Human 2.0: Kurzweil's Singularity

by Andrew Bast

Dreamers shove the world. Think Galileo vs. the Catholic Church, or Bill Gates’ cocky mug shot. A visionary–a true inventor–possesses not only skill, wit, and brilliance, but also a good bit of quixotic reverie.

Ray Kurzweil argues that computer power will exceed that of the human brain in about two decades, and the urge is to sneer and write him off as a fantastical loon. He talks about computers transcending biology. Phooey, you say! However, sit down with his most recent book, The Singularity is Near, and you might change your mind.

Kurzweil’s name likely sounds familiar because it’s printed on electric pianos. He invented the synthesizer and as a teenager composed a piano piece with a computer that landed him a gig on the CBS television show I’ve Got A Secret. Since then, he’s been front-and-center at every step of the computing revolution. He was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2002, and is widely known as a “futurist.”

Human Cloning Will Not Be Legal (Well, Until WW III)

Click to enlarge, and check out a whole smorgasbord of Dustin's work at www.dustinland.com. (Originally published 8/21/06.)

Digital Divide and the $100 Computer

by Andrew Bast

There are two undeniable facts about computers: 1) technology is expanding so quickly that any personal computer you buy today will be next to useless in two years and obsolete in four; 2) computer knowledge is absolutely essential for success in today’s economy.

Then why are research, development, and marketing resources allocated in such a way as to throw up fences around technological playgrounds so that many children are left to hang outside, marveling at the wonders within?

Machines Make Better Friends

My cell phone says hello to me, which is sadly more than I can say for some of my good friends.

Takes stock of even our most rudimentary human-to-human interactions and you’ll be struck by a profound sense of how broadly we have given human characteristics to our gadgets and gizmos. We have entrusted machines with so much of ourselves that we are now resigned to using them as mediators for our most important decisions. Whether launching emails or missiles, the typical sequence of the interpersonal exchange has become (for better or worse) human-to-machine-to-human.

And this has created more problems than it has solved.

How Many Transhumanists Does it Take . . . ?

by Michael Anissimov; Michael is a futurist who writes about molecular manufacturing and artifical general intelligence. He runs a blog at Accelerating Future.

I logged into the Second Life server at about midnight last Wednesday. It was already 10 am the next day in Helsinki, and the Transvision conference, the World Transhumanist Association’s virtual gathering, was in full swing.

A global organization, the WTA has held conferences in extremely diverse locales: Stockholm, London, Berlin, Yale University, Toronto, Caracas, and now Helsinki. Previously I had made it to the one at Yale, and this year, being on a limited budget, my only option was attending the virtual conference.

Futurists News Roundup

• The nation (in particular Fort Wayne, Indiana) faces a mid-life crisis, says David Pearce Snyder. With one foot in the industrial revolution and another in the technological, we're just confused!
• Futurist Glen Hiemstra: "Nor will the elders of tomorrow be the same as those today. Just take a moment to daydream of a walk through an assisted-living facility  . . . circa 2065, 50 Cent blowing out the joint as 90-year-olds bob their heads."
• "Accidental" futurist Michael Rogers's solid report on the World Future Society annual meeting and, uh, a fourth primary color?

(Photo from flickr.)

Can a Machine Think Like Us?

by Fred Copley

Machines regularly out-pace human beings in all sorts of ways. They are capable of greater strength, speed, and endurance than we, or any animal, can muster. We not only accept this fact but are usually appreciative to boot. Who among us could run from New York to Boston in a matter of hours? Considering that machines act as extensions of our own intentions—as John Searle perhaps said best but by no means first—we are right to appreciate them.

Even as we appreciate the work a computer can do, why, then, must we also begrudge its powers of computation, always carefully delineating them from us?

Sports Twenty Years Into the Future: New Players, Same Drugs

by Bryan Joiner

There is a crush of people on this planet, and every Sunday in the fall a few hundred thousand pack into massive stadiums across America and watch a National League Football game. When it’s over, they go home, make babies, and crush the planet a little more. Consequently, those babies are likely to be sports fans. That is why no matter what happens to America in the next 20 years (really, what would you count out at this point?) professional sports are going to look much the same as they do now.

There are exceptions.

Microsoft Research Video: Anyone for Pong 2.0?

Doubting software developers is demeaning. Click to view this clip from a Microsoft research lab. The level of interactivity is, uhhh, impressive, we'll say. Pong, anyone?

A Second (Virtual) Life, For Just $10 a Month

by Andrew Bast

If, according to Ray Kurzweil, it's only going to be a decade before computers disappear and are simply ingrained into our daily existence, the virtual reality systems around today are only a glimpse of how we could live by 2025.

Second Life, a company that offers you the opportunity to conjure and then act out an alternate reality of your own (it's not just a catchy title), already has a half-million inhabitants, each coughing up $10 a month. Really, is there a better deal out there?

Boy Do We Love Movies About Evil Machines

by Mik Awake

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, one wonders if she had any idea the impact her Gothic tale would have on literature in the following centuries. Considered by many the first work of science fiction, Frankenstein also spawned a whole subgenre of artistic production that crossed borders of time and medium.

Shelley wrote in the first days of the Industrial Age yet nailed a concern that eerily echoes today: the fear that machines might turn on us.

Quote of the Week: Courtesy of Ray Kurzweil

From his book, The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil on brains, computers, and the future of civilization:

"Our human intelligence is based on computational processes that we are learning to understand. We will ultimately multiply our intellectual powers by applying and extending the methods of human intelligence using the vastly greater capacity of nonbiological computation. So to consider the ultimate limits of computation is really to ask: what is the destiny of our civilization?"

(Photo from flickr.)