I Now Pronounce You Human and Machine

Three reflections on humanity, our technology, and the stories we tell await you on June 10 at the Complex. Scientists Steve Smith and Stephen Guerin, sci-fi novelist Steve Gould and renowned game designer Chris Crawford ponder what does the future hold for humans and the technologies we depend on? While they may not follow David Levy’s predictions of human and robot dalliances, they will consider how tools have moved beyond passive participants in human culture to the active role played by today’s computers and, yes, tomorrow’s robots. Along the way, they’ll consider the human penchant for story telling and what answers our stories may hold for this question. Space is limited so click here to reserve your seat now.

Toolmaking is humanity’s great gift. We are builders. This capability has transformed our race from a handful of families scraping out an existence on the savannah to a global civilization of over six billion souls. Yet our tool-building prowess comes with a big price tag. The rate of change has outstripped our ability to predict and control its effects. While humanity has always dreamed big and faced threats, our sustained success has culminated in risks to ourselves and our world far greater in magnitude than our ancestors ever faced.

We have used our tools to climb very high, in other words, and it’s a long way down. We are dependent on our machines to survive; there is no turning back. But is there a path forward?

Our storytelling gift holds the key to our future as a species, more so perhaps even than our toolmaking. In stories we examine the personal costs and possibilities that our choices entail. We experience the consequences of our actions without having to live through them. In virtual settings–whether in traditional stories or in technologically-mediated interactions–we “experience” the impacts, for good or for ill, of choices we make. Thus we tap a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the world we inhabit. In fact, storytelling can be seen as a form of technology in itself: a tool for communicating personal meaning, for envisioning new possibilities and understanding them in a more complete way, which we can use to wisely steer our course.

With our technologies and the stories we tell about them, we imagine and invent the future.

Come to the Santa Fe Complex for a triptych: three speakers with very different backgrounds in technology and storytelling will each explore the future of the technologies we use to extend our mental reach, and the meaning we make from them with the stories we tell.
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Agenda and bios:
6:00-6:40 p.m. Steve Smith and Stephen Guerin on Synthetic Perception
Steve Smith and Stephen Guerin, researchers in scientific visualization, visual analytics, and virtual reality, will tantalize us with glimpses of how synthetic perceptual environments and advanced user interfaces will continue to blur the boundaries between human and machine, between experience and story. Smith is a long time researcher in scientific visualization, visual analytics and virtual reality. Guerin is the founder of Santa Fe Complex and president of Redfish Group, where he uses the science of complex adaptive systems to model and visualize business and social problems as self-organizing systems. Smith’s and Guerin’s web pages are here and here, respectively.

6:40-7:20 p.m. Steven Gould on The Science Fiction-Science Tango
The author of NYTimes bestselling science fiction novel Jumper discusses how science fiction uses science and technology as grist for spinning new visions of the future, and how those stories can influence the directions then taken by scientists and engineers. His web page is here.

7:20-8:00 p.m. Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling: A New Art Form
Renowned game designer, founder of the Game Developers Conference, and creator of Balance of Power will speak about interactive storytelling, a marriage of computer technology and storytelling that has the potential to transform how we experience story. His web page is here.

8:00-8:30 p.m. Meet and Greet – Snacks, blue sky discussion, Q&A