Editor's Blog
.jpg)
Monday morning started off with an intimate conversation with Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. Both Ray and Peter made it clear that they are trying to make a creative environment for synthesizing new knowledge that requires creative thinking as well as cutting edge technology.
Peter explained what he’s come to refer to as a "benign conspiracy" to bring these students together, based on what they have done in the past, to do great things together for the future. This bunch was selected because they were 1) smart, 2) leaders, and 3) interested in solving big issues. (Note: 1400 applicants for 40 spots!)
Ray talked to the class about the dream behind Singularity U, and how one of the goals of the university is to put people together to look at things in new ways to create change. He and the class discussed ways to use information technology to address the problems of humanity, now that we all have these tools for disruptive change. "What we’re trying to create here is a new community that will sustain itself after it’s separated physically," he said.
Space was on everyone’s mind, of course, as the Singularity University is at NASA Ames Research Center, and is going on at the same time as International Space University‘s summer session. International Space University President Michael Simpson was on hand to introduce himself to the students and tell them personally about his excitement regarding what this founding class might be able to accomplish. He explained how some of the challenges that Singularity U students have in front of them are similar those of new International Space University students. "It’s hard to continue to be yourself while being part of a team, but it’s these teams that make the world a better place, so that we can leave our cradle."
Peter talked about how he believes that he feels we need to stop living in a one world living scenario where we are restricted to the resources that are only on this planet, and that the earth is but "a crumb, in a supermarket full of resources," and that we can mine resources and the like to get more resources.
Ray emphasized how we have lots of resources here on earth and that "we have more resources than meets the eye." Take solar power, for instance. "There’s plenty of sunlight, and we will work to harness that, using nanotechnology," he explained.
Next came open questions with Ray for the rest of the morning.
One student asked, "Ray, graphs and charts speak to our rational mind. What can we do to make exponential thinking part of our intuitive mind?"
Part of Kurzweil’s answer tied into a recurring theme that morning: the Wisdom of Crowds. "I think we can now harness the wisdom of crowds, which does harness more of our innate emotional wisdom, and that’s one of the positive things about this decentralized communication. We can see the democratizing effects of decentralized communication. I wrote in my first book in the 80s, "The Age of Intelligent Machines," that the Soviet Union would be swept away by the then emerging decentralized communications: fax machines and early email, and I believe that’s what happened. We saw a big wave of democratization on a political level in the 1990s with the emergence of the web, and today we can see its profound effect. And even in some areas of the world that are hold outs from political democracy we’ve seen the tremendous effect of decentralized communication. Just recently, with the Iran situation. There are 100 million blogs in China and half the farmers in China have devices they can take out of their pocket to communicate with everybody else in the world and access all of human knowledge."
The problems of the third world were obviously also on the minds of many of the students, as one of the most repeated questions of the morning, although asked from different students in different ways, seemed to be "how can we use these amazing technologies to actually get help to those that need it in the world?"
"Once we can manufacture, using nanotechnology, very inexpensive modules that can be put together to build things like housing, we can meet the housing needs of even a growing biological population, and with high quality. So, that’s why I’m saying that ultimately it’s only these expansive information technologies that can meet the needs – the material needs and the resource needs, to address the problems we have, like polluted water which causes today so much disease in the world," Kurzweil explained.
Students also expressed their concern about the recent economy crash, and its potential effect on innovation. Kurzweil felt that the crash in the U.S. that quickly became a crash around the world, provided a real-time example of how interdependent all the different economies of the world are at this point. "The bottom line is that it is one economy and one culture," he said.
Below: Sunday evening, the students met at NASA with Peter Diamandis for an introduction dinner. As one student explained, "We had an alfresco dinner with paella, and then sat on the lawn and shared some personal stories about ourselves with the group." (Photo by Zubin Wadia.)
24 Comments
“This bunch was selected because they were 1) smart, 2) leaders, and 3) interested in solving big issues.” And lest we forget, they were able to pay thousands of dollars for the honor of being included. In the past, the future has been determined by those with wealth, benefiting those with wealth. Are we on the same path now? When life-extention becomes feasible, will only those with wealth secure it? How/when will we democratize the future?
Today the most effective method of life extension is Caloric Restriction and perhaps Cryonics!
Caloric restriction is far cheaper the eating junk food and Cryonics via the Cryonics Institute is only $28,000 easily funded via life insurance for the price of daily coffee! So currently it seems that life extension has more to do with will power then wealth…ironically as recent evidence suggests the majority of wealth (defined as 1,000,000$ in assets) is also a will power issue verses an inheritence issue since most current US millionaires are self made within their own life times.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090123101224.htm
I would not make the blanket statement that crowds must be either one or the other…wise or easily manipulated. Crowds are like individuals. They are influenced to act based on the context within which they find themelves. In Iran this last couple of weeks we saw a message to march in silence, clearly one of the most effective forms of protest that was the result of crowd wisdom. We also saw violence promulgated through mass or crowd communication that was destructive. I am sure that when Ray Kurzweil speaks of crowd wisdom, he is referring to admonitions to large groups to participate in positive problem solving which would produce a crowd’s wisdom. Every tool at the disposal of Humans can be used to produce good or deleterious effects. Choices and context can make all the difference that is needed to get the desired results.
Crispycakes’ criticism is a valid one, if we directly use nanobots to remove impurities such as arsenic. Indeed, programming and constructing incredibly complex, autonomous nanorobots for such a simple task would be inefficient.
However, there is a way to harness the power of “exponential thinking” – in a sense. I take inspiration from biological systems in a similar fashion to the tree. Here is my tentative method:
1. The nanobots are programmed with the software to construct limited varieties of compounds based on certain compounds, probably carbon based but likely with some metallic residues. Instead of directly attacking contaminants, these nanobots would act as mobile factories for producing non-biological enzymes.
2. One possibility is to produce an enzyme with a molecule specific “head” which would catalyse the attachment of a specific contaminant to a sort of “sticky” (a long chain carbohydrate may work) group. These molecules would then adhere in larger conglomerations which could then be removed by simpler methods of filtration.
3. Naturally, you would need many such enzymes, each specific to an individual contaminant. This is where the nanorobots come in two ways. Firstly, by using enzymes, they can amplify their effect. Our cells use similar methods to massively amplify the effects of tiny quantities of hormones in cell signaling. As in cells, this process can be carried out recursively – the nanorobots can construct an enzyme (or set) which in turn construct another enzyme and so forth until one constructs the actual decontamination enzymes. As such, the rate of the reaction becomes an ever-increasing exponential or multiple exponential, since the enzymes act as catalysts and are not used up in the process. (so if you keep producing enzymes at a linear rate, the decontamination reaction will be exponential)
4. The benefit of nanorobots is that a small number of them can be programmed with the software to construct a virtually unlimited set of such enzymes and can produce them in-situ from simpler components. Thus, a wide range of contaminants can be dealt with without the need for extensive facilities. As well, they can deal with virtually any amount of water necessary, due to the exponential nature of the reaction I mentioned. (scaling up from a tonne to ten tonnes takes only twice the time, and so on.)
5. The reason why biological enzymes won’t work is precisely why arsenic poisons us. The main reason is that heavy metals disrupt many proteins (such as, but not limited to enzymes), causing them to unfold from their functional 3-d configuration into their 1-d string of amino acids. (To see this in action, add some of your favorite heavy metal to an egg-white or fresh liver.) Because non-biological enzymes can be constructed from different materials to be more robust and do not have to be folded from 1-d strings, they will be suitable for such tasks.
6. If you want an even more rapid reaction, the water can be heated. Every 10K approximately produces a doubling in reaction rate. Biological enzymes typically operate in a very narrow range of temperatures (due again to the protein-folding issue), but engineered enzymes will likely remain functional at vastly higher temperatures. Simply boiling the water from room temperature (20 C for argument’s sake) cuts the time needed to 1/256 the original.
7. This is a very generalized approach. If I did need to produce such a system, I would construct (with nanorobotic assistance) a device with a highly folded internal cavity, (operating something like a hybrid between a kidney and a heat) which would take in water in smaller amounts, apply a high temperature and pressure to greatly increase the rate of reaction and then reabsorb the heat and release the water (under less pressure) through a filter.
8. If there are any ideas I have missed, please tell me. I rather like improving my ideas, so anyone pointing out flaws (and possible improvements or alternatives) is welcome to do so.
I recently attended the Numenta HTM workshop in San Jose where there was a huge level of excitment relating to the use of t HTM technology. Used in so many different industries it was surprising to see the breadth of its use.
The most interesting point came during Dileeps technology presentation where he showed a computer memory model performing the same level of human prediction that we see in the cortex of a human being. Human level GAI is not decades away it is possible just several years away, then the singularity truly begins. Many of my conversations at this workshop related to how to reach the point where neural networks are designing themselves which sounds to me like the beginnings of the singularity.
I would think that instead of using nanobots to move molecules around there is an easier way to remove contaminants. If you boil water to steam you can separate out the contaminants and reclaim the water. Where nanobots or more likely engineered molecules would be used is fixing the arsenic into an inert form for disposal or recycling for industrial use. Although I prefer not to have arsenic used in industry. Energy for steam production would be another use for nanobots/engineered molecules.
However, there is a way to harness the power of “exponential thinking” – in a sense. I take inspiration from biological systems in a similar fashion to the tree.
Sounds like a great discussion (more details please), I’m jealous of the attendees. The tech really is making it out to the world. I’m writing this from an iPod touch from a little nowhere in Vietnam where somebody has set up free wifi. There is an info highway here but no real one. They have email but need clean water and cheap power from the sun and good health care. Can we get that in 10 to 15 yrs. ?
Unfortunately, it just sounds like a big conference. I thought, with University in the title, that they were going to teach something.
Been a fan of Ray’s for quite some time now. The comment, “…widom of crowds…” Interesting. Kind of flies in the face of several quotes that I don’t have on the tip of my tongue but go something like, “One person may be rationale, but a crowd is not.” Also, crowd pysch turns on how easy manipulating them is. So the crowd Ray is talking about is somehow rational, free-thinking, intellectual agile and so on?
*sigh* I really really hate that I wasn’t there.
How to get free potable water…when we get nanotech.
You collect water, from a lake, a stream, a river, the ocean. You add nanobots, programming to pick out all molecules, except H2O. You supply them with a separate tank connected to the water tank they are cleaning. They (trillions of them) physically move the offending molecules to the separate tank. They check repeatedly to see if things are clear. Finally the readout announces the good news: You have a full tank of distilled water ready for use.
I suspect we will have this kind of technology in hand in 10-15 years. Result: People everywhere in the world have access to healthy potable water.
I do hope the teachers and the students at Singularity U. work out a number of concepts like the above, but with a great deal more technical detail.
If our approaching Singularity works as I assume it will, almost every local, regional, national and world problem will be solved via nanotech. Politics and politicians will have very little to do with these happy results.
My first exposure to Ray was when I taught in a self paced high school. Our district had purchased the Kurzweil 3000 for students with disAbilities. Then I heard about the Singularity.
I am so excited about this…can’t wait to see what develops!
“The bottom line is that it is one economy and one culture,” he said.
That’s it? Was that all he said on the economic crash?
If so, I’m afraid this whole singularity business is being pushed by people who are in denial. There seems to be a serious disconnection from reality. Ray Kurzweil and his colleagues should spend their time focusing on how to create a stable, sustainable, global structure perhaps… Or are they just assuming that everything will be ok? Without none of them actively helping? Why?
“You collect water, from a lake, a stream, a river, the ocean. You add nanobots, programming to pick out all molecules, except H2O. You supply them with a separate tank connected to the water tank they are cleaning. They (trillions of them) physically move the offending molecules to the separate tank. They check repeatedly to see if things are clear. Finally the readout announces the good news: You have a full tank of distilled water ready for use.”
Ok so you want to pick out all the non water molecules. Lets say you have a tonne of water (1000 litres , or 264 gallons). Lets assume the system is perfect in that no offending molecules managed to diffuse back into our first container (bear in mind you want your nanobots back).
You say trillions of nanobots, so lets go with 10 trillion, i.e. 10^13.
Lets say our contaminant is Arsenic, simply because its top of the (alphabetical) list here
http://www.home-water-purifiers-and-filters.com/water-contaminants.php
The maximum acceptable level according to that site is 0.1mg/litre, so lets assume we are at that minimum dangerous level.
For our 1000 litres thats 1000*0.1mg=100mg =0.1kg.
The mass of arsenic is 75*1.67*10^-27 kg = 1.25*10^-25 kg
So in our 1000 litres we have 0.1/(1.25*10^-25) = 7.98*10^23 arsenic atoms. In reality its arsenic compounds we are concerned about, so lets say the molecules are 5 times bigger than this (probably an overestimate for the inorganic compounds which are the primary concern).
So we’d have (7.98*10^23)/5 = 1.6*10^23 molecules.
You have 10 trillion nanobots which means each one needs to pick out (1.6*10^23)/(10^13) = 1.6*10^10 molecules, 16 billion molecules per nanobot to clean the water completely.
Now its very difficult to estimate how many molecules per second a nanobot can ‘pick out’ and place in the other tank.
But if they did one per second, 16 billion seconds = 4,435,573 hours = 184,815 days = 5962 days = 506 years. I hope you’re not thirsty!
If you wanted to do it in 24 hours, thats (24*60*60) = 86400 seconds, then thats 16 billion/86400 = 185,000 molecules per second per nanobot.
Yes this is an estimate, but if you want to clean lots of different compounds from water, and wanted to do rivers instead of just 1000 litres, and had higher concentrations of contaminants, and had a non perfect system… well you get the point.
Please do not naively assume that the singuarity will “work as you assume it will”.
I’m really surprised Steven Chu is recommanding futher use of nuclear power and not making his the project of National Space Society
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/
Ray has been saying for years that the world energy problems would be solved by solar power by 2020. It doesn’t look so, so far. I strongly hope I am wrong.
>But if they did one per second
Imagine 10 workers on a low-tech construction site passing bricks from point A to point B. What do they do? Of course each one can take a brick at A, go to B, put the brick and return to A. In reality, they line up and pass bricks to each other – because this works 10 times faster.
A nanobot won’t also need to make full distance between tanks by itself. Instead, bots will form a tree-like structure. “Leaves” will pass not “one per second” but BILLIONS of molecules per second to “branches” then thicker “branches” then stems.. because distances are billionths of meter. That’s like our organisms distribute oxygen and get rid of CO2. The power of exponential thinking:)
I think, from what I’ve from Ray K. and others, that they think people need to working in multiple ways from different angles. Some people join the peace corp. some work in agriculture tech, some in medicine, etc. Ray et al, are working on the tools/tech that will multiply current efforts and other tools and tech that may make various problems disappear- ex. distributed on-site (home) power production, on-site waste treatment, on-site manufacturing, vat grown meat- on-site of course, etc.
What will all of this distributed technology do? I think it’s most important impact will first be a complete re-writing of politics and how governments work. It will be hard to oppress someone, or a group, who’s lights you can’t turn off, or businesses that don’t need a steady supply of parts.
Well, at least that what I envision.
The revolution coming from the singularity would be a game changer, look to something like the http://www.reprap.org project to see “wealth without money” as a small example of a game changer. It sounds to me as though your stuck in a mindset that says we have to maintain things in the way we think they should run in order for the world to progress and work out when that is probably the last thing we need.
There are more than enough people trying to rescue the failed institutions of today and not nearly enough looking to change the game…
It is funny how people dismiss nanotech as impossible because doent fit neatly into their mode of thought…They fail to realize that all life is based on natural nanotechnology and that this is a working template for what kurzweil is talking about!
How exactly is a nanobot going to extract a billion contaminant particles per second? Also, how is one nanobot going to pass billions of particles per second to its neighbour? Seriously how? What are the nanobots made of to ensure they are not damaged by whats in the water? Are they the same nanobots for all contaminants or different ones?
As far as I can see you’ve just pulled ‘billions’ out of nowhere. how big will each nanobots ‘sack’ of molecules be? How big is each nanobot? 1 nanometre? 1 micron? How does it power this pumping? How does it grab hold of a billion contaminant particles and no ‘good’ particles per second?
Furthermore, why the need for nanobots at all? Why not just dip your tree in the water? This tree wont need all the programming and functionality of nanobots, so could be more focused on contaminant extraction.
Actually I’ve read the Singularity is Near, and I’m studying for a masters in nanotechnology at a reputable university, so please dont try to dismiss me so easily.
You should listen to your own words. People do indeed dismiss things which dont fit into their ideal world view. I would love to, and used to, believe that all the things Kurzweil talks about will be true. However, reading a little more deeply into the subject will show you that these things a far from guaranteed and assuming that they will become true is at least as naive as assuming they wont.
Ask yourself this – do you want advanced nanotechnology to be true? How much? And then ask, is it possible that like so many others in this world, you are letting what you want to be true affect what you think is true?
Lets try and be objective. All I did was a back of the envelope style calculation. I let them numbers come out naturally. If you dont like what I did, then please substitute your own numbers or suggest an alternative way that it would work rather than resorting to assuming point blank that I’m wrong and going on your merry way.
Remember, one of Ray’s biggest points is the ‘exponential’ return of tech movement. The majority of the work done on the genome project was in the last few years–it stands to reason that solar power would demonstrate the same pattern.
I bet that solar technology won’t really get moving until around 2016 or so…but by 2020, it’ll be a fact of life.