MemeBox FutureBlogger

10 Questions with SIAI President Michael Vassar

Alvis Brigis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:30:00 +0000

Recently appointed Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) President Michael Vassar, a hardcore proponent of science and reason, emphasizes the importance of "human rationality" when discussing the future, making clear that SIAI is an "analytical think tank and research organization, not an advocacy group". Vassar says he's apprehensive about a "possible decrease in the quality of debate as the [Singularity] goes mainstream" and that he would find a public backlash against intelligent debate of a Singularity "odd".

Enjoy the candid and insightful interview.

FB: What are your main near-term goals at SIAI?

Put on a 2009 summit and establish a regular schedule of summits on alternating coasts and with a regular format.
Develop a body of technical and popular position papers and analysis that reflect our current views.
Develop software to help interested people to explore the future forecasting consequences of a range of assumptions.
Organize, probably with the Future of Humanity Institute, an essay contest in order to identify novel global catastrophic risks deserving of more serious analysis and drawing attention to the idea of rational treatment of catastrophic possibilities.
Reinvent Enlightenment values by building a better forum than currently exists for rational deliberation and cooperative analysis and decision making.
Most critically, as always, identify and train potential friendly AI researchers.

FB: Has the organization undergone any significant strategic or tactical shifts since you assumed the Executive Director position?

MV: Our efforts to develop a rigorous theory of Friendly Artificial Intelligence will continue, but our public outreach efforts will focus less narrowly on AI and more on the Singularity more generally and on promoting human rationality.

Category: Social Issues
Year: 2009
Tags: vassar, michaelvassar, singularity, singularityinstitute, singinst

Are We Destined to Merge With Our Avatars?

Alvis Brigis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:44:19 +0000

Futurist Thomas Frey of the DaVinci Institute has posted a thought-provoking avatar roadmap detailing an increasingly critical and symbiotic relationship between man and this progeny of ours. Frey argues that this increasing reliance on avatar extensions will change our fundamental values, eventually leading to a great blur of humans and avatars.

Frey: With each generation of avatar, they will become more life-like, growing in realism, pressing the limits of autonomy as we become more and more reliant on them for experiencing the world. The avatar will become an extension of ourselves. The pain that we feel is the same pain that they feel, and vice versa. Like symbiotic twins separated only by a dimension or two, we are destined to become one with our avatars.

Is that a fair frame and likely prediction, or are we already indistinguishable from our technology and environment? Are we destined to merge with our avatars? Are we already avatars generated by Gaiia or the Great Simulator(s)?

Category: Technology
Year: General
Tags: avatar, thomasfrey, frey, davinciinstitute

The Singularity Backlash

Alvis Brigis — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:53:54 +0000

With a pair of feature films due for release in 2009, Ray Kurzweil is poised to shotgun the Singularity mega-meme to the mainstrean.

But how will the message and messenger be received? And what effect will Kurzweil's rising star have on associated memes such as accelerating change, transhumanism, extropianism, futurism, AGI and other less extreme Singularity definitions?

If recent Newsweek ("is this the next great leap in human evolution, or just one man's midlife crisis writ large?") and slanted io9 ("the famous futurist's meat brain has made some ludicrously inaccurate predictions") coverage is any indicator, the seeds of a Kurzweil backlash are beginning to sprout -- a social dynamic that probably also extends to technology in general.

Though I'm no proponent of Kurzweil's Strong Singularity school of thought, relegating it to a low-probability event, I do think the man has contributed a great deal to the study of accelerating change and the human condition. I find the aforementioned criticism, and especially the voluminous associated comment threads, superficial and incendiary, not productive. And though I'm not all that surprised about the reaction, I'm a bit worried now that I'm actually witnessing the number of Singularity haters rise, especially because the mentality is likely to extend to the notion of the clearly palpable and verifiable accelerating change occuring in many human-related domains.

Now, if you're going to criticize Kurzweil -- and I think more people should do just that -- it makes more sense to carefully take a go at the definition of the Singularity itself rather than his, frankly, rather safe hardware and computing predictions. But that takes time, commitment to simulating multiple futures, and careful consideration, which means there will be many millions of emotionally anti-tech eager to pan Kurzweil's brand of techno-utopianism and accelerating change rather than engage in rigorous debate.

Like I said, it's not surprising, just scary.

Hopefully the story will end more positively than, say, the tale of Giordano Bruno, advocate of heliocentrism, one of my all-time faves. But alas, if things do turn nasty and all apocalyptic, neo-luddite versus transhuman, then perhaps we'll need Skynet to save us from ourselves after all, thus making Kurzweil's Singularity a twisted self-fulfilling prophecy.

Say it won't be so Ray. Some of us will believe you!

Category: Technology
Year: General
Tags: raykurzweil, kurwzeil, singularity

Wolfram Demos Alpha (VIDEO)

Alvis Brigis — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:34:28 +0000

Wondering what all of the Alpha hype is about? Here's a dense 10-minute video snippet of the official Wolfram Alpha "computational knowledge engine" unveiling, presented by the mathematician himself, at Harvard's Berkman Center.

I found notable:

the label "computational knowledge engine" - reinfirces that we're moving from the information age to the knowledge age (and fairly quickly)
Alpha's ability to factor in the location of the user submitting the request into computation results
results that begin with a list of assumptions that essentially present your query back to you in more technical terms (an advanced "did you mean this?" feature) which seems to make a great deal of sense when relating to machine data/knowledge, it's like having a conversation about science and establishing basic consensus before venturing complex and potentially unrelated ideas
the program's seemingly robust ability to mix data from different sources to return logically related results

Conclusions: Upon launch, Wolfram Alpha will be a science researcher's dream if it can perform as effectively - for a wide range of queries - as it did in this demo. It'll also serve as a nice accelerative kick in the ass for Google. I can't wait to try this new quantification assistant.

Category: Information
Year: 2009
Tags: wolframalpha, computation, knowledge, search, computationalknowledgeengine

IBM Set to Tackle Jeopardy, Pushing Into Qualitative Search?

Alvis Brigis — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:59:22 +0000

Is IBM gearing up to compete with Wolfram Alpha in the computational search game? Maybe. Is IBM gearing to take on the top minds on popular TV game show Jeopardy? Definitely. Check out this video from Big Blue:

Developments such as this have got me thinking about not just the computational search just over the horizon, but also the rise of qualitative search that futurist Paul Saffo mysteriously alluded to in this MemeBox interview.

Category: Technology
Year: 2009
Tags: ibm, jeopardy, saffo, qualitativesearch

Asimo Controlled By Human Thought (Video)

Alvis Brigis — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:05:44 +0000

We've already seen thought-controlled avatars, so it comes as no surprise that robotics represents a new frontier for brain computer interfaces (BCIs). Still, the following video of a human controlling Honda's Asimo via BCI marks a profound socio-technological development, offering a glimpse into the future of work, entertainment and security:

Isn't it interesting that this didn't make its way through national media channels? Just a few years ago human-BCI-controlled robotics would have been perceived as revolutionary.

(this awesome link via The Future is Awesome)

Category: Technology
Year: 2009
Tags: honda, bci, braincontrolinterface, robot, robotics

Astrophysicist Believes We'll Locate "Hundreds of Earth-Like Planets" by 2013

Alvis Brigis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:19:47 +0000

Astrophysicist Alan Boss believes Nasa's Kepler Mission will turn up "hundreds of Earth-like planets", many of which will probably be "inhabited with something."

Considered a leader in the search for planets outside our solar system, Alan Boss says we are at a turning point in our search for extraterrestrial life. He expects we are on the verge of finding many different Earth-like planets across the universe, and he expects it will be common to find life on those planets. He shares his ideas for how the United States can be on the forefront of the next great discovery: life on another planet.

Category: Information
Year: 2013
Tags: kepler, astrophysics, life, extraterrestrial, earth, earths, space, probe

Data Compression Breakthrough Could Accelerate Virtual Worlds, Mirror Worlds, Web TV and Cloud-Based Video Gaming

Alvis Brigis — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:42:53 +0000

It's rare that a broadly disruptive, industry shattering/accelerating technology sneaks up on you, much less everyone else all at the same time. But according to Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat, a Gaming as a Service (GaaS) company called OnLive appears poised to launch services that will enable much more robust applications (the current focus is on video games) to be retrieved from the cloud in real-time.

The secret? A new form of robust digital compression that requires just one megabyte of additional software on the web client end.

For years, decades, data compression has formed a frustrating bottleneck for the development and diffusion of not only rich video games, but also more broadly important communication technologies such as virtual worlds (Second Life, Multiverse, VastPark), mirror worlds (Google Earth, Open Street Map) and high definition streaming Web TV (You Tube HD, Hulu) - just to name a few. A breakthrough in compresssion of this magnitutude (which Takahashi says owes its thanks to the discovery of smarter algorithms) is tantamount to throwing more broadband piping at the web and could result in 1) massive acceleration of VW, MW and WebTV adoption, 2) increases in the resolution of these Cloud-based systems.

Iow, it's a big freaking deal.

DISRUPTIVE POTENTIAL: Stated super-compression could/will quickly put a damper on industries such as thin client web browser development, used video game sales, and non-rich virtual worlds. It could/will quickly enbolden virtual video editing, online collaborative Photoshop, robust distance meetings/conferences/lectures, online video game sales (the main thrust of OnLive's efforts), graphically richer websites, and cloud computing efforts in general.

Category: Technology
Year: 2009

President Obama Kicks Off a New Era of Video Diplomacy

Alvis Brigis — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:06:52 +0000

President Barack Obama's video/web overture to the Iranian people marks not only a strategic shift in U.S. policy toward the country, but also a fundamental change in tactics better-suited for an increasingly connected world.

Now let's see how Iranian leaders Mahmoud Ahmanadinejad and the Ayotollah respond.

Category: Communication
Year: 2009
Tags: video, youtube, obama, barackobama, politics, iran, middleeast, security, message

Cognitive Research Findings May Help Explain Social Brinkmanship

Alvis Brigis — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:06:16 +0000

New cognitive research may help explain why human social systems prefer to push the envelope, creating critical "perfect storm" situations, instead of settling into equilibrium.

If the global social brain is really just a scaled-up version of the individual brain, which in turn can also be viewed as an accelerator of existing bio-computional processes, then we should expect to uncover increasingly more parallels between individual and social cognition. One such candidate is the phenomenon called Self-Organized Criticality, a form of inherent "brinkmanship" routinely found in advancing systems, particularly as they approach phase transitions.

Here's the more robust Wikipedia definition and links:

In physics, self-organized criticality (SOC) is a property of (classes of) dynamical systems critical point as an attractor. Their macroscopic behaviour thus displays the spatial and/or temporal scale-invariance characteristic of the critical point of a phase transition, but without the need to tune control parameters to precise values.

The phenomenon was first identified by Katz in a seminal paper published in 1986 in Journal of Geophysical Research, building on earlier work by Knopoff, and later popularized by Per Bak, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld ("BTW") in a paper published in 1987 in Physical Review Letters, and is considered to be one of the mechanisms by which complexity arises in nature. Its concepts have been enthusiastically applied across fields as diverse as geophysics, physical cosmology, evolutionary biology and ecology, economics, quantum gravity, sociology, solar physics, plasma physics, neurobiology and others.

A new U.K. study confirms that human brains do in fact rely on self-organized criticality for behaviors that may range from perception to action, reports World Science:

The researchers used brain imaging techniques to measure dynamic changes in the synchronization of activity between different regions of the functional network in the human brain. They also investigated the synchronization of activity in computational models, and found that the “dynamic profile” they had identified in the brain was exactly reflected in the models.

Computational networks showing these characteristics have also been shown to have the best memory and information-processing capacity, researchers say: critical systems can respond quickly and extensively to small changes in their inputs.

Category: Science
Year: 2009
Tags: systems, life, selforganizing, selforganizedcriticality

Immersive Data Visualization for Search & Drug Discovery, Green Phosphor Brings Glasshouse to Market

Alvis Brigis — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:59:48 +0000

By helping us to climb the stairs of abstraction, user-friendly immersive data visualization (ie, geospatial data mapping) is poised to become one of the more significant near-term drivers of accelerating human inteligence and economics. Leading the charge is the small but robust company Green Phosphor, core participants in the progressive and under-recognized Second Life DataViz Group, which is laying down the foundations for Matrix-esque search: "I need guns, lots of guns."

Color me impressed by Green Phosphor's newest release, Glasshouse (demo vid below - don't worry, better graphics are on the way), which converts raw binary data into interactive 3d models. As indicated by the hire of a molecular biologist as Chief Scientist, the company is gearing up to monetize by applying this technology to the medical domains such as genomics and drug discovery.

As CEO Ben Lindquist points out, "The immersive 3d environment creates an entirely new paradigm for business intelligence and process modelling." More specifically, I'd argue that it marks a Meta-System Transition, or topsight leap, in our ability to process then interact with a variety of systems.

Category: Information
Year: 2009
Tags: benlindquist, greenphosphor, datavisualization, 3d, sataviz, secondlife, glasshouse

New Kurzweil Documentary Film 'Transcendent Man' To Lead the Singularity Movie Parade

Alvis Brigis — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:09:42 +0000

Edging out the forthcoming Singularity Movie (not to be confused with this web version), here comes Transcendent Man, a new documentary film that portrays Ray Kurzweil and his vision of a, well, transcendent future for mankind. The film appears to be packed with star-power and will debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC this April. The trailer below indicates 1) a focus on universal human transcension (a positive expansion of human perspective, imho), and 2) an attempt at objective framing by allowing in some critical voices, but none of the heavy hitters - appears to be mostly straw men. While I am optimistic the film will represent a socially necessary forward push of philosophical futurism, many futurists and I will ultimately judge this work on its analytical and objective qualities. That said, I'm hoping it delivers and eagerly await its broader release (probably via a cable network).

Some choice excerpts from the producer's press release:

Category: Entertainment
Year: 2009
Tags: kurzweil, transcendentman, transcension, transcend, singularity, singularitymovie, movie, film, doc, documentary

Is Google's Interest-Based Advertising Push a Positive Development in the Social Graph Wars?

Alvis Brigis — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:39:30 +0000

Google's announcement that they are now openly beta-testing "interest-based advertising" confirms that the near-term future of web advertising will involve tapping into your behavior and interest graph.

From the Official Google Blog:

To date, we have shown ads based mainly on what your interests are at a specific moment. So if you search for [digital camera] on Google, you'll get ads related to digital cameras. ... We think we can make online advertising even more relevant and useful by using additional information about the websites people visit. Today we are launching "interest-based" advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest — say sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.

There is no doubt that this will make for a more interesting and valuable advertising experience, while also boosting Google's bottom line by cutting out advertising inefficiencies. It is also clear that allowing Google to pair your behavioral data with your ad click data will open up a new frontier of behavioral data mining that will further fuel the Google system and lead to additional advances in search, understanding online behavioral modes, and advertising strategies.

Of course, the inexorable move to personal data integration (Facebook and Twitter are hard at work on similar initiatives and will be the next to jump into the data+search game - credit card, shopping club, and survey companies have been doing this for years) into one big-ass socio-behavioral graph pushes to the forefront a host of privacy, transparency, data control, and general social issues/questions that have been mustering force.

What does Google have to say about this?

Category: Information
Year: 2009
Tags: advertising, ads, google, adsense, socialgraph, interestbasedadvertising

Singularity University Curriculum Suggestions (Running List)

Alvis Brigis — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:53:00 +0000

Stating a lack of social focus as a fundamental problem, I recently joined the ranks of those critiquing the tentative Singularity University (SU) curriculum. I found (and still do) the proposed courses to be too hard-tech centric, which is often a critique I level at singularitarians and transhumanists who often seem to project their current selves into a post-Singularity future, thus impairing the visioning of how we get there.

At the same time, I want to clarify that though I do agree with the crux of Jamais Cascio's argument that, "A useful Singularity University ... would be one that dove deeply into the nature of disruption, how society and technology co-evolve, and how we deal with unintended and unanticipated results of our choices," I believe his suggested curriculum goes too far in that it does amount to a "social studies/liberal arts crash course with a future twist" as Brian Wang pointed out in the discussion thread. It's not the sort of thing that will appeal to economic movers and shakers.

Still, I strongly disagree with Wang's assertion that, "The politics, ethics and social matters do have their place but as part of a TED conference or a conference specifically on the risks and issues. Trying to force feed it in this kind of program will not work." My issue being that I believe politics, ethics and social matters to be part of convergent acceleration.

The emphasis needs to be on the manner in which all of these technologies, trends, and issues fit together. (Please follow below the fold for Proposed Curriculum.)

Category: Information
Year: 2009

Will the Next Google be a Prosumer-Based Quantification Company?

Alvis Brigis — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:38:00 +0000

To scale and dominate as quickly as Google has, a new company will need to generate serious end-user value, monetize effecively, and take a new web-based approach to human resources. One such structure might be an organization specializing in prosumer-based quantification (structured crowd-sourced info mining) that can expand and contract quickly by paying citizen quantifiers for quality content that they input (think adsense, but more structured and directed from the outset). I imagine that this sort of company could catalyze big, fast economic growth and play an important role in generating positive-sum network value as we move further into the acceleration era.

To get the discussion of such a possibility rolling here's a speculative timeline of such a company (2011-2015) that I've cleverly dubbed "Quantification Company":

2011 - Launch: A logical outgrowth of flash mobs, open mapping parties, and steadily rising prosumerism, the Quantification Company (QC) was created in 2011 with the mission of "organizing and accelerating the comprehensive quantification of Earth's most valued systems." The for-profit organization relied on a small core of programmers, salespeople and community managers to catalyze quantification cascades, better known as Data Swarms, for a large variety of clients, but mostly municipalities and large corporations. Early efforts were kept simple and focused mostly on the rapid and/or real-time HD video mapping of U.S. cities, national parks, and other under-quantified areas of interest. Traffic-based fees were paid out to citizen quantifiers who captured and uploaded the best geographic footage and/or commentary. Though they were slightly nervous at the ambition and direction of the QC, competitors like Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia were happy to see traffic and content flow through their systems.

Category: Information
Year: 2015
Tags: quant, quantification, quantify, nextgoogle, google, information

RFID for Identity Documents May Not Fly in the Future

Alvis Brigis — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:50:00 +0000

White/Grey-hat hacker Chris Paget demonstrates a $250 mobile device that can read and clone RFID tags embedded in United States passport cards and enhanced drivers' licenses.

As I often remind readers, accelerating technology cuts both ways and forces us to bolster our info-immune system.

(via The Register)

Category: Gadgets
Year: 2009
Tags: rfid, rfidtags, rfidtag, hacker, whitehathacker, greyhathacker, whitehat, greyhat, hacking, hack, security

2.7 Inch Cubic Projector Hits Market in Japan

Alvis Brigis — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:22:00 +0000

The latest intriguing mini-projector to hit store shelves (in Japan) is a small cubic, 25 ANSI Lumen LED called the Miseal. Manufactured by little-know Japanese comapny Sanko, the device is just 2.7in. x 2.7in. x 2.8in. and weighs just over half a pound.

Sporting a 100:1 contrast ratio, 800x600 SVGA resolution and ability to cast an image up to 16ft. away at a diagonal width of 70in, the Miseal packs a serious punch for something of such wee size.

Category: Technology
Year: 2009
Tags: sanko, projector, miniprojector, projection, lc

Asocial Singularitarianism - Breeding an Incomplete View of Convergent Accelerating Change

Alvis Brigis — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:53:00 +0000

The now-publicized curriculum of Ray Kurzweil's newly launched Singularity University (SU), a very necessary institution that aims to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges", yet again reveals what I have come to call the Transhumanist Ego Bias (TEB), which results in the Hard-Tech Attribution Error (HTAE) that Jamais Cascio so eloquently describes in his Flunking Out SU critique.

Transhumanist Ego Bias: The TEB is a tendency among transhumanists to force their objective vision of the future to fit with their subjective expectation of the future. Many of the futurists and outright transhumanists that I have come to know and respect over the years suffer from this. (I too came down with it for a spell when I first encountered the awesome power of Moore's Law and other hard-tech diffusion curves.) It's as if they 1) expect the future to create a magical utopia into which they project their unchanged present-day personalities, 2) can't or don't want to credit the dumb masses (their detractors) with the ability to perform amazing operations (social computation) critical to acceleration, and/or 3) are so focused on the post-human age / life-extending digitization that they fail to adequately consider what it will take to get there.

Hard-Tech Attribution Error: It's no accident that brainiac, hardware-focused, early-adopter types who formulated their core outlook prior to the explosion of social media structures like Facebook, Wikipedia and Digg tend to focus on the "hard" sciences in lieu of recently blooming areas such as group intelligence, emotional intelligence, coordination, and communication. The social side of the equation is not as obvious to those that haven't studied it closely, lived it or worked in fields that rely on social networks to make a living. The result is that the social component of acceleration (despite a few courtesy nods to Intelligence Amplification [IA] over the years) is seriously undervalued as a driver.

Category: Technology
Year: 2009
Tags: singularity, singularityuniversity, singularityu, kurzweil, raykurzweil, singularityisnear

Pipl.com is the Best Free Background Check Online, Another Blip on the Retro-Quant Radar

Alvis Brigis — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:49:00 +0000

Pipl.com is a new biographical search engine that actually works.

The secret? In addition to doing a good job with the search basics, Pipl also returns results from what it calls "the deep web", "a vast repository of underlying content, such as documents in online databases that general-purpose web crawlers cannot reach."

According to a study conducted by the Journal of Electronic Publishing, "public information on the deep Web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined World Wide Web."

A quick search on Pipl does indeed return results from this new search frontier, making the new product a truly useful tool. Just see for yourself.

This successful application of course prompts a whole set of questions about the future of seach, such as:

How deep does the deep web really go? (Deep - quickly getting much deeper.)
How fast will Pipl grow? (Fast.)
Is Google working on similar projects. (Yes, and also expanding the deep web.)
Who will buy it? (Microsoft, Yahoo.)
Will Pipl change web culture by making personal data more accessible? (Yes. It's already the best free background check online and will make people nervous about their social network profiles and decade-OLD data.)

Category: Information
Year: 2009
Tags: pipl, piplcom, peoplesearch

Google Earth Adds Virtual Time Travel, Moves a Step Closer to Gelernter's Mirror World Vision

Alvis Brigis — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:02:00 +0000

Not only did Google add an ocean to its Earth platform today, the company also enabled "Historical Imagery", a new feature that brings to life a crude version of what Yale computer scientist David Gelernter's 1992 prediction of the planet on a “time toggle”.

The Google Blog: Until today, Google Earth displayed only one image of a given place at a given time. With this new feature, you can now move back and forth in time to reveal imagery from years and even decades past, revealing changes over time. Try flying south of San Francisco in Google Earth and turning on the new time slider (click the "clock" icon in the toolbar) to witness the transformation of Silicon Valley from a farming community to the tech capital of the world over the past 50 years or so.

Along with a new 3d Mars feature, the additions have increased the scope and resolution of the largest publicly accessible simulation of our physical system, thus expanding the Google's information scaffolding and future monetization opportunities through an increasingly valuable Mirror World.

The new features also reinforce the notion of a rapidly growing retro-quantification industry rooted in our social desire to achieve topsight over space and time. A resource that quickly allows people to surf physical history is obviously critical to bettering our view of reality and thus improving the efficiency of our economic behavior.

Category: Information
Year: 2009
Tags: google, goog, googleearth, earth, simulation, globe, ocean, history, retroquant, retroactivequantification