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Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway

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Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway Documentation Table of contents 4 Philipp Albers, Cornelius Reiber: Editorial 6 Lutz Hachmeister: Introduction 8 Holm Friebe: Future Biases 12 Kevin Kelly: Current Technologies of Disruption 22 Dan Gardner: Turning Future Babble Into Real Foresight 32 Kathrin Passig: I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Future – Technodreams and Technopanics 4 Philipp Albers, Cornelius Reiber Editorial Philipp Albers, Cornelius Reiber Editorial 5 Editorial The development, interdependence the Institute for Media and Commu- and “black swans”? What are the While these changes of the next 20 and ever-increasing complexity of nications Policy (IfM), the think tank blind spots in the forecast of future years might make the changes of the media and technologies has reached and design agency Zentrale Intelli- media and tech developments? last 20 years seem relatively small, such a level that one comparison genz Agentur (ZIA), and the Share- the products that will really change seems inevitable: natural evolution. ground unit of Deutsche Telekom. CCF13 tackled “Future us are not even invented yet. New technologies emerge from old Biases”, exploring the ones, computer chips auto-design the Each year, CCF focuses on a specif- Dan Gardner highlighted and illus- next generation of computer chips, ic topic, invites 4-5 German and in- scope and validity of pro- trated the importance of cognitive and self-replicating robots won’t be ternational speakers and an expert gnostics in the field of biases in the prediction business. The science-fiction much longer. On top audience of about eighty scholars, emerging technologies. disillusonary findings: by and large of that, neuroscience, bioinformat- journalists and professionals from renowned experts are no better in ics, and genetic engineering erase the media industry. Can we know in which their future judgement than anybody the boundaries between the animate direction this weird crea- else. But there is hope: a critical and and the inanimate world, merging In 2012 there was a first trial run cautious mindset makes up for better nature and technology in ways never of the symposium with contribu- ture Technology will be results and even “superforecasters”. seen before. tions by cyberlaw and net neutrality heading and how it will expert Tim Wu, critic of the „Cali- interact with humans? In the final lecture, Kathrin Passig Describing technology in evolution- fornian Ideology“ Richard Barbrook, analyzed the argumentative struc- ary terms as an ecosystem is more philosopher and TV journalist Gert ture of utopian as well as dystopian than just a metaphor. Wired-co- Scobel and journalist and media In their introductory remarks the con- thinking about technology and what founder Kevin Kelly outlined the scholar Philipp Albers of Zentrale ference organizers Lutz Hachmeister the recurrence of this structure tells contours of this global super- Intelligenz Agentur. Their lectures (IfM) and Holm Friebe (ZIA) layed us about our ways of dealing with organism, its life-cycles, its growth have been documented in the Ger- out the main issues and guiding ques- technological change. There are, and its boundaries in his book What man trade journal of the media tions for the symposium. however, techniques of avoiding to Technology Wants. industry, Funkkorrespondenz (vol. think and reason in these patterns. 20/2013, May 17, 2013). Kevin Kelly in his opening keynote To address the consequences for us then painted the next transitions We live in the age of prognostics. Pre- humans living alongside and within CCF13, documented in this publi- and long-term developments in the dictions are necessary, even though this technological organism and the cation, tackled “Future Biases”, ex- evolution of media and technology we regularly fail at them. Knowing ways we think about its possible and ploring the scope and validity of in broad, bold strokes, calling for the about the inherent limits of prognos- impossible futures, Cologne Confer- prognostics in the field of emerging need of positive visions, predictions tics – our psychological, social, and ence Futures (CCF) was established technologies. Can we know in which and science fiction in an ever-faster technological future biases – might as an annual symposium on media direction this weird creature Tech- changing technological world. Cloud not make us more accurate prophets, evolution in 2013, taking place each nology will be heading and how it computing makes ownership less rel- but helps us to fail better at glimps- year at the beginning of October in will interact with humans? Is the evant and access crucial, artificial life ing the future. Cologne as part of the renowned TV singularity inevitable? Or are all pre- further changes the way we work and and media festival Cologne Confer- dictions doomed to fail in light of live, and the “Quantified Self” chang- Philipp Albers, Cornelius Reiber ence. CCF is the joint brainchild of increasing complexity, uncertainties es the way we observe our bodies. 6 Lutz Hachmeister Introduction Lutz Hachmeister Introduction 7 Dr. Lutz Hachmeister is the founding director of the Institute for Media and Communication Policy in Berlin. He is an associate professor for journalism at the University of Dortmund and president of the international film and Lutz Hachmeister television festival Cologne Conference. Lutz Hachmeister is considered one of Germany’s most renowned documentary filmmakers and authored numerous non-fiction books on contemporary Introduction historical and media political topics. Recently, a number of reports have approach to this complex demands en their place. But perhaps it is just exemplified and elaborated further been published regarding the boom the consideration of anthropologi- McLuhan’s already classic observa- during additional Cologne Confer- of new plans for architecturally elab- cal, evolutionary biological and geo- tion of the narcotic effect of techno- ences. Does the differentiated ex- orate libraries. One could think that strategic vectors. Every conventional logical disruptions that applies here. amination of “media evolution” and these were investments in long obso- technology critique, which already general technological dynamic make lete “paper museums” (Kathrin Pas- has run out of words over the con- Generously supported by the Deut- sense? How do biochemical evolu- sig) being done for prestige reasons – stant evocation of the “digital revolu- sche Telekom and the city of Cologne tion, cultural-technical development but that would be missing the point: tion”, will remain blind without any and in cooperation with the Zentrale and the evolution of reflexive con- Apparently, new spaces are being cre- concept of the co-evolutions of bio- Intelligenz-Agentur (ZIA), the Co- sciousness interact? Does “informa- ated which allow the coexistence of logical, psychophysical and techno- logne Conference Futures (CCF) has tion” – in the sense of the evaluations media artefacts and new information logical potentials. now been established. Holding their of Norbert Wiener, Claude Shannon technologies. And as it seems, these presentations inside the impres- and Warren Weaver from the 1940s – instances of social reproduction are In this sense, Martin Heidegger’s sive Stiftersaal of the Wallraf-Rich- become the transboundary substan- being accepted by the citizens who philosophical insight applies that the artz-Museum in Cologne, Kevin Kel- tial term of genetics, mathematics, precisely are not just “users”. From nature of technology itself is nothing ly, Dan Gardner and Kathrin Passig physics, linguistics and the human a sociological and humanistic per- technological. connected technological dynamics, sciences in general (which, inciden- spective it becomes clear that such the challenges of management in the tally, already Heidegger suspected)? initially contradictory processes can At the Cologne Conference 2012, information and communication in- Where does our ability to predict fu- only be analyzed – and possibly even we began posing the question about dustries, and the conventions of the ture technologies come from? Which well and reasonably predicted – with “media evolution” more decidedly psychophysical acquirement of new visions of the future presented by the McLuhan’s collidoscope and an ad- and systematically. Immanently techniques of consciousness. When media affect our attitude towards the vanced model of media evolution. connected to this is the work on Kevin Kelly, to pick just one example, conceivable futures? Is the “digitali- the definition of “media” following outlines the meaning of techniques zation” an intermediate technologi- In our days of the alleged “digital total the Canadian school of media the- of self-optimization, specifically the cal state (whereupon the poor met- interconnection and total communi- ory and, moreover, the question of feedback between a permanent data aphor of the “digital society” already cation” (Byung-Chul Han) it appears the comparability of developments stream and human bodies, it becomes misleads) and which transport and to be possible for a Boeing Triple in the information and communi- clear that a primarily technological transmission technologies exceed- Seven to disappear from all radar and cations technology, and the biologi- assessment of this phenomenon does ing it are imaginable? Which (geo-) satellite tracking – at least for some cal-physical evolutionary theory. At not suffice. Moreover, the growth political, military and economical time. However, in the course of such this opening
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