Review of Nanocosm
June 6, 2003 by Chris Phoenix
The new book Nanocosm reports on exciting advances in nanotech but suffers from numerous technical inaccuracies and distortions of the work of nanotech pioneers.… read more
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Review: Vernor Vinge’s ‘Fast Times’
September 5, 2002 by Hal Finney
Vernor Vinge’s Hugo-award-winning short science fiction story “Fast Times at Fairmont High” takes place in a near future in which everyone lives in a ubiquitous, wireless, networked world using wearable computers and contacts or glasses on which computer graphics are projected to create an augmented reality.… read more
Revolution in a Box: An Interview with the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
March 22, 2006 by Mike Treder, Chris Phoenix, Jamais Cascio
The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has a modest goal: to ensure that the planet navigates the emerging nanotech era safely. CRN’s founders discuss the promises and perils of nanotechnology, as well as the need for a middle ground between resignation and relinquishment.… read more
Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. “Globegrid,” a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combined with advanced AI software, it promises to reverse-engineer the brain, revolutionize genomics, enable medical breakthroughs, develop advanced human-machine interfaces, and allow for genetic alterations and even uploading consciousness. But it spurs a terrorist-fundamentalist Luddite backlash against transhumanists, as hackers take down the power grid, and destroy vital international data and telecom links, communications satellites, and biotech firms.… read more
Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine
June 24, 2002 by W. Daniel Hillis
Nobel prize winner physicist Richard Feynman played a critical role in developing the first parallel-processing computer and finding innovative uses for it in numerical computing and building neural networks as well as physical simulation with cellular-automata (such as turbulent fluid flow), working with Stephen Wolfram.… read more
Robot: Child of God
May 9, 2001 by Anne Foerst
Sometimes computers act as if they are possessed–does that mean they may have souls? Probably not right now, but Anne Foerst explores the possibility of soulful robots.… read more
Robots in the bloodstream: the promise of nanomedicine
February 26, 2002 by Robert A. Freitas Jr.
In just a few decades physicians could be sending tiny machines into our bodies to diagnose and cure disease. These nanodevices will be able to repair tissues, clean blood vessels and airways, transform our physiological capabilities, and even potentially counteract the aging process.… read more
Robots, Re-Evolving Mind
March 27, 2001 by Hans Moravec
We are re-evolving artificial minds at ten million times the original speed of human evolution, exponentially growing robot complexity. Currently, a guppylike thousand MIPS and hundreds of megabytes of memory enable our robots to build dense, almost photorealistic 3D maps of their surroundings and navigate intelligently. Within three decades, fourth-generation universal robots with a humanlike 100 million MIPS will be able to abstract and generalize–perhaps replace us.… read more
Runaway Artificial Intelligence?
February 3, 2006 by J. Storrs Hall
Synthetic computer-based artificial intelligence will become available well before nanotechnology makes neuron-level brain scans possible in the 2020s — it’s already a short step to computer systems that make better decisions than corporate managers do, says J. Storrs Hall.… read more
Safe Utilization of Advanced Nanotechnology
January 27, 2003 by Chris Phoenix, Mike Treder
The “gray goo” scenario and other dangers of advanced nanotechnology can be avoided with a centrally controlled, relatively large, self-contained nanofactory, administered by a central authority and with restricted-design software.… read more
Safer Molecular Manufacturing through Nanoblocks
May 9, 2006 by Tom Craver
Lego-style “nanoblocks” could prevent a molecular-assembly fabber from building an atom-precise nanofactory or devices that could help in any attempt to “bootstrap” production of an atom-precise nanofactory, reducing the risk of proliferation of atom-precise MM to “rogue nations” or terrorists.… read more
Sander Olson Interviews Ray Kurzweil
February 10, 2006 by Sander Olson, Ray Kurzweil
Nonbiological intelligence is multiplying by over 1,000 per decade. Once we can achieve the software of intelligence, which we will achieve through reverse-engineering the human brain, non-biological intelligence will soar past biological intelligence. By the 2040s, nonbiological intelligence will be a billion times more powerful than the 10^26 computations per second that all biological humanity represents.… read more
Say Ah
May 23, 2001 by Robert A. Freitas Jr.
Nanorobots the size of bacteria might one day roam people’s bodies, rooting out disease organisms and repairing damaged tissue.… read more
Seeing Through the Window
July 27, 2001 by Neil Gershenfeld
What form will new human/computer interfaces take? Neil Gershenfeld discusses the past, present and future of how we interact with computers.… read more