Last weekend, amid biblical rains drenching the west coast, I went to the Humanity Plus conference in San Francisco, along with my bright-eyed friend Dian. Thanks to the magic of the Internet and a service that directly links people in … Continue reading
My father was in his mid-thirties before DNA was decoded by Crick and Watson. A generation later, genetics was still largely theoretical, understood in principle but not practical – like flying cars or space lasers. Not anymore. Today teams of high-school students modify organisms for the iGEM competition; a library of over 20,000 biological parts made of DNA sequences (promoters, translators, ends, spacers, vectors, receivers, measurement) are listed on a public site; the ability to both read and write DNA is speeding up ten times per year, and the first proof of concept has been done to resurrect an extinct species. Synthetic biology is quickly coming of age. Continue reading
In this short book from 2009, Arthur, an economist and complexity theorist, gives a compelling and “organic” description of technology. He looks at the purpose of any created artifact from shoes to airplanes and tries to find what they have in common, where the whole is going, and why we should care. His conclusions are profound, although easy to understand, and they have important implications for the future. Continue reading
Accelerando is the quintessential singularity novel. Strap yourself in, and prepare for lobsters, agalmic economies, coke-can computronium spaceships, hive minds, altruism, a solitary imam ensconced in his own virtual reality/hell, terraforming, and the Vile Offspring, aka sentient corporate contracts. Continue reading
Fiction puts us in the middle of a story, a person’s head and heart, so that we can experience what it is to be someone else. This recent collection of short stories, Digital Rapture, will introduce you to classic and recent writers in the field of “singularity fiction.” These stories will warp the sense of self, tweak your dials, perturb the moral sense, and expand your understanding. Continue reading
Presentations from the Oct 13-14 Singularity Summit are online. I recommend the presentations by Steven Pinker, Temple Grandin, Jaan Tallin, Vernor Vinge, John Wilbanks, Melanie Mitchell, and Linda Avey. Go to the post to see links to each talk, and others at the conference. Continue reading
Time calls to each of us, a quiet hum at the edge of awareness. For some, it is the siren song of a lazy summer afternoon, the sleepy midwestern drone of crickets in a Bradbury idyll, watching crinkly leaves drift down the street in golden afternoon light. For others… Continue reading
[All videos for the summit are available. Click a link, then click “Watch Full Video]. See also my review for Day 1 of Singularity Summit. On the second day of the Singularity Summit, presenters took their gloves off, rolled up … Continue reading
[All videos for the summit are available. Click a link, then click “Watch Full Video]. See also my review of Day 2 of Singularity Summit. The Singularity Summit is an annual gathering of self-identified freethinkers, visionaries, futurists, geeks, rationalists, optimistic … Continue reading
Flying over the Oregon countryside recently, my breath was taken away by the rolling terrain of Cascade mountain slopes blanketed with lush pine forest. It was almost a conversion experience, similar to the first view of our planet from space which inspired Earth Day in 1970 and jump-started the environmental movement. Continue reading
