Frappr
Posted on December 14th, 2005 by miron
Location based social network.
http://www.frappr.com/
and the transhumanist group thereon:
http://www.frappr.com/transhumanists
Location based social network.
http://www.frappr.com/
and the transhumanist group thereon:
http://www.frappr.com/transhumanists
(this one is by my father, Vladimir)
Timeline for Singularity is Near (by R. Kurzweil)
2025: IPM creates the first machine to execute 500 trillion instructions/second, the throughput needed to simulate the brain.
2027: Mr. Bill Bates obtains from IPM the exclusive rights to produce a human-level software system. Bill buys an inexpensive brain simulation
and creates the first Humachine.
2028: With huge VC financing and a grant from POD, Bill hires tens of thousands of programmers, builds a campus of 400 buildings and achieves
de facto monopoly in Humachine software business.
2029: A first division of our Humachines destroys the enemy at Pat Pot. Enemy retaliates.
2030: One million Humachines suffer sudden death. A machinopsy shows that the last message in the system was: “irreversible error”.
2031: Improved software which has less bugs is introduced. The production of Humachines takes most of the Earth
available resources. Earth warms up considerably as a result of excessive use of resources to produce Humachines.
2050: World human population decreases considerably as a result of low birthrate and losses related to Humachine wars.
Twenty million Humachines are destroyed by a terrorist attack on their power sources. Much more are built.
2052: Earth temperature continues to increase. A group of humans led by Steve Gobs design an interplanetary vessel
that defies the laws of Physics and might be able to reach outer worlds.
2072: Humachines attack the remaining humans. Gobs’ group escapes with a number of space vessels.
2112: Earth is too hot for life. After 40 years of wandering through the space, the last humans and their children reach the
New Outer World and establish a new civilization (where producing any machine that can do more than 100 computation/s is punishable by death).
The Singularity Was Here…
V.
Here is the long version:
http://www.mattbamberger.com/Main/WhatIBelieveAboutTheSingularityLong
Singularity before Nano? Interesting…
I posted on a discussion about the problem of winner-take-all and MM.
Good semi-introductory text to give to all your smart friends.
Check out Schafmeister Lab for interesting progress in arbitrary shaped nanostructures from a fixed set of building blocks.
Every promising field has plenty of hype. Lots of “jump on the bandwagon” relabeling of existing research.
Here is a definition of nanotechnology: Nanotechnology is technology on the nanometer scale. Nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary activity, drawing on physics, chemistry, electronics, materials science and molecular biology.
And a separate definition for molecular engineering: methods and tools to design and produce high-complexity atomically precise structures. Molecular engineering is a nanotechnology.
I’m interested in molecular engineering. Biotech is not molecular engineering. Biotech is limited in building blocks, complexity and applications. Micro-machinery is not molecularly precise.
An important aspect of engineering is the ability to use an engineering discipline to incrementally improve the discipline itself. For example, you can use a milling machine to build parts for further milling machines. You can use computers to design and simulate computers. With molecular engineering you will be able to both design (molecular computers) and build (molecular assemblers) further molecular devices.
This is the crux of it – by feeding back on design tools and manufacturing you will get a “Moore’s Law” comparable to that of computers.
Enzymes can be used for bootstrapping an initial/simplified assembly machine. After you have the initial machine, it can be used to assemble better assembly machines, etc. . Enzymes are limited in medical application. You can’t really have an enzyme that does complex evaluation of a cell to decide if it is a pre-cancerous or perform complex cleanup and repair on a neuron, etc. . That’s why we should go a step further.
A molecular assembler will require interdisciplinary effort combining chemistry, computation, etc. . Researchers limited to existing fields may not have the vision or may feel threatened by the multi-field requirement. Bio-chemists and computer scientists have different temperaments which may make it harder to collaborate.
A programmable machine has product cycles measured in weeks or months. Existing research has cycles of years. An order of magnitude or two difference. And again, I don’t think you can reach the complexity that you need to deal with the human body.
The “major breakthroughs” in biotech have yet to increase lifespans by more than a few percent. They are major in terms of the past, but minor in terms of what needs to be done/can be done.
Yup. I jumped on the bandwagon. The bandwagon has been circling the town for awhile now, waiting for me to jump on it.