John Smart

John M. Smart is CEO of Foresight University, co-Director of the Evo-Devo Institute, lecturer in foresight and leadership at the Naval Postgraduate School, co-Founder of the Brain Preservation Foundation, and past President of the Acceleration Studies Foundation. John was a co-founder and CEO of Hyperlearning, a science tutoring and test preparation company in his first career, then in his second career received an MS in Futures Studies from the U. Houston and an MSEq in Physiology & Medicine from UCSD SOM. At UCSD he studied evolutionary and systems thinking under James Grier Miller, a pioneer of living systems theory.

In complexity research, his focus is on three primary processes central to living systems: evolutionary (creative) processes, led by individuals, developmental (protective) processes led by groups, and "evo-devo" (adaptive) processes led by networks of cooperating and competing individuals and groups. He studies protective, creative, and adaptive processes in living systems, in organizations, in human-technology networks, and in the universe itself (ref: Evo-Devo Universe?, 2008, PDF on the web).

In technology dynamics, he studies accelerating change, densification and dematerialization, technology innovation and risks, natural security, human-machine teaming, bio-inspired AI, and AI alignment.

In social systems and foresight practice, he studies network-centric strategies that increase adaptiveness among individuals, teams, and organizations. He is convinced that evo-devo network science is the future of complexity science, and that hidden, network-centric processes stabilize and guide accelerating change. The better we understand and use these processes, the better we can create the futures that will be generally adaptive for humanity and life, in a world of accelerating change.

See his podcasts and videos on Spotify, YouTube, etc. for more on these topics.