⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa Digital Book Release

Subscriber download link inside

Mar 04, 2024

Kia ora,

It’s with the greatest pleasure that I’m finally able to share the output of nearly 2 years of research and writing. My book ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa is being released in its first digital edition tomorrow March 5th.

(I put out the first instalment post way back on 29th May 2022!1)

Here’s the cover:

Fast Forward Aotearoa Book Cover (Cover art by Sam Ragnarsson^AI)

And here’s ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa summed up in one sentence:

“Rapidly advancing technologies are completely reshaping the future of Aotearoa New Zealand - our country needs to invest NOW in a national-scale, open-source technology strategy to ensure we retain sovereignty and agency to maximise the potential wellbeing of future generations.“

The book also includes stunning, high-impact artwork which imagines possible futures for New Zealand enabled by advanced technology, created by my long-time collaborator and friend Sam Ragnarsson (augmented with the latest generative AI tools).

My sincerest gratitude to Sam for being my wing-man on this marathon project, bringing his amazing imagination and AI-whispering skills together with his solid counsel and attention to detail throughout. Thank you, friend.🙏

Here are just a few samples of Sam’s skillz:

Fast Forward Aotearoa art by Sam Ragnarsson CC BY 4.0

Also while I’m thanking people, a big shout out also to Jason Lennie and Rachel King at Ledge Brand Agency for their experience, patience and, er, *agile* approach to design and layout during the publishing process. Highly recommended.

We are making the digital version freely available to everyone online. Memia and Fast Forward Aotearoa newsletter subscribers can go to https://ffwd.nz and download the PDF for free or, if you would like to, make a NZ$10 contribution towards our work.

(Hardcover and paperback pre-orders will be opening soon, watch this space!)

(Please shout out asap if there are any issues with the e-commerce functionality / downloads - we’ve tested as much as we could in the time available but from experience these things always tend to have glitches when opened up…)

❓How can Aotearoa keep up with technology change?

The book asks what — for me — is the fundamental question of our time for the country: how can New Zealand keep up with the exponential technology change that is shaping the world around us?

In 2024, we can feel the pace of technological development accelerating on a weekly basis around us - from artificial intelligence to augmented reality, robotics to nanotech, biological enhancement to space exploration - breakthroughs in emerging technologies are arriving daily into our lives and shaping the future we will live in. Ready or not.

In parallel, the planet is in the midst of an escalating, hypercomplex, interconnected “Polycrisis” of ecological overshoot, geopolitical instability and techno-capital power concentration.‍ We truly live in interesting times.

10 dimensions of the global “polycrisis” (Image: Sam Ragnarsson CC BY 4.0)

In ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa, I examine the set of key exponential technologies which I think will define New Zealand’s future. In doing so, I call out the growing national vulnerabilities stemming from a decades-long lack of strategic thinking about technology in our public sector, businesses and education systems. I also point out the growing concentration of influence of the giant international companies which increasingly control these technologies - and pose the question if Aotearoa remains a nation of “technology takers” what outcome will that have on future national sovereignty?

General and applied exponential technologies which are shaping the future (Image: Ben Reid, CC BY 4.0)

Instead, I argue that Aotearoa urgently needs a national public technology strategy which:

Is aligned towards maximising broader national wellbeing, not just profits and GDP growth
Supports long term national and individual technological sovereignty and resilience
Invests in rebuilding frontier technological capability and skills throughout our economy
Is open-source and internationally collaborative to mitigate against enclosure by giant technology company "moats"

Only by harnessing the newest, exponentially advancing technologies alongside other, likeminded parties around the world can these challenges be solved openly and democratically, helping to secure the future wellbeing and sovereignty of Aotearoa New Zealand’s tangata (people), nga puna ora (ecosystems) and whenua (land).

🖼️In one image

Here is the whole book summed up in one image:

“A national technology strategy is needed to leverage new general purpose and applied technologies. A democratically-governed national technology investment portfolio should be established to begin investing in open-source technology solutions aligned with achieving future human wellbeing and ecological flourishing outcomes in Aotearoa, and begin to address the multifaceted challenges of the global Polycrisis“

Fast Forward Aotearoa in one image (Image: Ben Reid / Sam Ragnarsson CC BY 4.0)

The book provides a first outline of what such a "national technology investment portfolio" could look like and how it can be defined and managed in a more directly democratic manner which transparently targets future wellbeing.

I show a simple method to crowdsource ideas and talent to harness new emerging technologies towards achieving a set of national “priority missions”. The book concludes with “10 Missions and 100 Technology Solutions to Fast Forward Aotearoa” - an illustrative national technology investment portfolio for the 2020s and beyond, targeted at increasing overall wellbeing. The missions are my starter for 10, obviously a more democratic process will weight things differently:

Mission 1: Aotearoa regenerated to nature
Mission 2: A negative-GHG emissions nation
Mission 3: A resilient nation
Mission 4: A productive economy
Mission 5: A regenerative economy
Mission 6: Longer, healthier lives
Mission 7: Mental health for all
Mission 8: An equitable society
Mission 9: Universal basic public services
Mission 10: A future-facing nation

⏰The timing(!)

The abrupt recent cancellations of the slow-moving Central Government initiatives Te Ara Paerangi - Future Pathways and the Digital Industry Transformation Plan signal a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset Aotearoa’s national public investment in technology and R&D. (They also caused a frantic last-minute rewrite of relevant sections of the book in response to the breaking news…)

Now is surely the moment to fundamentally modernise Aotearoa's approach to — and cadence of — strategic technology investment to support the wellbeing, prosperity and resilience of future generations.

The necessity for change is clear but inertia still rules: perhaps this is the greatest national challenge of all. One of my observations in the book is that the country's inherited institutions and political systems, laid down in a bygone pre-digital, pre-AI era, now struggle to address the complexity, volume of data and pace of change of the modern technological age. Viewed through a dispassionate lens, New Zealand’s public institutions can themselves be perceived as “outdated legacy technologies” burdened with “technical debt” and requiring significant upgrades /wholesale replacement. As such, a full-scale digital and AI transformation of the public sector should be one driving force behind bringing more frontier technological capability onshore.

📈Seizing the poly-opportunity from the poly-crisis

Core to the achievement of these goals is the philosophy of permissionless, decentralised, open-source collaboration with other aligned parties around the world. As witnessed by the success of Linux, Wikipedia and more recently, various cutting edge AI projects, open-source technology development really is that simple and it works. (It is also the surest strategy to mitigate against attempted harmful use of technology by malicious actors.)

And these days most open-source endeavours require only basic computing infrastructure, a fast internet connection and a reasonable income for those doing the work. (Yes, bleeding-edge AI labs need access to massive AI processor farms with hundreds of thousands of GPUs… but other significant development can still be carried out on more commoditised computing infrastructure).

What it does NOT require is expensive university campus buildings or unwieldy academic bureaucracies. People doing the development can work from anywhere, any time and self-organise into virtual teams.

(It also does not require expensive, energy-sapping, zero-sum IT procurement approaches: open source software either passes the tests first time or bugs can be fixed in public if the need is there. Nothing to see here.)

Ultimately the opportunity is here right now for Aotearoa to participate in an international movement pioneering public stewardship of commons technology, collaborating towards the future flourishing of humanity, the environment - and any future intelligences we will share the planet with.

Now is the moment to seize the poly-opportunity from the poly-crisis. Time to start learning by doing. Time to ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa.

I hope you take away from reading the book as much as I have learned in the process of writing it. Let me know your thoughts and ideas for how to take things forward from here.

Ngā mihi

Ben

Launch event

There are still a small number of spaces for tomorrow’s launch event at Tūranga, Ōtautahi Christchurch - Register here to attend the launch event.

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