Futures for Europeans in the Knowledge Economy

Jerome C. Glenn

The Millennium ProjectAmerican Council for the United Nations University

www.stateofthefuture.org

Just 25 years ago, there was no…• Internet, World Wide Web, PCs, or mobile phones

• European Union, WTO, ICC, or NATO in Eastern Europe

• Talk of globalization, genetically modified food, stem cells

• AIDS

• Asymmetrical warfare, and

• … and most believed that a nuclear WW IIIwould have destroyed the world by now

What about the next 15 years• IQ becomes the competitive advantage in the global knowledge

economy (personalized food, genetic engineering, computer enhanced learning)

• India and China are the axes of the global economy and produce far more millionaires than you are willing to believe today

• Life Extension begins to look like a realistic option while the aging population increases economic concerns

• Genetic engineering and AI creates new life forms that achieve awareness and can evolve

• A global brain emerges from Internet evolving later into Conscious-Technology

Conscious-Technology(Post-Information Age)

When the distinction between these two trends becomes blurred, we will have

reached the Post-Information Age

HUMANS BECOMING CYBORGS

BUILT ENVIRONMENT BECOMING INTELLIGENT

1985

2000

2015

2030

Simplification of History and an Alternative Future

Age or Era Product Power Wealth Place War Time

Agricultural/

ExtractionFood/Res Religion Land Earth/Res Location Cyclical

Industrial Machine Nation-State Capital Factory Resources Linear

Information Infoservice Corporation Access Office Perception Flexible

Conscious-Technology

Linkage Individual Being Motion Identity Invented

Whither Europe?• Expanding tourist Mecca living off its past

– with increasing unemployment

– aging society with crushing medical costs

– with imported labor maintaining the status quo?

• Or can its aging population create its own employment via web-based businesses from teaching to tour guides?

• Or will it rise to the occasion and reinvent itself?• The answer could be found in how it is responding to the

15 Global Challenges facing humanity today

Millennium Project Global Challenges Identification & Assessment

182 Developments

180 Developments

1997-98

1996-97 15 Issues with

131 Actions

&

15 Opportunitieswith

213 Actions

Distilled Into

1998-99 15 Challengeswith

213 Actions

1999-2005Global Challenges General description Regional views Actions Indicators

State of the Future Index (SOFI)National SOFIs for American Countries

2000-2005

Millennium Project Nodes... are groups of individuals and institutions that connect global and local views in:

Nodes identify participants, translate questionnaires and reports, and conduct interviews, special research, workshops, symposiums, and advanced training.

1. Sustainable Development for All

• 2050 expect 3 billion more people; Economic growth accelerates; About 5-7 billion of the 9 billion will be urban; Serious urban systems ecology, nanotech, and new electric production and distributions system seem vital

• European knowledge of green technologies, policies, and ethics should be marketed to the world.

2. Sufficient clean water without conflict

• Water tables falling on all continents

• 40% of humanity on international watersheds

• 70% water for agriculture

• New knowledge needed for• filters and membranes for large-scale water treatment

• agricultural efficiencies

• Drought-and salt-tolerant plants

• Desalinization

• Household sanitation

• Water storage

• massive tree planting

3. Population growth and

resources be brought into balance

• Poverty-Environmental Migration to Europe increases

• By 2100 Europe’s population could be half of that of 2000. (362 million down from 728 million)

• Old Age Percent doubles 2050 (30% up from 15%)

• Knowledge economy jobs for older people should a HUGH industry for Europe.

©2000 - 2003 Competia Inc.

Proportion of population over 65 by region, 2000 and 2050 (projected)

Source: US Bureau of the Census 2000, quoted in UNFPA State of the World Population 2004

©2000 - 2003 Competia Inc.

Source: UN World Population 2300

4. Genuine democracy… emerging from authoritarian regimes

• European knowledge from colonial times to address failed states or sections within states?

• The increasing ability to manipulate information and information warfare threatens the future of democracy

Information Warfare

Terrorist Organizations

(Political, Ethnic, or Religious)

Private SectorCompetitive Intelligence

Transnational Organized Crime

Government Organizations

Non-governmental Organizations

AdvancedMarketing Techniques

5. Policymaking more sensitive to global long-term perspectives

• Knowledge economy requires the ability to monitor and anticipate future global change

• This sensitivity and ability can be automated into software

• EuroSOFI - European State of the Future Index

Press ReleasesNewsletters

Journals

Key PersonsTracking

ConferencesSeminars

Key Word Internet

Searching

Monitor SpecificWebsites

SCANNING

Weblog-Database

Management

Feedback&

New Requirements

Analysis & Synthesis

Individual Staff Management

Decisions

Future Oriented Understanding and learning for organization

Futures Intelligence System

The Global State of the Future Index (SOFI)

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0.7

0.8

0.9

1.0

1.1

1.2

1.3

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Baseline

LQ

Med

UQ

6. Global IT working for everyone

• Internet is the self-organizing mechanism for the global brain and the emerging nervous system for conscious-technology by both design and self-organization

• China: 1 in cell phones, 2 in Internet users; gap is closing• Knowledge economy Tele-education, Tele-nations Tele-government, Tele-

volunteers, Tele-medicine, Tele-everything (if it isn’t tele - it will be tele-terminated)

• Meme epidemics (cultural implications) (seek markets not jobs)

7.Ethical market economies reducing the rich-poor gap

• Top 5% bottom 5% ratio 6-1 in 1980; now over 200-1

• Internet is re-distributing the means of production

• Elderly Europeans create self-employment – Memes needed to change from employment model to self-employment

8. The threat of new and reemerging diseases, and immune micro-organisms reduced

• Europe a leader in Pharmaceuticals – a growth industry.

• World’s fast growth AIDS in Eastern Europe• Gene sequencing leading to specific new drugs is very fast

today (SARS), but urban concentrations, travel, and terrorism it may still require an alternative approach – rapid, short-term boost of the immune system.

9. Capacity to decide improved

• Democratization and interactive media increase the number of people involved in decisionmaking, and the acceleration of change increases uncertainty, which reduces our capacity to decide and set priorities.

• Decision support software to identify and improve the improvement system, training in decisionmaking, cognitive science, prioritization, synergies, self-organization, knowledge visualization, mapping, and automated decisionmaking.

• TransInstitutions – part government, corporation, NGO, international organization, and university – for each of these 15 Global Challenges or any challenge

Future Businesses may become involved with TransInstitutions

receives its funds from at least three of the following categories but not a majority from anyone: governments, for-profit corporations, non-profit organizations, UN or other international organizations, foundations, and/or individuals

the persons who compose its board of directors and associated employees and consultants must come form all of these institutional categories but not a majority of anyone

the products, services, and/or other outputs must be purchased or received by all of these categories, but not by a majority of anyone.  This could be an extension of non-profit or profit corporate law of a government.

UN

Organizations

NGOs

Universities

GovernmentsCorporations

Millennium Project

… May become a TransInstitution

10. Ethnic conflicts, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction

• African crime rate in Paris, Islamists threats in Holland, Pakistani immigrants in England, stateless Gypsies, and organized crime throughout Europe.

• Future ICT, marketing, competitive intelligence, infor-warfare, info-terrorism, and organized crime may be inter-linking – How will people know what to trust? Knowledge Economy Pollution

• SIMAD (Single Individuals Massively Destructive)

• Linkage of Education, health, and security systems

11. Changing status of women helping to improve the human condition

• Internet, knowledge economy increases women’s access to cash/political economy, which increase general welfare, especially of children

• Yet, male attacks on women 15-44 cause more death and disability than wars; Amnesty International estimates that 33% of women worldwide have been attacked by partners

• Media, Memes power to change male culture

12. Transnational organized crime

• About € 2,000,000,000,000.00 (€ 2 trillion)

• Next? Governments’ decisions bought and sold like drugs; Elderly on Internet exploited.

• Could Europe initiate a new a new global system? Implement Palermo Treaty with a new mechanism that upgrades check transfer software, prioritizes collaborative enforcement, and deputizes courts

13. Growing energy demand met safely and efficiently

• Global Electricity demand will double, and maybe triple in the next 50 years; advances in nanotech and biotech will greatly improve efficiencies, but more is needed.

• A world energy organization to pool talent and money from business, government, and universities for high risk, high payoff R&D for large-scale systems such as Carbon Sequestration and Solar Power Satellites

©2000 - 2003 Competia Inc.

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1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060

Surprise

Geothermal

Solar

Biomass

Wind

NuclearHydro

Gas

Oil &NGL

Coal

Trad. Bio.

Ex

ajo

ule

sShell Oil’s “Sustainable”

Growth Scenario

Carbon sequestration

14. S&T Breakthroughs acceleratedto improve the human condition

• S&T progresses too fast to regulate, yet its potential dangers are too big not to regulate on a global scale

• International Science & Technology Organization could begin as an information system

15. Global Ethics and Global Decisions

• Global ethics are emerging via ISOs, UN Treaties, the Olympics, NGOs, and the media

• To be a counter weight to the US and China/India, Europe could lead the global ethics discussions:– What is the ethical way to intervene in the affairs of a country that is

significantly endangering its or other people?

– Do we have the right to alter our genetic germ line so that future generations cannot inherit the potential for genetically related diseases or disabilities?

– Do we have the right to genetically change ourselves and future generations into new species?

The Millennium Project

WWW.STATEOFTHEFUTURE.ORG

Jglenn@igc.org