While the human animal is scarcely different with each new generation, our "houses" become exponentially smarter, as well as increasingly natural extensions of our biological selves. In a fascinating process, technology and humanity are becoming ever more seamlessly interconnected and interdependent. As Brian Arthur observes, technology is becoming organic, and nature is becoming technologic.

Today we regularly discover thousand- and even millionfold efficiency increases in computational and communication processes. In no other domain are comparable improvements ever found. How long might these physical and computational accelerations continue? How long should we expect to continue to make such astounding discoveries in the microcosm?

Rolf Landauer and others note that there is no minimum physical energy of computation. We are beginning to see, and may eventually utilize physical structure as far down as the Planck scale, the minimum dimensions of space and time, as revealed in modern physical theory. Seth Lloyd has estimated that the "ultimate laptop" has black hole-level energy densities. As Eric Chaisson observes, today's Pentium chips already have seven orders of magnitude greater free energy rate densities than any living system on Earth.

Twenty first century humans live in an era of continual surprise. Many serious observers now expect the capacities and intelligence of our information, sensing, storage, and communications technologies to continue their stunning rate of progress for as far as we can see into this new century. Meanwhile, many other areas of the human domain will continue to move at comparatively glacial rates.

What new emergences will exponential computational and communications growth enable? How much more conversational will our computers be by 2020? What social changes will the first truly conversational computers enable? Which current and emerging applications, enabled by accelerating change, have the greatest strategic importance? Which will be the most useful and enduring, and why? How can we best promote their balanced development?

Gaining foresight with regard to the meaning, implications, risks, and opportunities of accelerating technological change has become both our greatest lever for moving the world and our most fundamental educational priority. We can best rise to this challenge and responsibility as a multidisciplinary and multibiased community of minds, a community that champions diversity yet maintains critical judgment. If you think these topics are worth investigating further, I welcome you to subscribe to our newsletter, visit one of our monthly Future Salons (in four cities and the online 3D world, Second Life), attend our annual conference, or simply drop in on our online community (http://accelerating.org/) and lend your insight and energy to the discussion.

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Important Links

• Institute for the Future