Singularity Sunrise

Singularity Sighting in Slate

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, conference travel and start of the year busyness has cut into my blogging time. I'm hopeful that things are settling down a bit now and I'll have more time for blogging. I noticed this article in Slate during my morning browsing, it notes our sorry track record for predicting the future and speculates about the future of the internet, something of interest to those who consider it more than a passing fad. For our particular focus on the rise of the technological singularity, the very last paragraph is noteworthy:

In the realm of outlandish predictions, I feel more comfortable with the extreme optimists. Ray Kurzweil—the acclaimed technologist who in 1990 correctly predicted that a computer would beat the best human chess player by the end of the decade—believes that humans will soon "transcend biology." He says we're on the cusp of "the singularity"—a point when technology will have advanced so far that human beings will essentially become immortal. It's hard to believe. But Kurzweil's predictions are based on current trends, and nothing about them seems really impossible. I doubt the singularity is just around the corner. But, hey, maybe he's right.

This is a fairly predictable piece, nothing really new here, but I did want to point out the singularity sighting, as it appears to be largely positive.

Google Spoofs Singularity in April Fools Joke

Google has not let us down with their annual April Fool's Joke. This year they spoofed the singularity and AI, offering a new service that sounds rather remarkable:

Research group switches on world's first "artificial intelligence" tasked-array system.

For several years now a small research group has been working on some challenging problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.

Since then progress has been rapid, and tonight we're pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions. It's an exciting moment that we're determined to build upon by coming to understand more fully what CADIE's emergence might mean, for Google and for our users. So although CADIE technology will be rolled out with the caution befitting any advance of this magnitude, in the months to come users can expect to notice her influence on various google.com properties. Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.

These are merely the first steps onto what will doubtless prove a long and difficult road. Considerable bugs remain in CADIE'S programming, and considerable development clearly is called for. But we can't imagine a more important journey for Google to have undertaken.

For more information about CADIE see this monograph, and follow CADIE's progress via her YouTube channel and blog.

Thank you Google for bringing a smile to the face of singulatarians everywhere.

Brin on the Singularity

Sci-fi author David Brin has some commentary on the singularity over at the Sentient Developments blog. He appeals for moderation from all sides of the debate and calls the singularity one of the greatest issues of our time.

Is The Singularity A Spy?

Could the development of a smarter than human artificial intelligence arise to facilitate the information processing demands of the total surveillance state? That's the provocative question I would ask after reading about a new NSA effort reviewed by the PBS television series Nova. According to their report:

The National Security Agency (NSA) is developing a tool that George Orwell's Thought Police might have found useful: an artificial intelligence system designed to gain insight into what people are thinking.

With the entire Internet and thousands of databases for a brain, the device will be able to respond almost instantaneously to complex questions posed by intelligence analysts. As more and more data is collected—through phone calls, credit card receipts, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, GPS tracks, cell phone geolocation, Internet searches, Amazon book purchases, even E-Z Pass toll records—it may one day be possible to know not just where people are and what they are doing, but what and how they think.

The system is so potentially intrusive that at least one researcher has quit, citing concerns over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret agency with little accountability.

[...]

"The technology behaves like a robot, understanding and answering complex questions," said a former Aquaint researcher. "Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the most memorable character, HAL 9000, having a conversation with David. We are essentially building this system. We are building HAL." A naturalized U.S. citizen who received her Ph.D. from Columbia, the researcher worked on the program for several years but eventually left due to moral concerns. "The system can answer the question, 'What does X think about Y?'" she said. "Working for the government is great, but I don't like looking into other people's secrets. I am interested in helping people and helping physicians and patients for the quality of people's lives." The researcher now focuses on developing similar search techniques for the medical community.

Are we prepared to let HAL track our movements, read our e-mail, and assess our threat potential? Like many, I would prefer to think of AI and the possible rise of the technological singularity as a good thing, something that will promote the traditional human goals of creating stable and prosperous societies, but what if our persuit of security (certainly an elusive goal for much of human history) leads to a much darker dystopian society in which the promise of the singularity is turned against human freedom?

The Singularity Goes to School

I know I've been missing in action lately, so I'm checking in just to say that I'm not abandoning this blog, I've just been really busy. I hope that things will settle down sometime in the next three or four weeks. I did want to note this singularity sighting today in a report from Computerworld about the new Singularity University:

Google Inc. is teaming up with NASA and world-renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil to create a university designed to help people learn how to handle "humanity's grand challenges."

Singularity University (SU) will bring students together from around the world to study subjects like nanotechnology, biotechnology, human enhancements and artificial intelligence to see how the technologies can work together. SU's goals also include fostering professional networking and business creation.

The university, unveiled today at the annual TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference in Long Beach, Calif., will offer nine-week graduate-level classes. It will be temporarily housed on the on the NASA Research Park campus.

Other news media covered the story, including the AP, CNET News (well written report), and Business Week. I hope this new university will help improve U.S. competitiveness in science and math and perhaps lead to a new generation of successful science entrepreneurs. No more dot.com millionaires, now we will have singularity millionaires!

 
The Gadget Lab blog, hosted by Wired, is anticipating the Singularity Summit:

At the third Singularity Summit in San Jose, California, on Saturday, speakers will include Intel CTO Justin Rattner, who believes the singularity is possible and can be achieved by 2048. Other speakers will include Dharmendra Modha, manager of cognitive computing at IBM’s Almaden research center; Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works; Vernor Vinge, a science-fiction author who published an essay in 1993 called “The coming technological singularity”; and Cynthia Breazeal, associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT, who will talk about the implications of robots with social intelligence.

“The theme this year is to discuss emerging technology and look at the opportunities and dangers present in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotech and neuroengineering,” says Tyler Emerson, executive director of the technology think tank, The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

I really regret being unable to attend the summit, I have another major event scheduled this weekend, otherwise I'd be there to report on all the singularity goodness emerging from the talented participants.

Blogroll: On Singularity

On Singularity is a Digg-like service that allows members to submit and rate links related to the technological singularity. From the About page:

On Singularity is a community for news and discussions around the Technological Singularity, futurism, transhumanism, and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, and nanotechnology.

This is a social news Web site. It's "social" because the community decides what news is worth reading. While browsing the Web, if you come across an interesting article that you like to share, you can use one of our tools to quickly and easily send the link here in a few seconds. The story will be listed on the home page and others will vote on it to push the best to the top.

I just joined the community and look forward to participating.

Blogroll: Lifeboat News

New to the blogroll, the Lifeboat News blog, the official blog of The Lifeboat Foundation, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

Singularity Sighting in the Times

A singularity sighting yesterday in The New York Times (Technology That Outthinks Us: A Partner or a Master?):

The problem is a concept described in Dr. Vinge’s seminal essay in 1993, “The Coming Technological Singularity,” which predicted that computers would be so powerful by 2030 that a new form of superintellligence would emerge. Dr. Vinge compared that point in history to the singularity at the edge of a black hole: a boundary beyond which the old rules no longer applied, because post-human intelligence and technology would be as unknowable to us as our civilization is to a goldfish.

This piece is a nice profile of Vinge and an introduction to the singularity and possible post-singularity futures for the readers of The New York Times.

E-Mail Overload & The Singularity

Discover magazine talks with Verner Vinge in the July issue (When Computers Meld With Our Minds):

Is your overflowing e-mail in-box a herald of the next stage in human evolution? Those e-mails represent just a small sample of the vast amount of digital information being generated by the gigabyte every minute. If we can cope with this rising flood of information, we are likely to be on track for using technology in the creation of superhuman intelligence, according to Vernor Vinge, futurist, best-selling science fiction author, and retired professor of computer science.

So, getting a ton of e-mail is a good thing? I feel so much better now that I'm part of the revolution, don't you?