Anybody else noticing how sound and picture aren't always precisely synched, how often images weirdly blacken and depixelate, and how even rain seems somehow to drive a crowbar into the signal of our breathlessly awesome whiz-bang digital HD tee vee programming now? I'd speak more about this but I have to leave now to cast my ballot on my digital touch screen voting machine before catching the Concorde on my way to the space port to ride the cheap shuttle to the space motel at L5 for the next meeting of the Futurological Society.
[Thanks to Eric for the title!]
> Singularity [Reinvented] Due to Rain
ReplyDeleteYou know, I was browsing in the magazine section of the
local Barnes & Noble yesterday afternoon, and I came across
an article in the latest issue of the _New Scientist_ that
has rekindled my enthusiasm for an idea about which I had
become rather cynical lately.
When I first heard about the One Laptop Per Child project
(How many years ago? I can't remember.), I thought it was
a really great idea to share the benefits of the Web
with a rising generation of kids in third-world
countries. But the political infighting, resignation of participants,
and dirty-laundry revelations of OLPC insiders over the past months has
certainly soured my enthusiasm for cheap laptops for third-
world kids, and made me doubt that the effort will end up
having any significant impact. In retrospect, it seems
like a classically misguided attempt to shoehorn Western
high tech into a cultural milieu that's radically incompatible with it
(cf. http://www.hulu.com/watch/4076/family-guy-democracy-kicks-in ).
But the article in _New Scientist_ describes an idea
for a "spoken Web", that would use existing cell phones
as interfaces to provide access to a new kind of Web via a relatively
simple form of speech recognition. The user's interaction would
be like that with the kind of menu system (IVR or interactive
voice response system) that a Westerner might get when calling
an airline or a credit card 800 number, but with the addition of
an IBM-developed protocol that enables "hyperlinking" of
multiple IVRs (IBM calls it "hyperspeech transfer protocol" or HSTP).
It sounds hideously clunky for anybody who can read, write,
and use a keyboard. But unlike the existing text-and-graphics-based Web,
literacy would not be required of the end users of such a network.
When I read about this, what immediately sprang to mind was the
phrase "appropriate technology".
So what does this have to do with the "Singularity"? Well,
not much, except that so many self-styled "transhumanists"
seem stuck in the ray-guns-'n-rocket-ships 50's, and
seem incapable of the kind of tangential thinking that
differentiates, for example, the "spoken Web" from "One Laptop Per
Child". The world turns some unexpected corners, and they're
not all bad just because Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke
(or Marvin Minsky) didn't think of them first.
(The _New Scientist_ article is here:
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/10/24/3731135.htm ).
[S]o many self-styled "transhumanists"
ReplyDeleteseem stuck in the ray-guns-'n-rocket-ships 50's, and
seem incapable of the kind of tangential thinking that
differentiates, for example, the "spoken Web" from "One Laptop Per
Child". The world turns some unexpected corners, and they're
not all bad just because Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke
(or Marvin Minsky) didn't think of them first.
You won't get any argument from me on that score. I think they are completely stuck in the libertopian 90s and don't even realize that this is a rehash of Gernsback (but without the charm). Robot Cultism has scarcely moved beyond L5 Society polemic in OMNI, let alone Regis' diorama in Great Mambo Chicken. The Futurological Congress is as frozen as Miss Haversham conteplating her rotting roach-infested wedding cake.
But, wait, I take it back, some things do change. Transhumanism is now "Humanity+" and we critics need to keep up with the cutting edge. As my partner Eric always insists, don't call 'em "transhumanists," they're "HumanityPlusTrons" now.
Speaking of singularities, wonder if you caught this?
ReplyDeleteEliezer Yudowsky v. Jaron Lanier.
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/15555
> I take it back, some things do change. Transhumanism is
ReplyDelete> now "Humanity+" . . .
Hmm... I kind of like "Humanity HD".
;->
> The Futurological Congress is as frozen as Miss Havisham
ReplyDelete> contemplating her rotting roach-infested wedding cake.
Fortunately, the science is not. The following is
recommended viewing, for anybody who isn't familiar with
the Blue Brain project. Notice how far this from the sort of "AI"
that Joseph Weizenbaum mocked with his "Eliza" program,
or from the "theories of mind" of Ayn Rand.
(Oh, and here's the Ob Family Guy reference:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/41283/family-guy-robot-stewie )
Henry Markram, Designing the Human Mind
(15 min - April, 2008):
http://vodpod.com/watch/1081030-henry-markram-designing-the-human-mind
(MIND 08: Design + Science Panel and Symposia in NYC on APRIL 4 and 5 2008
Presented by MoMA and Seed Magazine, in collaboration with Parsons The New School for Design)
====================================
Henry Markram, The Emergence of Intelligence in the Neocortical Microcircuit
(70 min - May 9, 2006):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2874207418572601262&ei=1vQRSZLeDpGQ-
(Lecture 2 of 12 of IBM Research's Almaden Institute Conference on
Cognitive Computing. Markram discusses microcolumns in the brain, and shows
several video animations of computer models of neurons communicating in a
microcolumn. His model includes 10,000 neurons, which is a *very* large
number of neurons to model. Markram's Powerpoint presentation:
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/institute/resources/2006/Almaden%20Institute%20Henry%20Markram.ppt
All lectures:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=almaden+cognitive+computing
====================================
"The Blue Brain project is the first comprehensive attempt
to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to
understand brain function and dysfunction through
detailed simulations."
http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/
====================================
The IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gene
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/bluegene.index.html