DAVID BRIN looks at science and technology

disputation arenas

can we crowdsource wisdom?

Media advances don't always liberate, at first. The tracts that emerged from printing presses enflamed Europe's 16th Century religious hatreds, while the 1930s-era radio and loudspeakers helped consolidate the power of tyrants. Our new media — the Internet — has inspired its own peril: the rise of fake news and too-easy proliferation of alt-facts. Can ordinary citizens separate truth from manipulation before the harm spreads? Brin's proposal, as outlined in "Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit," could teach us how to out-run a lie.

is the web helping us evolve?

what will we become?

The Internet — that magnificent new world for latter-day explorers, more vast than any realm discovered by Columbus or Magellan. Optimists point out how much more knowledge the average person can access, predicting better minds and savvier citizenry. Pessimists perceive a dumbing-down effect that spreads users too thin, resulting in shallowness that could be detrimental to politics and clear thinking. This David Brin essay (available as an audiobook on Amazon (#AmazonCommissionsEarned) and iTunes) weighs the evidence and ponders whether it may be possible to profit from this revolution of vision and memory — as we did from others that came before.

when AI earns our empathy

Here's an update to my 2022 NEWSWEEK op-ed on the ChatGPT and art AI revolution, which is happening EXACTLY on the predicted schedule — though (alas) I don't see anyone yet talking about the 'secret sauce' that might offer us a soft landing.

creating a climate of change

Every election opens a new front in the seemingly-neverending Global Climate Change culture war. Trained as a scientist, and knowing many who research the atmospheres of 8 planets or who propelled spectacular advances in weather forecasting, Brin tends toward listening to expert advice on this one — especially since we're only being asked to do things we should be doing anyway. In 2007 he posted an essay dealing with some logical flaws in the denial-movement, going after those who claim: "I'm not denying science, just asking questions!"

crowdsourcing "citizen-science" from today's Edisons

Entrepreneur? Tinkerer? Whatever your level of involvement, you can have the satisfaction of sponsoring humanity's greatest endeavors. In an era when political factions and media empires are waging relentless "war on science" this trend toward active participation — or providing some financial support for ideas and inventions you love — is the surest way to help support an active, vigorous, future-hungry and scientific civilization. In Existence, he portrays this trend as it can become, as individuals and small groups become ever more agile at sleuthing, data collection and analysis & forming very very smart, ad-hoc, problem-solving 'smart mobs.'

geoengineering our climate — by land

Managing the climate in the face of global warming is a wicked problem that requires getting almost every independent nation to coordinate. What would a system of global governance look like that's up to the true challenges ahead? And how do we start thinking about whether we need to take more desperate interim steps in the form of geoengineering projects that may not require global political consensus?

re-igniting our can-do spirit

It appears that a small cabal of the "good" Billionaires — those who got rich through innovation and who feel loyal to the future — are about to to fund a new effort worth some excitement and attention. It aims at transforming not just our Earth, but the whole solar system. And, along the way, this endeavor may help bootstrap us back into our natural condition... a species, nation and civilization that believes (again) in can-do ambition. Can that be achieved — while increasing prosperity for all by adding trillions of dollars to the global GDP?

the second era of humans in space

David led an amazing roundtable of people working both inside and outside NASA, including Geoffrey Landis, Chris McKay, Rusty Schweickart, and Ariel Waldman, as they roughed out some of the ambitious new goals that could animate this next era in space, ranging from mining asteroids, to setting up solar energy stations in orbit, to exploring for life in the roofed water worlds of our solar system.

2015: our best year in space yet!

It's time we looked outward... toward the vast, vast majority of all there is. And after decades of doldrums, it seems we truly are regaining some momentum in space exploration. We are a people who are doing wondrous things, exploring our solar system with pennies out of each citizen's pocket... without abandoning progress down here on Earth. Let's listen to the problem-solvers who will go ahead and save the world — and go on to the stars — despite the negative glooom-sayers.

mobile homes in space?

How might human beings live and work in space by the turn of the century? Some enthusiastic studies have suggested that colonies in orbit or on the Moon could mean the beginning of a new era of prosperity, once the resources of space are exploited by advanced industries. The problem with these wonderful plans seems to be getting started. Today's politician isn't eager to invest in space development programs that will only begin paying for themselves — maybe — after two decades or more. But what if someone were to offer a way to repurpose what's already shipped into space?

brain by design

What will happen as we enter the era of human augmentation, artificial intelligence and government-by-algorithm? Those fretfully debating artificial intelligence might best start by appraising the half dozen general pathways under exploration in laboratories around the world. While they overlap, they offer distinct implications for what characteristics emerging, synthetic minds might display, including (for example) whether it will be easy or hard to instill human-style ethical values.