Singularity/Futures

Why China makes our electronic products (it’s not just cheaper labor)

It’s not just that workers are cheaper abroad, according to an important article in The New York Times Saturday. Most of the components of cellphones, computers, and other electronic products are now manufactured in China (and European and other East-Asia countries), so assembling the device half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges, the article points [...]

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Crowdsourcing a TEDx talk: what are the three most important trends shaping humankind’s future in the next 10 years?

We received an interesting email from sustainability expert/Singularity University grad Eric Ezechieli: On January 27, I will be delivering a TEDx Trieste presentation, and I will speak in ‘”Exponentialish.” In exponential times, half a gallon of brain does not suffice to keep up with what is going on, and in any case a single perspective [...]

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When the Singularity happens, it will be ‘very obvious’: Vernor Vinge vs. the Singulars

How will we know if we have passed through a Singularity? Damn good question, one that keeps me up at night. Like right now. Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, originator of the technological Singularity concept, came up with some interesting answers in an io9 video interview: “When things begin to happen in the real world [...]

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A Connectome Observatory for nanoscale brain imaging

Dr. Ken Hayworth, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and designer of the Automatic Tape-Collecting Lathe Ultramicrotome (ATLUM), proposed to build a “Connectome Observatory” for nanoscale brain imaging in an online talk Sunday, How to create a Connectome Observatory of the mouse brain and beyond, presented in teleXLR8, a 3D interactive video conferencing space. Hayworth [...]

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Kurzweil responds: Don’t underestimate the Singularity

Last week, Paul Allen and a colleague challenged the prediction that computers will soon exceed human intelligence. Now Ray Kurzweil, the leading proponent of the “Singularity,” offers a rebuttal. — Technology Review, Oct. 10, 2011. Although Paul Allen paraphrases my 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, in the title of his essay (cowritten with his colleague Mark [...]

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Singularity Summit 2011 roundup

The tone of the Singularity Summit 2011 in New York was set by Ray Kurzweil, who presented many examples of accelerating developments, countering the arguments presented by Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen in a recent article, The Singularity Isn’t Near. Robots vs. humans James McLurkin introduced the concept of swarms of small, light, and cheap robots [...]

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Report on the fourth conference on artificial general intelligence

The Fourth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI-11) was held on Google’s campus in Mountain View (Silicon Valley), California, in the first week of August 2011. This was the largest AGI conference yet, with more than 200 people attending, and it had a markedly different tone from the prior conferences in the series. A number [...]

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teleXLR8 returns, featuring quantum physicist Gildert on ‘Hack the Multiverse!’

This exciting news just in from Giulio Prisco: “teleXLR8 is reopening on Sunday 21 10 a.m. PST with a talk by [experimental quantum physicist/programmer] Suzanne Gildert on Hack the Multiverse!.” The teleXLR8 online talk program is “a telepresence community for cultural acceleration,” as their blog puts it. Translation: an audiovideo seminar — think TED in [...]

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The Singularity is Far: A Neuroscientist’s View

David J. Linden is the author of a new book, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good. He is a Professor of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Chief Editor of the Journal of Neurophysiology. It should [...]

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Thinking quantitatively about technological progress

I have been thinking about progress a bit recently, mainly because I would like to develop a mathematical model of how brain scanning technology and computational neuroscience might develop. Experience curves In general, I think the most solid evidence of technological progress is Wrightean experience curves. These are well documented in economics and found everywhere: [...]

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