Jerome Clayton Glenn on ‘State of the Future 20.0’

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/10/07

Jerome Clayton Glenn is co-founder and CEO of The Millennium Project, a leading global participatory think tank with 71 Nodes around the world, and three regional networks which produces the State of the Future reports for over 25 years. 

He was contracted by the EC to write the AGI paper for input to their Horizon program 2025-2027, is a Member of the IEEE SA organizational governance of artificial intelligence working group P2863, lead the international assessment of foresight elements of the UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda. He is currently working on the initial conditions, rules, and guardrails for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and governance possibilities, synergetic relations among nations of South Asia, and the next State of the Future report.

Jerome Glenn has managed over 60 futures research projects, lead author for 19 State of the Future reports, and co-editor for Futures Research Methodology 1.0 to 3.0

He invented the Futures Wheel, Synergy Matrix, and concepts such as conscious-technology, transInstitutions, tele-nations, management by understanding, self-actualization economy, feminine brain drain, and definitions of environmental security and collective Intelligence. He wrote about information warfare in the late 1980s, sent his first email in 1973, and in the mid-1980s he was instrumental in getting x.25 packet switching in 29 developing countries which was key to low-cost access to the Internet. 

A few years ago, he led the design and implementation of the Global Futures Intelligence System, wrote Work/Technology 2050: Scenarios and Actions, and lead the American Red Cross Covid-19 Scenarios. He was instrumental in naming the first Space Shuttle the Enterprise and banning the first space weapon (FOBS) in SALT II. He has published over 250 future-oriented articles, spoken to over 800 organizations, and wrote Future Mind: Artificial Intelligence, Linking the Future, and co-author of Space Trek: The Endless Migration).

He shares the 2022 Lifeboat Guardian Award with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, received the Donella Meadows Metal, Kondratieff Metal, Emerald Citation of Excellence, honorary professorship from Universidad Miguel de Cervantes, and honorary doctor’s degrees from Universidad Ricardo Palma and Universidad Franz Tamayo, and is a leading boomerang stunt man.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are again with Jerome C. Glenn of the Millennium Project. Today’s focus is the State of the Future 20.0 report, primarily authored by Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, Elizabeth Florescu, and the Millennium Project team. I want to take a quick historical look. What was the original inspiration for the State of the Future report?

Jerome C. Glenn: The original inspiration was figuring out how to prove that future research is improving. The idea was to have some foundational elements that we would regularly update and improve to monitor global change and our ability to analyze that change. That’s where the 15 global challenges come in. You can take any of the previous 19 reports, look at Challenge 1 or 5, for example, and assess whether it has improved over the past 15 years. It was a way to compel us to continuously enhance our cumulative work. If something was a brilliant statement three years ago, why discard it? It’s still relevant. Just like the brain, it’s a cumulative system. You keep improving, ideally, as you gather new information. The idea behind The State of the Future was to create a mechanism for ongoing improvement.

Jacobsen: Could you share an “in memoriam” note for Theodore “Ted” J. Gordon? What did he mean to you and the project, and what were some key aspects of his contribution to this last report?

Glenn: Ted contributed more to future research methodologies than any other historical futurist. He was at the RAND Corporation during its early days when brilliant minds like Herman Kahn and others discussed the future. Ted was the first to ask, “What are the methods for studying the future?” From that came methodologies like Delphi, cross-impact analysis, and technology sequence analysis. He transformed future research from speculative thinking into a rigorous methodological field, which was acknowledged in his eulogy by the RAND Corporation. I thought that was a valuable insight.

Jacobsen: What was Ted’s role in the Millennium Project?

Glenn: Ted was the original creator of the Millennium Project concept, though I later revised it. His initial idea was to conduct a massive study on the future for the year 2000. I thought, “We don’t just need a one-time study; we need a global system for continuous future research.” That’s what the Millennium Project eventually became. Ted was also stronger in mathematics, statistical analysis, and quantitative approaches, while I was better on the qualitative side. Our complementary skills created a strong synergy, and we worked together for many years. We were the longest-working partner in future studies. Alvin Toffler and his wife also worked together for a long time. Still, Ted and I surpassed that in terms of sustained collaboration.

So, he was a good mentor. He was older than I was and obviously very bright. He was a rocket scientist, by the way. He worked on the third stage of the Apollo rocket, or the Saturn rocket, that went to the moon.

So when people say, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist,” I respond, “Yes, it does—and there he is.”

Jacobsen: Let’s start with the report today by following those notes. How can global governance systems balance economic growth and sustainability to meet the various targets of the Paris Agreement by 2050?

Glenn: Oh, boy. One of the things we point out in Challenge 1 on sustainable development and climate change—and also in Challenge 3 on demographics and resources, and Challenge 2 to some degree on water—is that the most likely, cost-effective strategy isn’t just changing cars or energy systems; it’s changing food systems. This is why it’s important to consider cost-effectiveness and time to impact.

If something is cost-effective but takes 40 years, it won’t matter as much as something that can take 10 years. The amount of land and water we use is far greater for growing animals we eat than for growing food directly for ourselves. As you may know, most of the water is used in agriculture, and most is used to grow food for animals we consume. So, cut out the middleman. Any business will tell you—cutting out the middleman reduces costs.

In this case, the middleman is the animal. We now know how to produce meat directly from genetic material into meat cells. We know how to do this. The issue is scaling it up. Singapore has been selling lab-grown meat for a couple of years, and in the United States, the FDA approved it last year.

The challenge isn’t the ability to produce it but scaling it up. You don’t want to be a large grocery store chain with lab-grown meat [Ed. Cell-based meat] available one week and then not the next, leaving your customers frustrated. Right now, the issue is scaling.

If we can get enough people in the world to eat a hamburger, that’s pure meat—because the meat we get from cows in factories is filled with hormones and drugs. In fact, more drugs go into animals than into humans—about seven times more pharmaceuticals are used in animals globally than for humans. The purest form of meat would come directly from genetic material, with a little stimulation, some feedstock, algae, and voilà, out comes your hamburger.

The amount of electricity and resources required to raise animals for meat is staggering. You don’t get your meat the next day—you get it years later. That’s a long-term investment. But with lab-grown meat, once you’re operational, you get a daily return on investment. Financially and environmentally, it’s the way to go.

Now, think about cars. The average lifespan of a car is around 17 years—it’s bought, sold as a used car, and sold again. If we converted all cars to electric right now, we’d still have a backlog of gasoline-powered cars for years. Yes, we should make the switch—I drive a Prius myself—but it takes time.

The same goes for transitioning to an electric grid. It’s a massive undertaking. And then you have AI, which some estimate now consumes 5-7% of global electricity. Throw cryptocurrency on top of that, and the energy demand is growing exponentially [Ed. Accelerating growth.].

Even though we have all this new electricity coming from solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable sources, the bulk of energy still comes from fossil fuels. That bulk will continue to be a dominant source for several years. On the other hand, food systems can change faster and globally. Another factor to consider is that, as the costs of raising food animals increase, the price of meat will become prohibitive for poorer populations.

Children, especially those between 3 to 5 years old, need iron and protein for proper brain development. If you look at some photos from certain parts of Africa, you’ll notice children with reddish hair. That’s kwashiorkor, a form of protein malnutrition. They develop it because they aren’t getting enough iron and protein in their diets. So, if we don’t shift to lab-grown meat—produced directly from genetic material—not only will we face environmental challenges, but we will also see a significant impact on the cognitive development of poor populations in the future.

One of the things I feel most strongly about—and as you’ve probably noticed, I’m quite passionate about this—is that we need to start focusing on food systems. It’s not just about changing your electricity system or switching to electric cars. We must also change the way we eat. How many people at environmental conferences are still eating meat today?

Even Democrats like Al Gore didn’t mention food in his award-winning documentary. At the COP26 summit in Scotland, they finally started talking about methane emissions. They’re getting there, but it’s slow progress. And for your listeners, it’s not just about cow emissions, though that’s often exaggerated or used as a distraction. It’s not just cow farts—it’s the whole production process. Turning over land to grow food for animals also produces methane. There’s a whole series of steps involved. For instance, we ship meat to South Korea using oil-powered ships. People who aren’t taking this seriously haven’t done their homework.

That, I’d argue, is one of the most important insights for addressing the Paris Agreement.

Jacobsen: I want to focus on some of the nuances of systems and governance mentioned in the report. This includes a focus on international collaboration and frameworks. How can global collaboration frameworks, such as the UN’s proposed four foresight elements, be strengthened to manage existential risks like climate change or AGI?

Glenn: Right. Help me remember to come back to climate synergy because I’ll likely get stuck on the AI and UN frameworks, which are important. I definitely want to return to the topic of synergy.

The UN Secretary-General recently co-authored a report, and he was very involved in it. His background is chemical engineering, so he’s quite familiar with the science. In that report, he outlined five foresight elements to revitalize the United Nations and make it more relevant to the future. One of these elements is to “repurpose” the Trusteeship Council into a multi-stakeholder foresight body.

Let me break that down. The UN has several major institutions, such as the Security Council and the Secretariat. One is the UN Trusteeship Council, which played a crucial role after World War II, particularly during decolonization. The council was instrumental in helping newly independent countries transition. The UN doesn’t get enough credit for this, but it did important work.

With decolonization mostly behind us, the Trusteeship Council doesn’t have much to do. There’s a huge room and infrastructure, but it’s not being utilized. The Secretary-General is proposing we repurpose it. That’s the first part. The second part is transforming it into a multi-stakeholder institution. Traditionally, the UN has been a club for nation-states. Still, a multi-stakeholder body would include not just governments but corporations, universities, think tanks, journalists—whoever has a stake in global governance.

This is important because governments no longer control most global financial power. Most of the world’s wealth is in the hands of investment houses. For example, 70% of the New York Stock Exchange trades are made by AI, not directly by human decision-makers. So, governments aren’t the only game in town anymore. Recognizing this reality, the Secretary-General has proposed a multi-stakeholder body to reflect today’s true distribution of power and influence.

So, you have that. The whole purpose would be foresight, meaning one-fifth of the UN would become future-oriented. That’s a gigantic change. As you can guess, it’s not easy to make such a change in the UN.

To implement this, they would need to amend the charter. We’ll see if that happens, but that’s one of the major proposals. The second proposal is to create a “futures lab”—a think tank within the Secretariat. I hope they’ll include professional futurists who have actually conducted future research. However,. Though they’ll need some bureaucrats to ensure the system runs smoothly, hopefully, they’ll bring in serious experts in the field.

A third proposal is to appoint an envoy for future generations. The idea is to have someone ensuring that decisions made within the UN system consider the impact on future generations—both within the UN and pushing other countries to do the same. By the way, Wales has been a champion of this type of thinking. For your listeners, it’s about operationalizing future generations in decision-making.

Then, of course, the Summit of the Future is happening as we speak. It was originally supposed to happen last year, and we assessed related issues included in the State of the Future report. We pointed out that, to achieve all these changes, you won’t be able to do it in a short period. So, they moved the summit to this year, encouraging many countries to think about what they should say regarding the future. However, much of what will be said is probably what they would say regardless of the topic. So, the impact may not be as significant as I would have liked, but it’s a start.

Did I cover everything? Let’s jump over to synergy. You put a virtual asterisk on the term or concept of synergy.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Glenn: Thank you. This ties directly into governance. The political world today operates largely as a zero-sum game. If you’re more powerful, I’m, therefore, less powerful. This is reflected in major government reports, like in my country, the United States, where they release a trend report every four years before a new president takes office. The report essentially outlines how to increase or decrease power.

In my view, the world as a zero-sum game guarantees unending conflict, as we’ve seen throughout history. So, what can change that? What kind of decision-making can alter that dynamic? I would like to see schools of business and diplomacy start teaching synergetic analysis.

For example, business schools teach us about competitive intelligence, competitive advantage, and competitive strategy. That’s been the framework so far. But I’ve suggested to several business schools that we also teach synergetic intelligence. What would synergetic advantage or synergetic strategy look like? We’ve got two experiments running at the moment to explore this idea.

One experiment is in South Asia. It involves eight countries. We create a grid, listing the countries down one side and across the top. Then we ask, “What are the potential synergetic relations between Pakistan and India?” Immediately, people’s minds often shut down, thinking, “I can’t imagine that.” They might come up with something minor, like tourism, but that’s basic cooperation.

I’m not talking about mere cooperation between countries but about synergies. As the great futurist, Buckminster Fuller pointed out, here’s the distinction:

1. Take a wheel and a box.
2. Put the wheel inside the box, and nothing much happens.
3. Take the wheel out, put it under the box, and you get a wheelbarrow—a completely new entity.

A wheelbarrow is not just a wheel or just a box. It’s a new relationship that forms something entirely different.

Can we create similar new relationships between nation-states? Even in business, imagine two companies: one seeks multiple synergetic relationships with other businesses. In contrast, the other only follows the typical competitive analysis. Synergy could outperform the competition. In my view, one of the critical criteria for future decision-making is teaching people to understand synergy and how it can improve outcomes. I’m not advocating for eliminating competition, but I am suggesting that we can achieve better results by adding synergy to the decision-making process.

Jacobsen: You mentioned malnutrition, specifically how iron and protein deficiencies at crucial stages of development affect brain growth. Protein, iron, and other core macronutrients are essential for a fully developed nervous system. When it comes to global inequality, can technology and AI help address growing wealth disparities, which have been a political and economic issue dating back to ancient Greece?

Glenn: This is a complex issue, so I’ll offer a somewhat superficial answer. One immediate solution is that AI can help create individualized learning systems. With projects like Elon Musk’s satellites providing rural areas with Internet access, we’re nearing a point where almost everyone will have online connectivity within a few years. This would allow individuals to learn at their own pace based on their specific needs and circumstances.

AI can facilitate massively customized education, tailored to each person, which should significantly improve learning. We know people learn best when they’re engaged with topics they’re interested in at that moment. Traditional classrooms can’t offer that level of personalization. AI, however, can adapt brilliantly to these learning needs.

That’sOne part of the equation is improving education and helping people understand their potential. The other part concerns the jobs that will be displaced by AI. Many jobs today may not be available in the future due to advanced AI. One widely discussed solution is universal basic income (UBI).

In our Work/Technology 2050: Scenarios and Actions report, one of the scenarios was titled “If Humans Were Free,”which explored the idea of a self-actualization economy.

The idea—and as I was working on that scenario—I thought, okay, who has the cash flow projection for UBI, universal basic income? If you go to a bank to get a loan, you need to provide a cash flow projection to show that you can pay it back and that it’s financially sustainable. But I couldn’t find any country that had done one for UBI. So, if any of your listeners can send me a web link to a proper cash flow projection—money in, money out over time—that would be helpful.

You don’t want to break the back of a government’s treasury by overpaying and not making it sustainable. So, what makes sense? The timing of implementation matters, and the cost of living matters.

Here are a couple of variables: One, as labour is reduced in production, costs will eventually go down—not immediately, but perhaps by 2030 or 2035. So, by then, the cost of living might be lower than it is now, and you wouldn’t need to pay as much in UBI. That’s one bell curve: the cost of living rises and then falls.

The other rising curve will be new sources of taxable income, like taxing robots, synthetic biology, and the products of AI and biotech. As this new income grows, the question is: when will the cost of living decrease enough and the new taxable income increase enough that they cross over, making UBI financially sustainable? When that happens, we’ll have a sustainable system.

Additionally, with AI assisting people, you could have an AI avatar that understands what you want to do and helps you find opportunities. Imagine you’re planning to visit the Louvre tomorrow. Your AI avatar would search the web for people interested in joining you virtually. Maybe 100 people would pay $1 each to virtually join you on your tour, using your contact lenses and two-way video system. But let’s say you want to narrow it down to 50 interesting people who will make the experience more engaging. Now, you’re touring the Louvre alone but interacting with fascinating individuals worldwide, and they’re paying you $50, which covers your lunch.

I’m describing how AI could help people find markets for what they want or are already doing, allowing them to make a living without physically going to a marketplace. The market was the center in the past, and we revolved around it. In the information revolution, every point in the orbit becomes a center, so we all become the center of a world system. Each person could eventually make a living simply by being themselves.

I recommend that people figure out how to monetize their hobbies today. What do you enjoy doing? How do you want to evolve between birth and death? Can some of that be for income? Your AI avatar can help you find the right audience. Out of the world’s 8-10 billion people, surely a few would be willing to pay you for what you’re already doing.

Jacobsen: We have five minutes left, so I’ll ask a final question. What about optimizing collective paths in governance and systems as we navigate the development of advanced technologies and choosing the ones with the highest probabilities of being positive for human flourishing? Specifically, I’m talking about ethical frameworks that may not be fully developed yet, or that could surpass the limitations of current moral structures. How do we approach the evolution and development of these frameworks?

Glenn: I’m not entirely sure I fully understood your question, but I’ll do my best to answer it. Let’s see if I’m on the right track.

I sit on the IEEE AI governance committee, which spends much time defining ethical terms. How do you audit something for ethics? First, you need to define the terms, and that’s what we’re doing. It struck me that if you imagine two worlds—one like we have now, where humans make both smart and dumb decisions, with a range of ethical considerations—and then imagine another world where the infrastructure of civilization (electricity systems, plumbing systems, etc.) is run by AI, all vetted for ethics, the average decision in the AI-driven world would likely be more ethical. The AI would have passed various benchmarks, meaning decisions would generally be more ethical than those made by humans today.

Jacobsen: Are you aware of any efforts being made to develop those AI systems with relevant benchmarks for ethical decision-making?

Glenn: Yes, absolutely. There are many efforts. I was involved in the early days of the Internet in the 1980s, working on getting it into third-world countries through packet switching. Back then, no one was talking about the ethical implications—it was assumed that technology was good. We didn’t conduct proper technology assessments.

Today, there’s a massive focus on technology assessment and ethics. As we speak, there are probably hundreds of conferences worldwide discussing how to ensure ethical standards in AI. Several organizations are working on this—IEEE, ISO, UNESCO, OECD, and others. There’s even a Global Partnership on AI. Ethics in AI is flourishing everywhere, and they’re all working on it.

So, I’m not concerned about the current discussions on ethics. What worries me is the next step: artificial general intelligence (AGI). Most conversations today are about narrow AI, like ChatGPT and other generative models. They’re focused on specific, limited tasks. But AGI—AI that acts as an agent, not just a tool—is different and much more complex.

Hopefully, our ethics frameworks will extend to how AGI is created. This is one of the key issues we explore in the State of the Future report, where we go into 100 to 200 pages of detail.

Jacobsen: Excellent. Jerome, thank you for your time today to discuss the State of the Future 20.0 report.

Glenn: Thank you. I appreciate it.

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