03.15.07
Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 7:38 am by rheil
What If the Singularity Does NOT Happen?
by Vernor Vinge
(»It’s 2045 and nerds in old-folks homes are wandering around, scratching their heads, and asking plaintively, “But … but, where’s the Singularity?” Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge–who originated the concept of the technological Singularity–doesn’t think that will happen, but he explores three alternate scenarios, along with our “best hope for long-term survival”–self-sufficient, off-Earth settlements. [...]«)
(»When Vernor Vinge takes on the topic “What if the Singularity Does NOT Happen,” interesting things are bound to follow. Thus his talk for the Long Now Foundation-sponsored Seminars About Long-Term Thinking yesterday. Vinge, a computer scientist and science fiction author, is not giving up his belief that the Singularity will happen. That event, which he believes will take place in the next few decades, should happen suddenly and be transformative in its effect. Here’s how Vinge himself describes the Singularity in an online precis of the material he used in his presentation [...]«)
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03.13.07
Posted in AI / Singularity, Human Enhancement, Transhumanism at 7:27 am by rheil
About Biosingularity
Biosingularity
(»The rate of technical progress amongst humans has been exponentially increasing. According to Ray Kurzweil, as we discover more effective ways to do things, we also discover more effective ways to learn, i.e. language, numbers, written language, philosophy, scientific method, instruments of observation, tallying devices, mechanical calculators, computers, each of these a major advance in our ability to account for information occurring increasingly close together.«)
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02.10.07
Posted in AI / Singularity, Deutschsprachige Seiten, Transhumanism at 7:21 am by rheil
Nick Bostrom: Warum eine Matrix bauen? Und warum Sie sich in einer befinden könnten
[Telepolis 10.02.2007]
(»Zweck der Matrix
Warum die Matrix? Warum haben es die Maschinen getan? (Das menschliche Gehirn kann vieles sein, eine leistungsfähige Batterie ist es jedoch ganz sicher nicht.) Wie ließe sich eine Welt rechtfertigen, deren Bewohner systematisch über ihre fundamentale Realität getäuscht werden, die gar nicht wissen, warum sie existieren, und die all den Grausamkeiten und Leiden ausgesetzt sind, die wir in der Welt um uns herum erleben? Kinder sterben an AIDS. Liebespaare werden durch Krieg und Armut getrennt. Krebspatienten werden von unerträglichen Schmerzen gequält. Opfer eines Schlaganfalls verlieren Sprache und Denkvermögen… Man möchte meinen, nur ein Sadist könnte die Phantasie besitzen und sich solche Gräuel ausdenken oder sogar den Wunsch haben, eine Welt zu schaffen, in der all das in solchem Übermaß vorkommt. Aber die Maschinen haben es getan. Zumindest wird es so erzählt. [...]«)
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01.20.07
Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 7:45 am by rheil
Why Chicks Don’t Dig The Singularity
(»Joe Quirk may be the world’s first evolutionary psychology (or sociobiology) comic. That’s not a big audience share yet, but his entertaining book, Sperm Are from Men, Eggs Are from Women: The Real Reason Men And Women Are Different, has been well received. By focusing on sex and relationships, Quirk is broadening the audience for the study of the genetic roots of human behaviors.
Quirk recently spoke at the Future Salon about the relationship between “The Singularity” and “sociobiology.”»)
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12.30.06
Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:06 am by rheil
(»David Brin
Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism and Pessimism about the Human Future
By Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member David Brin, Ph.D.
OVERVIEW
In order to give you pleasant dreams tonight, let me offer a few possibilities about the days that lie ahead — changes that may occur within the next twenty or so years, roughly a single human generation. Possibilities that are taken seriously by some of today’s best minds. Potential transformations of human life on Earth and, perhaps, even what it means to be human.
For example, what if biologists and organic chemists manage to do to their laboratories the same thing that cyberneticists did to computers? Shrinking their vast biochemical labs from building-sized behemoths down to units that are utterly compact, making them smaller, cheaper, and more powerful than anyone imagined. Isn’t that what happened to those gigantic computers of yesteryear? Until, today, your pocket cell phone contains as much processing power and sophistication as NASA owned during the moon shots. People who foresaw this change were able to ride this technological wave. Some of them made a lot of money. [...]«)
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12.29.06
Posted in AI / Singularity, Politic, Transhumanism at 9:34 am by rheil
UPWINGER – News from The Singularity: (“Daily human social developments including political, economic and global events forecast by Buckminster Fuller, RCW Ettinger, FM 2030, Ray Kurzweil and other early “upwingers,” transhumanists and singularitarians.”)
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12.28.06
Posted in AI / Singularity, Evolution / Genetics, Future, Human Enhancement, Nanotechnology, Technology, Transhumanism at 4:04 pm by rheil
KurzweilAI.net (“KurzweilAI.net features the big thoughts of today’s big thinkers examining the confluence of accelerating revolutions that are shaping our future world, and the inside story on new technological and social realities from the pioneers actively working in these arenas. We are witnessing intersecting revolutions in a plethora of fields: biotechnology, nanotechnology, molecular electronics, computation, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, virtual reality, human brain reverse engineering, brain augmentation, robotics, and many others. The leading visionaries represented on this site examine these transforming trends and their profound impact on economics, the arts, politics, government, warfare, medicine, health, education, disabilities, social mores, and sexuality.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:22 am by rheil
Vernor Vinge, The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era (“Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:21 am by rheil
What is the Singularity? (“The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies that are often mentioned as heading in this direction. The most commonly mentioned is probably Artificial Intelligence, but there are others: direct brain-computer interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering, ultra-high-resolution scans of the brain followed by computer emulation.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:21 am by rheil
Why work toward the Singularity? (“If you travelled backward in time to witness a critical moment in the invention of science, or the creation of writing, or the evolution of Homo sapiens, or the beginning of life on Earth, no human judgement could possibly encompass all the future consequences of that event – and yet there would still be the feeling of being present at the dawn of something worthwhile. The most critical moments of history are not the closed stories, like the start and finish of wars, or the rise and fall of governments. The story of intelligent life on Earth is made up of beginnings.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:20 am by rheil
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Staring into the Singularity (“The short version: If computing speeds double every two years, what happens when computer-based AIs are doing the research?”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:18 am by rheil
The Limitations of the Singularity (“What limits are there to the speed knowledge and technology can increase? Singularitians often claim there are very few, and that the Singularity will be extremely rapid, on the order of a few days, hours or even seconds. But does this really hold water?”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:18 am by rheil
Steve Alan Edwards, Surviving the Singularity (“Just over the horizon are hurricane force winds of change– “change comparable to the rise of human life on earth” according to mathematician and computer scientist Vernor Vinge, also the author of such science fiction classics as True Names and Marooned in Real Time. The cause of the change he envisions is “the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence” an event he expects to occur between the years 2005- 2030. With super human intelligence in charge of technological progress, progress itself becomes much more rapid and involves the creation of still more intelligent “beings” on an ever shortening time scale.”
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:17 am by rheil
Robin Hanson, Is a singularity just around the corner? What it takes to get explosive economic growth [Journal of Transhumanism 2, June 1998] (“Economic growth is determined by the supply and demand of investment capital; technology determines the demand for capital, while human nature determines the supply. The supply curve has two distinct parts, giving the world economy two distinct modes. In the familiar slow growth mode, rates of return are limited by human discount rates. In the fast growth mode, investment is limited by the world’s wealth. Historical trends suggest that we may transition to the fast mode in roughly another century and a half. Can some new technology switch us to the fast mode more quickly than this? Perhaps, but such a technology must greatly raise the rate of return for the world’s expected worst investment project. It must thus be very broadly applicable, improving almost all forms of capital and investment. Furthermore, investment externalities must remain within certain limits.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:16 am by rheil
A Critical Discussion of Vinge’s Singularity Concept, edited by Robin Hanson (“Vernor Vinge begain speaking on his “singularity” concept in the 1980s, and collected his thoughts into his first article on the topic in 1993. Since then, Vinge has continued to give talks, and has elaborated on his concept in several media interviews. The idea of an upcoming “singularity” has captured the imaginations of many, and has been the topic of thousands of conversations among those interested in the future. Such conversations, however, tend to be very wide ranging, and thus rarely focus on any one topic long enough to really give it a critical examination.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:10 am by rheil
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, Creating Friendly AI 1.0 (“The goal of the field of Artificial Intelligence is to understand intelligence and create a human-equivalent or transhuman mind. Beyond this lies another question – whether the creation of this mind will benefit the world; whether the AI will take actions that are benevolent or malevolent, safe or uncaring, helpful or hostile. Creating Friendly AI describes the design features and cognitive architecture required to produce a benevolent – “Friendly” – Artificial Intelligence. Creating Friendly AI also analyzes the ways in which AI and human psychology are likely to differ, and the ways in which those differences are subject to our design decisions.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:09 am by rheil
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, The Singularitarian Principles, Version 1.0.2 (01/01/2000) Extended edition
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Transhumanism at 11:08 am by rheil
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, The Singularitarian Principles, Version 1.0.2 (01/01/2000) Compact edition (“The “Singularity” has been defined many different ways. The primary and original definition, as invented by Vernor Vinge, is that the Singularity is the fundamental discontinuity in history created by the technological invention of smarter-than-human intelligence. Other definitions have included a time of exponentially faster technological progress (even faster than now, that is), or the positive-feedback effect created by enhanced intelligences working out improved methods of intelligence enhancement.”)
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Posted in AI / Singularity, Organisations, Transhumanism at 11:06 am by rheil
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (“SIAI was founded for the pursuit of ethically enhanced cognition by creating beneficial AI. We expect that the ethical and significant enhancement of cognition will help solve contemporary challenges – disease and illness, poverty and hunger – more readily than other charitable pursuits. We offer forums for Singularity discussion, coordinate Singularity-related efforts, and publish material on the Singularity. Above all, our long-term mission is direct research into Singularity technologies, specifically Friendly AI, and the direct implementation of the Singularity. We’re presently seeking funding to begin our long-term project to create recursively self-improving AI that displays true general cognition – a Singularity seed.”)
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