SXSW Panel Picker: Applied Neuroscience for Fun and Profit.
Technology is a wickedly powerful double edged sword that can slice through obstacles that block a better future, or be used to oppress untold masses. According to some, we live in the most prosperous time in history. Others warn against opening Pandora’s Box and the end of our species.
Exponential advances in Virtual Reality, AI, and Neuroscience permit every global citizen to participate in the creation of new possibilities with astonishingly low barriers to entry, if we can just put down Angry Birds and Candy Crush for a day.
Over 20 years ago, William Gibson said: The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed. Today, the future isn’t only here, but it’s all up in our lives in ways that we can barely perceive.
This panel is intended to be both a visionary view of possible ways forward, and a cautionary tale of possible repetition of the historical trends of exploitation.
The amount of leverage that we have now is beyond anything Archimedes could have ever dreamed. What will we do with it?
metastorming 
If the above sounds like a lot of hyperbole, you likely haven’t watched some TED videos on the ways in which computers are extending our capabilities, check out a couple. We’re way beyond facial recognition. We’ve written AI programs that were able to generate hypotheses, test them, and come up with a theory for how flatworms regenerate; a problem that biologists could not solve despite 100 years of trying, and which would likely still be a mystery. Marketing moguls are funding abilities to watch you while you watch ads to see how you respond, noticing micro-expressions, pulse rate, excitement levels, etc. The immersive presence of Virtual Reality is much more effective at bypassing the critical left-brain guard to allow deeper access to your subconscious desires.
Powerful technology indeed.
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