Our Exponential Evolution

The Portable Consultant has had an exceptional day.

First there were two fascinating interviews by Kevin Rose in his Foundation video podcasts – Tim Ferris and Chad Hurley (who reminisced about the start of PayPal and YouTube).

Then there were two TED presentations that, taken together, linked rapid technical change with evolution and provided one example of the wonderful innovations that are possible in our time.

The first talk was Danny Hillis’ Back to the future (of 1994) recorded 19 years ago and the second was Shilo Shiv Suleman’s Using tech to enable dreaming. Having heard Hillis link technilogical change to evolution, Suleman’s demonstration of the evolution of the “storybook” took on greater meaning. Indeed, I could see how life might evolve through technology. It seemed that homo sapiens might be the classic book that will give birth to whatever being that iPad-enabled animated storybook represents. A wholly new thing with “magical” abilities.

Cheers!
-pmh