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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: August 2000

Israel upholds copyright on Dead Sea Scrolls

from the it'll-be-the-Declaration-of-Independence-next dept.
From the SJ Mercury wire services: "Israel's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an Isreali scholar had a copyright on his recontruction of an important Dead Sea Scroll…". The messed-up "intellectual property" system will be debated at the Sept 8-10 Foresight Senior Associate Gathering in Palo Alto; join us.

Schneier: computer security is impossible

from the capabilities-or-culpability? dept.
Bruce Schneier, author of the standard reference Applied Cryptography, has a new book out called Secrets and Lies. In an interview in Salon he talks about the book's main thesis: that secure computing is impossible: "Given the inevitability of attacks, 'prevention' can no longer be the security buzzword. Just as even the finest hockey goalies must regularly suffer the humiliation of allowing a goal, companies must learn to live with penetrations. Prepare for the worst, Schneier urges." Has the man never heard of capability security?

Memories to seed machine intelligence

from the machines-with-a-past? dept.
Adam Brown writes "It has been theorized that in order for a computer to evolve its personality, it should have past memories to draw upon. While browsing the web I found the site randomaccessmemory.org which encourages members to post their life experiences and any memories that stand out in their mind. Could such a database be used as a starting seed for the implanted past memories of an AI persona? Does anybody else know of any similar resources?" CP: there's the separate question of whether seeding with human memories is a good idea…but if so, one could use biographies.

Evolutionary AI software designs robot offspring

from the early-"engineering-AI" dept.
EddieWehri writes "Researchers developed a computer program that came up with designs for simple robots after being given simple parameters. Found on slashdot. http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSScience 0008/30_robot.html" RalphMerkle explains that this refers to "recent work at Brandeis by Jordan Pollack. Evidently, this work involves a design system that uses evolutionary algorithms to design a robotic system."

Update: A spate of press coverage of this research was set off by the publication of a paper by Pollack and co-worker Hod Lipson, also of Brandeis, in the 31 August 2000 issue of Nature. Some interesting press accounts include articles in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.

Critique of Josh Hall's 'Ethics for Machines'

from the major-disagreement dept.
Senior Associate Peter Voss writes "Josh Hallís Ethics for Machines suffers many of the problems endemic to moral debate: vague and shifting definitions, confusion over ëdutyí, rejecting the possibility of a rationally derived morality, and confusing description and prescription. Specifically, it fails to clearly define, or justify, its implied meta-ethical goal of ëgroup dynamismí. Other core problems are: its mischaracterization of ëethical instinctí, its condemnation of self-interest and common sense, and its failure to recognize the importance of high-level intelligence and consciousness to morality. Ethics for Transhumans addresses these points, and sketches an alternative path."

Alarms about Techno-Utopianism

from the utopian-dystopian-or-atopian? dept.
Senior Associate BryanBruns writes "Reason magazine has a story "Dystopian Fearmongers Strike Again" criticizing the "TechnoUtopian" advertisement recently run in the New York Times. (The ad is available online: technoad.pdf.) The advertisement has three paragraphs on nanotechnology, with reasonably accurate content, using nanotech as another example of technological optimism. The section on nanotech finishes by saying "[Bill] Joy has grave doubts about proceeding, citing dangers from escaping self-replicating nanomachines, and from military applications. (There are also terribly frightening surveillance and privacy concerns.) So far, Joy is one of the few major scientists to be openly critical." Read more for details and analysis.

Pope's death definition affects cryonics

from the what-is-human dept.
In a story originally from the LA Times, Pope John Paul II defines death as "the complete and irreversible cessation" of brain activity. This would seem to indicate that, eventually, the Roman Catholic Church will choose to view patients entering and in cryonic suspension as being alive; this would fit with their general "when in doubt, be generous to marginal cases" position. This can serve as a reminder to the cryonics organizations that an awkward gap may appear in financial arrangements for cryonics, when life insurance no longer covers the cost, but medical insurance has not yet added this coverage. Perhaps we need a new type of policy entirely.

Deep Blue leaves an indelible impression

from the Do-you-know-me? dept.

Three years after its widely-publicized chess match with Grand Master Garry Kasparov, IBM's Deep Blue computer system outranks many human celebrities in a poll of the public's familiarity with both human and machine personalities. A short article from the Associated Press on the Washington Post web site describes the study, which was conducted by Marketing Evaluation/TvQ, Inc.

According to the article, even though Deep Blue's big public splash was in 1997, about 50 percent of those polled recognized Deep Blue's name — putting it on par with actress and "Baywatch babe" Carmen Electra, and slightly above CNN talk show host Larry King.

Payment models for an Open Source world

from the pass-the-hat dept.

An interesting segment on National Public Radio's All Things Considered on 29 August 2000 describes some attempts by artists to use the Internet to sell their work directly to their audiences. Look for the segment on "The Street Performer Protocol", which compares some of these efforts to high-tech busking.

One of the challenges for applying open source concepts to IP areas other than software is: how do creative artists like writers and musicians make a living? While this piece doesn't directly address the issue of copyright, it does show that artists like author Stephen King are pushing the envelope a bit, and blazing the trail for others who want to offer ideas and creative works through advance subscription or auction. It's an idea that might catch on.

MIT psychologist vs. frightening predictions

from the to-tell-or-not-to-tell dept.
Prominent MIT psychologist Steven Pinker predicts in Technology Review: How far can this revolution in the human condition go? Will the world of 3000 be as unthinkable to us today as the world of 2000 would have been to our forebears a millennium ago?…The future, I suggest, will not be unrecognizably exotic because across all the dizzying changes that shaped the present and will shape the future one element remains constant: human nature…It is also far from certain that we will redesign human nature through genetic engineering. People are repulsed by genetically modified soybeans, let alone babies, and the risks and reservations surrounding germ-line engineering of the human brain may consign it to the fate of the nuclear-powered vacuum cleaner…Third-millennium futurologists should realize that their fantasies are scaring people to death. The preposterous world in which we interact only in cyberspace, choose the endings of our novels, merge with our computers and design our children from a catalogue gives people the creeps and turns them off to the genuine promise of technological progress.

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