I waddled into the Anchor Pub and there was Aubrey with a beer. He asked what I was drinking and I said “One of those” and pointed at his beer and soon had one because he brought me one and I was very tired and very merry and surrounded by excellent comrades.
I had my first [...]
I’ve been back from SENS3 for five days, and my brain remains scrambled. In reporting it I can only ramble - as evidenced by last Friday’s H+ Club weekly meetup in Tucson, where I exploited the SENS3 online meeting program to linearize my desultory observations before a nicely crowded Tubac Room.
As my brain floats back [...]
Image Caption: WIRED NextFest Banner at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The Fourth Annual WIRED NextFest in Los Angeles, California, USA this past weekend offered a glimpse of our technological future with a variety of themed pavilions exploring the future of exploration, entertainment, security, education, design, robotics, green technologies, communication, play, health, and transportation.
WIRED NextFest is [...]
The fourth annual WIRED NextFest event begins today in Los Angeles, California. Running through Sunday, the event will feature technology exhibits and demonstrations. In addition, the X Prize Foundation will announce their new space prize.
Thursday is Education Day, with 4th through 12th graders and their teachers filling the LA Convention Center for [...]
Paul Saffo from Stanford University is a forecaster and essayist. He explored AGI at the Singularity Summit 2007 in the context of popularization. Even as the public begins to join the AGI discussion, pessimism is popular right now. News reporting and commentary are lurid and pessimistic. Saffo suggested that what we [...]
Dr. Ben Goertzel is SIAI Director of Research and chief science officer and acting CEO of Novamente. He believes that with the right funding and capital, AGI could be developed in nine years. Novamente is approaching AGI development by focusing on virtual agents in virtual worlds like Second Life.
Goertzel defined AGI as “the [...]
Neil Jacobstein, chairman and CEO of Teknowledge Corporation, spoke in the afternoon of day one of the Singularity Summit 2007. He presented information about where we stand today with AI and where we might be heading in the medium term. Specialized AI applications have existed for a number of years and [...]
[Commentary]
During the Singularity Summit 2007, one of the most unexpected moments came during a panel session on day one. Peter Voss and Dr. Stephen Omohundro sat down to answer questions from the audience after their own individual presentations. Voss had suggested during his talk that AGI could benefit health and longevity research. [...]
Dr. J. Storrs Hall is an independent scientist, inventor, and author. His most recent books are Nanofutures and Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine. Hall talked about what nanofactories could make.
Hall believes that just as computers are getting ever cheaper and smarter, nanotechnology will follow the same timeline and price improvement track. [...]
Tihamer Toth-Fejel is a senior research engineer at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, member of the advisory board for the Nanoethics Group, and a chair for the Society for Manufacturing Engineers Nanomanufacturing Technical Group.
Toth-Fejel stated that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t make it.” Nanotech needs to follow these guidelines:
Accuracy
Precision
Reliability, repeatability, reproducibility
Traceability
Calibration
Tolerance
Quality
Trying to build [...]