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LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION SPECIAL REPORT
LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION SPECIAL REPORT
TECHNOLOGY'S PROMISE: A BOOK REVIEW
By Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member José Luis
Cordeiro.
Print report!
OVERVIEW
Technology's Promise:
Expert Knowledge on the Transformation of Business and
Society
Author:
William Halal
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN-10: 0230019544
ISBN-13: 9780230019546
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
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REVIEW
There is a great book that has been recently published and that
brilliantly deals with the coevolution of technology, business, and
society.
Technology's Promise: Expert Knowledge on the Transformation of
Business and Society is a concise but complete "history of the
future",
covering most scientific and technological fields, with specific
scenarios until 2050 and with general ideas for the future of humanity.
This truly fascinating book by William Halal is a summary of his current
research aided by an expert panel of about 100 futurists around the
world. Halal was educated as an aerospace engineer who served as an Air
Force officer, worked on the Apollo Program and in Silicon Valley, and
has always been following science and technology and its impact in the
"real world".
Halal is already a respected author with popular books such as
Internal Markets: Bringing the Power of Free Enterprise Inside Your
Organization (1993),
The Infinite Resource: Creating and Leading
the
Knowledge Enterprise (1998), and
The New Management: Bringing
Democracy
& Markets Inside Organizations (1998). His new book now builds
on his
cumulative experience and that of his TechCast expert panel, which Halal
founded a few years ago.
TechCast can be described as
a virtual think-tank that tracks the technology revolution and its
impact on humanity. The TechCast Project at George Washington University
has developed a sophisticated Web site that surveys 100 high-tech
executives, scientists, engineers, academics, consultants, futurists,
and other experts around the world to forecast breakthroughs in all
fields of science and technology. The TechCast Project strives to be the
most complete forecasting system available, covering the entire span of
technological innovation and updated constantly. The current global
TechCast results, blended together in a masterful way by Halal with his
futurist ideas and visions, are the basis of
Technology's
Promise.
Halal begins his book with an excellent guide to the present
technological revolution, followed by specific chapters about the most
important technologies and their direct impacts on business and society.
He then carefully reviews most of the major areas covered in the
TechCast Project, namely: energy and environment, information
technology, E-commerce, manufacturing and robotics, medicine and
biogenetics, transportation, and space. Each chapter of Part I:
Forecasts
of the Technology Revolution makes an excellent summary of current
developments and future possibilities in each field.
Part II: Social Impacts of the Technology Revolution builds on
the
previous chapters in order to visualize possible futures and the direct
impact of science and technology on social institutions during this
current Knowledge Age, which seems to be giving birth to an Age of
Consciousness. The author argues that these changes are fundamental to
the very survival of humanity. Halal then concludes by integrating all
the previous forecasts across the different fields in vivid scenarios
that take the readers in a virtual trip through time. He refers to the
"World Online" for the 2010 scenario, the "High-Tech Arrival" for the
2020 scenario, the "Crisis of Maturity" for 2030, and the "Global Order"
for 2040-2050. He finishes on a personal note, understanding our place
in history and reviewing the "life cycle of evolution". Halal closes by
saying: "I marvel at what great privilege it is to witness this maturing
of civilization's long journey."
Technology's Promise: Table of Contents
Foreword: Basic Training for the 21st Century, by Marvin
Cetron
Preface: Discovering the Forces of Transformation
Ch. 1 Introduction: Guiding Technology's Promise
Part I: Forecasts of the Technology
Revolution
Ch. 2 Transition to a Sustainable World: Converting the Energy
and
Environment Mess into an Opportunity
Ch. 3 Globalization Goes High-Tech: A Worrisome World of
Abundance
Ch. 4 Society Moves Online: The Transforming Power of Information
Technology and E-Commerce
Ch. 5 Mastery Over Life: Promises and Perils of
Biogenetics
Ch. 6 Faster and Farther: Building the Global Transportation
System
Ch. 7 The Final Frontier: Preludes to Deep Space
Travel
Part II: Social Impacts of the Technology
Revolution
Ch. 8 Shifting Structures of Society: Business, Government, and
Other
Institutions in a Knowledge Age
Ch. 9 An Age of Consciousness: The Next Phase in Technology's
Promise?
Ch. 10 Scenarios: A Virtual Trip Through Time
Appendix: The TechCast Expert Panel
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CONCLUSION
The book is really a masterpiece that must be read by people seriously
interested in the future, and even those who only want some glimpses of
many things to come. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Halal's book, even if
I might be more radical in terms of the speed and the changes that are
happening. For example, the ideas of Ray Kurzweil and the "Singularity",
the continuous acceleration of change, and the possible technological
evolution of humans to transhumans and posthumans are only briefly
mentioned in the book. However, I think that they are very powerful
ideas that could make the future change faster and faster, and in more
unpredictable ways.
All in all, the possibilities
considered by Halal
are truly fascinating, and
Technology's Promise is a fantastic way to
review the history of the future, including several intriguing time
scenarios.
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