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Singularity Q&A

December 9, 2011 by Ray Kurzweil

techno human

Originally published in 2005 with the launch of The Singularity Is Near.

Questions and Answers

So what is the Singularity?

Within a quarter century, nonbiological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. It will then soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge. Intelligent nanorobots will be deeply integrated… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

Comments (36)

Femtotech: Computing at the femtometer scale using quarks and gluons

October 29, 2011 by Hugo de Garis

How the properties of quarks and gluons can be used (in principle) to perform computation at the femtometer (10^-15 meter) scale.

I’ve been thinking on and off for two decades about the possibility of a femtotech. Now that nanotech is well established, and well funded, I feel that the time is right to start thinking about the possibility of a femtotech.

You may ask, “What about picotech?”… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Physics/Cosmology | Quantum

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Kurzweil responds: Don’t underestimate the Singularity

October 20, 2011 by Ray Kurzweil

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 Greaves), it appears that he has… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Singularity/Futures

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Achieving substrate-independent minds: no, we cannot ‘copy’ brains

August 24, 2011 by Randal A. Koene

Neuron (credit: Wikipedia user LadyofHats, public domain)

On August 18, IBM published an intriguing update of their work in the DARPA SyNAPSE program, seeking to create efficient new computing hardware that is inspired by the architecture of neurons and neuronal networks in the brain.

At carboncopies.org, we strive to take this research a step further: to bring about and nurture projects that are crucial to achieving substrate-independent minds (SIM). That is, enable… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement

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Can we develop and test machine minds and uploads ethically?

April 25, 2011 by Martine Rothblatt

A fundamental principle of bioethics requires the consent of a patient to any medical procedure performed upon them. A patient will exist the moment a conscious mindclone arises in some academic laboratory, or hacker’s garage. At that moment, ethical rules will be challenged, for the mindclone has not consented to the work being done on their mind. Does this situation create a catch-22 ethical embargo against developing cyber-consciousness?

There… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Singularity/Futures | Social Networking/Web | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Pattern survival versus gene survival

February 11, 2011 by Randal A. Koene

carboncopies

I decided to write this article after I found that many colleagues and participants whom I  spoke with at the recent Humanity+ (ref. R.A. Koene, 2010b) and Transvision (ref. R.A. Koene, 2010a) conferences were struggling with personal and strategic decisions when they considered what sort of future to strive for.

We are hampered by a historical dearth of attention to the very fundamentals that could support… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement | Survival/Defense

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The new era of health and medicine as an information technology is broader than individual genes

February 4, 2011 by Ray Kurzweil

DNA multicolor

Is it time to rethink the promise of genomics? 

There has been recent disappointment expressed in the progress in the field of genomics. In my view, this results from an overly narrow view of the science of genes and biological information processing in general. It reminds me of the time when the field of “artificial intelligence” (AI) was equated with the methodology of “expert systems.” If someone referred to… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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Globa: Accelerating technologies will create a global state by 2050

January 19, 2011 by Hugo de Garis

multisandmonos

This essay argues that the exponential rate of technical progress will create within 40 years an Internet that is a trillion times faster than today’s, a global media, a global education system, a global language, and a globally homogenized culture, thus establishing the prerequisites for the creation of a global democratic state, “Globa,” and ridding the world of war, the arms trade, ignorance, and poverty. Whether Globa can cope… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures | Social Networking/Web | Social/Ethical/Legal | Survival/Defense

Comments (41)

From cosmism to deism

January 18, 2011 by Hugo de Garis

The rise of artilects (artificial intellects, i.e., godlike massively intelligent machines with intellectual capacities trillions of trillions of times above the human level) in this century makes the existence of a deity (a massively intelligent entity capable of creating a universe) seem much more plausible.

There are now thousands of AI scientists around the world (concentrated largely in the English-speaking countries) who feel that… read more

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How my predictions are faring — an update by Ray Kurzweil

October 1, 2010 by Ray Kurzweil

How My Predictions Are Faring screenshot

How My Predictions Are Faring | Overview

In this essay I review the accuracy of my predictions going back a quarter of a century. Included herein is a discussion of my predictions from The Age of Intelligent Machines (which I wrote in the 1980s), all 147 predictions for 2009 in The Age of Spiritual Machines (which I wrote in the 1990s), plus others.

Perhaps my most important predictions are… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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On genes, memes, bemes, and conscious things

July 4, 2010 by Martine Rothblatt

mar2

As human memory, personality, values, and other attributes are increasingly being captured in cybernetic form, they are becoming virtual entities of their own. These “bemes” — units of beingness — are analogous to memes (culturally transmissible ideas) and genes, but go far beyond them. Common sets of bemes will lead to a new “Beme Neural Architecture” (BNA), analogous to DNA. But while DNA expresses matter in a limited way, substrate-independent… read more

Topics: Biotech | Human Enhancement

Comments (4)

Is the business cycle in your DNA?

July 4, 2010 by Howard Bloom

From The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism by Howard Bloom, Prometheus Books, 2009. Reprinted with permission.

Why bankers are like bacteria

What has tumbled you and me into the pit of the Great Recession of 2008-2010? What causes boom and bust? Does economic catastrophe come from a perverse monetary system, from capitalism, speculators, overpaid CEO’s and greed? Does it come from conspiracies of… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship

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Communicating with the universe

July 4, 2010 by Amara D. Angelica

hs-2009-14-a-xlarge_web

Over the next million years, a descendant of the Internet will maintain contact with inhabited planets throughout our galaxy and begin to spread out into the larger universe, linking up countless new or existing civilizations into the Universenet, a network of ultimate intelligence. (updated)

Originally published in Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge.

The Earth has already input information to… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology | Quantum

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Global Space Warfare Technologies: Influences, Trends, and the Road Ahead

July 4, 2010 by Matthew Hoey

The Starfire Optical Range (SOR) is a directed-energy facility based at Kirtland Air Force base in New Mexico. Many leaders in the arms control community as well as major news outlets have stated that SOR may be a directed-energy system that can disable space-based systems. The SOR is under the auspices of the Directed Energy Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which is working on numerous space-warfare systems. (The United States Air Force/DOE)

Given how easily information can spread about the globe today, it is inevitable that space warfare technologies will proliferate. Once one country sets its sights on space domination, other countries are sure to follow, spurring a second arms race of sorts. The international community is in a race against time as technologies are evolving faster than ever before and will continue to accelerate exponentially in an almost biological fashion. If this process continues unabated, it will almost certainty result in the deterioration of peaceful collaborations, an increase in the creation of orbital debris, and the risk of an accidental or spasm nuclear event.… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Nanotech/Materials Science | Quantum | Social Networking/Web | Space | Survival/Defense

Comments (2)

Technology’s Promise: Expert Knowledge on the Transformation of Business and Society

July 4, 2010 by José Luis Cordeiro

technologys_promise

Author: William Halal
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN-10: 0230019544
ISBN-13: 9780230019546
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages

Technology’s Promise: Expert Knowledge on the Transformation of Business and Society brilliantly deals with the co-evolution of technology, business and society. It is a concise but complete “history of the future,” covering most scientific and technological fields, with specific scenarios until 2050 and with general ideas… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Social Networking/Web

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