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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Jaron Lanier vs. Machine Intelligence

from the Moravec-as-religious?! dept.
Virtual reality pioneer/musician JaronLanier has published a Critique of Machine Intelligence. Excerpt: The culture of machine consciousness enthusiasts often includes the expressed hope that human death will be avoidable by actually enacting the first thought experiment above, of transferring the human brain into a machine. Hans Moravec is one researcher who explicitly hopes for this eventuality. If we can become machines we don't have to die, but only if we believe in machine consciousness. I don't think it's productive to argue about religion in the same way we argue about philosophy or science, but it is important to understand when religion is what we are talking about. Do you agree with Jaron that the uploading meme is a religious concept?

US News: why nanotech can't be stopped

from the driven-researcher dept.
Author RobertGrudin recommends this news article in US News & World Report. It includes a clear explanation of why researchers won't stop developing nanotech: "We are compelled to keep going. It is just so cool," says Paul Alivisatos, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley. "We are knocking on the door of creating new living things, new hybrids of robotics and biology. Some may be pretty scary, but we have to keep going." Read More for additional highlights.

Medical Microbots precede Medical Nanobots

from the little-machines-in-your-body dept.
For nanomedicine to be accepted someday, doctors and patients will need to get comfortable with small robots working in the human body. Brian Wang writes "waterproof microrobots made of gold and polymer over silicon can work in liquid (like bodily fluids). They can move small objects 100-300 microns. 100 microns is the size of large cells. These could be used for more precise surgery. These devices are leading the way to nanobots in medicine. Report is at msnbc link "

Controversial "Spiritual Robots" Debate now Online

from the great-stuff dept.
If you missed the wonderful Spiritual Robots Symposium held at Stanford in April, featuring the best debate on machine intelligence seen in academia in years, you can now see it online courtesy of Dr Dobb's. Includes Frank Drake, Doug Hofstadter, John Holland, Bill Joy, Kevin Kelly, John Koza, Ray Kurzweil, Ralph Merkle and Hans Moravec.

Get a NanoJob — Start with NanoIntro

from the diamonds-not-a-girl's-best-friend dept.
For friends of yours just getting oriented on nanotechnology, here's an interview of Foresight Advisor Ralph Merkle. Based on the interview is a digested article with photos and video clips (Windows Media Player only, unfortunately). One of the less-technical questions: "So what do I give my girlfriend when I want to get married." Merkle: "Diamonds arenít going to be that valuable. Youíre going to have to give something that shows a certain creative input that you provide." After this interview, Merkle left Xerox PARC for nanotech startup Zyvex, which is hiring

"Prepare for nanomania" says New York Times

from the nanomania?-sounds-fun dept.
From BradHein's site we find The New York Times reports: "Once it is possible to create molecular circuits (as opposed to silicon-based chips) on a mass, affordable scale — by about 2010, according to some industry researchers — prepare for nanomania…If this vision turns out to be accurate, then we will find ourselves, before too long, in a previously unfathomable medical and ethical terrain. Our relation to aging, to mortality, to the messages sent us by our own bodies may be forever altered by infinitesimally small computers that diagnose our diseases, repair our ravaged cells and ultimately transform — for better or for worse — what it means to be human." CP: But can we live without mortality?

Globally Distributed Evolutionary Nanotechnology?

from the intriguing-but-scary dept.
davesag writes "The gRobots project is a forthcoming distributed supercomputing platform specifically developed for the simulation of evolvable nanotechnology. The project is both for the use of evolutionary computation to simulate the design of nanotechnological devices, and for the ongoing simulation of self-replicating devices. The system will be open-sourced so that the broadest range of researchers, evolutionary computing enthusiasts, simulation geeks, chemists, engineers, students and others can participate. " From the site: "We think that the safest and best way forward as these fields merge is to provide a virtual environment for self-replicating machines running evolving software to be tested, evaluated and even farmed." Good idea or too risky–what do you think?

Newest Nanotech Spokesman Wows Crowd

from the when-he's-famous-will-he-still-talk-to-us dept.
Senior Associate Ka-Ping Yee (Ping) launched his future-tech lecture career with great success, earning a standing ovation and great media coverage for his inspirational talk including nanotechnology and machine intelligence. What advice do you have for Ping and other Foresight speakers?

Allocating our Altruism Effectively

from the all-we-need-is-love dept.
Strongly recommended by Foresight chairman Eric Drexler is this essay by David H. Miller: "If one wants to understand how a political order, a constitutional structure, or an economic system will actually work, one must understand how effectively it makes use of the limited altruistic impulses available among the members of society. If a society is to avoid widespread misery and suffering, it must make effective use of the existing potential for altruism, and it must not require levels of altruism exceeding that which is available. In short, it must do an adequate job of economizing on love." CP: Those of us able to direct our altruism to longer-term goals have a comparative advantage in doing so. How are you leveraging your limited supply of altruism?

Reforming Intellectual "Property" Law

from the hurry-or-they'll-copyright-our-memories dept.
Ownership of coming powerful technologies will determine how many are benefited, and how quickly. In a paper prepared for this year's spring Foresight Gathering, Senior Associate Markus Krummenacker presents four scenarios for how intellectual property laws could operate in the future: the two extremes (no IP, suffocating IP) and two compromise proposals. Let's pick one, or come up with a better one, and make it happen. Which scenario do you prefer, and why? Or propose another.

Gaming the Future: The Book!

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