Nanotechnology is the material science of objects under 100 nm in size.
Over the last decade, we have come to realize that the oldest nanotechnologist alive is Mother Nature- a five billion year-old expert, who has found optimal molecular pathways to solve problems of energy (plant “solar cells” through photosynthesis, or mitochondria synthesis), hardness and elasticity (Google “nanomechanics of spider silk”), and many more. For a great collection of Nature’s nanotechnological solutions, I urge you to visit the Ask Nature website.
Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not a Gadget” is a rare book, and not merely for it’s comfort in declaring itself - right on the cover – a proper manifesto. Authored by a credentialed specialist with extensive qualifications (primarily computer science, having coined the term “virtual reality” and having worked on such systems ever since), it simultaneously provides insight into his work on the bleeding edge of new technologies (check the sections on “morphing” and body awareness for appetite-whetting glimpses of future tech), while also making profound and novel arguments.
As Egypt undergoes its revolution, I find myself thinking about a strategy, a pathway to political agency; to real power; to liberty, transparency and democratic inclusion for the multitudes in America (and, ultimately, everywhere).
In November 2007, I presented a proposal to start a political organization I called the Open Source Party on the 10 Zen Monkeys website. The idea was to bring open source principles into the political realm.
This interview highlights one of the most exciting potential resultants of Brain Computer Interfacing technology – the emergence of distributed mind networks that rely on direct brain-to-brain links.
When the first artificial general intelligence is built, we want it to be our friend.
If it is not, we are in big trouble. That’s because an AGI will quickly become ultraintelligent: Whatever its goals, improving its own intelligence is a good a way of achieving them, and it won’t stop until it is much smarter than humans.
An ultraintelligent robot which hates us is a bad thing: We can’t possibly outsmart it.
What does it mean to be virtual? Pioneering anthropologist Tom Boellstorff’s recent appearance on the the weekly Metanomics event series suggests that our digital and “real” lives — our avatar selves and our physical ones — inform each other in highly complex ways that are not yet fully understood. I interview Tom to find out more about the patterns that make us both real and virtual.
Today, as I write this, it’s the day Watson beat the pants off some very smart humans at Jeopardy!, and I just became obsolete. No, Watson is not even close to being a fully functional Artificial Expert yet…. But I think it is a major step towards AE’s, specially in combination with advances like nanoprocessors….
How exciting is Watson from an AI point of view? How much progress does it constitute toward AI programs capable of broad human-level general intelligence? When will Watson or its “robot overlord” kin march out of the Jeopardy! TV studio and start taking over human jobs, winning Nobel Prizes, building femtofactories and spawning Singularities?
I recently attended “Music | Machines: 50 Years of Music and Technology @ MIT,” part of MIT’s ongoing Festival of Art + Science + Technology (FAST). One of the most interesting demonstrations was the iPhone Guitar by Rob Morris of the MIT Media Lab. Basically, he makes use of the iPhone’s accelerometer as an input [...]
For the last few years I’ve been collaborating on AI and robotics research with a lab at Xiamen University in south China; and on one of my visits to Xiamen, I was delighted to learn that Zhou Changle, the dean of Cognitive Science at Xiamen University, is a very accomplished Zen practitioner….
