A bold, inspiring, and multi-disciplinary exploration of cutting-edge human knowledge and capabilities—and how to harness their awesome, but terrifying potential
In Superconvergence, leading futurist and OneShared.World founder Jamie Metzl explores how genome sequencing, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are not only changing our lives, but catalyzing each other in radical and accelerating ways. These technologies have the potential to improve our health, feed billions of people, supercharge our economies, and store essential information for millions of years, but can also—if we are not careful—do immeasurable harm.
The challenge we face is that while the ability to engineer the world around us is advancing exponentially, our processes for understanding the scope, scale, and implications of these changes is only increasing linearly and our capacity to govern our godlike capabilities wisely is only inching forward glacially. Luckily, in Jamie Metzl we have a thinker who has followed this phenomenon for decades and who integrates science, history, politics, and international affairs to envision a future that many specialists, almost by definition, cannot see. In Superconvergence, Metzl gives us the definitive account of the technological precipice on which we stand and the map to where we go from here.
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"The superconvergence of the genetics, biotechnology, and AI revolutions provides spectacular opportunities for building a better world. It also represents an almost limitless investment opportunity. We were excited to collaborate with Jamie Metzl, one of the world's great experts on how these aspirations can best be realized, including in capital markets. Superconvergence is a master class for imagining, investing in, and building a future we'd like to inhabit."
— Jeremy Schwartz, Global Chief Investment Officer, WisdomTree
In Superconvergence, Jamie Metzl takes readers on a magical journey through the science of the intersecting genetics, biotech, and AI revolutions, deeply explores the implications, and challenges us to think creatively and proactively about what comes next. Very few books are absolute must-reads. This is one.
— Siddhartha Mukherjee, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and author of The Gene: An Intimate HistoryDuring the 25 years I have known Jamie Metzl, he has always been ahead of the curve. There is no one better to help us understand and prepare for the fast approaching technological revolutions. Superconvergence is brilliant. I can't recommend it more strongly.
— Sanjay Gupta MD, bestseller author, neurosurgeon, and Emmy-award winning chief medical correspondent (CNN)Our world is defined by our science and technology—whether we like it or not. The question now is not whether to use these powers, but how best to use them. In Superconvergence, Jamie Metzl takes us on a journey of the new capabilities that are radically transforming ecosystems inside us and around us, challenging each of us to get personally involved with building the future we want.
— Beth Shapiro, University of California Santa Cruz evolutionary biologist and author of Life as We Made It: How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined—and Redefined—NatureIn a fine counter-blast to the pessimism of today, Jamie Metzl lays out just how spectacular the future of humanity and planet can be if we harness innovation responsibly and imaginatively to create what he calls the 'spiral of progress.'
— Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works, and co-author of Viral: The search for the Origin of Covid-19A page-turning journey through space and time that shows us how our lives will be changed by imminent technological advances we once only dreamed of.
— David Sinclair, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, and author of Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have ToBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Jamie Metzl is the author of the novels Genesis Code and The Depths of the Sea. He is a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council and has served in the US National Security Council, State Department, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as Executive Vice President of the Asia Society, and with the United Nations in Cambodia. Jamie appears frequently on national and international media, and his writing on Asia, international relations, genetics, and other topics is featured regularly in publications around the world. He holds a PhD from Oxford and a JD from Harvard Law School and is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University.
James Anderson Foster, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, has narrated audiobooks for a variety of publishers, across nearly all genres, both fiction and nonfiction. In 2015, he was a finalist in three categories for the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences Voice Arts Awards—mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.