Singularity/Futures

Looking to the future of A New Kind of Science

Today ten years have passed since A New Kind of Science (”the NKS book”) was published. But in many ways the development that started with the book is still only just beginning. And over the next several decades I think its effects will inexorably become ever more obvious and important. Indeed, even at an everyday level I [...]

Read more...

When creative machines overtake man

Machine intelligence is improving rapidly, to the point that the scientist of the future may not even be human! In fact, in more and more fields, learning machines are already outperforming humans. As noted in this transcript of a talk at TEDxLausanne on Jan. 20, 2012, artificial intelligence expert Jürgen Schmidhuber isn’t able to predict the [...]

Read more...

Russia 2045: will the Singularity be launched in Russia?

For 3 days in late February, Russian businessman Dmitry Itskov gathered 500+ futurists in Moscow for a “Global Future 2045 Congress” — the latest manifestation of his “Russia 2045” movement. The Congress featured an impressive roster of Russian scientists, engineers and visionaries, along with American and West European futurist leaders like Ray Kurzweil, Randal Koene, [...]

Read more...

Russia 2045: will the Singularity be launched in Russia?

For 3 days in late February, Russian businessman Dmitry Itskov gathered 500+ futurists in Moscow for a “Global Future 2045 Congress” — the latest manifestation of his “Russia 2045” movement. The Congress featured an impressive roster of Russian scientists, engineers and visionaries, along with American and West European futurist leaders like Ray Kurzweil, Randal Koene, [...]

Read more...

Will corporations prevent the Singularity?

It occurred to me recently that the world possesses some very powerful intelligent organisms that are directly and clearly opposed to the Singularity — corporations. Human beings are confused and confusing creatures. We don’t have very clear goal systems, and are quite willing and able to adapt our top-level goals to the circumstances. I have [...]

Read more...

Avatars meet in Second Life to celebrate Future Day 2012

The first Future Day on March 1 featured events in 14 cities in 8 countries. The largest event was at Terasem Island in Second Life, with about 50 attendees. The auditorium at Terasem Island was full and we were eagerly awaiting three of the speakers to arrive: Ben Goertzel, Martine Rothblatt, and Howard Bloom. I introduced [...]

Read more...

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 [...]

Read more...

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 [...]

Read more...

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 [...]

Read more...

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 [...]

Read more...