuing the scientifically rational agenda. The reason is once again simple: The first rule of power, its Prime Directive, is the maintenance of power. In other words, power has its own inherent interests. These interests are perfectly rational - without power it can do nothing. Therefore, even in scientific terms it must oppose the rationality of science. Trump’s recent attempts to trash science - from his refusal to recognize global warming to his blaming inadequate ‘raking’ of brush for California wildfires - is an example of such rational opposition. It is rational according to the demands of power. Every time the man makes such crazy assertions, he solidifies his political ‘base’, whether he believes what he’s saying or not.
Trump is not alone in his demonstration of the Prime Directive of power. Rees quotes the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who makes the point unequivocally: “We all know what to do; we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.” This from a man who is well-insulated from the interests of the hoi polloi of Europe. Even dictators who are immune from the tedious conventions of democratic politics, have politics to contend with. Rees doesn’t seem to take this basic fact at all seriously.
The question begged by Rees then is ‘What political process is capable of addressing the kinds of issues that confront humanity?’ The sad answer is simply ‘None’. Nothing on the entire spectrum from any sort of representative democracy to the most absolute of dictatorships holds the solution to the Arrow paradox or the prime directive of political power. We seem to be in the realm of the miraculous. So I suppose mass conversion to some sort of global religion might stand a chance. But the probability of such an event seems less than that of the human race emigrating to some distant planet to escape the conditions its very existence creates.
I can only hope that someone sees where I’ve gone wrong.
The substance of this book is scientific, namely the most important threats to human life on Earth and their elimination or mitigation. But Rees’s intention, of course, is political. He understandably wants to contribute to the generation of a consensus and provoke rational cooperative action - on tax, on technological development, on research priorities, on government funding for science, on sociological attitudes and even on the structure of politics itself. It is this last which is probably the most important but about which Rees has almost nothing to say. It is this absence of a remedy for politics that I find the central and most frightening aspect of the human condition.
Rees believes that economics can take care of some issues - just being more efficient in fuel usage and re-cycling of material like steel are “win-win” for everyone involved. Other problems require international coordinated planning and direction - global warming for example. He suggests the United Nations as the central body to supervise such efforts. So one might call Rees a political pragmatist: use the market - including the democratic ‘electoral market’ - where possible and a benign dictatorship where necessary.
There are of course a whole range of political possibilities which sit in between the radical neo-liberal and the radical socialist. But these two set the rough boundaries of the political experience of humanity. The Scylla and Charybdis, one might say, of human potential. Beyond either limit is merely national shipwreck and chaos, including the end of civilized political activity.
I am incompetent to comment on the scientific credibility of what Rees has to say about the technological solutions which seem most promising to keep the planet habitable. Obviously there is a necessary debate which will persist among professionals as they carry out their research and respond to innovations. This debate is conducted within certain rules of accepted scientific method, logic, and other ‘tools of rationality’. Such debate is not without its political aspects - about things like what constitutes evidence, the credibility of individual researchers, and the assessment of the weight of proof on various sides of an argument for example. But science is a constrained politics. Its criteria of value, of what’s important in any discipline, while not fixed, are fairly stable.
Politics outside of science are an entirely different matter. There are no political checklists by which good and bad politics can be distinguished. And certainly whatever values, criteria of correct action, prevail at any moment, there is little hope for their stability. Even just realizing these values - economic growth or more equitable income distribution for example - will change what’s important in general politics. In a sense, therefore, there can be no real or lasting political progress. Politics is a pre-rational activity, one which seeks to establish which criteria, which values, are appropriate in the moment. Rees is making the case that scientific values should prevail.
The problem is that Rees’s case for the interests of science does not cope very well with the wider interests of human beings. Idealists may be concerned about freedom of speech; realists about the degradation of the oceans, ecologists about the loss of species. Most may be simply worried about their chances for survival or employment or advancement. Whatever their situation, it is inevitable that people, and the political groups to which people belong, will have different views on priorities, and the correct actions to address them. Politics is the process by which these views are reconciled, compromised and turned into reality. In this process science is just another set of interests.
This has profound implications which most of us would rather not think about too carefully. One person who has done, however, is the Nobel Laureate economist, Kenneth Arrow. In the early 1950’s Arrow formulated what has come to be called his Impossibility Theorem, a sort of rule of logic for group decision making. Like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Physics, the Impossibility Theorem, although hardly as well known, is at first somewhat difficult to grasp. But once it is understand, it is possible to see its effects everywhere - from democratic politics to corporate decision-making to family feuds.
The proof of the Impossibility Theorem is fairly complex. But its conclusion can be stated simply: For any decision to be made by a group, if the members of that group have even slightly different criteria of correct action, interests, or values, the decision agreed upon will be that which everyone can accept but which no one wants. Once admitted to consciousness, the Theorem explains many otherwise unexplainable phenomena - from the prosecution of wars, to the election of Donald Trump. The consequences of the Impossibility Theorem are not occasional ‘glitches’ in decision-making, they are the rule, that only rarely result in anything that a scientist, or any fully aware person, could call rational.
So Rees’s confidence in either the market or in the capacity of democratic government to address the issues he raises is clearly whistling in the dark. Arrow will prevail as it always has done. Given the urgency of many of these issues, it isn’t at all likely that any kind of rational consensus can be achieved even if all his views about the future were accepted in their entirety. So does the future of the planet lie with the establishment of a benign dictatorship, perhaps, as Rees suggests, executed through the United Nations? Well certainly not if the United Nations operated as it does now as a trans-national committee representing national interests.
But suppose there was a ‘top-man’ at the UN, a world leader who had been given the authority and the military power by its members to enforce Rees’s scientific agenda. Is our global future dependent upon rooting out the roots of the Arrow problem by eliminating the inherent group decision-making irrationality of democratic politics?
Unfortunately, even such a dictatorship is incapable of pursuing the scientifically rational agenda. The reason is once again simple: The first rule of power, its Prime Directive, is the maintenance of power. In other words, power has its own inherent interests. These interests are perfectly rational - without power it can do nothing. Therefore, even in scientific terms it must oppose the rationality of science. Trump’s recent attempts to trash science - from his refusal to recognize global warming to his blaming inadequate ‘raking’ of brush for California wildfires - is an example of such rational opposition. It is rational according to the demands of power. Every time the man makes such crazy assertions, he solidifies his political ‘base’, whether he believes what he’s saying or not.
Trump is not alone in his demonstration of the Prime Directive of power. Rees quotes the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who makes the point unequivocally: “We all know what to do; we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.” This from a man who is well-insulated from the interests of the hoi polloi of Europe. Even dictators who are immune from the tedious conventions of democratic politics, have politics to contend with. Rees doesn’t seem to take this basic fact at all seriously.
The question begged by Rees then is ‘What political process is capable of addressing the kinds of issues that confront humanity?’ The sad answer is simply ‘None’. Nothing on the entire spectrum from any sort of representative democracy to the most absolute of dictatorships holds the solution to the Arrow paradox or the prime directive of political power. We seem to be in the realm of the miraculous. So I suppose mass conversion to some sort of global religion might stand a chance. But the probability of such an event seems less than that of the human race emigrating to some distant planet to escape the conditions its very existence creates.
I can only hope that someone sees where I’ve gone wrong.
March 1, 2019
I read a lot of popular science books and it's not often that I read one and don't learn at least a few things.
On the Future: Prospects for Humanity is an exception. It is the author's thoughts and speculations on a variety of topics pertaining to the future. It was not very in-depth and lacked originality. Much of the time it felt forced and dry. Martin Rees is an astronomer and the parts about space exploration, manned and unmanned, were more animated and thus more interesting. Still, I didn't learn anything new. There are a number of other similar books that I think are much better, such as The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
If you don't read many popular science books and are looking for a brief look at trending thoughts on the future, you might enjoy this book. It is concise and to the point. If you want something weightier though, I would go with one of the above mentioned books.
3 stars. It is not a bad book but was disappointing for me because I didn't learn anything. I'm not a science whiz and don't have a college degree in any of the sciences, so I almost always learn new things from science books; not so in this case. Again though, if you don't read many books in this genre, you might find this book more interesting.
October 16, 2018
"A feature of science is that as the frontiers of our knowledge are extended, new mysteries, just beyond the frontiers, come into sharper focus."
To be able to look into the future, one must see the present in its complex, chaotic, simultaneous varieties. With charm and clarity, Martin Rees moves from the status quo of humanity in the Anthropocene to different outlooks on the distant and not-so-distant future.
What do we do with ourselves at a moment in time when we have the knowledge, skills and understanding to change our own biosphere? How do we solve the issues of overpopulation, pollution, climate change, the impact of biotechnology, nuclear power, and interconnectedness via small but smart devices of our own making? And what about artificial intelligence and machine learning?
All these questions are important to humanity as a whole, as a species, and the way we deal with the world we have created for ourselves will have far-reaching impact on our children and their offspring.
Martin Rees avoids the scaremongering that is so common these days, and he finds conciliatory approaches to even the most difficult problems, such as the power of religion to block scientific and social progress. His attitude is a quite interesting one: in his own words, he is a practising but unbelieving Christian, thus acknowledging the cultural and social importance of ritual even in a fully secular mind. By embracing the human need for community, one is able to reach out and unite in peaceful coexistence rather than encouraging frustrated drifting off into rigid positions of fundamentalism and fanaticism. This obviously can be adapted to any other religion as well as to any political ideology, in order to rein in the populist power of irresponsible cult personalities, driving their own interests on the fear of their followers.
The scariest part of his reasoning remains the fact that we need more critical thinking skills and deeper knowledge and understanding than ever before to tackle the complexity of the issues we face as a species. As I was reading another eloquent scientist's account of the development of our brains in the age of digital reading just before I started on this one, I sensed a moment of spontaneous panic - as we are drifting away from exactly the kind of skills we need to enhance, according to both Martin Rees and Maryanne Wolf in her Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.
To me as an educator, it sounds like hard work. But it has to be done. Humanities need a comeback in our technocrazed world - for a responsible approach to our own power. Humanity needs to take on a better parent role for planet Earth and its inhabitants than the ancient monotheistic gods did according to the myths. It can't afford to dump the creation to rule itself. Power without responsibility and accountability must become a thing of the past. Patriarchal human-gods have to make space for international collaboration in the humanities and natural sciences to create a livable habitat for all.
For a future!
To be able to look into the future, one must see the present in its complex, chaotic, simultaneous varieties. With charm and clarity, Martin Rees moves from the status quo of humanity in the Anthropocene to different outlooks on the distant and not-so-distant future.
What do we do with ourselves at a moment in time when we have the knowledge, skills and understanding to change our own biosphere? How do we solve the issues of overpopulation, pollution, climate change, the impact of biotechnology, nuclear power, and interconnectedness via small but smart devices of our own making? And what about artificial intelligence and machine learning?
All these questions are important to humanity as a whole, as a species, and the way we deal with the world we have created for ourselves will have far-reaching impact on our children and their offspring.
Martin Rees avoids the scaremongering that is so common these days, and he finds conciliatory approaches to even the most difficult problems, such as the power of religion to block scientific and social progress. His attitude is a quite interesting one: in his own words, he is a practising but unbelieving Christian, thus acknowledging the cultural and social importance of ritual even in a fully secular mind. By embracing the human need for community, one is able to reach out and unite in peaceful coexistence rather than encouraging frustrated drifting off into rigid positions of fundamentalism and fanaticism. This obviously can be adapted to any other religion as well as to any political ideology, in order to rein in the populist power of irresponsible cult personalities, driving their own interests on the fear of their followers.
The scariest part of his reasoning remains the fact that we need more critical thinking skills and deeper knowledge and understanding than ever before to tackle the complexity of the issues we face as a species. As I was reading another eloquent scientist's account of the development of our brains in the age of digital reading just before I started on this one, I sensed a moment of spontaneous panic - as we are drifting away from exactly the kind of skills we need to enhance, according to both Martin Rees and Maryanne Wolf in her Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.
To me as an educator, it sounds like hard work. But it has to be done. Humanities need a comeback in our technocrazed world - for a responsible approach to our own power. Humanity needs to take on a better parent role for planet Earth and its inhabitants than the ancient monotheistic gods did according to the myths. It can't afford to dump the creation to rule itself. Power without responsibility and accountability must become a thing of the past. Patriarchal human-gods have to make space for international collaboration in the humanities and natural sciences to create a livable habitat for all.
For a future!
January 23, 2020
Martin Rees (°1942) is a leading scientist, he officially even is Astronomer Royal in the UK. If someone with such a reputation lets his light shine on the major challenges humanity faces today and in the future, then it is certainly worth listening to him. And Rees does indeed elaborate on the threats and opportunities that are coming our way: climate change, overpopulation, robotization, artificial intelligence and so on.
Only, he does so in a very unstructured way, almost haphazardly. And both his list of problems and the solutions that he proposes are not exactly original. But what is striking is that he speaks almost exclusively as a scientist. No wonder that to him the solution to virtually all challenges is: more science and more technology.
He has a good right to do this, and of course there is something to be said for this argument. But I am nevertheless wary of a one-sided trust in science and technology. And even if good solutions can be expected from that side, it’s still not evident to convince both policy makers and public opinion. Rees touches upon that issue, but does not really elaborate.
What's more, his book eventually ends in a lecture on the theory of science, and one of his chapters is an outright astronomy course. This book contains interesting thoughts, but it's very superficial, and basically it's foremost a plea 'pro domo'.
Only, he does so in a very unstructured way, almost haphazardly. And both his list of problems and the solutions that he proposes are not exactly original. But what is striking is that he speaks almost exclusively as a scientist. No wonder that to him the solution to virtually all challenges is: more science and more technology.
He has a good right to do this, and of course there is something to be said for this argument. But I am nevertheless wary of a one-sided trust in science and technology. And even if good solutions can be expected from that side, it’s still not evident to convince both policy makers and public opinion. Rees touches upon that issue, but does not really elaborate.
What's more, his book eventually ends in a lecture on the theory of science, and one of his chapters is an outright astronomy course. This book contains interesting thoughts, but it's very superficial, and basically it's foremost a plea 'pro domo'.
May 20, 2023
"The trouble with predicting the future is that it is very hard." -- Yogi Berra
Martin Rees gets off to a weak start in this slender book, in which (so far) he has little of interest to say. Or so is my impression, halfway in. I'm surprised, as I read the book because of Sabine Hossenfelder's reco, and I liked her "Lost in Math" a lot. Others like Rees' book too, and I suppose I'll at least skip ahead. At least it's short! Tentative 2-star rating based on the first half. The first section is truly dire.
Section 1, Energy and Climate
He’s drunk the “clean energy” Kool Aid, in the service of Decarbonizing to avoid Climageddon…. None of which is remotely likely to happen, in my view. And I’m pretty knowledgeable on both topics. He does give a weak thumbs-up to nuclear power. You can't possibly run a technical civilization on windmills and solar farms! Do the math. He didn't. 1-star to this chapter, pretty pitiful performance for a Distinguished Astronomer. Demonstrating, yet again, that scientists, outside of their area of expertise, have no more credibility than anybody else! My god. He could at least have maintained a decent degree of skepticism about the media-frenzy predicting Climageddon!
Section 2, Biotech and AI
A little better, but Rees has little new to offer, for me anyway — I keep up on these topics too. One bit was new-to-me: India is using the vein patterns in peoples’ eyes for their National ID program. They have found no problem unambiguously identifying something like 1.3 billion individuals in the country. Impressive! I don’t know how far along this program is.
A striking statement around p. 96 (hc ed): a “progressive govt” should provide the same amenities to all citizens as are now available to The Rich. Spoken like a good Fabian Socialist! He gives no indication of how such an ambitious program is to be financed, and one is reminded of Margaret Thatcher’s tart observation that such programs quickly run out of Other Peoples Money.
Section 3, Further Future.
I haven’t finished this (and may not). In essence, his intermediate-future projections are (in my view) way behind those of our better hard-SF writers, such as Charles Stross and Ken MacLeod. Again, Rees doesn’t seem to have that much of interest to say. The book came due at htis point, and I don't plan to return. Nor do I recommend it. Its chief virtue is its brevity. Which, sadly, is matched by its lack of meaningful content. Or worse, misleading content. I read (or skimmed) about 2/3 of the book.
YMMV. Sabine Hossenfelder wrote this brief review for the WSJ:
"Among the books I read this year one that stood out is Martin Rees’s “On the Future.” It’s a remarkable book not only because of the subject—the prospects of humanity—but because it is so reasonable. You almost get the sense it’s still possible to have rational debates. This isn’t to say I agree with Mr. Rees on all his points. That would be some surprise given his disparate subjects, from the threat of nuclear war to climate change, artificial intelligence and fleets of tiny robots exploring interstellar space. But Mr. Rees largely manages to steer clear of both fear mongering and cheerleading. The question of how we should deal with new technology has no easy answer, and the author doesn’t pretend that it does. Instead, in each case he lays out the important points to consider. Alas, Mr. Rees doesn’t contemplate the most obvious challenge we face, which is that we are very bad at communicating and identifying relevant information in large communities. The most lucid exposition of technological risks won’t help if we collectively disregard it."
Martin Rees gets off to a weak start in this slender book, in which (so far) he has little of interest to say. Or so is my impression, halfway in. I'm surprised, as I read the book because of Sabine Hossenfelder's reco, and I liked her "Lost in Math" a lot. Others like Rees' book too, and I suppose I'll at least skip ahead. At least it's short! Tentative 2-star rating based on the first half. The first section is truly dire.
Section 1, Energy and Climate
He’s drunk the “clean energy” Kool Aid, in the service of Decarbonizing to avoid Climageddon…. None of which is remotely likely to happen, in my view. And I’m pretty knowledgeable on both topics. He does give a weak thumbs-up to nuclear power. You can't possibly run a technical civilization on windmills and solar farms! Do the math. He didn't. 1-star to this chapter, pretty pitiful performance for a Distinguished Astronomer. Demonstrating, yet again, that scientists, outside of their area of expertise, have no more credibility than anybody else! My god. He could at least have maintained a decent degree of skepticism about the media-frenzy predicting Climageddon!
Section 2, Biotech and AI
A little better, but Rees has little new to offer, for me anyway — I keep up on these topics too. One bit was new-to-me: India is using the vein patterns in peoples’ eyes for their National ID program. They have found no problem unambiguously identifying something like 1.3 billion individuals in the country. Impressive! I don’t know how far along this program is.
A striking statement around p. 96 (hc ed): a “progressive govt” should provide the same amenities to all citizens as are now available to The Rich. Spoken like a good Fabian Socialist! He gives no indication of how such an ambitious program is to be financed, and one is reminded of Margaret Thatcher’s tart observation that such programs quickly run out of Other Peoples Money.
Section 3, Further Future.
I haven’t finished this (and may not). In essence, his intermediate-future projections are (in my view) way behind those of our better hard-SF writers, such as Charles Stross and Ken MacLeod. Again, Rees doesn’t seem to have that much of interest to say. The book came due at htis point, and I don't plan to return. Nor do I recommend it. Its chief virtue is its brevity. Which, sadly, is matched by its lack of meaningful content. Or worse, misleading content. I read (or skimmed) about 2/3 of the book.
YMMV. Sabine Hossenfelder wrote this brief review for the WSJ:
"Among the books I read this year one that stood out is Martin Rees’s “On the Future.” It’s a remarkable book not only because of the subject—the prospects of humanity—but because it is so reasonable. You almost get the sense it’s still possible to have rational debates. This isn’t to say I agree with Mr. Rees on all his points. That would be some surprise given his disparate subjects, from the threat of nuclear war to climate change, artificial intelligence and fleets of tiny robots exploring interstellar space. But Mr. Rees largely manages to steer clear of both fear mongering and cheerleading. The question of how we should deal with new technology has no easy answer, and the author doesn’t pretend that it does. Instead, in each case he lays out the important points to consider. Alas, Mr. Rees doesn’t contemplate the most obvious challenge we face, which is that we are very bad at communicating and identifying relevant information in large communities. The most lucid exposition of technological risks won’t help if we collectively disregard it."
March 6, 2019
Now is the time for an optimistic vision of life's destiny – in this world, and perhaps far beyond it. We need to think globally, we need to think rationally, we need to think long-term – empowered by twenty-first-century technology but guided by values that science alone can't provide.
On the Future is a fairly slim book (just over 200 small pages before endnotes), and ultimately, it doesn't have much to say about our near future that I haven't read before. Author Martin Rees concludes his overview of the imminent threats to humanity (and his globalist solutions) with a plea for greater scientific knowledge among the masses, and if more people pick up this kind of easy reading primer on current scientific issues, then I suppose Rees is meeting his own brief; even if it doesn't quite satisfy my own curiosity.
Our planet, this “pale blue dot” in the cosmos, is a special place. It may be a unique place. And we are its stewards in an especially crucial era. That is an important message for all of us – and the theme of this book.
Oddly, Rees is both the scientist famous for giving humanity 50/50 odds of suffering a massive bioterror attack by the year 2020 (Rees ultimately accepted Steven Pinker's wager against the eventuality), and in this book, he comes across as totally optimistic that science can save us from the problems that science has created. Global Warming, Nuclear Threats, Pandemics, Overpopulation and Feeding the World; science and technology will provide the solutions (even as Rees suggests we learn some restraint). And even if we can't quite save this planet for human occupation, Rees enthuses about the future of humanity as self-aware, self-replicating AI sent off into the cosmos to explore and colonise the universe. Call me old-fashioned, but the elimination of “wetware” doesn't sound like a rosy future for humanity. Yet what really made me uncomfortable were Rees' frequent urgings for a global response to economic disparity:
The plight of the “bottom billion” in today's world could be transformed by redistributing the wealth of the thousand richest people on the planet. Failure to respond to this humanitarian imperative, which nations have the power to remedy, surely casts doubt on any claims of institutional moral progress.
Rees suggests some new global organisations – which can neither be run as democracies nor dictatorships, but some agreed upon third way – could take the place of nation states and control the rate of technological development, respond to the “disruptions” of hackers and mass migration due to poverty, and presumably, relieve the top thousand richest people of their wealth. On the other hand, Rees thinks it better for private investors to take over space travel, and even, for emerging scientists to set up private labs, “If enough make this choice, it will erode the primacy of research universities and boost the importance of 'independent scientists' to the level that prevailed before the twentieth century – and perhaps enhance the flowering of genuinely original ideas”. And yet, what private companies or individuals will take these risks if their profits can be redistributed away from them? Rees' thoughts flow to their (il)logical end:
The digital revolution generates enormous wealth for an elite group of innovators and for global companies, but preserving a healthy society will require redistribution of that wealth. There is talk of using it to provide a universal income. The snags to implementing this are well known, and the societal disadvantages are intimidating. It would be far better to subsidise the types of jobs for which there is currently a large unmet demand and for which pay and status is unjustly low.
He's talking about nannies, gardeners, butlers, and caregivers; the kind of “personal services” that “rich people value”. Not only will the lower classes have these subsidised, unlikely-to-be-replaced-by-robots, jobs, but everyone else can live like millionaires. (So do the nannies, gardeners, butlers and caregivers get nannies, gardeners, butlers and caregivers of their own?) I don't disagree that income disparity – especially from a global perspective – is a pressing issue, but I think I would have liked this book better if Rees had stuck to the science.
Later chapters (which Rees admits might be self-indulgent) are on the nature of reality and whether God is needed to explain Creation, and he ends with his plea for more scientific literacy among the masses. Overall, this reads like a catalogue of the ideas that are rattling around the head of a deep thinker, and some resonated with me while others didn't. There's certainly value in reading even those ideas that one doesn't agree with and I'm satisfied to have been exposed to a different point of view.
October 23, 2018
When I was at school we had a great young history teacher who got everyone in the class to go out and buy a copy of Mao's Little Red Book. Some parents were decidedly unhappy, but it was a fascinating exercise, and though I found most of the contents impenetrable drivel, it was something I was really glad he did. The Little Red Book was more formally The Thoughts of Chairman Mao and this little black book is not Martin Rees's social contacts list, but rather The Thoughts of Astronomer Royal Rees.
What we get is a fairly loose collection of Rees's thoughts on life, the universe and everything, from climate change to religion - though (not surprisingly) it concentrates on scientific matters more than anything else. As the subtitle Prospects for Humanity indicates, Rees indulges a little in that most speculative of ventures, futurology, but not to an extent that the book becomes one of those interminable collections of thoughts that are either bright and bushy-tailed 'The future will be wonderful!' or dark and dismal 'The future is dystopian, haven't you seen Blade Runner?'
There's nothing particularly new here, but it is interesting to see what one of the grand old persons of British science (and, by all accounts, a jolly nice chap), Rees has to say on the matter. Oddly, the parts I found more interesting were those more removed from his fields of expertise. So, I felt quite engaged with the lengthy section on climate change and where Rees discusses his view on religion. This is very refreshing when compared with the that of the fundamentalist atheists. Rees tells us that he does not believe in God but does sometimes go to church, as he likes being involved in the ritual of his cultural heritage. This seems to me a far better attitude than berating anyone with religious beliefs or practices for their stupidity.
The part I thought least effective was where Rees dived into cyber futurology. While it was good to see that he was sensibly sceptical of the widespread acceptance of self-driving cars and the idea that everyone will abandon car ownership, his consideration of AI and machine learning seemed overly optimistic, compared with the more realistic approach, say, in Gary Smith's The AI Delusion.
There was also a useful analysis of the nature of science, on the whole de-stressing the 'scientific method' and emphasising the more ad-hoc approach that really happens. Rees also makes it clear how important it is for the general public to be more aware of science, as decisions about the future direction of science and technology influence us all and should be made by us all, not just as scientific technarchy.
All in all, On the Future proved genuinely interesting. I can't give it more than three stars as it feels rather bitty and is perhaps too personal if you don't happen to be interested in Martin Rees - but I am interested and am really glad I read it.
What we get is a fairly loose collection of Rees's thoughts on life, the universe and everything, from climate change to religion - though (not surprisingly) it concentrates on scientific matters more than anything else. As the subtitle Prospects for Humanity indicates, Rees indulges a little in that most speculative of ventures, futurology, but not to an extent that the book becomes one of those interminable collections of thoughts that are either bright and bushy-tailed 'The future will be wonderful!' or dark and dismal 'The future is dystopian, haven't you seen Blade Runner?'
There's nothing particularly new here, but it is interesting to see what one of the grand old persons of British science (and, by all accounts, a jolly nice chap), Rees has to say on the matter. Oddly, the parts I found more interesting were those more removed from his fields of expertise. So, I felt quite engaged with the lengthy section on climate change and where Rees discusses his view on religion. This is very refreshing when compared with the that of the fundamentalist atheists. Rees tells us that he does not believe in God but does sometimes go to church, as he likes being involved in the ritual of his cultural heritage. This seems to me a far better attitude than berating anyone with religious beliefs or practices for their stupidity.
The part I thought least effective was where Rees dived into cyber futurology. While it was good to see that he was sensibly sceptical of the widespread acceptance of self-driving cars and the idea that everyone will abandon car ownership, his consideration of AI and machine learning seemed overly optimistic, compared with the more realistic approach, say, in Gary Smith's The AI Delusion.
There was also a useful analysis of the nature of science, on the whole de-stressing the 'scientific method' and emphasising the more ad-hoc approach that really happens. Rees also makes it clear how important it is for the general public to be more aware of science, as decisions about the future direction of science and technology influence us all and should be made by us all, not just as scientific technarchy.
All in all, On the Future proved genuinely interesting. I can't give it more than three stars as it feels rather bitty and is perhaps too personal if you don't happen to be interested in Martin Rees - but I am interested and am really glad I read it.
November 4, 2018
I didn't feel that the way this book was marketed at all reflects its contents. It has no real unifying argument or point to make, but is just a collection of the author's brief thoughts on various subjects. Sadly he never really spends long enough on any one topic to say anything interesting or new about it. Perhaps it would be good for someone who doesn't read the science section in the newspaper and has never read other popular science books on the various topics addressed here, but otherwise you're unlikely to find anything new. And if you are new to these topics and want a deep dive, there are better books for that.
November 8, 2018
Unoriginal -- all this information can be found in similar, better books, and Rees's nonstop use of unnecessary quotation marks nearly gave me a heart attack. Fire your editor, dude.
April 11, 2019
Artificiële intelligentie, ruimtevaart, automatisering, ethische gevolgen vannieuwe technologieën en veel meer: Rees tracht Harari-gewijs een intro op de toekomst te schrijven, maar met zo'n brede waaier aan thema's kun je binnen 190 pagina's enkel aan de oppervlakte schrapen. Buiten het klimaatthema, waar Rees zich zorgelijker uitdrukt dan de doorsnee technopositivist, zaait hij meer dan de lezer kan oogsten. Vooral de vraag hoe ons huidig politiek-economisch systeem wetenschap en technologie ten goede kan faciliteren, blijft onbeantwoord. Fraai overzicht, schaarser inzicht.
September 3, 2019
A short, thoughtful, and eminently accessible look at the future of science and technology.
In On the Future Martin Rees covers some huge themes. He leads off with several catastrophic possibilities (nuclear war, cyber threats and AI badness, environmental challenges, climate change, bio horror) then explores how far he thinks science might be able to go.
There are some interesting points. For example, Rees argues for an end to national, public spaceflight, preferring international and private ventures (146-7).
There is much to admire in On the Future. I enjoy what I think of as a uniquely British ability to write clearly and with inspiration about science (think of Arthur C. Clarke). Rees also takes a very international perspective, drawing on work from around the world. A nice sense of humor also pops up:
I gave this three stars, and mostly that's my professional bias. First, I think about this stuff all the time, so nothing was new to me. Also, the focus is largely on science and tech - which I appreciate, but that leaves out so much of the future. Rees touches on economics and society at one points (90ff), then peers into religion briefly (194ff), yet we need much more.
If this topic thusly scoped interests you, and you're new to it, please enjoy.
In On the Future Martin Rees covers some huge themes. He leads off with several catastrophic possibilities (nuclear war, cyber threats and AI badness, environmental challenges, climate change, bio horror) then explores how far he thinks science might be able to go.
There are some interesting points. For example, Rees argues for an end to national, public spaceflight, preferring international and private ventures (146-7).
There is much to admire in On the Future. I enjoy what I think of as a uniquely British ability to write clearly and with inspiration about science (think of Arthur C. Clarke). Rees also takes a very international perspective, drawing on work from around the world. A nice sense of humor also pops up:
I like to remind my theorist colleagues that the Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback, who invented the zipper, made a bigger intellectual leap than most of us ever will. (202)
I gave this three stars, and mostly that's my professional bias. First, I think about this stuff all the time, so nothing was new to me. Also, the focus is largely on science and tech - which I appreciate, but that leaves out so much of the future. Rees touches on economics and society at one points (90ff), then peers into religion briefly (194ff), yet we need much more.
If this topic thusly scoped interests you, and you're new to it, please enjoy.
October 29, 2018
I recently saw Martin Rees speak in Chicago and bought this book. It reads very much in the same way Rees speaks - bright, sparkly, optimistic, but also direct and opinionated about the dire challenges our world faces. An astronomer by trade and training, he is adept at addressing a wide range of scientific, political, and philosophical issues - Rees certainly defines the term polymath. It's a fairly brief book that seems to be his report on the state of the world and science. It may require some patience from those who need a rigidly linear format - he bounces around a lot. But, he always brings it back home again to make his point. An informative and sobering report from this sage whom I'm glad I discovered.
November 1, 2018
Astrophysicist and former President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees discusses his concerns and predictions for the future of humanity. He is concerned with a nuclear apocalypse, climate change, and an extinction-level asteroid impact. He also predicts our future in the cosmos if we don't kill ourselves first.
An interest read, but nothing new brought to the table.
An interest read, but nothing new brought to the table.
November 8, 2018
This book covered so many things: AI, space travel, climate change, biotech, and more. I loved how this book gave such a wide-ranging overview that I (a non-scientist) could easily grasp.
May 19, 2019
Comprehensive yet concise, optimistic yet sobering. Covers many of the same ideas and realms as Kaku's THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY, in a more grounded, less gosh-wow manner.
November 22, 2018
Although there were some really good parts in the book, but nothing is discussed in depth. Only superficial ideas.
If you want a casual read, go for it
If you want a casual read, go for it
December 2, 2018
There have been a number of books written in the past decade by eminent scientists about their hopes, predictions, and worries for the 21st century and beyond. This latest entry from Martin Rees is a fine survey of several of these ideas written with his customary elegance and erudition. What he does a fine job of here is maintaining a level-headed assessment of humanity's greatest challenges and how scientific/technological innovation will likely, and somewhat ironically, be the necessary solution to many of the problems for which it was the fons et origo. Rather than relying on alarmist obstreperousness or starry-eyed (pun-intended) somnolent wonderings of our future in the cosmos, Rees is very practical with what are the most imaginative yet pragmatic ways of thinking through such forthcoming issues as climate change, manned/unmanned space exploration, the future of armed conflict, managing population growth, and the rise of AI and all that entails with future gene-editing and human enhancement (no, not dealing with the issues presented in the spam emails you already receive). This is a fine primer on many current issues and a very rewarding yet easy read thanks to his clarity of expression.
May 29, 2021
Martin Rees - Sobre o futuro. Perspectivas para a humanidade
Neste seu livro Martin Rees mostra-nos o que são as suas expectativas sobre os constrangimentos actuais da humanidade e em seu entender quais serão as tendências e perigos do futuro. Trata-se como é óbvio de uma tentativa falhada tentar abordar tantos temas em menos de 200 páginas. Um projecto demasiado eclético e abrangente que frequentemente é tratado ao nível da “conversa de café”, que classifiquei com 4⭐️ porque não chega a ser tão maçador como Yuval Noah Harari -21 lições para o século XXI.
Neste seu livro começa o autor por descrever os problemas de sustentabilidade do mundo em que nos encontramos. Descreve basicamente o que já se conhece, mas falha ao não identificar ou pelo menos discutir devidamente o que são os principais motores desta catástrofe anunciada: excesso de população para recursos e consumo; modelo económico baseado num crescimento insustentável; ausência de liderança política adequada.
Nos capítulos seguintes aborda temas relacionados com a IA tendo na minha perspectiva uma visão demasiado onírica da mesma, ainda que tenha sempre o cuidado de referir que por muito sonhadores que sejamos não podemos nem devemos esquecer que este é o planeta que habitamos e não há nem se vislumbra um planeta B (sobre este assunto recomendo autores como Bill Mckibben em Falter).
Sobre a IA, achar que o futuro do ser humano passa pela transferência da informação do nosso cérebro para um suporte de sílica é o mesmo que achar que vida é (só) informação, é uma ideia no mínimo peregrina.
Martin Rees, um autor que quando não sai do seu domínio de conforto como em “Just six numbers that shape the world” nos prende, surpreende e fascina.
Neste seu livro Martin Rees mostra-nos o que são as suas expectativas sobre os constrangimentos actuais da humanidade e em seu entender quais serão as tendências e perigos do futuro. Trata-se como é óbvio de uma tentativa falhada tentar abordar tantos temas em menos de 200 páginas. Um projecto demasiado eclético e abrangente que frequentemente é tratado ao nível da “conversa de café”, que classifiquei com 4⭐️ porque não chega a ser tão maçador como Yuval Noah Harari -21 lições para o século XXI.
Neste seu livro começa o autor por descrever os problemas de sustentabilidade do mundo em que nos encontramos. Descreve basicamente o que já se conhece, mas falha ao não identificar ou pelo menos discutir devidamente o que são os principais motores desta catástrofe anunciada: excesso de população para recursos e consumo; modelo económico baseado num crescimento insustentável; ausência de liderança política adequada.
Nos capítulos seguintes aborda temas relacionados com a IA tendo na minha perspectiva uma visão demasiado onírica da mesma, ainda que tenha sempre o cuidado de referir que por muito sonhadores que sejamos não podemos nem devemos esquecer que este é o planeta que habitamos e não há nem se vislumbra um planeta B (sobre este assunto recomendo autores como Bill Mckibben em Falter).
Sobre a IA, achar que o futuro do ser humano passa pela transferência da informação do nosso cérebro para um suporte de sílica é o mesmo que achar que vida é (só) informação, é uma ideia no mínimo peregrina.
Martin Rees, um autor que quando não sai do seu domínio de conforto como em “Just six numbers that shape the world” nos prende, surpreende e fascina.
May 22, 2019
On the Future lays out the issues that should shape how we, as a global community, look to the future. Very early in the book he warns us that “deal with hopes, fears, and conjectures” what we face. (p. 2)
Through the book, he asks questions the physics would like to explore while sparking the thoughts of those of us who aren’t physicists.
• Were there more than one “big bangs”? If there are more, then we ask if the other ones exploded by the same\ physics. (p. 184)
• Are there things that we’ll never know, because they are beyond the power of human minds to grasp? Are our brains matched to an understanding of all key features of reality?” (p. 189)
He also raises issues about the role of science (and especially physics) in projects that put a human on the mood. He reminds us that event 50 years ago.
“Are there things that we’ll never know, because they are beyond the power of human minds to grasp? Are our brains matched to an understanding of all key features of reality?” (p. 189).
The book provides a good read for the scientists and the rest of us.
Through the book, he asks questions the physics would like to explore while sparking the thoughts of those of us who aren’t physicists.
• Were there more than one “big bangs”? If there are more, then we ask if the other ones exploded by the same\ physics. (p. 184)
• Are there things that we’ll never know, because they are beyond the power of human minds to grasp? Are our brains matched to an understanding of all key features of reality?” (p. 189)
He also raises issues about the role of science (and especially physics) in projects that put a human on the mood. He reminds us that event 50 years ago.
“Are there things that we’ll never know, because they are beyond the power of human minds to grasp? Are our brains matched to an understanding of all key features of reality?” (p. 189).
The book provides a good read for the scientists and the rest of us.
February 27, 2022
Fascinating read!
It's been about three years since the book was published so I have a deeper appreciation for the foresight shown. True to the title, Martin Rees takes the reader through what he imagines will be the future on Earth and beyond. His writing is crisp, demanding only some effort and an open mind from the reader, and the ideas presented are exciting, as any book on this topic would be. The book is a message to the scientific community and an advert for scientific thinking in every person. Pick it up and feel just like the earth in the universe, "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam" (Carl Sagan); pick it up and get up to speed on topics that matter the most now.
It's been about three years since the book was published so I have a deeper appreciation for the foresight shown. True to the title, Martin Rees takes the reader through what he imagines will be the future on Earth and beyond. His writing is crisp, demanding only some effort and an open mind from the reader, and the ideas presented are exciting, as any book on this topic would be. The book is a message to the scientific community and an advert for scientific thinking in every person. Pick it up and feel just like the earth in the universe, "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam" (Carl Sagan); pick it up and get up to speed on topics that matter the most now.
October 18, 2022
Probably more like 3.5 stars
I enjoyed his discussions on space but thought he could go deeper in his discussions around climate change, clean energy and AI as I felt in talked about all those areas broadly and I didn’t learn anything new. I did find his frequent use of a global pandemic as an example of a far off, very unlikely but catastrophic event since it came true only a few years after he published his book
I enjoyed his discussions on space but thought he could go deeper in his discussions around climate change, clean energy and AI as I felt in talked about all those areas broadly and I didn’t learn anything new. I did find his frequent use of a global pandemic as an example of a far off, very unlikely but catastrophic event since it came true only a few years after he published his book
January 15, 2019
This is a brief and superficial overview of what and where we are (in cosmic terms) and of the challenges we face as a species. It's a well-written summary, but there are no startling revelations or insights. Rees's reasonable recommendation for humanity is, well, to be reasonable. I don't think he's anymore optimistic about this happening than I am. Humans are not known for reacting rationally, especially in a crisis. Still, somehow, we seem to muddle on, which is actually what gives me hope for the future. We seem to be good at pulling our asses out of fires we've lit and subsequently sat in.
November 16, 2022
I got this at an event where Martin Rees himself, along with Brian May, had a discussion about science and the future. Reading it again now, post-pandemic and with a new Cold War, it scares me how accurate Martin was and is probably not suitable for easy-worriers. But it's also a fascinating analysis of humanity and what we need to consider if we want to save our species and our planet.
October 8, 2024
I probably would have read this out of my own accord. Interesting intersection between scientific discovery and ethical and social concerns. I did just write a paper on this book and actually am physically unable to analyze it more so there you go.
December 27, 2018
Compelling and instructive.
April 1, 2019
An okay meditation on what the future might look like. Still pissed about the complete bullshit he inserts in the middle about particle accelerators making black holes and destroying the world,
December 9, 2021
Most of what we said here are things I've heard before, but the review was not unwelcome, there were some more interesting bits, it was written nicely, and I think it could be just the thing for someone a little newer to these topics.
November 15, 2018
A lot of very practical ideas that have little likelihood of ever happening because we evolved from scavenging pack oriented hominids, & our primitive social order still trumps all else.
It's too bad, really.
It's too bad, really.
October 20, 2018
One of the rare books where the impression is that of sitting at the knees of a wise elder thinker and learning form them resolutely, gently, and satisfactorily.
Future: what it can bring, what are the constituents that will influence it, how to react to it, and how to interact with it.
70 percent of people [will be] living in cities by 2050. Even by 2030, Lagos, Sao Paulo, and Delhi will have populations greater than thirty million. * * * food production and resource extraction have kept pace with rising population; famines still occur, but they are due to conflict or maldistribution, not overall scarcity. p. 22
Problem" vitamin A deficiency; this is the leading cause of childhood blindness. p. 24
Ganhi: There's enough for everyone's need bug not for everyone's greed. p. 26
as we go along: I'd worry that whatevery regulations are imposed, on prudential or ethical grounds, cannot be enforced worldwide -- any more than the drug laws can, or rtax laws. Whatever can be done will be done by someone, somewhere. p. 75
During 2017 there was not a single fatality, worldwide, on any scheduled airliner. p. 93
. . . people will have peace of mind only if there are computer-savvy caregivers to help the bewildered coper with IT, to ensure that they can get help and are not disadvantaged. Otherwise, the 'digitally deprived' will become a new 'underclass.' p. 96
. . . the poor, worldwide, are now, via IT and the media, far more aware of what they're missing. p. 99
In August 2017, the heads of one hundred leading companies in this field signed an open letter calling on the United Nations to outlaw 'lethal autonomous weapons', just as international conventions constrain the use of chemical and biological weapons. p. 101
Be that as it may, society will be transformed by autonomous robots, even though the jury's out on whether they'll possess what we'd call real understanding or whether they'll be 'idiot savants' -- with competence without comprehension. p. 106
on belief in God: My conciliatory answer is that I do not, but that I share a sense of wonder and mystery with many who do. p. 194
Wolfgang Pauli: a famous put-down for scientists past thirty: 'still so young, and already so unknown'. p. 209
. . . the increasingly collaborative nature of science makes isolation less likely. p. 210
. . . our future depends on making wise choices about key societal challenges: energy, health, food, robotics, environment, space, and so forth. p. 213
. . . gaps in wealth . . . It's in the interests of the wealthy world to invest massively in improving the quality of life and job opportunities in poorer countries -- minimizing grievances and 'leveling up' the world. p. 220
We need to think globally, we need to think rationally, we need to think long-term -- empowered by twenty-first century technology but guided by values that science alone can't provide. p. 227
Future: what it can bring, what are the constituents that will influence it, how to react to it, and how to interact with it.
70 percent of people [will be] living in cities by 2050. Even by 2030, Lagos, Sao Paulo, and Delhi will have populations greater than thirty million. * * * food production and resource extraction have kept pace with rising population; famines still occur, but they are due to conflict or maldistribution, not overall scarcity. p. 22
Problem" vitamin A deficiency; this is the leading cause of childhood blindness. p. 24
Ganhi: There's enough for everyone's need bug not for everyone's greed. p. 26
as we go along: I'd worry that whatevery regulations are imposed, on prudential or ethical grounds, cannot be enforced worldwide -- any more than the drug laws can, or rtax laws. Whatever can be done will be done by someone, somewhere. p. 75
During 2017 there was not a single fatality, worldwide, on any scheduled airliner. p. 93
. . . people will have peace of mind only if there are computer-savvy caregivers to help the bewildered coper with IT, to ensure that they can get help and are not disadvantaged. Otherwise, the 'digitally deprived' will become a new 'underclass.' p. 96
. . . the poor, worldwide, are now, via IT and the media, far more aware of what they're missing. p. 99
In August 2017, the heads of one hundred leading companies in this field signed an open letter calling on the United Nations to outlaw 'lethal autonomous weapons', just as international conventions constrain the use of chemical and biological weapons. p. 101
Be that as it may, society will be transformed by autonomous robots, even though the jury's out on whether they'll possess what we'd call real understanding or whether they'll be 'idiot savants' -- with competence without comprehension. p. 106
on belief in God: My conciliatory answer is that I do not, but that I share a sense of wonder and mystery with many who do. p. 194
Wolfgang Pauli: a famous put-down for scientists past thirty: 'still so young, and already so unknown'. p. 209
. . . the increasingly collaborative nature of science makes isolation less likely. p. 210
. . . our future depends on making wise choices about key societal challenges: energy, health, food, robotics, environment, space, and so forth. p. 213
. . . gaps in wealth . . . It's in the interests of the wealthy world to invest massively in improving the quality of life and job opportunities in poorer countries -- minimizing grievances and 'leveling up' the world. p. 220
We need to think globally, we need to think rationally, we need to think long-term -- empowered by twenty-first century technology but guided by values that science alone can't provide. p. 227
April 13, 2019
This is one of the problems the book describes...long term goals (and problems) tend to slip down the political agenda trumped by immediate issues—and focus on the next election.” Short-term-ism isn’t just a feature of electoral politics. Private investors don’t have a long enough horizon either.”
He explains both the extreme risk and the burgeoning opportunities!
Our author, Martin Rees, calmly and clearly describes the risk of environmental degradation, unchecked climate change, and the unintended consequences of advanced technology (artificial intelligence, biotech, robotics, cyber technology). “It’s clear that we cannot avoid anxieties about how this new empowerment could be misused.” A conversation must now enter the public sphere!
And, much of this game changing technology is available world-wide through academic sharing. Further, relatively few resources outside intellectual prowess are required. So by accident or by malicious design, in a world so interconnected, a crisis thus created could cascade globally!
He describes the wonders that these technologies could deliver in medicine, in space travel, rapid analysis, productivity, automation, etc. Management of the impact on jobs and the role of workers and the skills they’ll need are also described.
Events could go one way or another with myriad outcomes, but to be safe and harvest the good we definitely need global cooperation and controls. Governments need be pay attention! The inventors and users of these technologies must advocate guidelines and accountability that governments must put in place to exploit the wonders responsibly and control the risk!
Governments must be briefed repeatedly as technologies evolve so that global agreements such as control of nuclear proliferation and/or the Paris climate accord can be put in place. Realize that these efforts may be even more difficult because weaponizing some of these technologies can be done in a lab, unbeknownst to others!
Governance will be the challenge for the our present and coming generations. Political leaders must begin to begin considering governance requirements of our future!!
He explains both the extreme risk and the burgeoning opportunities!
Our author, Martin Rees, calmly and clearly describes the risk of environmental degradation, unchecked climate change, and the unintended consequences of advanced technology (artificial intelligence, biotech, robotics, cyber technology). “It’s clear that we cannot avoid anxieties about how this new empowerment could be misused.” A conversation must now enter the public sphere!
And, much of this game changing technology is available world-wide through academic sharing. Further, relatively few resources outside intellectual prowess are required. So by accident or by malicious design, in a world so interconnected, a crisis thus created could cascade globally!
He describes the wonders that these technologies could deliver in medicine, in space travel, rapid analysis, productivity, automation, etc. Management of the impact on jobs and the role of workers and the skills they’ll need are also described.
Events could go one way or another with myriad outcomes, but to be safe and harvest the good we definitely need global cooperation and controls. Governments need be pay attention! The inventors and users of these technologies must advocate guidelines and accountability that governments must put in place to exploit the wonders responsibly and control the risk!
Governments must be briefed repeatedly as technologies evolve so that global agreements such as control of nuclear proliferation and/or the Paris climate accord can be put in place. Realize that these efforts may be even more difficult because weaponizing some of these technologies can be done in a lab, unbeknownst to others!
Governance will be the challenge for the our present and coming generations. Political leaders must begin to begin considering governance requirements of our future!!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews