from the Loose-ends dept.
Hereís a small collection of coverage of the Foresight/IMM Senior Associates Gathering, held in Palo Alto, California, 26 to 28 April 2002:
- Senior Associate and San Jose Mercury News business & technology columnist Dan Gillmor posted some preliminary notes on presentations made at the Gathering by Ralph Merkle, Ray Kurzweil, Stuart Brand, Paul Saffo, David Friedman, and Eric Drexler, in his eJournal entry of 27 April 2002.
- Gillmor also commented on the Gathering in his regular column the following week ("Futuristic small technology promises big changes for all of us", 4 May 2002). As Gillmor notes, "Drexler thinks the nanotech community needs to do a better job of explaining the potential for good. He told this year's gathering, held last weekend in Palo Alto, that we need a ëpicture of the future — a world view — that is workable and appealingí to the wider community, not just the already converted." (If the Mercury News link is broken, the article is also available on the Small Times website.)
- A lengthy piece by Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine ("Whatís the purpose of life? Nanotechnology might provide the answer", 1 May 2002) focuses on a thoughtful and thought-provoking debate between Foresight Advisor Ray Kurzweil and Gregory Stock (Director, UCLA Program on Medicine, Technology and Society) that took place during the Gathering ("BioFuture vs. MachineFuture") on Saturday, 27 April 2002. (Links to some of Baileyís previous commentaries on nanotechnology can be found in a Nanodot post from 3 August 2001).
- Ray Kurzweil has posted a presentation regarding the debate ("Arguments for a Green AND Gray Future") on the KurzweilAI website. Links to audio clips of both Kurzweilís and Stockís presentations, their debate, and the Q&A session that followed, are included.
- Although it was published before the Senior Associates Gathering, an extensive and reasonably well-written article in the Washington Post ("The Next Generation: Biotechnology May Make Superhero Fantasy a Reality", by Joel Garreau, 26 April 2002) touches on many of the looming issues of human genetic and tissue engineering, bio and nanotechnology, transhumanism, AI, and the singularity, and presents views from many perspectives.
