The neo-Luddites are out in force to block new technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. The extropians are organizing to defend progress.… read more
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Another Formula for Intelligence: The Neural Net Paradigm
August 6, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
The neural net approach to artificial intelligence explained, written for “The Futurecast,” a monthly column in the Library Journal.… read more
Intelligence, Computer and Human: A Discussion with Howard Gardner
October 2, 2001 by Howard Gardner, Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil and Howard Gardner discuss education, technology, pattern recognition and collecting electronic parts on Canal Street.… read more
How different could life have been?
January 21, 2002 by Richard Dawkins
The 5th Annual Edge Question reflects the spirit of the Edge motto: “To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.” Richard Dawkins asks: how different could it all have been?… read more
What Shape are a German Shepherd’s Ears?
July 17, 2002 by Stephen M. Kosslyn
There is a gigantic project yet to be done that will root psychology in natural science and providing a better understanding of human nature. Once this is accomplished, you’ll be able to go from phenomenology to information processing to the brain, down through the workings of the neurons, including the biochemistry, all the way to the biophysics and the way genes are up-regulated and down-regulated.… read more
Reprogramming your Biochemistry for Immortality: An Interview with Ray Kurzweil by David Jay Brown
March 8, 2006 by Ray Kurzweil
Scientists are now talking about people staying young and not aging. Ray Kurzweil is taking it a step further: “In addition to radical life extension, we’ll also have radical life expansion. The nanobots will be able to go inside the brain and extend our mental functioning by interacting with our biological neurons.”… read more
Words and Rules
February 21, 2001 by Steven Pinker
An important problem in AI in understanding how language works. In this paper, presented in his Colin Cherry Memorial Lecture on March 23, 1999 at Imperial College, London, Dr. Steven Pinker suggests that we use a combination of memory and grammatical rules to convey information.… read more
The Age of Knowledge
August 6, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil
An illustration of the second industrial revolution written for “The Futurecast,” a monthly column in the Library Journal… read more
What is time, and what is the right language to describe change, in a closed system like the universe, which contains all of its observers?
January 21, 2002 by Lee Smolin
Since the observers are inside the universe itself, we must formulate a “background-independent” quantum theory of gravity and cosmology , as well as the notions of time and change, to apply to a system with no fixed background, which contains all its possible observers–perhaps even one in which the laws themselves evolve as the universe does. Lee Smolin responds to Edge publisher/editor John Brockman’s request to futurists to pose “hard-edge” questions that “render visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefine who and what we are.”… read more
Clottocytes: Artificial Mechanical Platelets
April 12, 2002 by Robert A. Freitas Jr.
Nanorobotic artificial mechanical platelets (“clottocytes”) may allow for complete hemostasis in as little as one second – 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural system and 10,000 times more effective in terms of bloodstream concentration. They could also work internally. Using acoustic pulses, a blood vessel break could be rapidly communicated to neighboring clottocytes, immediately triggering a progressive controlled mesh-release cascade.… read more