The Augmented Age: Unleashing Technology's Transformative Power

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Augmented Age
3. Cognitive Augmentation
4. Generative Design Tools
5. Human-Robot Collaboration
6. The Nervous System of Things
7. Digital Nervous Systems
8. The Future of the Augmented Age

The Augmented Age: How Technology is Changing the Way We Work

The world is changing at an unprecedented pace, and nowhere is this more evident than in the way we work. Over the next 20 years, more will change around the way we do our work than has happened in the last 2,000. We Are at the DAWN of a new age in human history - the Augmented Age.

In this new era, our natural human capabilities are going to be augmented by computational systems that help us think, robotic systems that help us make, and a digital nervous system that connects us to the world far beyond our natural senses.

Cognitive Augmentation

One of the most exciting aspects of the Augmented Age is cognitive augmentation. We are already augmented in many ways - for example, we can use our smartphones to quickly find information we don't know. But this is just the beginning.

Generative design tools are a prime example of cognitive augmentation. These tools use a computer and algorithms to synthesize geometry and come up with new designs all by themselves. All they need are your goals and your constraints. The computer explores the entire solution space, every single possibility that solves and meets your criteria - millions of them. It then comes back to us with designs that we, by ourselves, Never could've imagined.

Generative Design Tools

Generative design tools are making the leap from being passive to being generative. They can now generate their own solutions to our well-defined problems. But they're not intuitive. They still have to start from scratch every single time, and that's because they never learn.

Deep-learning systems are starting to develop intuition, just like humans. Very soon, You'll be able to Show something you've made or designed to a computer, and it will look at it and say, "Sorry, that'll never work. You have to try again." Or you could ask it if people are going to like your next song or your next flavor of ice cream. Or, much more importantly, you could work with a computer to solve a problem that we've never faced before, such as climate change.

Human-Robot Collaboration

In the physical world, robotic systems are going to help us build and make things that we've never been able to make before. But it's not just about robots taking jobs away from humans. Human-robot collaboration is going to augment each other and start to inhabit a new space.

We're working on advanced robotics, specifically human-robot collaboration. We're using the human for what the human is good at: awareness, Perception, and decision making. And we're using the robot for what it's good at: precision and repetitiveness.

The Nervous System of Things

Our nervous system tells us everything that's going on around us. But the nervous system of the things we make is rudimentary at best. What's missing is a nervous system connecting us to all of the things that we design, make, and use.

Digital nervous systems are going to connect us to the things we design. We're working on one project with a couple of guys down in Los Angeles called the Bandito Brothers. We're taking a traditional race-car chassis and giving it a nervous system. We instrumented it with dozens of sensors, put a world-class driver behind the wheel, took it out to the desert, and drove the hell out of it for a week. The car's nervous system captured everything that was happening to the car. We captured four billion data points, all of the forces that it was subjected to. And then we did something crazy. We took all of that data and plugged it into a generative-design AI we call "Dreamcatcher." The result was something that a human could never have designed.

The Future of the Augmented Age

The Augmented Age is going to change the world dramatically. We're going to have a world with more variety, more connectedness, more dynamism, more complexity, more adaptability, and, of course, more beauty. The Shape of things to come will be unlike anything we've ever seen before. Why? Because what will be shaping those things is this new partnership between technology, nature, and humanity.

We're moving from things that are fabricated to things that are farmed. We're moving from things that are constructed to that which is grown. We're going to move from being isolated to being connected. And we'll move away from extraction to embrace aggregation. The future of the Augmented Age is a future well worth looking forward to.

Highlights

• The Augmented Age is a new era in human history where our natural human capabilities are going to be augmented by computational systems, robotic systems, and a digital nervous system.
• Generative design tools are making the leap from being passive to being generative. They can now generate their own solutions to our well-defined problems.
• Human-robot collaboration is going to augment each other and start to inhabit a new space.
• Digital nervous systems are going to connect us to the things we design, make, and use.
• The future of the Augmented Age is a future with more variety, more connectedness, more dynamism, more complexity, more adaptability, and more beauty.

FAQ

Q: What is the Augmented Age? A: The Augmented Age is a new era in human history where our natural human capabilities are going to be augmented by computational systems, robotic systems, and a digital nervous system.

Q: What are generative design tools? A: Generative design tools use a computer and algorithms to synthesize geometry and come up with new designs all by themselves. All they need are your goals and your constraints.

Q: What is human-robot collaboration? A: Human-robot collaboration is going to augment each other and start to inhabit a new space. We're using the human for what the human is good at: awareness, perception, and decision making. And we're using the robot for what it's good at: precision and repetitiveness.

Q: What are digital nervous systems? A: Digital nervous systems are going to connect us to the things we design, make, and use. They will provide us with information about the things we create in the real world.

Q: What is the future of the Augmented Age? A: The future of the Augmented Age is a future with more variety, more connectedness, more dynamism, more complexity, more adaptability, and more beauty. We're moving from things that are fabricated to things that are farmed. We're moving from things that are constructed to that which is grown. We're going to move from being isolated to being connected. And we'll move away from extraction to embrace aggregation.