Best Of

How Do Transhumanists Party?

by Nikki Olson
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It’s difficult for humans to ‘live in the present’; we are wired to worry about the future, and to dwell upon the good things of the past. These instincts serve us well, since overestimating negative future possibilities better prepares us for them, and having nostalgia for the past suppresses memory of hardship, making life overall seem better and more worth investing in. Futurist groups such as Transhumanists and Singularitarians tend to take a different approach, coming at things in almost the opposite way; focusing on the anticipated happiness of the future and all the wonderful things it will bring, and having little interest in life in the past. And like the past, ‘the present’ in Transhumanist culture has become almost completely invisible. In a recent interview for H+ magazine, R. U. Sirius is asked to compare present day Transhumanists with [...]

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Love and Sex with Robots: The Next Step of the Relationship between Man and Machine?

by Nikki Olson

Back in 2007, computer chess programming guru David Levy wrote a provocative book about robot-human relations entitled Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships. In it he made a number of bold predictions regarding future relations between humans and machines, the most surprising of which being that we would fall in love with robots. Fast forward 4 years (and almost 3 Moore’s Law cycles) and it seems as though his predictions are no nearer coming true than they were when he made them. David Hanson’s skin has gotten more realistic and more people know about Hiroshi Ishiguro’s real looking androids, but many important developments stand in the way of our considering robots something we could one day fall in love with. So what’s standing in the way of our moving more quickly toward robots as companions? In [...]

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A Little Bit Pregnant: Cory Doctorow at Boundaries, Frontiers and Gatekeepers iSchool Conference

by Socrates

Yesterday I attended the keynote speech at the Boundaries, Frontiers & Gatekeepers third annual University of Toronto iSchool student conference. The keynote speaker at the conference was best selling author, activist and blogger Cory Doctorow, whose presentation was titled A Little Bit Pregnant: Why it’s a Bad Idea to Regulate Computers the Way We Regulate Radios, Guns, Uranium and Other Special-Purpose Tools. In his keynote speech Cory addresses the issue of computer regulation in general and, more specifically, asks: What happens when we take the failed regulatory model from the copy-right realm and try to import it into other realms too? What are the consequences? Here are some key points from Doctorow’s speech: “Designing general purpose computers that sneak around their owners’ backs is a terrible idea. We’ve already seen what happens when you add just a little bit of [...]

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The Singularity and UFOs: Can ET Teach Us Anything about the Singularity?

by Nikki Olson

The connections between extraterrestrial life and future technology are numerous, and have been widely discussed in science fiction literature and by physicists such as Michio Kaku. There is basic logic to the connection: if life in other galaxies is able to travel to our galaxy, it is thought, then we should assume their technology is more advanced than our own and that they have already reached their ‘Singularity.’ Recently I attended the 20th Anniversary International UFO Congress in Scottsdale, AZ, which included 5 full days of presentations, special events, and films, attracting over 700 attendants. Various theorists, physicists, former military personnel, many of whom claim to have witnessed extraterrestrial life, presented ideas and stories on a wide range of topics. I was surprised by the lack of discussion of the technological singularity at the conference. However many of the presentations [...]

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Kevin Warwick on Singularity 1 on 1: Be/Come the Cy/Borg

by Socrates
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This is my second interview with Prof. Kevin Warwick. Last time I had him on Singularity 1 on 1 - You Have to Take Risks to be Part of the Future, he shared his views on a wide variety of topics such as human and artificial intelligence, robotics, the technological singularity, God, the beginning of the universe and so on. This time around Kevin discusses issues such as: the difference between genius and madness; the magnetic implants and sensory-substitution-devices developed by his students (see picture gallery below); the recent problems surrounding his rat-brain-cell-robot project; the historical contribution, under-appreciated genius and tragic life of Alan Turing; the Turing Test; Watson - IBM’s amazing Jeopardy champion; and, finally, be/coming cy/borg. As always, you can listen to or download the audio above or watch the full video of the interview below. Most importantly [...]

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Aubrey de Grey on Singularity 1 on 1: Better Funding and Advocacy Can Defeat Aging

by Socrates
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Last time I had Dr. Aubrey de Grey on Singularity 1 on 1 the interview turned out to be a hit. In fact it is still by far the most popular podcast that I have done and the audio file has been listened to or downloaded over 30,000 times. Given Aubrey’s popular appeal and the importance of his work, it is no surprise that I am very happy to have him back for a second interview. However, please have in mind that this interview is aiming to supplement and not replace the first one. Thus, this time around we cover some topics that we did not have time to go over the previous time, so if you haven’t heard the first podcast you may want to begin here. During this conversation I ask Dr. de Grey to discuss issues such [...]

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Stephen Wolfram on Singularity 1 on 1: To Understand the Future, Explore the Computational Universe

by Socrates
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Yesterday I was privileged to have an hour long phone interview with Dr. Stephen Wolfram for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. We started our conversation on how Stephen got interested in exploring science in general and eventually focused on computation in particular. Then we moved on to a number of other interesting topics such as his work on Mathematica, his monumental book A New Kind of Science, his unique computational search engine Wolfram|Alpha, artificial intelligence and the technological singularity. I have to say that after spending 2 or 3 days in intense preparation for the interview I already knew that Dr. Wolfram is an exceptionally intelligent person. However, after our conversation and especially after taking into consideration Wolfram’s breadth and depth of work, and the profound actual and potential implications thereof, it seems to me that he may be [...]

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Why I Am an Optimist

by Socrates
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People sometimes ask me why am I such an optimist about the progress of technology in general and the technological singularity in particular? Well, my reply is simple. I choose to focus on the upside. I choose to be a deliberate, conscious optimist. That is not to say that I suggest we ought to ignore the many dangers that lie certainly ahead of us. What it means is that, once I’ve done my best and the die is cast, the only thing that is left for me is to enjoy the ride, focus on the bright side of life and have a little sense of humor on the way. Tony Robins says that, whether consciously or unconsciously, at any given moment in time we are always making the following decisions: 1. What do I focus on? 2. What does it [...]

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