Some of the summaries are short because they had little to do with finding solutions to prevent the predicted coming doom by some of my correspondents. I can't believe that there is a class of highly educated people overwhelmingly believing that singularity provides high optimism and hope for the future of humanity. But here they were in San Francisco in August of 2010. And most of them, while, maybe a bit naive, are incredibly smart. They could be right.
An optimist? I'm into simple solutions. Yudkowsky advocates simplified humanism:
Typical: Curing disease is good, unless genes are involved.
Simplified: Curing disease is good.
Further: life is good, death is bad; happiness is good, pain is bad...knowledge is good, ignorance is not.
There is hope for a dramatically better future. Click on his web site, Less Wrong.
Another optimist? Well, he has been to Burning Man ten times. Biomes, if you did not know, are natural sites where a community of life exists. The ocean, for example is a biome. This was the first talk which even mentioned global warming.
What about the world deteriorating at an exponential rate? No problem. Biosphere engineering will overcome.
To quote:
With effective technology to sculpt the planetary biome, the limits to the number of humans that can live on the planet, and the quality of life for each, will be tremendously higher than they appear to be today.
Decent nano summary of Peak Oil, SARS, MRSA, algae biofuels, etc., but somewhat dated. I liked his suggestion about copying coccolithiophores for carbon dioxide capture.
So what is a digital biome? I chatted with him and he said something like singularity will make this all possible through the continued exponential growth of biological potential. Again, he, as others, showed that comparison between genome sequencing and Moore's law
This exponential drop in sequencing cost seems to be the great hope for optimism.
3. Lance Becker, University of Pennsylvania (Modifying the Boundary Between Life and Death)
Will not be worthy of my comment. You can read his abstract.
4. Ellen Heber-Katz, Wistar Institute (The MRL Mouse: How it Regenerates--and How We Might Do the Same)
Drug therapy could someday induce regeneration in humans. That is, if you lose a leg, you can grow it back again.
Can continuous regeneration lead to immortality? A lot of work to do.
Interesting, but let me pass on this one too. You can click on those two portals above for more information.
Having been trained in classical ballet, among other fields, this should be different.
Not human intelligence, machine intelligence. Very little has been done in this field, actually, so the question is: What is intelligence? So someday an IQ for AI devices. Watch Legg talk about machine super intelligence.
Since 1960, computer calculations per second have increased from 10,000 to 1,000,000,000,000. In 2025, it should be 10 to the power of 20 to 21. What will this mean?
Rather than search for algorithms, reverse engineering human intelligence can lead to computational broad intelligence. The talk itself was almost limited to something called evolutionary psychology.
8. John Tooby, Ben Goertzel, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Shane Legg (panel discussion on Narrow and General Intelligence)
I will skip this.
His Einstein robot can recognize and show facial expressions, and accordingly respond. These humanized techno-agents are getting very close to looking like us, but today only with a rudimentary AI capability, certainly a great improvement from the SONY electronic dog.
Heading towards a robot which not only can serve, but, more so, get along with people and find solutions.
While formerly with Big Oil, Cordeiro had an enlightened view on energy and the future. Here are some of his factoids (note the incredible optimism):
a. Energy is the largest world industry: $8 trillion/year. b. He suggested reading The State of the Future 2010 (a UN publication).
c. Global consumption is 15 TW/year, and there is available 86,000 TW of solar energy. One hour of sunlight would satisfy our annual energy consumption.
d. There was Peak Whale Oil in the 19th century.
e. There was Limits to Growth in the 70's, but technological change overcame those predictions.
f. We are hydrogenizing energy (trees to coal to oil to natural gas to....hydrogen?).
g. A future hydrogen fuel will be for fusion: the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on intertial confinement and ITER in France for magnetic confinement.
h. Energy singularity: exponential improvement will save our society.
i. Japan hopes to energizeTokyo by 2030 through power from space.
j. "Free energy" in 30 years is his prediction.
Very entertaining speech.
Yes, she studies Grey parrots and how they "think" differently from apes, marine mammals and young children. There is a troublesome morality about proceeding with this research as there is too much we still don't know.
The Amazing Randi is one of my folk heroes, well covered in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity. To quote:
In singular times, it is the ethical responsibility of every thinking being to become an agent for the promulgation of critical thought, skepticism and humility.
The wisdom from the Amazing Randi was most entertaining. A good way to end the program.
THIS WAS THE SINGULARITY SUMMIT 2010.
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Welcome my 152nd country:
LIBYA POPULATION: 6,324,357
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| Background | |
| The Italians supplanted the Ottoman Turks in the area around Tripoli in 1911 and did not relinquish their hold until 1943 when defeated in World War II. Libya then passed to UN administration and achieved independence in 1951. Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system is a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and is supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy." QADHAFI has always seen himself as a revolutionary and visionary leader. He used oil funds during the 1970s and 1980s to promote his ideology outside Libya, supporting subversives and terrorists abroad to hasten the end of Marxism and capitalism. In addition, beginning in 1973, he engaged in military operations in northern Chad's Aozou Strip - to gain access to minerals and to use as a base of influence in Chadian politics - but was forced to retreat in 1987. UN sanctions in 1992 isolated QADHAFI politically following the downing of Pan AM Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. During the 1990s, QADHAFI began to rebuild his relationships with Europe. UN sanctions were suspended in April 1999 and finally lifted in September 2003 after Libya accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. In December 2003, Libya announced that it had agreed to reveal and end its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and to renounce terrorism. QADHAFI has made significant strides in normalizing relations with Western nations since then. He has received various Western European leaders as well as many working-level and commercial delegations, and made his first trip to Western Europe in 15 years when he traveled to Brussels in April 2004. The US rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism in June 2006. In January 2008, Libya assumed a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2008-09 term. In August 2008, the US and Libya signed a bilateral comprehensive claims settlement agreement to compensate claimants in both countries who allege injury or death at the hands of the other country, including the Lockerbie bombing, the LaBelle disco bombing, and the UTA 772 bombing. In October 2008, the US Government received $1.5 billion pursuant to the agreement to distribute to US national claimants, and as a result effectively normalized its bilateral relationship with Libya. The two countries then exchanged ambassadors for the first time since 1973 in January 2009. QADHAFI in February 2009 took over as chairman of the African Union for the 2009-10 term; in September 2009, a Libyan took over the year-long presidency of UN General Assembly. |
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Number of visitors to blog site 47185
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Number of countries 152
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This Sunday ended with an enjoyable and monumental dinner meeting with Sheridan Tatsuno and Leighton Chong at Broadway, an unexpectedly terrific restaurant only a block from the Hyatt. We talked about the Blue Revolution. Someday, this discussion will be remembered as crucial for Planet Earth and Humanity.
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