Living and Intelligent Technology
Living technology will soon have a huge impact on society. We should start thinking through the implications today! Living technology is technology that is useful because it shares the fundamental properties of living systems. The fundamental properties of living systems include self-assembly, self-organization, metabolism, growth and division, purposeful action, adaptive complexity, evolution, and intelligence. Our technology is becoming increasingly life-like, because this makes it especially powerful. Three examples of living technology are synthetic biology attempts to make living systems from scratch in the laboratory, ICT systems exhibiting collective and swarm intelligence distributed across the world wide web, and robots currently cleaning our households, providing companions for the autistic, and the like. The ISSP’s project on living and intelligent technology aims to take stock of the state of the art in living technology and recommend priorities for the socially responsible scientific pursuit of living technology.
Leader of LIT
Steen Rasmussen is leading the ISSP Living and Intelligent Technology group. Steen is a physicist mainly working in the areas of artificial life and complex systems. He is currently a professor in physics and a center director at University of Southern Denmark as well as an external research professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His formal training was at the Technical University of Denmark (1985 PhD in physics of complex systems) and University of Copenhagen (philosophy). He spent 20 years as a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1988-2007) the last five years as a leader of the Self-Organized Systems team. He has been part of the Santa Fe Institute since 1988. The main scientific effort of Steen Rasmussen over the last ten years has been to explore, understand and construct a transition from nonliving to living materials. Bridging this gap requires an interdisciplinary scientific effort, which is why he has assembled, sponsored and lead research teams in the US, across Europe and in Denmark. He became a scientific team leader in 2002 at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, and he has since held research leadership positions at the Santa Fe Institute, University of Copenhagen and University of Southern Denmark. Since late 2007 he has been the director of the Center for Fundamental Living Technology at University of Southern Denmark. Steen Rasmussen has for many years been actively engaged in the public discourse regarding science and society and on this background he founded the Initiative for Science, Society and Policy (ISSP) in 2009.
Prof. Mark A. Bedau (Ph.D. Philosophy, UC Berkeley, 1985) is an internationally recognized leader in the interdisciplinary study of complex adaptive systems.
Rachel Armstrong is an interdisciplinary practitioner with a background in medicine. She collaborates with scientists, architects and artists to create a new experimental space to explore scientific concepts and re-engage with the fundamental creativity of science.
Rinie Van Est
Rinie van Est joined the Rathenau Institute in August 1997, where he is responsible for identifying new developments at the convergence of science, technology, politics and society, with a particular focus on the emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science.
Is a Senior Law and Ethics Associate at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics, Harvard Law School, USA. Previously she was at Delft University in the Netherlands and at Oxford University in the UK. She obtained her PhD at Harvard University in Health Policy in 2007. Her current interests are the long term societal impacts of synthetic biology and living technology.
Lene Rachel Andersen
is an economist, futurist and philosopher. She has written several books on human evolution, society, democracy, science, and technological development. She is a research associate at University of Southern Denmark and owner of Next Scandinavia.
Lene Rachel Andersen and Steen Rasmussen The BINC Manifesto
Lene Rachel Andersen and Steen Rasmussen Tomorrow’s technology will lead to sweeping changes in society – it must, for all our sakes
Lene Rachel Andersen and Steen Rasmussen Teknologiudviklingen trækker os mod et globalt gearskifte
Posts about LIT activities
Steen Rasmussen, the Director of Living Technology, and Lene Andersen, ISSP associate and LT member has their latest article regarding the recent digital revolution, on Videnskab.dk. The article is in Danish. "På under et årti har digitale produkter og...read more
Director of ISSP group Living Technology (LT), Steen Rasmussen and LT member and ISSP associate, Lene Andersen have their article on tomorrow’s technology and its importance in The Conversation. The article is called: “Tomorrow’s technology will lead to sweeping...read more
On January 15th, Steen Rasmussen and Lene Rachel Andersen were invited to a meeting with the Minister of Education and Research, Sofie Carsten Nielsen, to discuss technology and governance.read more
Postdoctoral position starting January 1 -2015 The Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT) at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark, in Odense, offers a two year postdoctoral position starting January 1, 2015 or as...read more
Steen Rasmussen's daughter Kristina Korsholm is making a documentary about Steen and his science. Listen to father and daughter as they share their story and how the work with the film progresses:...read more
Stand-up comedian, Lasse Rimmer, has a weekly program about the future, we talk about the ESOF conference on Friday – listen to it here (in Danish): http://www.radio24syv.dk/programmer/lasse-rimmers-fremtid/...read more