That’s the tally as I skim the responses to the 2009 Edge Annual Question: “What will change everything?”—or, more prosaically, “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?”
The respondents tend to represent the science crowd (of the hard, social, and popular varieties), with lots of neuro-this and that-ologists. There is a token coterie of artsy folks. Consequently, the responses largely sound like failed pitches for science fiction movies. Lots of AI, some ET, cloning, and the like.
The writers and artists don’t fare much better, although their responses are more likely to be quirky. One calls for “a different kind of male subjectivity” (I’m all for that, you jerk.), another (a male, I gather) for “no more reality.” To the credit of physicists everywhere, one brilliantly anticipates nothing more than “a very very good battery.”
Some of the entries surprise me. I expect mostly drivel from Brian Eno, but I appreciate his sense that the “what” destined to change everything won’t be a thought, but a feeling, namely, that we’re screwed (my paraphrase). And a television producer(!) envisions “a farewell to harm.”
Anyway, were I invited to contribute, I’d suggest, modestly, a very good poem. That will change everything more capably than, say, “superintelligence” (Nick Bostrom) or a “web empowered revolution in teaching” (Chris Anderson). There is one poem among the contributions, but it’s not very good. (All credit to Ron Silliman, whose daily posts are replete with this sort of stuff.)
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