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What new treats will technology be offering to us? Prettier television pictures, better diet drugs, electronic shopping, clever gadgets in your kitchen and car? This is its public face, but technology’s true transformation lies deeper. Since technological advance is unstoppable, social change is inevitable. Let’s be specific: What’s technology doing to work, labor markets, business markets, organizations, government, governance, international relations, personal relations, families? 

Participants: Benford, Fukuyama, Kozmetsky, Minsky, Stock

 

	Gregory Benford is both a recognized physicist and world-renowned science-fiction novelist. He is professor of physics at the University of California at Irvine, where he specializes in plasma physics and astrophysics. He is also a consultant to NASA. He has written over 30 science fiction books, including If the Stars are Gods and COSM, and is considered perhaps the most scientifically accurate science fiction writer.
	Francis Fukuyama is widely recognized as one of the leading geopolitical thinkers in the world. He writes and lectures about international political economy, culture, and social capital. His seminal article and book, The End of History and the Last Man, has been called the most important work of philosophical history since Marx and has stimulated enormous interest and controversy. He is professor of public policy at George Mason University and the author of TRUST: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, and The Great Disruption.
	George Kozmetsky is a pioneer in the relationship between technology and society. He co-founded Teledyne, a major corporation, and the IC2 Institute, an important Think Tank at the University of Texas. He was dean of the business school at the University of Texas at Austin for 15 years, served as president of The Institute for Management Science, and assisted in the development of many technology companies, including Dell Computer. He has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of Technology for developing technology incubators.
	Marvin Minsky, professor of media arts and science at MIT, is one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence. He has made important contributions to machine perception, robotics, computational linguistics, and knowledge representation. He was the co-founder and long-time director of MIT’s world-renowned Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and is the author of important books on thinking such as The Society of Mind.
	Gregory Stock is Director of UCLA’s (University of California at Los Angeles) Program on Medicine, Technology and Society where he focuses on transformational technologies such as genetic engineering. Trained in both biophysics and business, he is the author of Metaman: The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism. An earlier book exploring values, The Book of Questions, has sold over 2 million copies and translated into 15 languages.
	Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator and host of the Closer To Truth television series and author of the Closer To Truth book. Trained in brain research (Ph.D. UCLA), he has published more than twenty books, including the Handbook for Creative and Innovative Managers and the seven-volume Library of Investment Banking. He is the president of The Geneva Companies, a leading merger and acquisition firm for private, middle market businesses.
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