All day
The week will start with veteran futurists reviewing the controversial track record of past attempts to predict the future, from the surprisingly accurate to the spectacularly wrong, and discuss lessons learned about how we might be able to do better than previous generations. A fundamental question is what is predictable and what is not, and how to distinguish the one from the other. SFI researchers will explore whether there might be a rigorous, principled way to develop a data-driven, predictive science of the future. The week will conclude with discussions about the fundamental limits we have to face and how we might be able to get a handle on the uncertainties.
Organized by Béla Nagy, SFI Postdoctoral Fellow and J. Doyne Farmer, SFI Professor.
- In addition to the Theme Week, on September 18 SFI will host a Strategy Game activity (attendance is optional) facilitated by Luciano Oviedo, Systems Analyst from BNet member Intel Corporation. The goal is to evaluate and develop optimal collaboration strategies between the BNet membership and SFI.
- Concurrent with the Theme Week, in honor of Murray Gell-Mann's birthday, SFI will host a reception and the Stanislaw Ulam lectures on September 15, 16 and 17 with speakers Chris Llewellyn Smith, Mark Pagel, and Daniel Schrag (invited).
Speakers:
- Luis Bettencourt, SFI External Professor and Research Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Peter C. Bishop, Associate Professor of Strategic Foresight and Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Futures Studies, University of Houston
- Joseph Coates, Futurist, Joseph Coates Consulting Futurist, Inc.
- Douglas Erwin, SFI External Professor and Senior Scientist and Curator, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- Jordan Greenhall, SFI Trustee and Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board, DivX
- Alfred Hübler, SFI External Professor and Director, Center for Complex Systems Research and Professor, Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Robert J. Lempert, Director, RAND's Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition
- Scott Mathews, Associate Technical Fellow, The Boeing Company
- Béla Nagy, SFI Postdoctoral Fellow
- Anna Salamon, Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
- John Smart, President, Acceleration Studies Foundation and Co-Founder, Evo Devo Universe Community
- Jessika Trancik, SFI Omidyar Fellow