Roundups For The End Of The Year

Technology Review:
10 Emerging Technologies 2009

New Scientist:
The noughties – a decade of Big Science

Telegraph:
A decade of scientific discovery

Happy New Year everyone! Here's to what's yet to come

Do Yourself a Favour

... and check out Martine Rothblatt's article about whether an uploaded mind, or mindclone, could ever be considered as being 'alive'

But not before looking at George Dvorsky's wonderful review of James Cameron's Avatar

Truly insightful and thoughtful writing for a quiet contemplative end of the year kinda day

Comparative Mythology

From The Singularity: A Crucial Phase in Divine Self-Actualization? by Michael E. Zimmerman

Some may construe post-humanism as an appalling instance of hubris, in which individuals propose taking enormous risks both with themselves and with the human species, in order to pursue an impossible goal. Others, however may construe post-humanism as calling for alignment of personal energy with a cosmic evolutionary imperative: to preserve self-conscious organic life—currently threatened by anthropogenic environmental disaster—long enough to transfer it to a more enduring substrate needed to support an evolutionary process that culminates when the entire universe is made conscious. If this astonishing goal ever begins to bear fruit, future theologians would presumably rethink traditional conceptions of cosmos and history, humankind and God.

Tokyo Man Marries Video Game Character

Excellent...

From CNN

"I love this character, not a machine," said Sal, when asked about whether he can love an electronic device. "I understand 100 percent that this is a game. I understand very well that I cannot marry her physically or legally."

Read more

Machine Learning with Quantum Algorithms

Posted by Hartmut Neven on Google Research Blog:

Many Google services we offer depend on sophisticated artificial intelligence technologies such as machine learning or pattern recognition. If one takes a closer look at such capabilities one realizes that they often require the solution of what mathematicians call hard combinatorial optimization problems. It turns out that solving the hardest of such problems requires server farms so large that they can never be built.

A new type of machine, a so-called quantum computer, can help here. Quantum computers take advantage of the laws of quantum physics to provide new computational capabilities. While quantum mechanics has been foundational to the theories of physics for about a hundred years the picture of reality it paints remains enigmatic. This is largely because at the scale of our every day experience quantum effects are vanishingly small and can usually not be observed directly. Consequently, quantum computers astonish us with their abilities. Let’s take unstructured search as an example. Assume I hide a ball in a cabinet with a million drawers. How many drawers do you have to open to find the ball? Sometimes you may get lucky and find the ball in the first few drawers but at other times you have to inspect almost all of them. So on average it will take you 500,000 peeks to find the ball. Now a quantum computer can perform such a search looking only into 1000 drawers.

Read more

The Horror

It's hard to be optimistic about our development as a species when this is what qualifies as progress...

Shell and Petronas win Iraqi oil contract - Times Online

Robotic Perception, On Purpose

From Science Daily:

European researchers developed technology that enables a robot to combine data from both sound and vision to create combined, purposeful perception. In the process, they have taken the field to a new level.

Currently, computer vision is good at recognising objects in images and videos and has been successfully employed in several specialised industrial applications, such as quality control during microchip fabrication.

But robotic perception is much weaker in less defined situations, like understanding and responding to human behaviour and even conversations. Yet, it is precisely this sort of interaction which promises the most compelling applications for future humanoid technology, where people-like robots can act as guides, or mix with people, or use perception to infer appropriate actions.

Link

Back To Basics On AI

From the BBC:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has begun a project to re-think artificial intelligence research. The Mind Machine Project will return to the basics of AI research to re-examine what lies behind human intelligence....

The ultimate aim for the five-year project is not to produce an artificial human but to create a physical system that is smart enough to read a child's story book, understand the context surrounding that narrative and explain what happened. This could lead, said MIT, to the creation of a "brain co-processor" initially intended for those with Alzheimer's to give them a better quality of life. Such mental prostheses could also be used by anyone needing help to co-ordinate their lives.

Link

What Does Your Avatar Say About You?

With the rise and rise of social networks and complex online communities, the implications of choosing an acceptable avatar for any given environment has become increasingly important.

From iamsurly's article on Open Salon:
Have you seen the guy who uses the image of a murderous clown? What about the guy drowning in blood, ketchup, red paint, whatever the hell it is. There are a couple of people using severed body parts. You know what that says to me? That says you're a potential freakin' serial killer and no, you can't be my friend.

Research into the way people behave when playing computer games has unsurprisingly turned up results showing that such a close identification with their digital selves can lead to players taking on the emotions and behaviours that they had invested in that character. Erin Mulvaney at dailycomet.com:

The characters that video-game users choose for themselves — their avatars — can affect their thoughts and emotions in those virtual environments, whether it’s Mario or Luigi or the colors of a football uniform, according to research by a University of Texas communication-studies professor.

In two similar experiments, assistant professor Jorge Pena found that gamers using negative avatars — such as those wearing black cloaks — exhibited aggressive and antisocial behaviors in team exercises.

And what happens as our pixelated representatives take on more responsibilities for us in the digital realm. A recent Telegraph article looks at the role of the avatar in the corporate environment:

A growing number of firms are drawing up rules to regulate the conduct of their staff in online environments, amid concerns that "unprofessional" appearance and behaviour can damage business.

The issue is particularly pressing at companies where staff are required to select an avatar – or character – to represent them in online meetings with clients.

Such observations paint a grim future for the unbridled freedom that had hitherto been unquestioned in MMORPG land and suggest a new mainstream focus on having a trans-spacial presence, ready to work or play at any time, that complies with the expectations of other who share or govern that space.

Such inevitable developments suggest that the avatar is now recognised as being as much of a symbol of our personality and attitudes as the language we use or the clothes we wear. The mainstream acceptance of this fact can only point to a future in which we spend more and more time with our avatars, and eventually merge with them; a point at which we will be able to be all things to all people. It is said that we see what we want to see in others... this may soon be the literal truth.

Social Brain Scanning

Avatar's gaze illuminates social brain - life - 04 December 2009 - New Scientist

Will Vegetarians Inherit The Earth?

We're probably not real carnivores yet... not like, say, cats. We've probably only been eating meat since the last ice age when we didn't have much choice. So, those in doubt as to whether they will live long enough to see the full extent of the major paradigm shift predicted to unfold over the next few decades may be well advised to think about the implications of maintaining what is essentially an unnatural diet on their physical expectancy.

Transhumanists see this kind of attention to lifestyle choice as par for the course, in some cases going as far as sustaining themselves through regimented application of nootropics and supplements. There are also those for whom cutting out meat is not going far enough and focus more heavily on calorie restriction and drinking alkaline water(?!)

That said, we all know of someone who smoked and drank and ate badly their whole lives but lived to 95; so abstinence may not be the be all and end all. Perhaps just being aware is a good enough start for now.

The Future of The Supercomputers

In mid-November Jaguar, located at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, was named as the world's fastest supercomputer. Recording a performance speed of 1.8 petaflops (One petaflop refers to one quadrillion calculations per second), it took the title away from former champion Roadrunner, at Los Alamos.

In under two years from now, we can expect the Blue Waters system to be be fully operational which, according to the NCSA, will mean:

... breakthroughs in nearly all fields of science using Blue Waters. They will predict the behavior of complex biological systems, understand how the cosmos evolved after the Big Bang, design new materials at the atomic level, predict the behavior of hurricanes and tornadoes, and simulate complex engineered systems like the power distribution system and airplanes and automobiles.

And predictions for the future currently look something like this (from Wikipedia):

Given the current speed of progress, supercomputers are projected to reach 1 exaflops (one quintillion FLOPS) in 2019. Futurist Ray Kurzweil expects supercomputers capable of human brain neural simulations, for which according to Kurzweil 10 exaflops would be required, in 2025.

Erik P. DeBenedictis of Sandia National Laboratories theorizes that a zettaflops (one sextillion FLOPS) computer is required to accomplish full weather modeling, which could cover a two week time span accurately. Such systems might be built around 2030.

Plants, Shamanism and Preparation

Posted an edited version of this video a few weeks ago. This longer version gives it a bit more context...



Also, interesting observations from LVX23 here:

... the effect of shamanic techniques is to present that self with a novel set of data in an attempt to break up the crust of belief that limits the accepted notions of how things ought to be. Although the self is not entirely bound by physiology it nevertheless has a tendency to become rigid and narrow in its conceptual map of how reality should behave, due in large part to the strength of the ego - the ultimate abstraction of the biosurvival mechanism inherent in all creatures. The narrowing of focus establishing the boundaries of the self and its world is strengthened by a feedback loop between the logical and emotional constructs of the mind and the physiological substrate of those constructs as they exist in the brain.

Look out! The robots are coming to take your job away

From Times Online:

For as long as anyone can remember, the Tokyo International Robot Exhibition has been a showcase for Japan at its wackiest: stern industrial machines lurked backstage as waltzing, noodle-making or ping-pong playing humanoids stole the limelight.

In recessionary 2009, however, with Japanese industry writhing in pain, the national robot obsession has turned deadly serious. For the first time, the show explains exactly how the machines are going to take over.

A new mood is in the air: the downturn, says a Tsukuba University engineer, has honed Japanese robotics research and forced it to be more practical. Companies and universities once given unlimited budgets to push the boundaries of robotics are being told to come up quickly with something usable and commercial.

Read more

Astral Projection

When we start to fully immerse ourselves in self-engineered virtual realities, the initial shock of having access to an entirely different set of programmable parameters may be too much for many... especially those not used to controlled projective or disassociative states, or even manipulating an avatar in an MMORPG.

Losing one's body is no easy thing to come to terms with and can certainly provoke fear, even panic. A little preparation in getting our consciousnesses ready for such experiences may go a long way.

Cory Gann:

Once you develop the ability to have frequent out-of-body experiences, you start getting accustomed to strangeness. In fact, your ability to meet and handle unworldly, weird, bizarre, inexplicable and even nonsensical situations will be a measure of how successful you will be at exploring on this frontier.

Of all the things you need to handle the nonphysical environment, flexibility of mind is the greatest. You need to accept things which your “normal” sensibilities will just not want to.

This may even apply to future deep space exploration. It seems a little outmoded to imagine that interstellar travel will be something we do on bulky ships carrying generations of emigrants over the course of several millennia. There may more feasible options, eliminating the need for 'travel' altogether.

India News Daily:

This may seem complex but actually once the technology is mastered it is really simple. Another way to understand this is to hold a piece of rectangular paper in your hand. Bring the two opposite corners of the rectangular piece of paper together and make them touch each other. Now the distance between the two opposite corner is really zero. Bending space and time is the concept where you do not travel to the destination; you bring the destination close to you.

Preparation may take the form of meditative practices, guided out of body experiences or use of entheogens. Exposure to simulated realities where possible through gaming may not be a bad thing either. And just having an account on Twitter means you already have an avatar of sorts - a virtual 'you' that you represents you even when you're not online. Total immersion in genuinely realistic environments may not be here yet; but watch and wait... staying up all night playing on the Xbox will soon seem quaint after you realise you that you went online a few months ago to explore the outer cosmos and haven't been back to the 'real world' since.

Mind And Machine

As brain to computer interfacing inches towards becoming an everyday consumer reality, especially in the gaming market, breakthroughs in design and aesthetics will surely become an important consideration for manufacturers.

There have no doubt been significant gains made in usability of non-invasive hardware for people with disabilities and neurological conditions over the last few years, but the point where the general populace becomes as conversant with BCI technology as they are with mobile phones or portable media players may be just around the corner. And what then on the software front?... social networking powered by thought alone?, fully immersive online experiences?... digital meditation?

It may have seemed like slow progress so far but the direct translation of thought into action may well be the next major technological consumer concept in the not too distant future, with all the usual suspects competing to sell you their own branded vision of the perfect digital lifestyle.

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Medibots: The world's smallest surgeons - health - 20 November 2009 - New Scientist

Medibots: The world's smallest surgeons - health - 20 November 2009 - New Scientist

The Spirit Molecule

Rick Strassman's work may be key in helping us to understand transcendent states, reached via the elusive pineal gland, the site of the 7th chakra and, according to Descartes, the 'seat of the soul'...

Leave Your Body Behind

Buddhists would probably never substitute the words 'worldly desires' for 'your body' when explaining the roots of unhappiness... as it would imply some kind of dualistic separation of body and mind. But, if you think about it, it's kind of true isn't it?

If you were released from your body, you would have no need to feed or clothe yourself. In fact, most of Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs would probably become irrelevant. This would mean that you wouldn't have to earn money to buy food, clothes etc. or depend on physical modes of transport to get you from A to B. Take this to its logical conclusion and you realise that there would not actually be an A or a B as such relative concepts would also become irrelevant when disassociated from the physical 'you'.

Marshall Brain puts it like this:

Let me make this more personal. Take a moment to think about your own human body. Look down at your hands, for example. Look at your legs. Look at your face in a mirror. You inhabit a human body right now, just like we all do. We take our bodies completely for granted. We consider our bodies to be essential -- so essential that, even in our most imaginative and far-reaching science fiction stories, we cannot envision our lives without human bodies.

But that is a primitive way of thinking. In the near future you will discard your body -- you will literally throw it in the trash -- because you will neither want it nor need it. You will discard your biological body gladly, like you would discard an old pair of shoes today. You will be quite grateful to be rid of it.

And David Pearce takes it even further in The Hedonistic Imperative:

We will have the chance to enjoy modes of experience we emotional primitives cruelly lack: sights more majestically beautiful, music more deeply soul-stirring, sex more exquisitely erotic, mystical epiphanies more awe-inspiring, and love more profoundly intense than anything we can now properly comprehend.

No doubt the body model we currently inhabit is an amazing thing and nature has done some pretty mind-blowing work in making the constant evolutionary adjustments that allow us to live our present-day lives. Yeah great, but there's still a lot of potential for pain and misery isn't there?

Maybe it's about time we accepted that we can truly be free... of not only body, but all the egotistic and survival of the fittest bullshit that comes with having bodies. Maybe it's about time we took control of the next phase and learnt how to upload.

Technocalypse

Designer bodies?... Imagine the possibilities. Hmmm

One Divine Intelligence

Link

Collective Semantic

How long til Web 3.0?... how long until computers can actually digest and analyse all the data available on the web and, by definition, understand it?

The possibilities of the integrated online consciousness are probably unimaginable to us now but no doubt we will wonder how we lived without it in just a few short years time.

Jung's archetypes exist within the universal collective unconscious and give us grounds for bonding within any given interdependent social structure... they are not directly accessible but rather give us a hidden framework on which we can create recognisable symbols that help us to understand each other.

We serve these archetypes today through online media in its current form but the machines don't get it yet... they help us to facilitate it and they spit it back out at us but they don't get it. The Semantic Web may soon offer us the chance to see whether or not it will be possible for man and machine to truly speak the same language... and usher in the age of the wide open interface.

Ancient Thoughts

It would be perfectly reasonable to assume that extropian and transhumanist concerns are very recent manifestations in the timeline of philosophical thought. It would be reasonable to conclude that such concerns can only have been born out of the collision between 20th/21st century technological developments, post-industrial infrastructure and the captivating imaginations of science fiction writers who saw this stuff from miles off (and didn't need to give any rationale to their hypotheses).

Indeed, if you're focused on the esoteric language of the Singularity and the characters who speak it, you would be entirely forgiven for thinking that this is an intellectual/cultural movement that could only exist now, in this space between foresight and actuality.

But give a thought to the religious thinkers from centuries gone, the Mahayana Buddhists with their beautiful concept of the Bodhisattva who holds back from entering nirvana until everybody has found enlightenment. Then there's Hindu belief in the cycle of aeons or yugas... a constant revolution of phases in which humanity grows towards transcendence and then starts again after reaching a Singularity, of sorts. And if you think this chimes with Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument, then consider the Gnostics who propose that we are indeed living in an artificial reality controlled by a demiurge or creator God.

It's not too much of a leap of thought before you begin asking whether we might have already reached the event horizon of superintelligence, perhaps many times over, leaving us to wander as we will through a programme... perhaps a programme of our own design.

Nanotech

It's a small world (sorry!). Interesting nanotech stories from the last few days...

Here and here

Robots At Work

An interesting piece from J. Storrs Hall on machine workers and the AI takeover...

"Right now we have a Moore’s Law for the robot’s brain but not for its body. In other words, we may enter a strange period where white-collar workers are replaced by beige boxes but blue-collar ones are still cheaper — for a little while — than a fully-capable humanoid robot body. (That will disappear soon enough after nanotech manufacturing takes hold, but at the moment, it looks like AI may be a decade earlier than real nanotech.)"

Picture: KUKA Roboter GmbH

Super-fast Quantum Computer Gets Ever Closer

Click here for Science Daily's article on recent breakthroughs in quantum computing

Working With - Not Against

Given humanity's record for developing technology to use in defensive/militaristic arenas, and bearing in mind popular fears relating to state control of the populace, it's easy to become despondent and paranoid about where we might end up in a few years time. Dark dystopian images have been routinely touted in science fiction for decades, if not centuries, and all too often form a template from which many people (in lay and professional circles) formulate their own hypotheses of what the superintelligent future might look like.

However, railing against the powers that be and denouncing politicians and military leaders as harbingers of doom doesn't seem particularly constructive when you bear in mind that the entire cross-section of our species alive at the time of the Singularity, not just the currently interested parties, will need to be actively involved; if only to make sure the first superintelligent machines are working in a way that will be fully representative of the needs and desires of their creators.

A co-operative approach that gives citizens full and transparent access to national and global tech-development policies, and then allows them to feed back without fear of censorship, could be a necessity for the future. This would at least give the opportunity for decisions concerning these issues to result from democratic process... even if some people choose to abstain from voicing their opinions.

The Singularity Institute's Overview includes the following words:

"We can do better. The future doesn't have to be the dystopia promised by doomsayers. The future doesn't even have to be the flashy yet unimaginative chrome-and-computer world of traditional futurism. We can become smarter. We can step beyond the millennia-old messes created by human-level intelligence. Humanity can solve its problems – both the huge visible problems everyone talks about and the huge silent problems we've learned to take for granted. If the nature of the world we live in bothers you, there is something rational you can do about it. We can do better with your support."

It's A Family Affair

Your dad might be on Facebook, your grandma might have a mobile phone... but what happens when a 'progressive' transhumanist has to face up to the fact that the people they love may be 'neo-luddites' who don't place on any significance on 2012, 2030 or any particular point in the near future?

"You get to live forever, you'll never get sick... you will be free to design your own reality and program the metaverse around you!"

"I'm lucky if I can turn my computer on, let alone download my brain" they'll say

Eligible adults in democratic societies are given the right to vote for their government and, if pre-election campaigning in your country is anything like it is here in the UK, you're made to feel guilty if you don't.

So, given that all our lives are increasingly affected by emerging technologies, isn't it about time we looked outwards from tight knit futurist forums and communities to make sure that those around us, especially the people closest to us, are aware that they might have to start thinking about these issues as well?

From A Psychedelic Perspective

Terence Mckenna knew a thing or two about certain plants and the opportunities they offer for those interested in the psychedelic experience. Check him out here as he takes a walk in the undergrowth and explains how a little consciousness modification could be a good thing for the future...

Rapture For The Geeks

It's probably safe to assume that Jesus Christ is not going to come back to earth to deliver the final judgement or that the world's going to end on 21 Dec 2012 as the Mayans reckoned. And we can only hope humanity's not going to get wiped out by interstellar projectiles, WMDs, pandemics, natural disasters or any combination thereof any time in the near future.

It might be more pragmatic, sadly, to talk about the realities of climate change, poverty and famine that are all too real for many people on this planet. Let's face it, we're not doing a very good job of looking after our Earth... or each other.

Perhaps keeping death front of mind is an unavoidable human preoccupation and theorising on the possible forms of a total apocalypse is symptomatic of this. Personally, I would hate to see the predicted singularity get put into the same bracket...

A.) Because we have proof that the preceding technological developments are actually happening right now... very frequently
and
B.) Because it could be so beautiful... climate change, poverty and famine could immediately become outmoded concepts that cease to have any sway in a world dominated by superintelligent transcendence

It's no bad thing to dream of a better reality but pay attention to the facts as they occur, otherwise you might be surprised at how different your dream was from somebody else's.

Controlling Utopia

So, we have a glimpse of the future and we have people we trust telling us that we will be able to steer our own destinies in ways that our limited imaginations can not yet fathom.

But wait... surely our passport to utopia is going to have to be rubber-stamped by the ruling bodies that usually fund and thus own technological development. Most people would accept that it is humanity's most base instincts that often lead in this respect, namely fear of domination and the motivation to strike them before you get struck. And when government agencies are in control of technological innovation, they tend to pander to these fears by looking first at defense programmes.

Following this line of thought, it's not hard to envision the network of corporate industrial concerns that lie behind manufacturing the new technology that our governments tell us our safety depends on. Basically, the latest technologies are often sponsored for military purposes and behind them is an expansive paper trail that catalogues contracts and mega-profits for captains of industry.

It's very refreshing to hear what the utopians and runaway optimists have to say... and no doubt many futurists and transhumanists would prefer to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to referencing notable technological advances of the past that were ultimately deployed with such dubious intentions.

One of the evident positives here is that the singularity will affect us both as a species and as individuals... and all of us, even global leaders and industrial chiefs, stand as individuals when it comes to facing a future that may see us relieved of the hitherto unquestioned necessities of physicality and survival. Indeed, in the accelerated age, notions of leadership, dominance and control may become distant concerns; washed away in the sudden realisation that we will have no need to fight each other to survive… as we will all be masters, with only the confines of the metaverse to hold us back.

Where do you see your self in 30 years time?

Ray Kurzweil leads a group of professional and academic voices in declaring that the next few decades will see radical changes in the way we engage with technology... even sugesting that we will eventually transcend our bodies and take control of our own evolution.

It is thought that, by 2040, advances in artificial intelligence will have led to an existence dominated by nanotechnology and brain computer interfacing. In fact, technology is predicted to have progessed to such a degree by this point that we can barely imagine the possibilities.

Whether you choose to view such postulation with enthusiasm, indifference or dread, there's no denying that our collective role in this stream of accelerated change is already being hotly debated in certain scientific circles. There's even a Singularity University teaching relevant content to those who can afford it.

If such a future is an inevitability, then surely it's important to remember that it affects us all... and that we have the right make ourselves heard, whatever our opinions may be. That is to say, it's got to be encouraging to know that the people who should be working on this stuff may already be doing so but ask yourself where you fit in to this... beacuse it's you that it will affect.

Way Beyond Human

A new blog is born!... exploring theories and attitudes surrounding the technological singularity and how we can contribute to making it a positive reality

Stay tuned