About

Follow @ramez on twitter.

I’m a  computer scientist living in Seattle, Washington.  In 2005 I wrote  More Than Human:  Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (Broadway Books, 2005), for which I was awarded the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism.

In 2013 I have three books coming out:

 

The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet  - This is a look at the power of innovation to overcome very real natural resource and environmental challenges that face us – challenges like providing water, food, and energy for billions while addressing climate change, deforestation, fresh water depletion, and peak oil.  I show how new innovations have continually overcome such limits in the past and increased the carrying capacity of the planet, and make a case for the investments we need to make today to maximize our odds of doing so again.  This book will be out in March of 2013 from University Press of New England.

Nexus and Crux - A pair of near future science fiction thrillers set less than 30 years in the future, in a world struggling to deal with human enhancement technologies, and the explosive potential of a nano-drug that can link mind to mind. The first of these, Nexus, will be out in December of 2012.

In my technology career I led teams working on early versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and most recently the Bing search engine, where I served as overall Director of Program Management and led Program Management for the Ranking and Relevance team for 6 years. My work for the last several of those years focused heavily on neural networks and other machine learning, artificial intelligence, and information retrieval methods on extremely high-scale, high-date volume systems.

Between stints at Microsoft I founded and ran Apex Nanotechnologies, a company working on advanced software tools for molecular design.  We were, as they say, a bit ahead of our time.

This blog is my outlet for thoughts on future science and technologies, the impact of those on society, and current issues in politics and economics that interest me.  I hope you enjoy it.  I welcome your feedback.

Ramez Naam
@ramez
mez@morethanhuman.org