Can the Singularity Save Us From Ourselves?

May 22 2008 / by AlFin

The abstract concept of a Technological Singularity (TS) was made most famous in the recent past by inventor Ray Kurzweil. The concept has several overlapping meanings, but I like George Dvorsky’s definition best: The Singularity is a blindspot in our predictive thinking.

Humans are only evolved primates-monkeys and apes-with a limited conceptual vocabulary. We are easily impressed by our technological accomplishments. In networked opportunity societies, creative and inventive persons are able to feed off each others’ ideas so that during periods of economic surplus, the pace of innovation will take off. In dark ages, totalitarian societies where information is compartmentalized and otherwise restricted, innovation slows.

The Singularity is most often seen as a threshold into ever-accelerating change precipitated by the development of a machine intelligence with the ability to design its own cognitive enhancement -something of a runaway positive feedback cognitive entity. This development is often referred to as the “tipping point,” the point of no return.

The more sanguine examiners of the tech singularity concept are less likely to see The Singularity as inevitable. Many developments within society and government could short-circuit The Singularity, sending into terminal mode. Imagine a world government ruled by a Vladimir Putin, Josef Stalin, or Mao. Imagine world science, academia, media, and governance being taken over by dysfunctional post-modernist irrationality. Imagine the default human society-stratification by wealth, knowledge, power, and a profound inertial resistance to change. (cont.)

May 22 2008 / by Alvis

Google lost nearly 5% of its market value yesterday when Microsoft announced that it will begin offering rebates to consumers who use its Live Search to discover and purchase products. The action marks the beginning of a new phase in the online battle for our attention which will gradually return more and more value to the user.

It is significant and a bit surprising that Microsoft, a company known for squeezing every last bit of value out of its dominant position in operating systems, and not Google (which is using a very similar tactic vs. Wikipedia by creating a competitor, Knol, that returns ad revenue to contributors)is leading the charge to return capital to its users. Though I’m sure Google has similar options readily available (having so much familiarity with revenue splitting via its AdSense program and development of Knol) this goes to show the company is confident in its ongoing development of search and content to react to Microsoft’s moves and let the market do the talking.

The Main Takeaway: As the value of human attention allocation continues to rise and more competition essentially commoditizes current web applications, we can expect that companies will be forced to either 1) return value directly through revenue share, 2) return value through a superior product and/or network,or 3) a combination of 1 and 2. We should expect these trends to transform our web experience over the coming years as search companies (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Fledglings), Semantic Web Companies (Twine, Adaptive Blue), social media (Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon), social networks (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn), prediction markets (Predictify, InTrade, ZiiTrend), social web browsers (Medium, Flock), etc. all try to garner human participation.

Microsoft being forced into the value-added game is a strong indication that the rise in value of attention allocation is quite real.

Telepresence, avatars enrich our lives in near future

May 21 2008 / by futuretalk

By Dick Pelletier

Imagine a future where there is no clear distinction between real and simulated events. Welcome to the world of virtual reality. In contrast to today’s crude videoconferencing methods, tomorrow’s revolutionary “telepresence” systems expected by 2015 or before, will look and sound like you are actually together in real reality. You’ll establish eye contact, look around each other, and otherwise have the sense of being together.

Tomorrow’s Internet will power this new system. Cameras will transmit live two-way pictures over a terabyte-speed network similar to today’s Internet2. With sensors embedded in clothing to track movement, parties at both ends can project themselves into a virtual reality 3-D simulation of the event – everyone interacts with everyone with “telepresence.”

“This new system marks the beginning of a revolution expected to take us by storm in the next decade,” says Dr. Pierre Boulanger, University of Alberta VR researcher. People separated by distance can be together in this virtual world, to enjoy a living room chat, share meals at the dinner table, or cozy up even more intimately. Everyone feels hand shakes, hugs and kisses as if they were real.

In addition, say goodbye to confusing controls for home entertainment systems and computers. Lifelike 3D avatars (virtual assistants) which speak perfect “human” will become our primary interface with all our technologies.

These amazing screen images will do just about everything for us. They will answer questions; negotiate Internet transactions; make it easy for us to operate computers and home entertainment systems; and maintain household temperature, lighting and security. These cute creatures, resembling favorite celebrities or loved ones, will appear on our TV, cell phone screen, and car radio display. Later, advances in holography will enable avatars to jump off the screen and follow us around the house. (cont.)

May 22 2008 / by Marisa Vitols

The Future Scanner Daily Top 5 serves to highlight 5 of the best scans submitted to the Future Scanner during the last 24 hours.

World’s First Megawatt-Scale Tidal Turbine Installed
– Scanned by FutureFly

Company Cloning Pet Dogs, For Hefty Fee
– Scanned by Joe Meme

Upgrading the Prosthetic Hand
– Scanned by Fishka

Looking into Live Cells at Nanoscale Resolution
– Scanned by Fishka

Micro-Robot Grasshopper Can Jump 27x Its Height
– Scanned by Accel Rose

A Video for Your Mama: Futurist Jack Uldrich Breaks Down Exponential Growth

May 21 2008 / by memebox

It is notoriously difficult to comprehend the compound growth potential of exponential forces driving innovations in computing, nanotech, and solar power, but pro futurist and regular future blogger Jack Uldrich does a great job explaining this counter-intuitive phenomenon in his latest book Jump the Curve . Therefore I was thrilled to come across this short & sweet video synopsis of exponential potential by the man himself:

By employing comprehensible metaphors and gradually relating accelerating change to our lives, Jack succinctly and effectively gets the idea that “the really big change is still ahead of us” across (no small feat). So if you’re looking for a link to send to your non Accel-aware buddies, co-workers or relatives, this is it.

The Future of Ideas: Embracing Redundancy, Maximizing Social Progress

May 21 2008 / by Alvis

Mike Masnick at Tech Dirt has a great piece up about the concept of idea redundancy in which he responds to a conflicted Malcom Gladwell article that praises Nathan Mhyrvold idea-tank company Intellectual Ventures, which makes money by conceiving and patenting hundreds of ideas, while at the same time noting that ideas are likely to pop up simultaneously in different brains.

Whereas Gladwell writes that, “Good ideas are out there for anyone with the wit and the will to find them, which is how a group of people can sit down to dinner, put their minds to it, and end up with eight single-spaced pages of ideas,” Masnick critiques that “if these ideas are the natural progression, almost guaranteed to be discovered by someone sooner or later, why do we give a monopoly on these ideas to a single discoverer?”

Being a bit of an idea junkie myself, I have often contemplated the notions of idea formation, attribution, ownership and profitability, both from an individual and social context. Fundamentally, I agree with Masnick’s argument that “in giving monopoly rights to Myhrvold and his friends [in addition to gigantic corporate actors, universities and other patent trolls], we make it much more difficult for others (even those who discovered the same things totally independently) to help actually make them useful.” That being said, I also realize that the patent system that we currently have was and is needed to protect the rights of inventors and encourages many people to invest time into the innovation of concepts.

From a broader systems context, it seems to me we should be striving to find the “sweet spot” for social progress. This entails using the most cost-effective means to most accurately attribute ideas to their rightful creators (whether those be multiple individuals, social groups, long historical chains thinkers, or even biological systems themselves), while ensuring that they benefit us in the short-term and long-term through 1) their execution and diffusion, and 2) by profiting the creators appropriately to raise their standard of living and encourage additional innovation directly at the source. (cont.)

May 21 2008 / by Alvis

Billions of currently computer-less people will never interface with a traditional keyboard. They will instead leapfrog to new touch-screen interfaces on smaller devices such as the Apple iPhone or the new One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) design unveiled yesterday.

Sporting dual touch-screen panels connected by a hinge that allows the device to fold open like a book, the OLPC XO-2 is scheduled to hit the market in 2010. At an estimated $75 price point, this will make the device a vastly more viable competitor of a 3G iPhone than the current OLPC design.

Though the current OLPC will surely make some inroads as an educational device in under-developed countries, as suggested by johnfrink in this comment thread it’s reassuring to see that Negroponte and the OLPC design crew have their ducks in order when it comes to future viablity and marketability of their product. The new model will stand a much better chance of grabbing critical market share vs. the iPhone while also enabling a wider touch-screen keyboard interface than its main competitor.

That being said, the 3G iPhone will still have the edge when it comes to telephony, digital photography and portability. Plus I’m sure that Apple, with their cognizance of rapid product cycles, is already at work on something similar to the XO-2. (cont.)

May 20 2008 / by futuretalk

By Dick Pelletier

What will life be like in 2030? Those who ponder such things, futurists and other visionaries, suggest exciting and sometimes fantastic possibilities. As we begin our trek into the world of tomorrow, predictions of things to come rush towards us at breathtaking speeds.

Experts predict that between now and 2020, we will see more science and technology advances than we experienced during the entire 20th century and from 2020 to 2100, developments will outpace the last 20,000 years of human progress.

Nobody knows for sure what will happen in the future, but by projecting present-day knowledge, we can make plausible guesses. Hollywood creates fantastic futures, but they always talk about worlds gone mad, or make it sound so negative that none of us would ever want to live there.

But from research that’s underway today, and scientific projections of things to come, we can piece together a probable future world, and what life might be like living in that world. Readers are invited to track me down in 22 years and tell me whether I was right or wrong.

People: World population has climbed to 9.3 billion, and most people look forward to a life expectancy of 200 years or more. Advanced nanotech has eliminated world hunger in 2030 and could, experts say, provide a comfortable life on Earth for up to 100 billion people in the future. (cont.)

May 21 2008 / by Alvis

Google Earth took another baby-step into the future yesterday with the integration of geographically pertinent news feeds.

“By spatially locating the Google News’ constantly updating index of stories from more than 4,500 news sources, Google Earth now shows an ever-changing world of human activity as chronicled by reporters worldwide,” wrote product manager Brandon Badger .

I took the new layer function for a spin and found it to be rudimentary and moderately useful. But it’s clear the service will gradually become more valuable as Google adds more geographically tagged stories/feeds, filtering options and sub-layers that I can toggle on or off at will.

Ultimately it seems likely that the new feature will work hand-in-hand with search, possibly even showing up on Google’s main results pages alongside maps, pictures and video which were added earlier this year.

My main take-aways: Google’s inexorable march toward an information-dense and variably sortable Earth platform continues. As the company continues to systematically add physical and information “resolution” to its Earth application, I expect it will evolve into a resource that I and billions of others use on a daily basis and become one of Google’s top money makers.

Artificial Corneas, Sustainable Cities and Improved Gene Therapy

May 21 2008 / by Marisa Vitols

The Future Scanner Daily Top 5 serves to highlight 5 of the best scans submitted to the Future Scanner during the last 24 hours.

Britain: Hybrid Embryo Ban Is Defeated
- Scanned by FutureFly

Vaccine Triggers Immune Response, Prevents Alzheimer’s In Mice
- Scanned by Bora

New Artificial Cornea Could Restore Vision For Millions Worldwide
- Scanned by Bora

Researchers develop improved gene therapy agent
- Scanned by Bora

Sustainable Cities for a Greener Future
- Scanned by psique

Magnetic Hover Chairs for Just Under $10,000

May 20 2008 / by Alvis

Inspired by the hover board flown by Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part 2, released back in 1989, British company HoverIt, Ltd. has designed the world’s first consumer-ready hover chair. Available fot just under $10,000 U.S. the hover chair works like a mag-lev train, floating above a set of powerful magnets.

Check out this demo to see for yourself:

In case you’re concerned about the lifespan of the hover chair there’s no need to worry. The magnets require no re-charge and will shed just 2% of their power over the first 20 years of use.

While the hover chair of course falls into the novelty category at this early stage, I can imagine a variety of future applications for long-lived magnetics that include shock absorption while walking or gliding, new-fangled fitness training equipment and ultimately some sort of hover board that works in concert with a gyroscopically regulated platform such as the one at the heart of the Segway human transporter. (cont.)

May 21 2008 / by juldrich

By Jack Uldrich

Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.net

The future is unknowable. There are far too many variables for even the most foresighted individual or powerful supercomputer to accurately forecast what tomorrow – let alone next year or the next decade – will look like with precision. Nevertheless, this fact neither discounts the importance of forecasting, nor does it diminish the work that those individuals (myself included) try to do in discerning what the future might hold in store.

I would, however, like to submit that anyone inclined toward thinking about the future should be open to the idea of unlearning, which I define as “the unique skill of jettisoning old knowledge in order to accomodate newer and more relevant information.”

A case in point is this new study suggesting that global warming may not be worsening hurricanes. Now, before anyone gets too not and bothered by the real or perceived flaws in the study’s methodology, I’d like to make clear that it is not my contention that this study is the final word on the topic. Rather, I simply want to highlight it as an example of how continued advances in the development of better and more sophisticated supercomputers, algorithms and ubiqitous sensors are likely to lead to more situations in the future where scientists and researchers produce results that question and challenge conventional wisdom. (To this point, since Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans many people have come to believe that there is a direct connection between global climate change and the frequency and severity of hurricanes; and this belief, in turn, has lead them to predict that more hurricanes are in our future.) (cont.)

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