Among gamers, Deus Ex is something of a legendary fusion of disparate gaming styles. Among science fiction buffs, Deus Ex is lauded for managing to take two awesome genres, William Gibson-esque cyberpunk and Robert Anton Wilson-level conspiracy theories, and jam them together into an immanentizing of the eschaton unlike anything you’ve seen since Doktor Sleepless. And among transhumanists, Deus Ex brought up every issue of humanity’s fusion with technology one could imagine. It is a rich video game.
So when Square Enix decided to pick up the reins from Eidos and create a new installment in the series, Deus Ex: Human Revolution (DX:HR), I was quite excited. The first indication DX:HR was not going to be a crummy exploitation of the original’s success (see: Deus Ex 2: Invisible War), was the teaser trailer, shown above. Normally, a teaser trailer is just music and a slow build to a logo or single image that lets you know the game is coming out. Instead, the development team decided to demonstrate that it was taking the philosophy of the game seriously.
What philosophy? you might ask. Why transhumanism, of course. Nick Bostrom, chair of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, centers the birth of transhumanism in the Renaissance and the Age of the Enlightenment in his article “A History of Transhumanist Thought” [pdf]. The visuals of the teaser harken to Renaissance imagery (such as the Da Vinci style drawings) and the teaser ends with a Nietzschean quote “Who we are is but a stepping stone to what we can become.” Later trailers would reference Icarus and Daedalus (who also happened to be the names of AI constructs in the original game), addressing the all-too-common fear that by pursuing technology, we are pursuing our own destruction. This narrative thread has become the central point of conflict in DX:HR. Even its viral ad campaign has been told through two lenses: that of Sarif Industries, maker of prosthetic bodies that change lives, and that of Purity First, a protest group that opposes human augmentation. The question is: upon which part of our shared humanity do we step as we climb to greater heights?
Read rest of original article here
Showing posts with label Futurists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Futurists. Show all posts
August 14, 2011
August 3, 2011
Trends that’ll change the world in 10 years
Sensor networks, 3D printers, virtual humans and other technologies under development will drastically change our world in the decade to come, according to Cisco chief futurist and chief technologist Dave Evans
Virtual species
Virtual humans, both physical (robots) and online avatars will be added to the workforce. By 2020, robots will be physically superior to humans. IBM’s Blue Brain project, for instance, is a 10-year mission to create a human brain using hardware and software.
“They believe that within a decade they’ll start to see consciousness emerge with this brain,” Evans says. By 2025, the robot population will surpass the number of humans in the developed world. By 2032, robots will be mentally superior to humans. And by 2035, robots could completely replace humans in the workforce. Beyond that is the creation of sophisticated avatars.
Evans points to IBM’s Watson as a template for the virtual human. Watson was able to answer a question by returning a single, accurate result. A patient may use a virtual machine instead of a WebMD search. Or hospitals can augment patient care with virtual machines. Augmented reality and gesture-based computing will enter our classrooms, medical facilities and communications, and transform them as well.
The Internet Of Things
We have passed the threshold where more things than people are connected to the Net. The transition to IPv6 supports limitless connectivity. By 2020, there will be more than six Net-linked devices for every person on Earth. Currently, most of us are connected to Net full-time through three or more devices like PC, phones, TV etc. Next up are sensor networks, using low-power sensors that “collect, transmit, analyze and distribute data on a massive scale,” says Evans.
An ‘Internet of things’ means that everything from electronic dust motes to “connected shoes” to household appliances can be connected to a network and assigned an IP address. Sensors are being embedded in shoes, asthma inhalers, and surgery devices. There’s even a tree in Sweden wired with sensors that tweets its mood and thoughts, with a bit of translation help from an interpretive engine developed by Ericsson (@connectedtree or #ectree).
Quantum networking
Connectivity will continue to evolve, Evans predicts, and networks of tomorrow will be orders of magnitude faster than they are today. The network connectivity 10 years from now will see improvement by 30 lakh times.
Multi-terabit networks using lasers are being explored. And early work is happening on a concept called “quantum networking” based on quantum physics. This involves “quantum entanglement” in which two particles are entangled after which they can be separated by any distance, and when one is changed, the other also changes instantly. Production, though, is not imminent.
Zettabyte Era
By 2015, one zettabyte of data will flow over the Internet. One zettabyte equals stack of books from Earth to Pluto 20 times. “This is the same as every person on Earth tweeting for 100 years, or 125 million years of your favourite one-hour TV show,” says Evans. Our love of high-definition video accounts for much of the increase. By Cisco’s count, 91% of Internet data in 2015 will be video.
And what’s more, he said, the data itself is becoming richer, with every surface — from tables to signs — becoming a digital display, and images evolving from megapixel, to gigapixel, to terapixel definition. So, the so-called “zettaflood” will require vastly improved networks to move more data, and not drop the ball (or the packets) of our beloved video.
Adaptive technology
Technology is finally adapting to us. Evans cites image recognition, puzzle resolution, augmented reality and gesture-based computing as key examples of such technologies.
A technology called 3D printing will allow us to instantly manufacture any physical item, from food to bicycles, using printer technology. Through 3D printing, people in the future will download things as easily as they download music.
“3D printing is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer,” says Evans, adding: “It is not far that we will be able to print human organs.” In March, Dr Anthony Atala from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine printed a proof-of-concept kidney mold onstage at TED. It was not living tissue, but the point was well-made.
A better you
“We think nothing of using pacemakers,” Evans points out. In the next 10 years, medical technologies will grow vastly more sophisticated as computing power becomes available in smaller forms. Devices like nanobots and the ability to grow replacement organs from our own tissues will be the norm. “The ultimate integration may be brain-machine interfaces that eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries to live normal lives,” he says.
Today we have mind-controlled video games and wheelchairs, software by Intel that can scan the brain and tell what you are thinking and tools that can actually predict what you are going to do before you do it.
Cloud computing
By 2020, one-third of all data will live in or pass through the cloud. IT spending on innovation and cloud computing could top $1 trillion by 2014.
Right now, the voice search on an Android phone sends the query to Google cloud to decipher and return results. “We’ll see more intelligence built into communication. Things like contextual and location-based information.”
With an always-connected device, the network can be more granular with presence information, tapping into a personal sensor to know that a person’s asleep, and route an incoming call to voicemail. Or knowing that person is traveling at 60 mph in a car, and that this is not the time for a video call.
Power of Power
How are all networked devices going to be powered, and who or what is going to power them? The answer, says Evans, lies in small things. Solar arrays will become increasingly important.
Technologies to make this more economically pragmatic are on their way. Sandia produces solar cells with 100 times less material/same efficiency. MIT technology allows windows to generate power without blocking view.
Inkjet printer produces solar cells with 90 per cent decrease in waste at significantly lower costs. Anything that generates or needs energy, Evans says, will be connected to or managed by an intelligent network.
World Is Flat
The ability of people to connect with each other all around the world, within seconds, via social media isn’t just a social phenomenon, Evans says it’s a flattening out of who has access to technology. He cited the example of Wael Ghonim, the Middle East-based Google engineer whose Facebook page, “We are all Khaled Saeed,” was a spark in the Egyptian uprising and one of the key events of the Arab Spring.
A smaller world also means faster information dissemination. The capture, dissemination and consumption of events are going from “near time” to “real time.” This in turn will drive more rapid influence among cultures.
Self-designed evolution
March 2010: Retina implant restores vision to blind patients.
April 2010: Trial of artificial pancreas starts
June 2011: Spinning heart (no pulse, no clogs and no breakdowns) developed.
Stephen Hawking says, “Humans are entering a stage of self-designed evolution.”
Taking the medical technology idea to the next level, healthy humans will be given the tools to augment themselves. While the early use of these technologies will be to repair unhealthy tissue or fix the consequences of brain injury, eventually designer enhancements will be available to all.
Ultimately, humans will use so much technology to mend, improve or enhance our bodies, that we will become Cyborgs. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is pioneering this idea with a concept he calls singularity, the point at which man and machine merge and become a new species. (Kurzweil says this will happen by 2054).
—Compiled by Beena Kuruvilla
Virtual species
Virtual humans, both physical (robots) and online avatars will be added to the workforce. By 2020, robots will be physically superior to humans. IBM’s Blue Brain project, for instance, is a 10-year mission to create a human brain using hardware and software. “They believe that within a decade they’ll start to see consciousness emerge with this brain,” Evans says. By 2025, the robot population will surpass the number of humans in the developed world. By 2032, robots will be mentally superior to humans. And by 2035, robots could completely replace humans in the workforce. Beyond that is the creation of sophisticated avatars.
Evans points to IBM’s Watson as a template for the virtual human. Watson was able to answer a question by returning a single, accurate result. A patient may use a virtual machine instead of a WebMD search. Or hospitals can augment patient care with virtual machines. Augmented reality and gesture-based computing will enter our classrooms, medical facilities and communications, and transform them as well.
The Internet Of Things
We have passed the threshold where more things than people are connected to the Net. The transition to IPv6 supports limitless connectivity. By 2020, there will be more than six Net-linked devices for every person on Earth. Currently, most of us are connected to Net full-time through three or more devices like PC, phones, TV etc. Next up are sensor networks, using low-power sensors that “collect, transmit, analyze and distribute data on a massive scale,” says Evans.An ‘Internet of things’ means that everything from electronic dust motes to “connected shoes” to household appliances can be connected to a network and assigned an IP address. Sensors are being embedded in shoes, asthma inhalers, and surgery devices. There’s even a tree in Sweden wired with sensors that tweets its mood and thoughts, with a bit of translation help from an interpretive engine developed by Ericsson (@connectedtree or #ectree).
Quantum networking
Connectivity will continue to evolve, Evans predicts, and networks of tomorrow will be orders of magnitude faster than they are today. The network connectivity 10 years from now will see improvement by 30 lakh times.
Multi-terabit networks using lasers are being explored. And early work is happening on a concept called “quantum networking” based on quantum physics. This involves “quantum entanglement” in which two particles are entangled after which they can be separated by any distance, and when one is changed, the other also changes instantly. Production, though, is not imminent.
Zettabyte Era
By 2015, one zettabyte of data will flow over the Internet. One zettabyte equals stack of books from Earth to Pluto 20 times. “This is the same as every person on Earth tweeting for 100 years, or 125 million years of your favourite one-hour TV show,” says Evans. Our love of high-definition video accounts for much of the increase. By Cisco’s count, 91% of Internet data in 2015 will be video.And what’s more, he said, the data itself is becoming richer, with every surface — from tables to signs — becoming a digital display, and images evolving from megapixel, to gigapixel, to terapixel definition. So, the so-called “zettaflood” will require vastly improved networks to move more data, and not drop the ball (or the packets) of our beloved video.
Adaptive technology
Technology is finally adapting to us. Evans cites image recognition, puzzle resolution, augmented reality and gesture-based computing as key examples of such technologies.A technology called 3D printing will allow us to instantly manufacture any physical item, from food to bicycles, using printer technology. Through 3D printing, people in the future will download things as easily as they download music.
“3D printing is the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer,” says Evans, adding: “It is not far that we will be able to print human organs.” In March, Dr Anthony Atala from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine printed a proof-of-concept kidney mold onstage at TED. It was not living tissue, but the point was well-made.
A better you
“We think nothing of using pacemakers,” Evans points out. In the next 10 years, medical technologies will grow vastly more sophisticated as computing power becomes available in smaller forms. Devices like nanobots and the ability to grow replacement organs from our own tissues will be the norm. “The ultimate integration may be brain-machine interfaces that eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries to live normal lives,” he says.
Today we have mind-controlled video games and wheelchairs, software by Intel that can scan the brain and tell what you are thinking and tools that can actually predict what you are going to do before you do it.
Cloud computing
By 2020, one-third of all data will live in or pass through the cloud. IT spending on innovation and cloud computing could top $1 trillion by 2014. Right now, the voice search on an Android phone sends the query to Google cloud to decipher and return results. “We’ll see more intelligence built into communication. Things like contextual and location-based information.”
With an always-connected device, the network can be more granular with presence information, tapping into a personal sensor to know that a person’s asleep, and route an incoming call to voicemail. Or knowing that person is traveling at 60 mph in a car, and that this is not the time for a video call.
Power of Power
How are all networked devices going to be powered, and who or what is going to power them? The answer, says Evans, lies in small things. Solar arrays will become increasingly important. Technologies to make this more economically pragmatic are on their way. Sandia produces solar cells with 100 times less material/same efficiency. MIT technology allows windows to generate power without blocking view.
Inkjet printer produces solar cells with 90 per cent decrease in waste at significantly lower costs. Anything that generates or needs energy, Evans says, will be connected to or managed by an intelligent network.
World Is Flat
The ability of people to connect with each other all around the world, within seconds, via social media isn’t just a social phenomenon, Evans says it’s a flattening out of who has access to technology. He cited the example of Wael Ghonim, the Middle East-based Google engineer whose Facebook page, “We are all Khaled Saeed,” was a spark in the Egyptian uprising and one of the key events of the Arab Spring.A smaller world also means faster information dissemination. The capture, dissemination and consumption of events are going from “near time” to “real time.” This in turn will drive more rapid influence among cultures.
Self-designed evolution
March 2010: Retina implant restores vision to blind patients.April 2010: Trial of artificial pancreas starts
June 2011: Spinning heart (no pulse, no clogs and no breakdowns) developed.
Stephen Hawking says, “Humans are entering a stage of self-designed evolution.”
Taking the medical technology idea to the next level, healthy humans will be given the tools to augment themselves. While the early use of these technologies will be to repair unhealthy tissue or fix the consequences of brain injury, eventually designer enhancements will be available to all.
Ultimately, humans will use so much technology to mend, improve or enhance our bodies, that we will become Cyborgs. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is pioneering this idea with a concept he calls singularity, the point at which man and machine merge and become a new species. (Kurzweil says this will happen by 2054).
—Compiled by Beena Kuruvilla
January 19, 2011
Transcendent Man Available at LAST!!!!!!!!!
Otherwise you can buy the DVD version of Transcendent Man
at amazon.
October 1, 2009
'2B - The Era of Flesh is Over' film to premiere at Woodstock Film Festival Friday
"2B - The Era of Flesh is Over," a science-fiction film set in the near future, will have its world premiere at the 10th anniversary Woodstock Film Festival in Woodstock, NY on Friday, Oct. 2, 2009.
A panel discussion, "Redesigning Humanity -- The New Frontier," moderated by bioethicist James J. Hughes, including Ray Kurzweil, 2B film executive producer Martine Rothblatt, and author Wendell Wallach and streamed live, will explore how AI, nanotech, genetic engineering and other technologies will allow human beings to transcend the limitations of the body and fundamentally change the world over the coming 50 years.
2B portrays a decaying world on the cusp of great transformation. When the world's first transhuman is created by a renegade corporate CEO and bioscientist, the foundations of society's beliefs are threatened in a transhuman world where man merges with technology.
KurzweilAI.net, Oct. 1, 2009
A panel discussion, "Redesigning Humanity -- The New Frontier," moderated by bioethicist James J. Hughes, including Ray Kurzweil, 2B film executive producer Martine Rothblatt, and author Wendell Wallach and streamed live, will explore how AI, nanotech, genetic engineering and other technologies will allow human beings to transcend the limitations of the body and fundamentally change the world over the coming 50 years.
2B portrays a decaying world on the cusp of great transformation. When the world's first transhuman is created by a renegade corporate CEO and bioscientist, the foundations of society's beliefs are threatened in a transhuman world where man merges with technology.
KurzweilAI.net, Oct. 1, 2009
September 28, 2009
The Reality of Robot Surrogates
How far are we from sending robots into the world in our stead?
Imagine a world where you're stronger, younger, better looking, and don't age. Well, you do, but your robot surrogate—which you control with your mind from a recliner at home while it does your bidding in the world—doesn't.It's a bit like The Matrix, but instead of a computer-generated avatar in a graphics-based illusion, in Surrogates—which opens Friday and stars Bruce Willis—you have a real titanium-and-fluid copy impersonating your flesh and blood and running around under your mental control. Other recent films have used similar concepts to ponder issues like outsourced virtual labor (Sleep Dealer) and incarceration (Gamer).
The real technology behind such fantastical fiction is grounded both in far-out research and practical robotics. So how far away is a world of mind-controlled personal automatons?
"We're getting there, but it will be quite a while before we have anything that looks like Bruce Willis," says Trevor Blackwell, the founder and CEO of Anybots, a robotics company in Mountain View, Calif., that builds "telepresence" robots controlled remotely like the ones in Surrogates.
Telepresence is action at a distance, or the projection of presence where you physically aren't. Technically, phoning in to your weekly staff meeting is a form of telepresence. So is joysticking a robot up to a suspected IED in Iraq so a soldier can investigate the scene while sitting in the (relative) safety of an armored vehicle.
Researchers are testing brain-machine interfaces on rats and monkeys that would let the animals directly control a robot, but so far the telepresence interfaces at work in the real world are physical. Through wireless Internet connections, video cameras, joysticks, and sometimes audio, humans move robots around at the office, in the operating room, underwater, on the battlefield, and on Mars.
A recent study by NextGen Research, a market research firm, projects that in the next five years, telepresence will become a significant feature of the US $1.16 billion personal robotics market, meaning robots for you or your home.
According to the study's project manager, Larry Fisher, telepresence "makes the most sense" for security and surveillance robots that would be used to check up on pets or family members from far away. Such robots could also allow health-care professionals to monitor elderly people taking medication at home to ensure the dosage and routine are correct.
Right now, most commercial teleoperated robots are just mobile webcams with speakers, according to NextGen. They can be programmed to roam a set path, or they can be controlled over the Internet by an operator. iRobot, the maker of the Roomba floor cleaner, canceled its telepresence robot, ConnectR, in January, choosing to wait until such a robot would be easier to use. But plenty of companies, such as Meccano/Erector and WowWee, are marketing personal telepresence bots.
Blackwell's Anybots, for example, has developed an office stand-in called QA. It's a Wi-Fi enabled, vaguely body-shaped wheeled robot with an ET-looking head that has cameras for eyes and a display in its chest that shows an image of the person it's standing in for. You can slap on virtual-reality goggles, sensor gloves, and a backpack of electronics to link to it over the Internet for an immersive telepresence experience. Or you can just connect to the robot through your laptop's browser.
For the rest of the article go to ieee spectrum
Original article posted by Anne-Marie Corley // September 2009
August 28, 2009
Singularity University graduates solutions for the future
The inaugural graduates of Singularity University, a Silicon Valley school backed by NASA, Google Inc., and tech industry luminaries like Ray Kurzweil, unveiled their grand visions on Thursday for leveraging emerging technologies to solve humanity's great challenges.
Before a filled conference room at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, the students faced the dual pressures of presenting what were both final class projects for the faculty on hand, as well as business pitches to the venture capitalists and business leaders in attendance. Most, if not all, of the four teams hope to secure the funding necessary to transform their ideas into viable ventures.
The stated mission of the unaccredited university, founded in 2008, is to foster leaders who will build on rapid advances in and convergence across areas like biotechnology, supercomputing, nanotechnology and robotics to address intractable problems.
"It is only the scale of these exponentially growing technologies that has the ability to address the major challenges of humanity, whether it's energy and the environment, or poverty and disease," said Kurzweil, a renowned futurist and author of "The Singularity Is Near."
During the nine-week interdisciplinary graduate studies program, the 40 students were asked to develop projects that could help 1 billion people within 10 years. The individuals divided themselves into four teams focused on different challenges.
Four teams
Team Xidar Global Disaster Response developed new systems to facilitate communications in the aftermath of a disaster, including smart phone applications that provide GPS-based evacuation guidance or relay vital signs from "eTriage" bracelets.
"We're calling for an entirely new communication architecture," said Christian Tom, 22, who recently graduated from Stanford.
Lest it all seem pie in the sky, he noted the team members are in the process of incorporating a company and applying for patents.
Team Domus 3D Printing presented a plan to scale up advances in 3-D printing technologies, already employed to create miniature prototypes of buildings and consumer products, to create the actual components of affordable housing from materials like cement or polymers.
Team One Global Voice devised a text message-based information sharing system that enables marketplaces, job boards and other means of accelerating economic development in developing countries.
Finally, Team Gettaround proposed an "intelligent transportation grid" that would make vehicle use safer and more efficient by using censors and cell phones to provide real-time travel updates, enabling owners to rent their autos when they're not using them and, eventually, taking advantage of "autonomous" or self-driving vehicles.
40 top students
The 40 students - some recent college graduates, some the chief executives of existing companies - were accepted into the course from a field of more than a thousand applicants. Their bios are rife with advanced degrees from Harvard, MIT, Stanford and the like.
The university's board of trustees include: Kurzweil; Peter Diamandis, CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, which awards multimillion-dollar prizes to organizations that achieve breakthroughs in genomics, energy, medicine and other fields; and Robert Richards, the founder of Odyssey Moon Ltd., which is attempting to commercialize trips to the moon.
Subsequent graduate programs at Singularity University will include around 120 students. Tuition is $25,000. The school is also gearing up to offer three- and nine-day executive programs, limited to 25 and 50 individuals, respectively.
Margo Lipstin, 23, a Team Domus member who studied the ethics of science at Stanford, said she was drawn to Singularity University because of its emphasis on real life applications. Technology is developing so rapidly and changing the world so dramatically that it's no longer possible to separate ideas from practice, she said.
"The theories are very powerful and we need to understand what values they espouse, and what is the vision for the world we're trying to reach with them," she said.
E-mail James Temple at jtemple@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
August 24, 2009
TRANSCENDENT MAN torrent
Over the last couple months i've recieved several emails from people searching for a copy of the documentary featuring ray kurzweil called "Transcendent man". So what i will do is update the information as it comes. The film was screened at the tribeca film festival and is still in the theaters. You can find out where its being screened at the official transcendent man site. There is also a preview and some pics at this site.
I have been scouring the net daily for a downloadable version of the film for sale or for free and will update my blog with the link to the site when it becomes available. I usually update this blog at least every week or so as soon as i find it you will be able to find it. The other option is to sign up to my email list to the left of this post and you will receive the link for download instantly 100% free or catch me on twitter where i will also be updating my progress in finding the transcendent man torrent.
Senior Editor
Jsun
Update:
The torrent is now available. Click on the transcendent man image to the left of this post to get it for free as well as other Ray Kurzweil freebies.
I have been scouring the net daily for a downloadable version of the film for sale or for free and will update my blog with the link to the site when it becomes available. I usually update this blog at least every week or so as soon as i find it you will be able to find it. The other option is to sign up to my email list to the left of this post and you will receive the link for download instantly 100% free or catch me on twitter where i will also be updating my progress in finding the transcendent man torrent.
Senior Editor
Jsun
Update:
The torrent is now available. Click on the transcendent man image to the left of this post to get it for free as well as other Ray Kurzweil freebies.
August 17, 2009
FastForward Radio -- The Technological Singularity
The Speculist, Aug. 17, 2009
Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon will interview Ray Kurzweil Tuesday evening on FastForward Radio at 10:30 Eastern/7:30 Pacific, with audience participation by text chat.
June 9, 2009
Keep Your Mind’s Eye on Cybernetics
Imagine sitting in your home and being able to control a device in a different room, a different city or even a different country by thought alone. Sounds impossible doesn’t it? Well, accordingly to this fascinating article from Popular Mechanics, advances in the field of cybernetics are occurring so rapidly that such things may be possible in the not-too-distant future.
Consider this: a monkey in North Carolina can already send a signal to Japan (where it controls a robot) faster than it can send a message from its brain to its own muscles. One immediate practical application of this technology may occur in the field of surgery whereby a surgeon could control a small robotic device faster and more precisely than she could move her hand. In a field like brain surgery such a distinction could make a big difference.
It will be some time before other cybernetic devices move into the mainstream, but it is interesting to consider how such mind-machine devices may change how we perceive and interact with our environment in the future. For example, imagine being able to control a robot by thought alone. Forget to feed your dog this morning, just “think” your bot to do it. Forget to water the plants or turn off the iron? Not a problem. A solution is just a thought away.
Other potential uses, of course, go well beyond these pedantic applications; but it is worth thinking about these things because as the Popular Mechanics articles suggests “the big breaks [in the field of cybernetic] can come faster than expected.” And, as Louis Pasteur, famously said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” This will be especially true when the mind can control things better and faster than the body can react.
May 27, 2009
Evolving AI: Review of "The Allure of Machinic Life"
The Allure of Machinic Life: Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI
In this book Jon Johnston has been able to break down complex ideas from scientific publications to a readable version. Jon examines new types of nascent/undeveloped life that come about as a result of technical interactions within human-constructed environments. He starts off by showing how machines came about, how they operate and how they are evolving.
Using these facts as the starting point for his theories on "computational assemblage" and how current research programs on evolution of digital organisms, evolving ai, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems he shows Strong AI will be the result of progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works.
I think the most unique ideas of the book are on how Artifical intelligence and Artifical life converge as well as his take on humanistic theory. It has a very comprehensive area on the history of cybernetics and its most notable proponents.
May 8, 2009
Five futurist visionaries and what they got right
New Scientist profiles five of the most interesting future-movers and shapers: Vernor Vinge, Walt Disney, H. G. Wells, The Club of Rome, and Alvin Toffler.
Click here for original article
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