Researchers in Copenhagen have discovered a catalog containing thousands of summaries of books from 500 years ago, many of which no longer exist.

Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology and philosophy at UC-Berkeley, believes that the changes AI will bring to humanity will be profound, but that we won’t notice them.

From John Brockman’s Long Now Seminar “Possible Minds. . .   Read More

In a new essay for BBC’s Deep Civilisation series, British philosopher Tom Chatfield explores how technology has co-evolved alongside humans. While humans have only existed as a brief interval on the cosmic timescale, the process of “recursive iteration” that defines our relationship with our tools has led to us having an outsized impact. . .   Read More

This is the third article in our series, Music, Time and Long-term Thinking. Two previous articles explored long-term thinking in several musical domains, with focus on. . .   Read More

We are pleased to welcome Patrick Collison to the Long Now board. Collison is the CEO and co-founder of Stripe, a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet.

Collison has been in Long Now’s orbit for several years. In 02017, Stripe began sponsoring the Long Now Seminars and Conversations at The. . .   Read More

Computer scientist Stuart Russell discusses the future and possible risks of artificial intelligence, focusing specifically on the problem of filter bubbles on social media.Read More

On the occasion of 50th anniversary of the founding of the Institute for the Future, Marina Gorbis (who has worked at IFTF for 20 years) recently shared five principles for thinking like a futurist:

Forget about predictions.
Focus on signals.
Look back to see forward.
Uncover patterns.
Create a community.

As Gorbis puts it:
At. . .   Read More

Fish that fake orgasms. Fruit flies that seek out alcohol when they can’t find mates. Crows that take advantage of moving vehicles to crack open walnuts. Are these rote animal behaviors, or signs of something approaching consciousness?

Such is the focus of a provocative meditation on animal intelligence by Ross Andersen in the March. . .   Read More

“We need to think globally, we need to think rationally, and above all, we need to think long-term.” – Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, speaking at Long Now.

Watch video of the full talk here. . .   Read More

Figure 1. Mt. Washington in the Snake Range, NV, with bristlecone pines. Photo: Connie Millar

About 15 years ago, my work unexpectedly collided with mountain climate science research when the nonprofit organization I work for, The Long Now Foundation, acquired Mt. Washington in eastern Nevada (Fig. 1). Not the whole mountain, but important parts of. . .   Read More