As the Internet of Things becomes the Internet of Everything, we're entering a world where every object becomes an enchanted object. With the advent of essentially free computation, memory, and wireless technology, Internet connectivity will be woven into everything valuable enough to be bought, sold, or stolen. People who write code are the sorcerers of tomorrow. Humanity’s future as a spacefaring species isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Fundamental physical constraints are held back by advances in energy technology that increase at only 3-5% per year, versus the 18-month doubling in electronics due to Moore’s Law. Together with advances in biotechnology, and virtual reality headsets that (literally) make your head spin, our future technology of the next 100 years is going to follow a virtual and literal path of Dungeons and Dragons, not spaceflight. A world of enchanted objects is already arriving – thermostats that program themselves, phones that retrieve and display information based on voice commands, cars and planes that drive themselves – all of these things impact every part of our lives.

1. Dungeons & Dragons (not Star Trek)
Predicts Our Future
Rob Coneybeer
Shasta Ventures

2. How to Make Big Money
Right 1.5x 20x+
Wrong 0 0
Consensus Contrarian

3. “We wanted flying cars, instead
we got 140 characters.”
– Peter Thiel

4. Star Trek
• Spacecraft
– Impulse drive (STL)
– Warp drive (FTL)
• Teleportation
• Robots & AI

6. Impulse Drive
• Slower-than-light (STL)
• Energy to accelerate
one ton to 10% of
lightspeed: 0.45 EJ
• Energy released in Tsar
Bomba (1961): 0.24 EJ

7. Warp Drive
• Faster-than-light (FTL)
• Estimated energy to
create a small warp
bubble: 65 EJ
• Energy used by the
entire U.S. in 2013:
103 EJ

8. Teleportation
• Human body:
– 1027 atoms
– 1045 bits
• billion-trillion-trillion
Terabyte-capacity
hard drive

9. Robots & AI
A computer just passed the Turing Test
in landmark trial
– June 9, 2014
“We are proud to declare that Alan Turing’s
Test was passed for the first time on
Saturday,” declared Kevin Warwick, a visiting
professor at the University of Reading, which
organized the event at the Royal Society in
London. “In the field of Artificial Intelligence
there is no more iconic and controversial
milestone than the Turing Test, when a
computer convinces a sufficient number of
interrogators into believing that it is not a
machine but rather is a human.”

10. Star Trek
• Spacecraft
– Impulse drive (STL)
– Warp drive (FTL)
• Teleportation
• Robots & AI

11. Dungeons & Dragons
• Enchanted Objects
• Casting Spells
• Flying Creatures
• Bioengineered
Organisms

12. Enchanted Objects

13. Magic Wands

14. Invisibility
Army tests James Bond style tank that
is ‘invisible’
– October, 2007
New technology that can make tanks invisible
has been unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.
In secret trials last week, the Army said it had
made a vehicle completely disappear.

15. Magic Mirrors

16. Flying Creatures

17. Bioengineered Organisms

18. “Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable
from magic.”
– Arthur C. Clarke

19. “Magic, like everything
else, has rules.”
– Watt-Evans’ Fifth Law
of Fantasy

20. Modern Enchanted Objects
• Device energy budgets dominated by wireless
• Assume 100mW power draw/device
– non-stop, for 1 year
• Each device draws 3.15 x 106 J/yr
• One Warp Drive (65 EJ) could power 20 Trillion
modern enchanted objects for a year

21. Dungeons & Dragons
• Enchanted Objects
• Casting Spells
• Flying Creatures
• Bioengineered
Organisms

24. So what are the implications?
(3:40pm on the “Future Of” stage)
Rob Coneybeer
Shasta Ventures
@robconeybeer
http://280.vc