- Futures Studies & Forecasting
- Policy, Law & Ethics
- Finance, Entrepreneurship & Economics
- Networks & Computing Systems
- Biotechnology & Bioinformatics
- Nanotechnology
- Medicine & Neuroscience
- AI & Robotics
- Energy & Environmental Systems
- Space & Physical Sciences
Technology and Advisory Teams:
1. Futures Studies & Forecasting:
Singularity University is a uniquely futures-oriented institution, built to help students anticipate the capabilities of exponentially-accelerating technologies and harness them for creative solutions to escalating challenges. Forecasting is difficult, and what can be predicted about the future is its complexity and uncertainty: the Futures Studies & Forecasting track brings tools that help students avoid common forecasting errors and the resulting planning errors that come from them. We do not predict a future but discuss probable, plausible and possible futures.
When looking at trends, mistakes have often resulted from not understanding how quickly technology changes, from assuming linear extrapolation of current trends, and from not analyzing how factors from multiple disciplines can converge to upend the conventional thinking in individual disciplines.
Futures studies is a way of systems thinking to help people thrive in complexity and not try to control it. Futurists focus on the issues most fraught with uncertainty and those most open to transformation. The FSF curriculum draws on renowned futurists with years of industry and academic experience using futures frameworks and foresight methodologies.
2. Policy, Law & Ethics:
As rapidly changing technology changes the world, the law, governments, civil rights and ethical systems will lag behind, often with serious consequences. This track will promote effort into understanding how the changes forecast in other tracks can integrate with society and those systems.
Patent law will be reworked as software creates inventions. Nanotechnology may copy physical objects and end material scarcity while redefining the concept of property. Autonomous robots and AI systems will spark debate over liability and their legal status. The exploration of space will pose new questions of property and legal jurisdiction. Biotech research already generates complex ethical and legal questions. Growth in computer networks has already led to new forms of cybercrime. Expanding systems of surveillance and the erosion of privacy in online cloud applications may enable police states in some countries, or give new tools to warlords.
The rapid changes found in all of the other tracks will generate complex legal issues like those listed above, all as the world deals with economic turmoil and a possible environmental crisis. Yet these technologies may also present solutions to these problems, creating problems if they are not developed.
3. Finance, Entrepreneurship & Economics
The exponential growth of technology, while most visible in the fields of computing and the sciences, has had an equally dramatic effect on every facet of the business world. From the long tail reverberations of virtual goods, through the outsourcing of every aspect of creation and production, to the explosive development of personal brands and the potentially culture-changing introduction of microfinance, accelerating technologies are revolutionizing our global economic system.
The FEE track covers the dramatic changes in business that have already been caused by accelerating technologies, and includes in-depth sessions on future economics, the essential tools of entrepreneurship, and advanced presentation and communications skills.
Electives, coordinated with the technical tracks at SU, include topics chosen from among the following: understanding the new workforce and the concept of personal brands, private financing of space travel, the economics of knowledge, “green” financing through carbon cap & trade, virtual market economics, microfinance, the neuroscience of economic behavior, and the concept of money as information.
Field trips to the Google campus, venture capital funds and early stage incubators, as well as special guest lectures, panel discussions, and hands-on case studies, will help students come to grips with the immediate, real-world effects of high velocity business in the 21st century.
4. Networks & Computing Systems:
Exponential growth in computing is a fundamental enabler of the changing technologies studied at SU. The NCS track draws upon the resources of Silicon Valley, nexus of multiple computer revolutions, to understand these key areas:
- We’ll seek to understand some of the technologies that will drive Moore’s law forward, such as molecular computing, 3D circuitry, photonics, DNA/computing, spin storage, memristers, quantum computing, nanocomputers and more. We’ll also study the barriers including the difficulty of parallelization, energy consumption and reversible computing, computability and scalability to learn the future capabilities of our devices and computational environment. We’ll learn about quantum computing, which has the potential to change our ideas about what is computable and how computer security works.
- We’ll study how people will interact with computers and devices, exploring 3D interfaces, virtual worlds, augmented reality, haptic interfaces and AI agents.
- The course will examine the future of networks and new directions for the internet and its successors such as a semantic web, ubiquitous networking and sensing, cloud computing, interplanetary networking, mesh networks, “smart dust” and the “internet of things.”
- We’ll study how computers connect people and data, exploring social networking, gaming, media and computing, and the implications of a deeply connected world of constant communcation between people, devices, and the building blocks of our cities and infrastructure. As we base our world on these technologies, we’ll consider in depth the problems faced in securing them, and in protecting civil rights and privacy in such a data-driven world. We’ll consider the implications of data flowing everywhere, and the data deluge in science and society.
- Fundamental scaling laws and their limits.
- The nature of atomically precise structures and computational chemistry.
- Current and proposed manufacturing technologies including: lithography, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), self assembly and positional assembly, DNA nanotechnology, nanomaterials, Scanning Probe Microscopy, mechanosynthesis, molecular positional devices, self replicating systems, molecular nanotechnology (MNT) and nanofactories.
- Molecular computing, molecular logic elements, carbon nanotube electronics and thermal limits in computing.
- Medical nanorobotics and nanomedicine.
- The impact of nanotechnology on space, energy production and storage, national security, green manufacturing, environmental remediation and other areas.
- Stem cells and regenerative medicine: the emerging ability to repair, replace and regenerate damaged, aged, or diseased tissues utilizing cell therapies, therapeutic cloning, pluripotent stem cells, tissue engineering, biomaterials and artificial organs.
- Targeted therapies, including minimally invasive medical devices, robotic surgery, designer drugs, identification and targeting of cancer stem cells.
- Medical diagnostics and imaging: increasingly powerful and rapid imaging modalities, point- of-care medical diagnostics, nanomedicine and biomarker technology.
- Neuroscience: neuroprosthetics (artificial retina, cochlear implants, brain-computer interfaces, deep brain stimulation), neuroplasticity, and direct fMRI functional brain imaging/scanning.
- Wellness: preventative drugs, supplements/antioxidants/diet, proactive regimens, Internet- based medical informatics, and telemedicine.
- Human enhancement: exoskeletons, robotic limbs, neuroenhancing pharmacological agents, gene therapy, and anti-aging strategies.
- Introduction to intelligent machines: perception, actions, representation, reasoning, learning, dealing with uncertainty.
- AI technology: efficient exploration of state space, planning, logical inference, probabilistic inference, representation languages, machine learning, and language understanding. Alternative approaches for producing artificial general intelligence (AGI) or strong AI.
- Robotics technology: hardware systems (sensors, manipulators), mobility, localization and mapping, human-robot interactions, multi-agent systems, autonomous vehicles, scaling to micro- and nano-machines.
- Applications in home, transportation, medicine, security, internet, entertainment, space, and other areas.
- Future directions: technology trends, solving the hard problems. AI ethics, potential for runaway AI, friendly vs. unfriendly AI. Uncertainties concerning when computers will match various capabilities of the human brain.
5. Biotechnology & Bioinformatics:
This track covers the exponential growth in biotechnology and bioinformatics, focusing on four areas: (1) genome technologies (genomics and proteomics, ultra-rapid, low-cost gene sequencing, and statistical and computational extrapolations of large biological databases); 2) Personalized medicine (4P medicine: personalized, predictive, preventative, participatory; high- speed, full-genome, consumer-based sequencing; personal SNP analysis and ethics); (3) Intelligent design (ultra-rapid, low-cost DNA writing, selective gene manipulation/substitution, ethics of germline modification, RNA interference); and (4) Microfluidics and single-molecule technologies.
6. Nanotechnology:
This track will cover the science, technology and potential future capabilities of
nanotechnology, including:
7. Medicine & Neuroscience:
This track will explore the future of biomedicine, neuroscience, and human enhancement and
its impacts on human health and performance in six areas:
8. AI & Robotics:
This track focuses on intelligent machines. The main topics are:
9. Energy & Environmental Systems:
This track will cover future breakthroughs in renewable energy production, including solar, wind, ocean, geothermal, biological, and nuclear; grid 2.0 & transmission systems, energy storage technology & systems, including fuel cells; efficient transportation systems; energy conservation & efficiency, and energy for the developing world; Earth as an environmental system, including sensors and monitoring; climate models and strategies; global carbon and nitrogen cycles; regional and global risks – prevention and mitigation strategies; the environment and Grand Challenges, including food and water security, waste management and recycling, and environmental contamination and clean-up.
10. Space & Physical Sciences:
The Space and Physical Sciences track will explore the frontiers of space flight, examining current and future concepts of propulsion, communications, habitat ecology, terraforming, and colonization: We will formulate strategies for future space exploration based on lessons learned from past explorers, as well as new concepts drawn from commercial space flight. We will also discuss the possibility of extrasolar earths within the context of current cosmology and planetary formation theories. Partnered with the AI/Robotics track, we will also examine human-robotic interactions and their role in space exploration.
Team Design Project:
The Team Project for SU’s Graduate Studies Program (June 27th -Aug 29th 2009) is the centerpiece of the curriculum where students are given a challenging, interdisciplinary, and real world problem that exemplifies one of humanity’s grand challenges. 2009’s Team Project is called, 10^9+ (ten to the ninth, plus) where students will be asked how they can impact 1 Billion people, worldwide, in a positive way, in 10-years time leveraging accelerating technologies.
At the end of the 9 week summer session, students will present their results before a panel of individuals composed of representatives from private and public industries. They will also launch a website and other deliverables to serve as a launchpad for practical solutions and continued international dialogue related to various aspects of the problem.
Technology Advisory Board:
The purpose of Singularity University’s Technology Advisory Team is to provide the University with ideas and guidance for the support and implementation of software tools for education, outreach and social media. In essence, the team strives to keep Singularity University at the cutting-edge of computer-based information systems, particularly online social networking and media applications.
Media Advisory Board:
Singularity University Media is producing a feature documentary for theatrical and broadcast distribution, and a series of short documentaries for online distribution. We are also recording lectures and panel discussions for DVD and online release. SU Media is run by former Technology Producer and Web Strategist at Charlie Rose, Matt Rutherford.