Robert Tercek – Information + Transformation

I promised not to post on every single speaker at Humanity + this time around, but Robert Tercek’s talk was just too thought-provoking and intriguing to skip over.

According to his bio, Tercek is “one of the world’s most prolific creators of interactive content.  He has created breakthrough entertainment experiences on every digital platform, including satellite television, game consoles, broadband Internet, interactive television and mobile networks.   His expertise spans television, telecommunications and software.”

His premise was that the intersection of information technology and human biology is going to herald a new era of human development.  Tercek noted that we’re currently in the “Era of B.S.” – where B.S., he said, stands for Before Singularity.

However, Tercek noted, perhaps we’re looking at the development of humanity through the wrong lens.  The media tends to portray the future in terms of “before” and “after.”  That is to say, right now, we’re “before” some mysterious, magical, transforming event, and after this event, humanity will enter an era that is unrecognizable and will have virtually nothing in common with humanity as we know it today.

Instead, Tercek suggested, we should look at societal development on more of a continuous scale; humanity is evolving constantly.  While there are a few technological developments that have profoundly impacted this developmental process, such as speech, writing, and print, it isn’t necessarily reasonable to suggest that there will be one single moment that will completely transform humanity.

From my perspective, Tercek’s main takeaway message was that value is shifting away from products – physical objects – to data, or virtual objects.  According to Tercek, the U.S. sales of virtual goods will exceed $2 billion in 2011.

As a quick aside, this relates directly to the idea of value shifting away from products towards anything else less tangible: intellectual capacity, creativity, time, services, etc.

Tercek’s talk included a lot of great statistics and specific examples, as well as a dearth of historical information.  He referenced the impending internet of things multiple times.  Not only that, but he was an excellent presenter – enthusiastic and compelling.

Some attendees mentioned that Tercek’s talk didn’t have a lot of new information.  However, Tercek’s talk did exactly what it was supposed to do – get the audience excited about the future, and especially the future that includes the next two days of discussion about transhumanism, futurism, artificial intelligence, technology, and more.