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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/Education | Social/Ethical/Legal | Survival/Defense

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Global Cyberspace and Personal Memespace

February 21, 2001 by Bruce Damer

Virtual worlds populated by avatars of real people interacting with each other, bots, agents, and exotic life forms: is this the future face of cyberspace?… read more

Topics: Social Networking/Web/Education | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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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/Education | Space | Survival/Defense

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Globalization and Open Source Nano Economy

March 30, 2006 by Giulio Prisco

Some of the problems of today’s globalized world could be eliminated or reduced by developing operational worldwide molecular design and manufacturing capabilities. Instead of shipping physical objects, their detailed design specification in a “Molecular Description Language” (MDL) will be transmitted over a global data grid evolved from today’s Internet and then physically “printed” by “nano printers” at remote sites. This would allow communities wishing to remain independent to retain their autonomy.… read more

Topics: Survival/Defense

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Grasping the Future: Comparing Scenarios to Other Techniques

May 9, 2001 by Max More

It has become a commonplace to hear that change is accelerating. Mention of Moore’s Law is now likely to elicit a bored yawn. We have become so used to rapid and accelerating technological and cultural change that it’s hard to find it shocking. If we still suffer future shock, we are probably too used to it to notice. Yet it has never been more important to confront the fact of accelerated change for anyone constructing strategy in the information economy.… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Quantum | Singularity/Futures

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Green or Gray?

April 5, 2002 by Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Will the future be green (based on biotechnology) or gray (based on nanotechnology and nanotech-powered AI)? Ray Kurzweil and Gregory Stock will debate this issue at the Foresight Senior Associate Gathering. Both have advantages, but environmentalists and anti-biotech activists may load the dice in favor of gray.… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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How are behaviors encoded in DNA?

January 21, 2002 by John McCarthy

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.” John McCarthy asks: how are behaviors encoded in DNA?… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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How can a small number of genes build a complex mental machine?

January 21, 2002 by Gary F. Marcus

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.” Gary F. Marcus asks: how can genes build a mental machine?… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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How Can We Possibly Tell If It’s Conscious?

February 7, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil

Abstract of talk to be delivered at the “Toward a Science of Consciousness” Conference, April 10, 2002. Sponsored by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona.… read more

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How Can We Possibly Tell If It’s Conscious?

April 18, 2002 by Ray Kurzweil

At the Tucson 2002: Toward a Science of Consciousness conference, Ray Kurzweil addressed the question of how to tell if something is conscious. He proposed two thought experiments.… read more

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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

Topics: Singularity/Futures

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How does the body react to medical nanodevices?

November 19, 2003 by Ralph C. Merkle

Nanomedicine, Volume IIA: Biocompatibility, the second volume in Robert A. Freitas, Jr.’s Nanomedicine series, has been published just in time to provide an authoritative scientific foundation to address the growing concerns about the biocompatibility of nanotechnology in the environmental and medical communities.… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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How Does the Brain Generate Computation?

December 19, 2001 by Marc D. Hauser

In this Edge talk, Marc D. Hauser reflects on attempts to answer this question, from Noam Chomsky’s insights to the dance of the honey bee.… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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How Fast, How Small and How Powerful? Moore’s Law and the Ultimate Laptop

August 2, 2001 by Seth Lloyd

A laptop that looks like a thermonuclear explosion inside of a liter bottle of coca cola? Or a black hole? Read Seth Lloyd’s follow up to a Nature article that pushes Moore’s Law to the limit.… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures | Social Networking/Web/Education

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How Long Before Superintelligence?

April 30, 2001 by Nick Bostrom

This paper outlines the case for believing that we will have superhuman artificial intelligence within this century. It looks at different estimates of the processing power of the human brain; how long it will take until computer hardware achieve a similar performance; ways of creating the software through bottom-up approaches like the one used by biological brains; how difficult it will be neuroscience figure out enough about how brains work to make this approach work; and how fast we can expect superintelligence to be developed once there is human-level artificial intelligence.… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Quantum | Social Networking/Web/Education

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