Moore’s Law is, and shall be for a very long time, the law of the land.
Singularity: +1, Luddites: Who cares, they don’t use computers.
wink
Schematic of a set of molybdenum (M0) end-contacted nanotube transistors (credit: Qing Cao et al./Science)
IBM Research has announced a “major engineering breakthrough” that could lead to carbon nanotubes replacing silicon transistors in future computing technologies.
Next January Stephen Hawking will be 74 years old. He has lived much longer than most individuals with his debilitating condition. In addition to being an unquestionably gifted cosmologist, he has invited controversy by supporting the pro-Palestinian, Israel-BDS boycott and warning about the dangers of alien invaders who tap into our interstellar greetings
Antisemitism, notwithstanding, this man is a mental giant. He is Leonardo. He is Einstein. Like them, his discoveries and theories will echo for generations beyond his life on earth. He is that genius.
Forty years ago, when Stephen Hawking still had mobility, he delivered a paper on a mystery regarding information-loss for entities that cross the event boundary of a black hole.
In the mid 1970s, Astronomers were just discovering black holes and tossing about various theories about the event horizon and its effect on the surrounding space-time. Many individuals still considered black holes to be theoretical. Hawking’s analysis of the information paradox seemed extremely esoteric. Yet, last month (Aug 2015) , at Sweeden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Hawking presented a possible solution to the paradox that he sparked.
I can barely understand the issue and cannot articulately rephrase the problem. But my interest in the black hole event horizon takes a back seat to my interest in the amazing tool created to compensate for the famous cosmologist’s handicap. Watch closely as Stephen Hawking offers a new theory that provides a possible explanation for the paradox.
Near the end of the video (beginning at 7:22), the camera begins a steady zoom up to Hawking’s face. Unlike a year ago, when he could still smile at a joke or move his eyes, he now appears completely motionless. Throughout his speech, there is no sense of animation—not even a twitch—with or without purpose. His eyebrow doesn’t move, his fingers are not restless, he doesn’t blink anymore.
So, how, then, does Hawking speak with normal cadence and just a short delay between sentences? (If we assume that his computer adds emphasis without additional effort, I estimate that his ASCII communications rate is roughly equivalent to a 1200-baud modem, circa 1980). Yet, clearly, there must be a muscular conduit between thought and speech. How is it that his thoughts are converted to speech at almost the same rate as someone who is not paralyzed?
That magic is enabled by a tiny camera that monitors a slowly deteriorating cheek muscle. It is Hawking’s last connection to the outside world. What began as index cards with words and then an Apple II computer, has evolved into a sophisticated upgrade process involving cutting edge analysis of the professor’s slightest tick combined with sophisticated computing algorithms. The camera and software that interprets this microscopic Morse code is tied to a process that optimizes options for successive words and phrases. He is actually communicating at far less than 1200 baud, because—like a court stenographer—he employs shorthand and Huffman encoding to compress words and phrases into his twitch pipeline. Drawing on a powerful processor and connected to the Web, his gear is constantly upgraded by a specialized Intel design team. 
They are engaged in a race to offer Hawking the potential for communication up until he has no capacity for interaction at all.
In a recent documentary by Hawking himself,* he laments the likely day when he will no longer have any capacity for output at all. No ability to discuss physics and cosmology; no way to say “I need help” or “I love you”; no way to show any sign of cognition. At that time, he reflects, the outside world will no longer be certain that there is anything going on behind his blank stare. They will never really know when or if he wants them to pull the plug. Even more mind boggling, humanity will never know what secrets his brilliant mind has unlocked to mysteries of the cosmos.
* Referring to his 2013 autobiographical film and not the 2014 feature film about his life, Theory of Everything.
Philip Raymond is CEO and Co-Chair of CRYPSA,
The Cryptocurrency Standards Association.
The dimensionless aspect, since it has no dimensions, is outside of space and time. This is the key aspect to existence: an aspect outside of space and time perpetually interacting dialectically with an aspect inside space and time. All of the weird and wonderful phenomena of the universe are the products of this ultimate dichotomy.
Does this sound crazy? Then consider the evidence provided by black holes.
The R = 0 Universe.
Black holes are objects where gravity is so strong that light itself cannot escape the gravitational pull. They are the most mysterious objects in the universe and hold the key to the nature of reality. They open the door to understanding the fundamental composition of the universe.
Their hypothetical existence was first predicted in Einstein’s famous theory of General Relativity, but Einstein himself believed it was impossible for them to become real objects in the universe. The reason for that is that they exhibit a feature that physics cannot cope with or comprehend.
The human being — especially in so-called “advanced civilizations” — is the animal that molds itself into its own pet.
Peter Sloterdijk is Germany’s most controversial thinker and media theorist. He has dared to challenge long-established divisions in traditional philosophy of body and soul, subject and object, culture and nature. His 1999 lecture on “Regulations for the Human Park,” in which he argued that genetic engineering was a continuation of human striving for self-creation, stirred up a tempest in a country known for Nazi eugenics. At the same time, he himself has concluded that “the taming of man has failed” as civilization’s potential for barbarism has grown ever greater. His seminal books include “Critique of Cynical Reason” and his trilogy, “Spheres.”
At a recent Berggruen Center on Philosophy and Culture symposium on humans and technology at Cambridge University’s St. John’s School of Divinity, The WorldPost discussed with Sloterdijk the end of borders between humans and technology, the cloud, singularity and identity in the age of globalization.
For years now, you have been arguing that a new type of being was coming into existence, as the human species fuses with its technological prosthetics — “anthropo-technology.” In this new being, man and machine are becoming one integrated, operative system linked by information.
Our brains didn’t evolve to deal with understanding exponential growth, it’s freaking terrifying.
Posted in bitcoin, internet, robotics/AI, singularity
A brief introduction on the coming technological singularity. And a hint at how digital peer to peer cryptocurrencies like bitcoin which was the first. Will turn the ‘internet of things’ into the ‘economy of things’. Plus also I feel validates the case for a new debt free monetary system to provide a universal citizen’s dividend.
#technologicalSingularity #singularity #AI #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #citizensDividend #socialDividend #universalBasicIncome #basicIncome
Discuss this video: http://www.reddit.com/r/CGPGrey/comments/2dfh5v/humans_need_not_apply/ http://www.CGPGrey.com/
Tweets by cgpgrey
## Robots, Etc…
Posted in computing, entertainment, neuroscience, singularity
Within the coming decades we’ll have the ability to create computers with greater than human intelligence, bio-engineer our species and redesign matter through nanotechnology, what will it mean to be human? Acclaimed as “a large-scale achievement in its documentation of futurist and counter-futurist ideas” and “the best documentary on the Singularity to date,” THE SINGULARITY is rich with insight, while remaining accessible to mainstream audiences. Some of the world’s leading thinkers, futurists and counter-futurists are interviewed, including Ray Kurzweil, Leon Panetta, Bill McKibben and Richard A. Clarke. THE SINGULARITY is an engaging tool for critical thinking about future technologies.
Possible cause of the singularity Boston Dynamics is secretive about upcoming projects, but new footage shows their robots in action—and the results are highly unsettling.
First you can see Spot, an agile autonomous quadruped ripped directly from Isaac Asimov’s nightmares, opening a door with the arm it sports instead of a face. Spot would almost be adorable the way it trots around on four legs except for the protruding face-arm that will turn the handle on your front door with its superstrength. Sleep well tonight.
Last week, the FDA approved the first 3D-printed prescription drug, essentially validating the technology as a new heavyweight player in big pharma. “This may be the first truly mass manufactured product made by 3D printing,” said Dr. Michael Cima, a professor at MIT who helped invent the pill-printing technology back in 1997, in an email to Singularity Hub. “It’s revolutionary.”
The printed pill, SPRITAM levetiracetam, is a drug that fights many kinds of epileptic seizures. The brainchild of a little-known Ohio-based company Aprecia, SPRITAM is essentially an old drug ingredient packaged into a brand new, more effective delivery system. Unlike current formulations of the same drug, SPRITAM immediately dissolves upon contact with water and bursts into effect — a property obviously beneficial when trying to curtail sudden-onset seizure episodes.
The dimensionless aspect, since it has no dimensions, is outside of space and time. This is the key aspect to existence: an aspect outside of space and time perpetually interacting dialectically with an aspect inside space and time. All of the weird and wonderful phenomena of the universe are the products of this ultimate dichotomy.
