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The Exponential Growth of Technological Disruption | Clarence Tan | TEDxYouth@ABPatersonCollege


hi everybody thank you for being here
and let me just share a bit of what I’ve
done over my years in terms of trying to
inspire the youth on how you’re living a
much better world and what he can do to
make it even better so I wasn’t an issue
peace ambassador for singularity
University singularity University is a
think-tank in NASA Ames Research Park in
Silicon Valley it was set up in 2009 by
this by two people peter de mendez and
records will whom i’ll speak about in
the short while so Peter Diamandis is
most famous for running the XPrize he
basically wanted to go to space when he
was a kid but he’s not really tall and
NASA you know would not be able to
accept him so he thought of another way
of going to space how about making it
cheap enough that people can actually go
to space so he run the XPrize and said
that anybody who has an idea that can
essentially send a space spacecraft
100 kilometers of a sea-level Len and
fly again within two weeks will win ten
million dollars it did this without
actually raising the money and somebody
actually won so he struggled and but
then Richard Branson came along and said
he would buy the rights to it and now
you’re gonna have space Galactic Virgin
space cat I think getting fly probably
at end a year and it has brought down
the cost of setting somebody to space
from 200 from 20 million dollars through
NASA by the shuttle program to 200
thousand dollars so he wrote a couple of
books one’s called bowl the other is
called abundance the future is better
than you think
so due to exponential technology
technologies are moving so fast is
driving down the price of a lot of
things and because we’re living now in a
world of abundance not scarcity so the
world is much better than you think we
have removed poverty and eighty percent
of poverty has gone from eighty percent
down to less than fourteen percent now
worldwide so the other person is rate
cuts well which way singularity got his
name from he wrote a book called the
singularity is near he says that
technology is moving so fast by 2029
machines to be faster than the human
brain so you could download the entire
human brain to a machine and much of it
and the
wherever if you wanted to and you know
when I was teaching AI back at Bond
University I used to tell my students
you know you can just like 20 years ago
you know you could one day be able to
upload you know data you feel good if
you feel bad you can just basically make
a load it back into your brain and you
have a great day just don’t forget to
back up anyway
Rae wrote a number of books circularity
is near is one of them here’s a movie
about it – the other book that he wrote
is trans and for those of you who are
interested in living forever he base you
know basically as singularity we learned
that we have now understand the aging
process and the reason why we age is
because in a world of scarcity when you
have your offspring your give your kids
it’s better that you die off so that
your kids can have the resources but
today we live in a world of abundance
but our body don’t know that it’s still
switch on the genes that will make you
age so we understand now the mechanism
of aging and we understand the solutions
that we need to achieve except it would
take us about 25 to 35 years for each of
those steps and seven reasons why you
age and each of those technology will
take a bit of time so if you can live
for at least 25 years you’ll be extent
you’ll be able to extend your life for
now to 25 years unless you get knocked
down by a bus or a tramp in the Gold
Coast so have a look at this book and
Ray wrote ray basically wrote his first
AI generated music program in he was 17
years old he was very passionate and
inspired to try to allow blind people to
access books in the library so he
invented the optical reading machine for
the blind so if using Siri today or
using a scanner a lot of the technology
came from Ray and then Stevie Wonder you
guys know Stevie Wonder right Stevie one
is a blind pop singer became good
friends with Ray because it’s very
grateful he could now access books in
the library and he asked ray could you
help me could you develop a musical
instrument for me to compose music
because I’m blind I can’t play some of
the instruments can you do in a keyboard
so Ray came up with the synthesizer
which is sold to the Koreans back in
1980 80 in the 80s which allow you know
people to use it and I was lucky enough
few days ago when I was in Korea the
company that bought Ray’s company
essentially was having an exhibition of
the world largest digital piano and got
to play on it so I thought was pretty
cool to share this with you so let me
talk a little bit about exponential
steps exponential technology what does
it all mean so we our brain is very in
tune in terms of thinking linearly so if
I say you take a step a meter in 30
steps you would be 30 meters away but if
I say you take exponential steps you
double your steps every time you walk 1
2 4 8 16 in 30 steps how far do you
think you had gone you’d have gone 26
and a half times around the world or
billion meters and that’s how fast
technology is moving and so at
singularity we try to basically teach
people to spot those trends and be
prepared for it so as you can see in
this chart that the you know we have now
the computational power of slightly more
than a mouse brain so by 2025 2029 we
would have the ability to simulate an
entire human brain and by 2050
we’ll have the computational power to
essentially simulate every single human
beings brain in the world what I’m gonna
do is what the computational power and I
thought I would give you a quick
snapshot in April 2017 right we now have
about seven and a half billion people on
this planet we have 3.8 billion on the
internet and by 2020 we will have about
6 billion right what does that mean for
all of you it’s no better time than now
to be an entrepreneur you know all your
potential partners customers you know
investors are all online you can access
them very easily so this is a quick
snapshot on the activity and what the
internet how far she has grown another
example is you know IBM took 46 years to
reach a valuation of a billion dollars
Google took eight years Facebook took
five and Groupon took 18 I think
snapchat is probably even less than that
so as you can see things are quickening
and happening very quickly in terms of
the impact
so the problem the exponential curve is
that you start with a very small number
like 0.1 right when you double it what
do you get 0.2 we sue below 1 then you
double it again what it gets 0.4 so it
is very very deceptive so people think
doesn’t work let me give an example LED
lights 10 years ago would you even think
of putting LED lights in your house you
probably never thought of it’s too
expensive you know how to get hold off
today LED likes are basically replacing
almost every single other technology in
lighting and if you have thought 10
years ago that you know LED lights gonna
be cheap what can you do with it today
like make clothings and stuff like that
there would be something that you could
capitalize and commercialize so you’ve
got to think what’s gonna happen in the
future not what’s happening right now
when you’re developing your technology
and projects so once you pass 1 in 37 to
lose a billion right so essentially it
moves really fast and that’s when people
get you know it could create a lot of
chaos because of disruption and people
are amazed
so what technology is going through this
phase right now 3d printing right
Thirteen’s been around for you know
since the 80s but somebody has a patent
for it and that’s what one of the
reasons why I’ve been held back and
Technology two hasn’t move on at a time
that those patents expired last year so
now you’re gonna see a lot of treaty
printers coming on a mainstream and not
just printing plastic printing sintering
metals and stuff like that that’s gonna
change the world what’s the cool thing
what we need printer why it’s
exponential one 3d printer can print
about eighty percent of the parts of
another 3d printer at a moment to makes
for four makes eight you give me one to
a village in Africa and soon you will
have this exponential growth so you know
if you are here this is where it’s gonna
take off soon so a bit of tip for you
guys so let me share these some
singularity projects that has been spun
off from singularity University we have
pot university puting tank and pod
accelerator it’s really competitive
begin to program I was lucky enough to
be the first Queen spend in a program
back in 2011 when there were 22 hundred
applicants now and then the following
that four thousand
and that’s why we had the whole
competitions around the world to ensure
that an Australian person getting their
program and my good friend Maggie is
here she was one of the sponsors for the
Australian Competition and I’ll mention
some of the projects that we’ve done
so this one is fellow robots fellow
robotics so Lowe’s is like Bunnings in
Australia essentially what happened is
you have this robot if you have a if you
have a screw that you want to look for
you just go up to the robot show it to
it take a snapshot it speaks to you in
19 languages and you’ll take you to the
right arm not a difficult idea but very
efficient made in space you know it’s a
singularity company it’s the first 3d
printer on a space station and it
printed the first man-made product on
space a wrench
because astronauts didn’t have a wrench
and you know how much US Post charge for
setting a Australia Post for that matter
it might take a while to get there
they 20 printed the whole wrench now
this is a very significant it’s even
bigger than a Neil Armstrong stepping on
the moon it’s a first product we have
made in space which means that we now
can actually make bigger products maybe
the tools and perhaps leave this rock
and explore space and why we want
explore space there are a hell of people
argue about which is fixed surface
because you know that we’re gonna get
hit by a meteor is not a matter of if
it’s when
so we should get off this rock you know
then sooner the better
so that our species will basically
survive not my Conville is a Gold Coast
resident he has met him and I came in
from singularity University took part in
the competition the first company we had
and came runners-up he is trying to use
comedy to prevent suicide and and and
increase poor improve productivity so he
came to me and asked me to mentor him
and you know told me a story about how
he was doing a geek on board on board a
cruise ship and a lady came up to him in
tears thanking him profusely so what I
do he said oh my husband came from
Afghanistan have not laugh or smile for
the last 18 months after tonight he’s
back to normal so he hit him that maybe
comedy can be used to to basically
prevent suicide he wanted to apply for
grant and being an academy I said well
you know and it
evidence is not good enough you need to
write some papers and you know and he
said well you know I’m a boilermaker by
training and a high school dropout how
am I going to do that I said you can go
online and pick some classes and he did
he took a cost from John Hawking
university had distinction and it
struggled and roll got him enrolled in
Griffith University Center for suicide
prevention he happy to tell you he
graduated a year and a half ago and is
finishing his master’s right now in
suicide prevention so this is a
competition in Australia that we had in
2014 that Maggie helped sponsored and
Susan Graham the winner it’s an
Australian and she had an idea how can
you plan a billion trees using drones
you know that drones are already being
used to shoot people and so on so
shooting a sit pot isn’t hot but it
doesn’t get tired a human tree planter
can plan maybe a hundred and twenty six
trees a day
a drone never gets tired so you can
basically recharge go out and replant
and basically this project is running
now on trial in South Africa it’s a
company that actually invested in I’m
also a founding member the go-go’s
angels a singularity company called
focus at will but I thought I’d show it
to you guys because it might help you in
your studies if you listen to the music
for at least 45 minutes your
productivity will go up two hundred four
hundred percent it puts your brain into
a flow state in seven out of ten people
if you have ADHD or autism you need
perhaps a different track or different
type of music modern meadow is a company
I mentioned a lot it’s a singularity
company I tell my vegan friends you
don’t have to convince me all of us will
be vegan in the near future they are 3d
printing beef and letter from stem cells
so you never de kill not an animal for
food because you’ll be treaty printing
in so when I when I was a kid
singularity 2011 they cooked a beef
patty cost them ten million dollars
right fastball 2013 price has dropped
three nine thousand pounds in London
today it’s down to less than a hundred
maybe a man out to eleven or ten so soon
you will have 3d printed meat
which is as good as your normal normal
meat without the environmental impact
AI poly was another singularity company
you can download the app it allowed
blind people to interact with the
environment so you pointed at you
eggs benedict you will tell you what it
is you know I’ll tell you what the
person is wearing in front of you from
an Australian girl teachers Australian
woman of the year Marietta Chen and I
wonder if she’ll review with you guys
the younger guys you know like what you
should what what he should be doing with
your life if you still don’t know what
you want to do right what you want to do
you need to have a sense of purpose
which is Japanese call a key guy so
first of all you gotta find out what you
love to do right and then you basically
need to have the skill set to support
what you love to do then you make sure
the people can actually pay you for it
and what the world needs okay passion
alone is not enough okay because people
we say follow your passion so if you are
a serial killer you shouldn’t follow
your passion right so anyway how do you
find your passion but two ways right
it’s a Peter Diamandis man has spoken
about one is think about when you were a
kid what do you like to do building
stuff if you still can’t figure it out
imagine you’re already a billionaire
today what would you do to change the
world that’s what you should be doing
now at singularity our slogan is
impacting a billion people positively
within ten years we look at big projects
because you’re gonna spend as much time
doing a big project as you are doing a
small one how do you acquire skills you
can go to Udacity you can go to you know
udemy
you can go to youtube traditional
universities or you can go work in the
startup and learn skillsets because they
said you get a degree from a top
university and get a job guarantee it’s
over right because people want to know
what you can actually do you do go to
universities to be able to network with
people a lot of like-minded people so
what the world needs have a look at the
United Nations sustainable development
goals right there are basically 17 goals
here and this is all the countries in
the UN hundred ninety two hundred have
agreed to support this for next 15 years
so you know we have homeless people and
you know homeless people there empty
homes you have starving people and
dumping food you have healthcare system
problems you have you know some
solutions for traditional Chinese doctor
and stuff like that so essentially what
you know there’s really a property to
solve so use some technology to do it
I’m out of time so this is me trying all
different things that’s Tim berners-lee
the father of the World Wide Web look at
Teesha is chrome because he hates it
because you know he he developed you
know the mozilla the the browser try
cooking you know not too bad at it we
met moran michio kaku the famous
futurists have a look at him this is Lee
juicing the last mile dancer now dancing
is not for me ballet I mean and Jack
andraka and I just want to leave you
guys to Jack and Rekha always mention
him I met him again last year he’s now a
freshman at Stanford when he was fifteen
years old he was so inspired to try to
find a way to help detect pancreatic
cancer because his father’s best friend
his uncle passed away in within three
months our Diagnostics because it takes
that the technology has not moved for
the last thirty years he googled the
answer and found a solution won the
Intel seventy five thousand dollar prize
a solution I think that’s six hundred
times faster in hundred and twenty times
cheaper than anything out there so if a
fifteen-year-old kid can do this I’m
sure you guys can do wonders thank you
very much [Applause]
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