The document describes a scenario where an intelligence agency director is given three new analysts to evaluate who have been technologically enhanced in different ways through biotechnology, nanotechnology, and carbon nanotubes. The first, Sandra, has been bioengineered to have superhuman intelligence and physical abilities. The second, Kevin, has nanobots that enhance his brain function and allow him to read emotions. The third, Darius, has carbon nanotubes threaded through his skin that activate his physiology in unpredictable ways, giving flashes of brilliance. The director must now find ways for these "enhanced singular individuals" or "ESIs" to collaborate with normal employees in the mixed-ability workplace of the future.

1. HOW WILL TECHNOLOGICALLY ENHANCED INDIVIDUALS
COLLABORATE WITH “NORMAL” EMPLOYEES?
The Singularity’s
impact on Business
leaders: a Scenario
By Barton Kunstler
Artist’s concept of an “enhanced” worker.
It would be unwise for business leaders
to assume that they will have complete
control over technologically enhanced
individuals when the Singularity occurs,
warns author Kunstler.
ERIC HOOD / ISTOCKPHOTO

2. boss’s boss, and three people you’ve
never seen before. Your boss keeps it
short and sweet: “We’re giving you
three new analysts. We want daily
reports on their performance — not
just the usual, but how they think.”
“Okay,” you say, “but....” One of
the unidentifiables steps forward
and fills you in. When she’s done,
your jaw drops.
“Three new analysts” sounds
harmless enough — maybe even a
good thing. But here are their pro-
files:
Sandra is a six-foot-tall woman
with perfect musculature and an IQ
somewhere in the 400s. Her wealthy,
well-connected parents had access to
the latest biotechnology. They
wanted the best for their daugh-
ter — or perhaps they coveted “the
best daughter that money can
buy” — and had her bioengineered
to their exact specifications. She is a
genius in math and technical skills
and an extreme sports enthusiast.
Like a grandmaster in a high-school
chess club, Sandra is amused by the
intellectual problems that Norms
grapple with. She intends to eventu-
ally become an influential player in
international affairs.
Whenever Kevin tackles a tough
problem, nanobots in his blood-
stream pump oxygen into his brain.
Other nanobots monitor his body’s
vitamin, mineral, and enzyme con-
tent, and produce whatever he needs
for peak performance. Kevin glows
with health and charisma, thanks to
the nanocomputers he inhales once a
year. The trillions of molecule-sized
machines operate as parallel-process-
ing computers that stimulate brain
regions and meridian nerves, which
operate sluggishly in most humans.
This enhancement allows him to
read other people’s emotional states
and even translate their neuronal ac-
tivity into readable thoughts. He has
instant access to countless databases
and can process dozens of complex
variables almost instantaneously—a
task that could keep a team of ana-
lysts busy for days.
Darius is truly an experiment-in-
progress. A web of carbon nanotubes
has been threaded along his skin.
These nanotubes have no specific
function—they’re not geared toward
increasing his intelligence or fine-
general population of “Norms”
(those without technological en-
hancements). The leaders of every
organization and group will be com-
pelled to come to terms with the
ESIs’ advanced capabilities and the
tensions, ambitions, and alliances at-
tendant upon them.
a MiXeD-aBiLity WorkPLace
scenario
You are hard at work as director of
a regional desk at a government se-
curity agency when your boss calls:
“Er, ah, come over to my office right
away.” You hurry over, already
frowning. Did one of your agents
screw up? Did war break out along a
border you were supposedly moni-
toring?
When you arrive, you find the as-
sociate director there, along with
some military brass, your boss, your
T
he “Human Singularity” refers
to the radical fusion of the hu-
man body with technology to
achieve levels of mental acuity and
physical ability that eclipse anything
humans have previously known.
This would represent a singular
event in human history: For the first
time, people would be driven by
laws other than those governing or-
ganic life. A broad front of converg-
ing core technologies may make in-
dividuals with such abilities
commonplace by 2030 — if not
sooner. Indeed, steps are already be-
ing taken to achieve this goal.
One critical social function that
will be affected by the Singularity is
leadership, a chief defining factor of
a society’s values, relations, and ob-
jectives. Leaders will bear much of
the burden of social evolution when
the “Enhanced Singular Individuals”
(ESIs) of the Singularity Era enter the
Carbon nanotubes (illustrated above) are incredibly strong and resilient, compared with
organic matter. Such breakthroughs in nanotechnology would increase human mental and
physical capabilities in unprecedented ways.
SCOTT DOUGHERTY / LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
© 2010 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.
THE FUTURIST March-April 2010 www.wfs.org 17

3. translation of a person’s neuronal ac-
tivity into his or her actual thoughts.
The accelerating development of a
few key technologies such as nano-
technology, bioengineering, super-
computing, materials development,
and robotics is propelling the Singu-
larity. Dark horse technologies that
can contribute include wave dynam-
ics, virtual reality, biofeedback, ho-
lography, and cultivation of “higher”
levels of consciousness.
Public pressure is also contributing
to the Singularity’s development due
to interest in improving the quality
of human life, intelligence, and task-
specific performance. Many people
also believe that humanity’s survival
depends on its ability to transcend
current human limitations and oper-
ate more effectively at a “meta-­
human” level in solving such prob-
Forces Driving an Enhanced
Future
The true Human Singularity will
only occur with the advent of ESIs
whose entire physical, psychological,
emotional, social, and mental devel-
opment is defined by technological
enhancements permanently installed
in their bodies.
The Singularity will be shaped by
a continuous stream of scientific ad-
vances — for instance, the interface
between biological and synthetic sys-
tems, especially between humans
and robotic devices. Advancements
that have already been achieved to
varying degrees include improved
brain function, implants that offer
“superhuman” sight or hearing,
cloned mammals, species hybrids
(created by grafting a trait from one
species to a member of another), and
tuning his health, for instance. In-
stead, they emit varying frequencies
that activate his entire physiology in
unpredictable ways. Darius is thus
subject to tremendous flashes of bril-
liance, with results that can barely be
translated into coherent human
terms. His incredible physicality
combines with his freakish intellect
to make him ideal as both an analyst
and a covert agent. Over time, he ex-
pects to rise through the ranks of the
intelligence system. At least that’s
what he thought at first and what he
still tells his handlers. However, as
he figures out which frequencies
trigger what states of consciousness
(information that only he is totally
privy to), he realizes that the poten-
tial power of his particular Singular-
ity technology is far greater than his
handlers suspect.
The Singularity: Originally used to describe black
holes and the singular, distinctive laws of physics
that apply within them and nowhere else, “Singular-
ity” now may also refer to the radical fusion of the
human body with technology to achieve levels of
mental acuity and physical ability that eclipse any-
thing humans have previously known.
Enhanced Singular Individuals or ESIs: The au-
thor’s term for people enhanced by Singularity tech-
nology.
Norms: The author’s term for unenhanced or “nor-
mal” people.
Nanobots: Molecule- or atom-sized machines mea-
sured in billionths (nano-) of meters, currently a fo-
cus of the growing field of nanotechnology. Theoreti-
cally, a huge number of nanobots can be introduced
into the human body and programmed to trigger a
wide range of physical and psychological effects.
Carbon nanotubes: Very strong cylindrical filaments
of carbon a few nanometers wide, with many poten-
tial uses. Their integration with the human body, as
suggested in the author’s scenario, is purely specula-
tive but probably achievable. Even if not placed
­under the outer skin, nanotubes may one day be
­capable of interacting intimately with physiological
processes.
DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense,
created to pursue cutting-edge research. DARPA is
already engaged in the development of Singularity-
oriented technology.
Super-senses: Dramatically heightened vision, hear-
ing, taste, smell, and touch. Advances have been
made with corneal modifications that lead to excep-
tional night vision. Unlike with contact lenses or
hearing aids, the goal of super-senses is not to see or
hear at optimum human levels, but to go well be-
yond them.
Rogue enhancer: A likely denizen of the Singularity
era, who operates in a shadow economy or criminal
underworld and uses genetics, nanotech, and other
technologies for his or her own gain.
— Barton Kunstler
The Singularity: A Glossary of Terms
18 THE FUTURIST March-April 2010 www.wfs.org

4. ing human traits that have shaped
leadership for millennia. Reimagin-
ing leadership for the Singularity era
should begin now, while the technol-
ogy is still in its early stages, because
we will face immense social and en-
vironmental change in the coming
years, and the old ways of leadership
will no longer suffice.
­social-enhancement mechanism.
Communities demonstrate their val-
ues, their assumptions about human
nature, their aspirations, and even
their relationship to the environment
by the way they assign, assert, and
acquiesce to leadership.
The Singularity will disrupt lead-
ership’s traditional patterns by alter-
lems as war, pollution, climate
change, poverty, and injustice.
Management and Leadership
In the Singularity Era
Leadership emerged within mam-
mal and early human bands because
it was an efficient survival and
It may be tempting to compare Enhanced Singular
Individuals (ESIs) to comic book and movie
superheroes, whose stories often contain keen social
and psychological insights. ESIs, though, will not be
superheroes, nor will they be robotic cyborgs or other
popular stereotypes. They will be of many different
types. Some ESIs will have one talent while others
will possess abilities they can apply in different ways.
No phone booths for them; their gifts will be integral
to their everyday ­identities.
ESIs will be subject to unfamiliar, unpredictable,
and complex psychological and social forces. As their
numbers grow, they will transform twenty-first-
century society and its notions of excellence,
achievement, and leadership. In short, the Singularity
will change what it means to be not only human but
also a leader among humans.
ESIs will possess a range of abilities (in varying
combinations) that can be grouped under three broad
categories: mental, perceptual, and physiological.
Mental
• Extraordinary intelligence, memory, and learning
capacity.
• Ability to read others’ thoughts.
• Remote control over technology via mind energy or
“thought waves.”
• Mind enters digital networks as an active agent.
• Mind-to-mind interfaces, mind sharing, and group
minds.
• Exploration of “higher” states of consciousness and
“psychic” powers.
• Ability to interfere or intervene with others’ neural
processes and to control one’s own.
• New areas of learning and exploration — hidden
worlds revealed.
• Ability to generate mental models of higher orders
of complexity.
Perceptual
• Hyper-enhanced “super senses.”
• Extrasensory “sixth, seventh, and eighth senses”
such as sensitivity to electromagnetic fields, ability
to perceive imprints of past events in one’s
environment, and remote sensing.
• Sharing the sensory experiences of others in real
time.
• Extreme proprioception (sensory awareness of
internal bodily activities), resulting in ability to
control and improve physical and mental
operations.
Physiological
• Every bodily system more efficient and powerful;
advances in longevity.
• New levels of mind/body integration.
• Increased speed, strength, agility, balance, flexibility,
coordination, and elasticity.
• Robotic implants of organs, bones, muscles,
ligaments, etc.
• Cross-species genetic implants for strength and new
mental perspectives.
• New limbs: artificial, regrown, genetically
engineered, nano-­enhanced.
• Increased speed at which signals travel along and
between nerve cells.
• Greater ability to withstand cold, pain, and extreme
deprivations.
• Regulation of key bodily functions: chemical,
temperature, heart rate, immune system.
— Barton Kunstler
What It Will Mean to Be “Human”
THE FUTURIST March-April 2010 www.wfs.org 19

5. out-intuit or out-feel them”).
Many ESIs and Norms will be
newly disenfranchised to some ex-
tent. The question is, will they work
toward common causes and goals or
compete with one another? Smart
leaders on both sides of the enhanced
divide will encourage collaborative
initiatives. There will be a growing
demand for consultants and trainers
who can assist bewildered leaders in
understanding such issues as “What
do Norms really want?” and “Run-
ning a Family Business with Your
ESI Sibling.”
The Post-Singularity
Workforce Scenario
Continues
As you reflect on your three new
ESIs may rely too heavily on their
enhanced abilities when making de-
cisions without understanding their
own unenhanced traits. The dispari-
ties between their Singularity level
and “normal” abilities may cause
some ESIs to experience intense anxi-
ety. Many ESI leaders may prove un-
reliable and only able to process nar-
row decision paths. Relationships
based on awe at outsized talents may
be marked by intimidation or uneasy
emotional ties, and successful ESI
leaders will, at least at first, produce
a sense of awe. Norm leaders in this
era may be suspicious, angry, and
confused. The most successful Norm
leaders, however, will cultivate their
own gifts and leverage them for tac-
tical advantage (for instance, “If you
can’t out-calculate them, you must
The Singularity world will be char-
acterized by a global, networked,
technocratic civilization with a popu-
lation of 8 to 12 billion people.
­Nation-states will be weakened in fa-
vor of regional alignments, global or-
ganizations, and large, powerful net-
works devoted to specific causes or
interests. ESIs will be living side-by-
side with Norms. Leaders’ tasks will
be to maximize ESI potential, resolve
conflicts among ESIs as well as be-
tween ESIs and Norms, establish
new leadership approaches for
unique situations arising from ESI–
Norm disparities, and establish a
new basis for social cohesion. ESIs
who become leaders will likely be
confident, literally “plugged-in”
technologically, and either com-
pletely or erratically rational.
A Quick Guide to the Singularity
The Singularity — What Is It?
The Singularity “is a future period during which
the pace of technological change will be so fast and
far-reaching that human existence on this planet will
be irreversibly altered. People will combine our brain
power — the knowledge, skills, and personality
quirks that make us human — with our computer
power in order to think, reason, communicate, and
create in ways we can scarcely even contemplate to-
day,” according to Ray Kurzweil, writing in the
March-April 2006 issue of THE FUTURIST. In his
various novels, Hugo Award winning science­-fiction
writer Vernor Vinge has portrayed the Singularity as
a sudden explosion in human intelligence.
The Technologies Behind the
Singularity
1. Genetics. Our ability to manipulate the human
genome will allow us to turn the expression of cer-
tain genetic traits on or off, resulting in longer life
spans and fewer instances of congenital illness, ac-
cording to biotech researchers such as Gregory Stock
and Ian Wilmut. Some future watchers believe we
may use genetic science to improve our brains and
greatly enhance our physical performance as well.
Aubrey de Grey, author of Ending Aging (St. Martin’s,
2007), has stated that genetic science could expand
the human life span well beyond 150 years.
2. Nanotechnology. This refers to the manipula-
tion of objects less than one-billionth of a meter in
size, literally designing medicines and other prod-
ucts on the molecular level. Nanotechnology is con-
fined mostly to materials science, but some doctors
are finding medical applications. A research team
from the University of Texas was able to send gold
nanoparticles directly into tumors (in mice) and then
irradiate the particles, releasing heat. This improved
the mice’s response to radiation therapy. Robert Frei-
tas, author of the Nanomedicine series, has stated that
future nano-robotic therapies could make us stron-
ger, smarter, and healthier than we are today by sev-
eral orders of magnitude.
3. Artificial intelligence. Computer intelli-
gence will surpass all biological (regular human) in-
telligence by the year 2030, according to Kurzweil.
Long before then, people will incorporate computers
into their biological functioning and thinking
through cybernetic implants and nano­devices.
— Patrick Tucker
20 THE FUTURIST March-April 2010 www.wfs.org

6. bring coherence to complex societies,
and so forth. Still, those abilities may
not produce the expected results
with these new ESIs. The methods
and tools of leadership must un-
dergo serious renovation.
As the first weeks pass, you notice
a new dynamic in your department.
Your staff of 35 Norms has sensed
something different about the three
new colleagues, although you are not
allowed to even hint to your staff the
truth about their new co-workers.
This is your first leadership task
pertaining to the Norm–ESI situation:
Identify the cause and nature of the
concerns slowly building up in the
office. The strong relationships
ception of leadership.
At the same time, you figure that
many traditional leadership para-
digms will still be applicable and di-
rectly relevant for several reasons.
Radical social change does not
equate to overturning the most fun-
damental psychological and organi-
zational responses to personal and
group relations. The new ESIs may
be extraordinary people, but they are
people nonetheless. Just like every-
one else, they should respond to
your fair distribution of assignments
and rewards, and to the open and
personable nature that has served
you so well in political situations.
Someone has to have the skills to
staff members, you realize that ev-
eryone must now discard the base-
line assumption that we will always
exert control or leadership over tech-
nology. In this case, “technology” re-
fers to a whole other type of human.
For the first time in human history,
the locus of leadership has shifted
from the strictly human to beings
with greater mental capacity than
our own. Deeply engrained assump-
tions about power and leadership
will begin to disappear because a
cultural concept loses strength as its
experiential underpinnings erode.
Entirely new types of interpersonal
and group dynamics will arise that
transform the requirements and per-
What form will leadership take in the Singularity
era? And what will Enhanced Singular Individuals
be capable of accomplishing?
ALPERIUM / ISTOCKPHOTO
THE FUTURIST March-April 2010 www.wfs.org 21

7. less, the Norms do find themselves
unconsciously deferring to the ESIs.
You realize that each step forward
generates more complexity, more di-
lemmas, new tensions. You wonder
what the limits are to your ability to
adjust. You also wonder what is go-
ing on in the minds of the three ESIs,
and what will happen when more
ESIs come into your office or replace
Norm staff, and how much longer
the details of the ESIs’ enhancements
can be kept secret from their co-
workers.
In the year since Sandra, Kevin,
and Darius arrived, you’ve heard
from others suddenly confronted
with managing, working for or with,
or interacting with ESIs. You realize
that the increasing irrelevance of
Norm staff in the face of high-­
performing ESIs affects every level
of society. Your staff is already trying
to cope with what they perceive as
their own growing obsolescence, and
you’re even having doubts about
your own relevance. ESIs could eas-
ily become a separate class and
quickly rise to leadership positions;
they will also likely develop new
skills as their self-awareness and ex-
perience increase. New ESI agendas
will emerge beyond the scope of the
scientists, handlers, and managers
who create and guide them, further
undermining traditional hierarchies
and managerial norms. Rogue en-
hancers will also create new types of
ESIs, for better or worse; certainly a
criminal underworld specializing in
Singularity technology will arise.
As a leader, you recognize these
emerging challenges to your own
abilities. Perhaps the time will come
when you are no longer deemed ad-
equate. Then you’ll either retire or
perhaps ask to be enhanced. ❑
About the Author
Barton Kunstler is an
­account executive for IST
Energy and the educational
director of Chess Corps in
Brookline, Massachusetts,
which applies brain-based
learning methods to teach-
ing and coaching chess. He is the author of
The Hothouse Effect (AMACOM, 2003) and
writes for The Huffington Post. E-mail
­barleeku@comcast.net.
certainly justifies a successful career.
But one of your analysts pushes a bit
more. “Look,” she argues, “if there
are more where they came from, the
rest of us are going to face increas-
ingly limited options.” You say
something encouraging, but you
both know — and soon the whole of-
fice knows — that there is no easy
resolution to such concerns.
Another six months passes, and
you’ve adapted your leadership style
to address these tensions. You can no
longer be the wiser, more experi-
enced natural leader that you’ve
been to the rest of your staff because
the ESIs derive their own — possibly
superior — understanding via their
own mysterious ways. The ESIs do,
however, need help navigating a
professional world from which
they’ve been sheltered for most of
their lives, so you adopt a more
avuncular role that gradually makes
you more attuned to the personal
concerns of the rest of your staff. You
were always good at the political,
team-building aspects of the job, but
now that you’ve had to shift the
value that you provide as a leader to
accommodate the ESIs, you find the
whole office appreciates the more re-
lational “you.”
The atmosphere not only thaws
from the earlier tension but becomes
looser. People discuss their work
more animatedly with one another,
meetings are more challenging, and
everyone seems to enjoy the give-
and-take. Once, during a meeting,
Darius said, “It’s not all about what
we know or how fast we process. We
are not computers, after all; we’re
people, and insight is qualitative.”
Likewise, Sandy conceded, “There
is a richness within each person’s per-
spective that I hadn’t expected. Their
experience and emotional lives, the
way they solve problems — even if
they can be frustratingly slow — often
provides us with fascinating mate-
rial.”
It is not lost on you that the three
ESIs on your team are unselfcon-
sciously condescending toward the
Norms, like Cro-Magnons who are
really delighted to find that Nean-
derthals also can think. The ESIs nat-
urally assume that they are superior
to the Norms — an assumption that
the Norms do not share. Nonethe-
you’ve established enable you to do
some casual intelligence gathering
among your people, from which you
discover that the staff is confused
and daunted by the ESIs and the
thorough and unerring analyses that
emerge so rapidly and with so little
prior experience.
You decide to talk things over with
the ESIs themselves — at least they
know they’re different. But the con-
versations don’t lead to much. All
three say they are perfectly happy
before you even have a chance to
ask.
So what makes these three ESIs
tick? How do you motivate them?
Do they even need motivation? And
motivate them for what? What’s
your job anyway? To make sure they
don’t shine too bright and upset the
political and personal balance in the
department? To motivate them to op-
erate at their maximum level of per-
formance, if you can even figure out
what that is? And how do you man-
age the threat that the ESIs’ superior
skills pose to Norms’ careers — in-
cluding your own? You realize that
throughout society there’ll be a need
to reduce ESI–Norm tensions that
will arise with the inevitable shifts in
status and wealth as members of the
two groups compete.
You have other questions that
make you think the whole thing may
end up driving you crazy. Are these
guys patented? Do they need to be
maintained or upgraded? How long
before they become obsolete? Then
what happens to them? If you have
to fire one of them, where do they
go?
Over the next six months, your un-
ease intensifies. Several of the Norms
in the office have become friendly
with the three ESIs, occasioning ten-
sions between those Norms and
other staff. And even though you
have not let anything slip about the
ESIs’ identities, your people are
savvy and they’ve surmised the gen-
eral truth. A few have approached
you and asked outright if their pros-
pects for advancement have dimin-
ished as a result of the extraordinary
performance of the three new hires.
You tell them, truthfully, that they
are not in direct competition, that
there are many tracks for advance-
ment, and that their own expertise
22 THE FUTURIST March-April 2010 www.wfs.org

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