STARLAB's Artificial Brain Project
Austin Osman Spare
By GARRY BARKER
TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now
of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
What do you think?
At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute,
Professor de Garis switched on a machine with which he will build
the world's first neural circuits for a true artificial brain.
In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
similar in capability to those in a human brain.
The neuron networks are built up so that their connections are random,
as they are in the human brain. Most of them fail in production and are
discarded by a system based on Darwin's theory of evolution. Even so,
the circuits are built, tested, accepted or rejected at blinding speed,
many thousands every minute.
When it is finished some time in 2001, this artificial brain or
"artilect" will go into a four-legged robot called Robokitty.
By then work will have begun on the next generation of the artificial
brain which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007 and
would have more than 10 billion neurons. This would bring it to about
the level of a village idiot but within reach of the 23billion organic
neurons contained in the cortex of a human male (19 billion in a female).
Then comes the third generation, which Professor de Garis expects to be
finished about 2011 - a fearsome creation of 1000 billion neurons, vastly
larger than that of a human.
"By then," says this unconventional Australian, "I expect we'll be in a
debate about whether we should proceed any further.
"Long-term I am very worried about the political impact of brain building.
"Since I am helping to pioneer this brain-building field, I feel a strong
moral obligation to stimulate discussion on this enormous question. Do we
allow the artificial intellects to take over or not?"
Futurologists, such as the American computer engineer and author
Ray Kurzweil, agree with him. While they themselves are riding and
driving the technological revolution, they also see its scary side.
A massively powerful artificial brain could easily develop contempt for
its comparatively puny human makers, says Professor de Garis, who predicts
that such a question could be this century's burning issue.
On one side will be those afraid of the consequences of the science. On the
other those who see it as part of human destiny and who say that if artilects
are created by humans, then humans can set the boundaries for the artificial
intelligence.
Professor de Garis is not so sure about humans retaining control, particularly
when it comes to a silicon brain 40 times smarter than your average man. These,
he says, should be coming out of the CAM machines by the second half of this
century.
Some see parallels with the debate raised by the cloning of Dolly the sheep.
The CAM machine with which Professor deGaris is working was built by Genobyte,
a US company based in Boulder, Colorado. It produces microscopic modules on
silicon chips each of about 1000 artificial neurons. Such electrical
connections in our human brains control our movements, our senses and, perhaps
most ominously when it is seen in an artificial environment, our emotions and
our imaginations.
In his profile on his personal website, the professor says: "My dream in
life is to build artificial brains with billions of artificial neurons, and
see brain-like computers become a trillion-dollar industry within 20 years."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
|||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
"...evolved cellular automata (CA) based neural circuit modules..."
* Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis
Head of STARBRAIN
STARLAB's Artificial Brain Project
http://foobar.starlab.net/~degaris/
... I head the Brain Builder Group at STARLAB, a
research lab in Brussels, Belgium, Europe. The
original aim of our "CAM-Brain Project", as stated
at its beginning in 1993, was to build an artificial
brain with a billion artificial neurons, by the year
2001, using evolved cellular automata (CA) based
neural circuit modules. In reality, 7 years later, this
number will be maximum 75 million neurons and
64,000 modules. These CA based neural network
modules grow and evolve at electronic speeds
inside special FPGA based hardware called a
CAM-Brain Machine (CBM), which can update CA
cells at a rate of 130 Billion a second, and can
evolve a neural net module in about 1 second. This
speed should make brain building practical. Tens of
thousands and more of these evolved modules can
be assembled into humanly defined artificial brain
architecures. The evolved CA based circuit modules
are downloaded into a large RAM space and
updated by the CBM fast enough for real time
control of a kitten robot called "Robokitty"...
[Cont. http://foobar.starlab.net/~degaris/ ]
See also: http://diwww.epfl.ch/lami/team/floreano/
FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS
THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
THE SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB2000)
11 - 16 September 2000, Paris, France
http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/
Specifically: http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/images/SAB2000_page_de_garde.jpg
|||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
Bayesian methods are often used for training neural networks.
See: ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ3.html#A_bayes
|||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
Anthropometrics: From Human to Humanoid
http://www.egroups.com/message/machine-learning/545?&start=517
Oliver Sparrow
>Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now
>of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
>may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
>At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute,
>Professor de Garis switched on a machine ...
>which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007
The first paragraph implies that the second is one of the more elaborate
suicide notes in history. The BIRDBRAIN project will, however, no doubt
have finance much more such specious copy before we are rendered obsolete.
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
James Hunter
Oliver Sparrow wrote:
> Austin Osman Spare <aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote:
>
> >Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now
> >of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
> >may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
>
> >At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute,
> >Professor de Garis switched on a machine ...
> >which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007
>
> The first paragraph implies that the second is one of the more elaborate
> suicide notes in history. The BIRDBRAIN project will, however, no doubt
> have finance much more such specious copy before we are rendered obsolete.
Since when "science" predicts the extinction of the human race
that usually simply means that there is a funding sortage, if this brain
can decode quantum mechanics, the extinction of "scientists",
at least, may be a plus rather than a minus for the human race.
Paul Whitehead
<aus...@osman.spare.com> writes
There is nothing to worry about. When these robots get bored
they'll invent...er...something to make life more rich in
experience...er...something like...er...
us.
P
P
.
>In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
>laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
>similar in capability to those in a human brain.
Bullshit, the human brain has over 1 trillion neurons.
Something similar to this was already created by a student in Singapore for
his thesis 10 years ago. His "brain" was used to help mechanics in an airline
(don't remember which one) find the best way to fix damaged aircraft.
Chris Malcolm
>Artificial brain brings food for thought
> By GARRY BARKER
> TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
> http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
>Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now
>of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
>may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
>What do you think?
Going by past experience, once things have gone that far, I'm afraid a
cure is very unlikely.
>In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
>laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
>similar in capability to those in a human brain.
>When it is finished some time in 2001, this artificial brain or
>"artilect" will go into a four-legged robot called Robokitty.
>By then work will have begun on the next generation of the artificial
>brain which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007 and
>would have more than 10 billion neurons. This would bring it to about
>the level of a village idiot but within reach of the 23billion organic
>neurons contained in the cortex of a human male (19 billion in a female).
>Then comes the third generation, which Professor de Garis expects to be
>finished about 2011 - a fearsome creation of 1000 billion neurons, vastly
>larger than that of a human.
>"By then," says this unconventional Australian, "I expect we'll be in a
>debate about whether we should proceed any further.
That's what usually happens when the funding agencies realise they've
been spending lots of money on inflated optimism.
>"Since I am helping to pioneer this brain-building field, I feel a strong
>moral obligation to stimulate discussion on this enormous question. Do we
>allow the artificial intellects to take over or not?"
Why the hurry? Are they going to give us some deadline by which we
have to decide?
>Futurologists, such as the American computer engineer and author
>Ray Kurzweil, agree with him. While they themselves are riding and
>driving the technological revolution, they also see its scary side.
If you want to sell books on this topic, it is extremely important to
see the scary side.
>A massively powerful artificial brain could easily develop contempt for
>its comparatively puny human makers, says Professor de Garis, who predicts
>that such a question could be this century's burning issue.
We look forward to the publication of his book :-(
>On one side will be those afraid of the consequences of the science. On the
>other those who see it as part of human destiny and who say that if artilects
>are created by humans, then humans can set the boundaries for the artificial
>intelligence.
>Professor de Garis is not so sure about humans retaining control, particularly
>when it comes to a silicon brain 40 times smarter than your average man. These,
>he says, should be coming out of the CAM machines by the second half of this
>century.
If this fear of super-intelligence is justified, we would expect human
dictators and tyrants to come from the intellectual cream of the human
race.
>Some see parallels with the debate raised by the cloning of Dolly the sheep.
Presumably just before they fell off their bar stools.
>The CAM machine with which Professor deGaris is working was built by Genobyte,
>a US company based in Boulder, Colorado. It produces microscopic modules on
>silicon chips each of about 1000 artificial neurons. Such electrical
>connections in our human brains control our movements, our senses and, perhaps
>most ominously when it is seen in an artificial environment, our emotions and
>our imaginations.
If this argument holds water, why haven't the automated computer-based
telephone systems of the world already taken over? This isn't a new
idea (the phone systems) -- I think several hifi stories have used
that theme already.
>In his profile on his personal website, the professor says: "My dream in
>life is to build artificial brains with billions of artificial neurons, and
>see brain-like computers become a trillion-dollar industry within 20 years."
>http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
This is the "big enough pile of the right stuff" theory of
intelligence. The AOL experiment, in which millions of the elementary
atomic units of intelligence (morons) were connected together via the
internet, is only the latest version of the Big Pile Theory to bite
the dust.
--
Chris Malcolm c...@dai.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 650 3085
School of Artificial Intelligence, Division of Informatics
Edinburgh University, 5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK
<http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/> DoD #205
Sovereignty
> Una Bologńa wrote:
> >
> > > I'm waiting.
> <(snipped a bunch of something about some lame old circuitry)>
>
> <de-snipped obsessive-compulsive diatribe below>
>
> Artificial brain brings food for thought
> updated by the CBM fast enough for real time
> control of a kitten robot called "Robokitty"...
>
> [Cont. http://foobar.starlab.net/~degaris/ ]
>
> See also: http://diwww.epfl.ch/lami/team/floreano/
> FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS
> THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
> THE SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB2000)
> 11 - 16 September 2000, Paris, France
> http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/
> Specifically: http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/images/SAB2000_page_de_garde.jpg
>
> |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
>
> Bayesian methods are often used for training neural networks.
> See: ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ3.html#A_bayes
>
> |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
"Like the manic individual is the opposite in many ways of the
depressive individual, the obsessive-compulsive is the opposite
in many ways of the character disorder. In general, where the
character disorder might be described as too loose, the compulsive
individual might be described as too tight.
"Where the character disorder is very impulsive and can be easily
triggered to intense emotional reactions, the compulsive is
exaggaratedly self-controlled and keeps his impulses and emotions
very carefully contained. Where the character disorder tends to
act without thinking, the compulsive tends to always be thinking
ahead, and he plans his movements very carefully. Where the character
disorder pays little attention to the voice of conscience and often
behaves in socially improper ways, the compulsive is dominated by
conscience and makes a fetish of propriety. Where the character
disorder is very bodily oriented and emphasizes muscular action, the
compulsive lives in his head and tends to do things in a very exacting,
precise, and deliberate manner. Where the character disorder's
aggression often creates messes and gets him in trouble with his social
surroundings, the compulsive goes to great lengths to avoid mistakes
and to keep things neat, clean, and orderly. Where the character
disorder dislikes and resists schedules and rules and regulations, the
compulsive can't get enough of them, and he tends to build his life
around adherence to prescribed rituals, practices, and timetables.
"Where the character disorder is overtly, actively aggressive, the
compulsive is covertly, sometimes very stubbornly, passive-aggressive.
Where the character disorder tends to live in the present moment and
squanders his time, the compulsive lives primarily in the future and
can't bear to waste a minute. Where the character disorder makes many
mistakes and doesn't seem to learn from them, the compulsive lives in
dread of error and strives mightily for perfection. Where character
disorders tend to be poor learners of lessons, compulsives tend to be
great absorbers of information and often adopt a scholarly, pedantic
approach to life. Where character disorders will haul off and sock
someone who rubs them the wrong way, the compulsive tends to be nitpicky
critical of those with whom he does not agree. Where the character
disorder rarely criticizes himself, the compulsive tends to be super
self-critical. They both have at least one thing in common, however.
They both tend to think that there is only one way, their way, and they
both resist attempts by others to make them do things that they don't
want to do. Neither likes authoritative control, but they resist
it in very different ways.
"The main issue in the compulsive's life is control. He needs to avoid
making mistakes. He is most comfortable when he is in highly predictable
circumstances, so that he always knows what to expect and is not likely
to be caught off guard, where he might slip and make a mess of things.
Rules, regulations, conventions, rituals, proprieties, plans, schedules,
order, regularity, guidelines, highly detailed knowledge, and the like
all enhance his sense of predictability and, hence, control. In his
attempts to keep himself tightly controlled, he is inclined to want to
impose his notions of order and propriety onto his material and social
surroundings. Because this does not usually sit well with others, however,
he often ends up creating messy situations even as he is doing his best to
get everything cleaned-up and in order. Because of his too-narrow focus on
life's minutia, his over-reliance on intellect, and his avoidance of
emotion, the compulsive often gets the absolute letter of things, but tends
to miss the spirit of things. He is great at noting and dealing with parts
and their interelationships, but the overall, wholistic view often eludes
him. Because of all of the holding in and bottling up of emotion and impulse,
the compulsive is often a very tense, uptight person. A lot of internal
pressure tends to build up beneath his carefully controlled surface, and,
from time to time, like a volcano erupting, he may lose control and give
into an intense outburst of emotion and impulse, but then he quickly settles
back into another, lengthy, often even more exaggerated period of excessive
self-control."
NIMROD
>
> Austin Osman Spare wrote:
>
> > Una Bologńa wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm waiting.
> > <(snipped a bunch of something about some lame old circuitry)>
> >
> > <de-snipped obsessive-compulsive diatribe below>
> >
> > Artificial brain brings food for thought
> > updated by the CBM fast enough for real time
> > control of a kitten robot called "Robokitty"...
> > Specifically: http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/images/SAB2000_page_de_garde.jpg
> >
> > |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
> >
> > Bayesian methods are often used for training neural networks.
> > See: ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ3.html#A_bayes
> >
> > |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
>
> "Like the manic individual is the opposite in many ways of the
> depressive individual, the obsessive-compulsive is the opposite
> in many ways of the character disorder. In general, where the
> character disorder might be described as too loose, the compulsive
> individual might be described as too tight.
Cool.
"Pay attention. And keep breathing." -- T. McKenna (1946-2000)
http://www.levity.com/eschaton/index.html
* * * * * * * * * *
THE HEDONISTIC IMPERATIVE
A B S T R A C T
This manifesto outlines a biological strategy
to eradicate suffering in all sentient life.
The Post-Darwinian agenda is ambitious,
implausible, but technically feasible. It is
defended here on ethical utilitarian grounds.
Nanotechnology and genetic-engineering allow
us to discard the legacy-wetware of our
evolutionary past. We can rewrite the
vertebrate genome, redesign the global
ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout
the living world.
[Cont. @ http://www.hedweb.com/hedab.htm ]
* * * * * * * * * *
On the weekend of April 14-16, 2000, Professor Michio Kaku, stated in part:
"... Von Neumann Probes are self-replicating machines.
They land on a moon, create a factory that creates thousands of copies of
themselves that shoot out to other moons, land on the moon, create
thousands of copies of them and shoot out again. OK. Each time they land on
a moon they leave an alarm clock waiting for a 'Type Zero' civilization to
attain 'Type One' status, which would be interesting for a 'Type Three'
civilization. ..."
[ http://www.wbaifree.org/explorations/mk-faq.html#BUILD ]
* * * * * * * * * *
CUT TO:
"Communion" by Frank Savino
http://www.cyber3.com/instructor_images/communion16.jpg
"The Pearl" by Frank Savino
http://www.cyber3.com/instructor_images/thepearl_med%20.jpg
More of Frank Savino's work at:
http://www.cyber3.com/html/savinogallery.html
* * * * * * * * * *
"The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and
robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed.
Ideas can't be put back in a box; unlike uranium or plutonium,
they don't need to be mined and refined, and they can be freely
copied. Once they are out, they are out." -- Bill Joy
Bill Joy's "Wired" article:
"Why the future doesn't need us.
Our most powerful 21st-century
technologies - robotics, genetic
engineering, and nanotech - are
threatening to make humans an
endangered species."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
* * * * * * * * * *
"This is the first moment in the history of our planet
when any species, by its own voluntary actions, has become
a danger to itself - as well as to vast numbers of others.
"It might be a familiar progression, transpiring on many
worlds - a planet, newly formed, placidly revolves around
its star; life slowly forms; a kaleidoscopic procession of
creatures evolves; intelligence emerges which, at least up
to a point, confers enormous survival value; and then
technology is invented. It dawns on them that there are such
things as laws of Nature, that these laws can be revealed by
experiment, and that knowledge of these laws can be made both
to save and to take lives, both on unprecedented scales.
Science, they recognize, grants immense powers. In a flash,
they create world-altering contrivances. Some planetary
civilizations see their way through, place limits on what may
and what must not be done, and safely pass through the time
of perils. Others, not so lucky or so prudent, perish."
--Carl Sagan, writing in 1994, in "Pale Blue Dot",
quoted by Bill Joy
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
* * * * * * * * * *
From a below link:
"...At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
in Ohio, for example, the military's Alternative
Control Technology Laboratory has experimented
with systems that allow pilots to 'fly by thought.'
By controlling their brain waves, human subjects
at the laboratory can steer a flight simulator
left or right, up or down, a skill that most
people at the lab master in only an hour..."
* * * * * * * * * *
Thirty One Months Ago...
Monday, October 27, 1997
Caltech scientists devise first neurochip
http://broccoli.caltech.edu/~media/lead/102797JP.html
* * * * * * * * * *
Neurology: Computer Chips for the Brain
By Rick Weiss
Monday, October 27, 1997
The Washington Post
If you've ever wished for a memory upgrade in your head like the ones you
can buy for your computer, you'll be happy to hear researchers have made a
computer chip that interfaces directly with brain cells.
Scientists say similar so-called neurochips could someday be used to wire
small cameras directly to brain cells, helping blind people see. More
immediately, the research may shed light on how neurons communicate and
how memories are made.
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology created the silicon
chips with standard integrated circuit techniques. The chips are pitted
with 16 depressions, each about half the diameter of a human hair; each
depression is attached to a tiny electrode that feeds into a computer. The
researchers filled each well with nerve-nourishing substances, then placed
individual neurons from embryonic rat brains into each well and allowed
them to grow.
The neurons grew extensions over the walls separating the wells and made
connections with each other as they would in a developing brain, the team
reported yesterday in New Orleans at the Society for Neuroscience's annual
meeting. The built-in electrodes detect individual firings between nerve
cells, which resemble the electrical pathways that etch memories in the
brain, and the computer is analyzing factors that affect neuronal
communication. Eventually, the researchers said, the chips could be used
to enhance various brain functions.
* * * * * * * * * *
Phillip R. Kennedy
The Human-Computer Interface
On October 13th this year [1998], Emory University neurologist,
Dr. Phillip R. Kennedy and neurosurgeon Dr. Roy E. Bakay
announced the successful implant of neurotrophic electrodes
into the brains of two patients, one with amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis and the other with brainstem stroke. The
neurotrophic electrode technology was developed by Dr.
Kennedy while at the Georgia Institute of Technology and has
been tested and developed further in a collaboration between
Emory University and Georgia Tech over the past twelve years.
The implant signifies a major advance in allowing people to
directly interface with computers. ...
* * * * * * * * * *
Do cyborgs live among us?
Scientists blur the boundaries between
'wetware' -- the living brain -- and
computer hardware
by Jay Bookman
Excerpts:
[John Chapin, a neurobiologist at MCP Hahnemann University
in Philadelphia] and his team wired the brains of lab rats directly
to a computer, giving the animals an ability unknown to human
beings...
Steve Mann, a pioneer in wearable computing and a professor of
electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, has been building
and using his own wearable computers since he was a high school
student in Canada. He calls himself a cyborg...
In pursuit of artificial intelligence, scientists are building artificial
neural networks and teaching them to operate as real neural
networks do in the human brain...
Bill Ditto, a Georgia Tech researcher in neurosilicon computing,
leads a team that has built a simple adding machine out of the
neurons of a leech. In five years, he predicts, his team will have built
a much more complex machine out of living rat neurons grown on a
sheet of silicon. Such a computer might be taught to think as living
brains do...
http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife.asp?s2=life&f=000411/256606.html
* * * * * * * * * *
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/media/mirage4.jpg
"Quantum mirage" may enable atom-scale circuits
IBM Scientists Discover Nanotech Communication Method
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/media/mirage.html
"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)"
See: http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa00-34.htm
Notwithstanding the dire concerns of Bill Joy (see article below)* ,
Does "EHPA" [Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation] sound
like a worthy, utilitarian goal with potential life-enhancing
applications in fields far beyond just the military-industrial?
Announcement and call for papers Ninth Annual Symposium on
HAPTIC INTERFACES FOR VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
AND TELEOPERATOR SYSTEMS
To be held at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress
and Exposition [ http://www.asme.org/conf/congress00/index.htm ]
The Winter Annual Meeting of the ASME
November 5-10, 2000 Walt Disney World Dolphin Orlando, Florida
Sponsored by the Robotics Panel of the Dynamics Systems and
Control Division [ http://www.ecn.missouri.edu/~asme2000/ ]
of the ASME [ http://www.asme.org/ ]
A gallery of haptic interfaces:
http://haptic.mech.nwu.edu/intro/gallery/
"Magnetic Levitation Haptic Interfaces
The Microdynamic Systems Laboratory operates within
the Robotics Institute [ http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ ]
which is a department of the School of Computer Science
[ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/FrontDoor.html ] at Carnegie
Mellon University [ http://www.cmu.edu/ ]. Some of our
projects are affiliated with the Institute for Complex
Engineered Systems [ http://www.edrc.cmu.edu/ ] at CMU."
* * * * * * * * * *
NANOTECH:
NAS Nanotechnology Gallery
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/gallery/
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom
An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics
by Richard P. Feynman
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
Nanotechnology
http://www.zyvex.com/nano/
* * * * * * * * * *
Franklin Wayne Poley's: "MACHINE PSYCHOLOGY
and the politics of everyday robots"
http://users.uniserve.com/~culturex/Machine-Psychology.htm
* * * * * * * * * *
We, Borg
Speculations on Hive Minds as a Posthuman State
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Posthumanity/WeBorg.html
* [Bill Joy] Co-founder of Sun Microsystems sees doom in technology
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/nation-world/html98/doom_20000313.html
Mission-Critical Deployment
Sun's Jini™ Technology Drafted for Service in the U.S. Army
http://www.sun.com/dot-com/studies/jiniinthearmy.html
WILL SPIRITUAL ROBOTS REPLACE HUMANITY BY 2100?
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/symbol/Hofstadter-event.html
Report from Spiritual Machines
2000-04-04 16:53:58
By Arkuat
Arkuat gives you the inside scoop on the "Spiritual Machines" panel and
conclave. Wacky excitement ensues!
http://www.pigdog.org/auto/special_ideas/shortfeature/1347.html
* * * * * * * * * *
Ray Kurzweil --
Kurzweil Technologies, Inc. (KTI)
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/
The book: The Age Of Spiritual Machines
by
Ray Kurzweil
... 2099 - The reverse engineering of the human brain appears to be complete.
The hundreds of specialised regions have been fully scanned, analysed
and understood. Machine analogues, which have been enhanced and
extended, are based on these human models. There is a strong trend
towards a merger of human thinking with the world of machine
intelligence... Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation
to intelligent beings. Some many millenniums hence... Intelligent beings
consider the fate of the Universe.
* * * * * * * * * *
EVE
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Den/4729/eve162.jpg
* * * * * * * * * *
"ISMDA 2000" - URL: http://medan.de/ISMDA/
Selected Call for Papers
Conferences
"AI General": http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~silvia/CFP/
Perhaps interesting conferences in 2000:
http://phyq5.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~jeti/conferences.html
* * * * * * * * * *
"Interspecies Global Mind
by Howard Bloom 08.12.1999
"...It is said that we have enraged nature by tearing at the pattern
of her tracery, and for this transgression we shall be punished mightily.
But we are nature incarnate. We are made up of her molecules and cells.
We are tools of her probings and if, indeed, we suffer and we fail, from
our lessons she will learn which way in the future not to turn. For all
that lives and all that ever has is part of a collective brain, a neural
net of the most sprawling kind...an evolution-driven, worldwide,
multi-billion-year-old interspecies mind."
http://ftp.ix.de/tp/english/special/glob/6556/1.html
* * * * * * * * * *
100 Tetrahertz Atomic Precision
Silicon Crystal Switches Produced
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000410S0057
MEMS tie the knot with nanotechnology
http://www.eetimes.com/story/technology/OEG20000418S0019
* * * * * * * * * *
Machine Learning Archives:
http://www.egroups.com/messages/machine-learning/
* * * * * * * * * *
Towards a Jungian Psychology of Technology
http://www.cgjung.com/psychtech/rrdreambody.html
Erik Davis' - Techgnosis
http://www.levity.com/techgnosis/techgnosis.html
* * * * * * * * * *
Seth Russell
> This is the "big enough pile of the right stuff" theory of
> intelligence. The AOL experiment, in which millions of the elementary
> atomic units of intelligence (morons) were connected together via the
> internet, is only the latest version of the Big Pile Theory to bite
> the dust.
I think its just a tad too soon to say the 'experiment' has bit the dust.
And just how can you tell .. i mean where are you looking anyway? I
know where I look. I look at my self and my contacts and my business and
i ask the question: Are these more intelligent because they are connected
to the net? And the answer comes back with a resounding YES! But then
I'm not on AOL ;-)
Seth Russell
http://robustai.net/ai/word_of_emouth.htm
Http://RobustAi.net/Ai/Conjecture.htm
James Hunter
NIMROD wrote: Phillip R. Kennedy
> The Human-Computer Interface
>
> On October 13th this year [1998], Emory University neurologist,
> Dr. Phillip R. Kennedy and neurosurgeon Dr. Roy E. Bakay
> announced the successful implant of neurotrophic electrodes
> into the brains of two patients, one with amyotrophic lateral
> sclerosis and the other with brainstem stroke. The
> neurotrophic electrode technology was developed by Dr.
> Kennedy while at the Georgia Institute of Technology and has
> been tested and developed further in a collaboration between
> Emory University and Georgia Tech over the past twelve years.
> The implant signifies a major advance in allowing people to
> directly interface with computers. ...
Those implants signify major advances in allowing -handicapped-
people to directly interface with computers. There would be
no real advantage that can seen for a fully functional person to have those
implants since they already do directly interface with computers.
Janitor Chip
>
> NIMROD wrote: Phillip R. Kennedy
>
> > The Human-Computer Interface
> >
> > On October 13th this year [1998], Emory University neurologist,
> > Dr. Phillip R. Kennedy and neurosurgeon Dr. Roy E. Bakay
> > announced the successful implant of neurotrophic electrodes
> > into the brains of two patients, one with amyotrophic lateral
> > sclerosis and the other with brainstem stroke. The
> > neurotrophic electrode technology was developed by Dr.
> > Kennedy while at the Georgia Institute of Technology and has
> > been tested and developed further in a collaboration between
> > Emory University and Georgia Tech over the past twelve years.
> > The implant signifies a major advance in allowing people to
> > directly interface with computers. ...
>
> people to directly interface with computers. There would be
> no real advantage that can seen for a fully functional person to have those
> implants since they already do directly interface with computers.
Human System Integration Recommendations
Air Force 2025 [www.au.af.mil/au/2025/]
"...The technologies needed in the human system integration component
will require the Air Force to focus research on areas unique to military
missions while maximizing its leverage on the advances in the commercial
world. Supporting technologies in this area are improvements to human
sensory capabilities and technologies that improve the human cognitive
capabilities. These technologies will allow the human and system to work
with one another to maintain the best situational awareness possible.
The Air Force must also pursue an effective training program for humans
and systems to achieve good integration and provide the best environment
for making decisions. Interactive and learning displays will be a key
component of the information operations systems of 2025. To improve the
ability of the decision makers to receive the information necessary to
make decisions, the Air Force must continue to advance the capabilities
of HSI technology..."
http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume1/chap01/v1c1-5.htm
=============================
The Age Of Spiritual Machines
Ray Kurzweil, <http://www.kurzweiltech.com/>, a world expert
on artificial intelligence, reveals his vision of life beyond
the Millennium, and it's barely human:
2009 - Personal computers with high-resolution visual displays
come in a range of sizes, from those small enough to be embedded
in clothing and jewelry up to the size of a thin book. Most users
have servers in their homes and offices where they keep large
stores of digital 'objects', including their software, databases,
documents, music, movies and virtual-reality environments (although
these are still at an early stage).
Computer displays built into eyeglasses are also used. These allow
users to see the normal visual environment, while creating a virtual
image, using a tiny laser built into the glasses, that appears to
hover in front of the Viewer. Most routine business transactions
(purchases, travel, reservations) take place between a human and a
virtual personality. Often, the virtual personality includes an
animated visual presence that looks like a human face...
Privacy has emerged as a primary political issue. The almost constant
use of electronic communication technologies is leaving a highly
detailed trail of every person's every move. In warfare, humans are
generally far removed from the scene of battle, which are dominated by
unmanned, intelligent, airborne devices. Many of these flying weapons
are the size of small birds, or smaller.
2019 - Computers are now largely invisible and are embedded
everywhere - in walls, tables, chairs, desks, clothing, jewelry
and bodies. A $1,000 computer device (in 1999 dollars) is now
approximately equal to the computational ability of the human brain.
Three-dimensional virtual reality displays, embedded in glasses and
contact lenses, as well as auditory 'lenses', are used routinely as
primary interfaces for communication with other persons, computers,
the Web and virtual reality.
Nanoengineered machines (machines built atom-by-atom) are beginning
to be applied to manufacturing and process-control applications.
High-resolution, three-dimensional visual and auditory virtual reality
and realistic all-encompassing tactile environments enable people to
do virtually anything with anybody, regardless of physical proximity.
The vast majority of transactions include a simulated person.
People are beginning to have relationships with automated personalities,
which have reliable memories and programmable personalities, and use
them as companions, teachers, caretakers and lovers.
Most flying weapons are tiny - some as small as insects. The subjective
experience of computer-based intelligence is seriously discussed.
Machine intelligence is still largely the product of a collaboration
between humans and machines, and has been programmed to maintain a
subservient relationship to the species that created it.
2029 - A $1,000 (in 1999 dollars) unit of computation has the computing
capacity of approximately 1,000 human brains.
Permanent or removable implants (similar to contact lenses) for the
eyes, as well as cochlear implants, are now used to provide input and
output between the human user and the worldwide computing network.
Direct neural pathways have been perfected for high-bandwidth connection
to the human brain. A range of neural implants is becoming available to
enhance visual and auditory perception and interpretation, memory and
reasoning.
Significant knowledge is being created by machines with little or no
human intervention. Computers have read all available human, and
machine-generated literature, and multimedia material.
The majority of communication does not involve a human. The majority of
communication involving a human is between a human and a machine. Human
cognition is being exported to machines, and many machines have
personalities, skills and knowledge bases derived from the reverse
engineering of human intelligence. Unlike humans, computers consistently
perform at optimal levels and readily share their skills and knowledge
with one another. For reasons of political sensitivity, machine
intelligences generally do not press the point of their superiority.
There is a growing discussion about the legal rights of computers and
what constitutes being 'human'. The life expectancy of humans is now
around 120 years. There is growing recognition that continuing
extensions to the human life-span will involve further use of bionic
organs, including portions of the brain. Nanobots (self-replicating
robots created using nanotechnology) are being used as scouts, as
repair agents in the bloodstream and as building blocks for bionic
organs.
Controversy persists about whether or not machine intelligence equals
human intelligence in all of its diversity. Machines claim to be
conscious. These claims are largely accepted.
2049 - The common use of nanoproduced food, which has the correct
nutritional composition and the same taste and texture of organically
produced food, means that the availability of food is no longer
affected by limited resources, bad crop weather or spoilage.
Nanobots are used to create visual-auditory-tactile projections of
people and objects in real reality.
2099 - The reverse engineering of the human brain appears to be complete.
The hundreds of specialized regions have been fully scanned, analyzed
and understood. Machine analogues, which have been enhanced and
extended, are based on these human models. There is a strong trend
towards a merger of human thinking with the world of machine
intelligence.
There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers.
Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence.
Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human
intelligence claim to be human, although their brains are not based on
carbon-based cellular processes, but rather electronic and photonic
equivalents. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific
computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans
vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation.
Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons,
there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology, which provides
enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities.
Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully
participate in dialogues with those who do. Because most information is
published using standard assimilated knowledge protocols, information
can be instantly understood. The goal of education, and of intelligent
beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn. Life expectancy is no
longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings. Some many
millenniums hence... Intelligent beings consider the fate of the
Universe.
Copyright (c) Ray Kurzweil, 1999. Extracted from The Age Of Spiritual
Machines by Ray Kurzweil, published by Orion Business Books
=============================
April 28, 1999 [broccoli.caltech.edu/~media/Press_Releases/PR11976.html]
A unique class of neurons in humans and apes that may participate in
cognition, volition, and self-awareness discovered by researchers
PASADENA - Clusters of large neurons found exclusively in the brains
of humans and other primates closely related to humans may provide
these species with enhanced capacities for solving hard problems,
as well as for self-control and self-awareness.
In the April 27 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science, neurobiologists Patrick Hof from Mount Sinai and John Allman
from Caltech and their colleagues have found an unusual type of neuron,
that is likely to be a recent evolutionary acquisition.
The neurons in question are spindle-shaped cells, which are almost
large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Their location in the brain
is in the frontal lobe near the corpus callosum, which connects the two
halves of the brain.
Allman, the Hixon Professor of Psychobiology and professor of biology;
Hof; and their team studied 28 different species of primates and found
the spindle neurons only in humans and very closely related apes.
The concentration of spindle neurons was greatest in humans, somewhat
less in chimpanzees, still less in gorillas, and rare in orangutans.
http://broccoli.caltech.edu/~media/Press_Releases/PR11976.html
=============================
Ripples
and Puddles
Hans Moravec [www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/]
"...The sounds and images processed by human ears and eyes represent
megabytes per second of raw data, itself enough to overwhelm computers
past and present. Text, speech and vision programs derive meaning from
from snippets of such data by weighing and reweighing thousands or
millions of hypotheses in its light. At least some of the human brain
works similarly. Roughly ten times per second at each of the retina’s
million effective pixels, dozens of neurons weigh the hypothesis that
a static or moving boundary is visible then and there. The visual
cortex’s ten billion neurons elaborate those results, each moment
appraising possible orientations and colors at all the image locations.
Efficient computer vision programs require over 100 calculations each
to make similar assessments. Most of the brain remains mysterious, but
all its neurons seem to work about diligently as those in the visual
system. Elsewhere I’ve detailed the retinal calculation to conclude
that it would take on the order of 100 trillion calculations per
second of computing -- about a million present-day PCs -- to match the
brain’s functionality.
"That number presumes an emulation of the brain at the scale of image
edge detectors: a few hundred thousand calculations per second doing
the job of a few hundred neurons. The computational requirements would
increase (maybe a lot) if we demanded emulation at a finer grain, say
explicit representation of each neuron. By insisting on a fine grain we
constrain the solution space and outlaw global optimizations. On the
plus side, by constraining the space we simplify the search! No need to
find efficient algorithms for edge detection and other hundred-neuron-
scale nervous system functions. If we had good models for neurons and a
wiring diagram of a brain, we could emulate it as a straightforward
network simulation. The problems of Artificial Intelligence would be
reduced to merely instrumentally- and computationally-daunting work..."
http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/
=============================
BIOMOLECULAR COMPUTER : ROOTS AND PROMISES.
Nicholas G. Rambidi
http://www.cs.wayne.edu/~ngr/biocomputing1.html
=============================
Etcetera... Etc... etc...
Janitor Chip
>
> Sovereignty wrote:
> >
> > Austin Osman Spare wrote:
> >
> > > Una Bologńa wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I'm waiting.
Uhhhmm... you're kidding... right?!
What is NIMROD?
NIMROD is a code that simulates non-ideal, linear and nonlinear,
time dependent, 3D MHD effects in realistic geometries. It will
incorporate the physics of rotation and account for error fields.
It will be a user friendly and modular code that can analyze all
operating modes of a fusion device. The principal output of
NIMROD will be the beta limits, locked modes, and transport.
The users of NIMROD include experimentalists, engineers, and
theorists. The code will be used for the analysis of existing
devices, prediction of operational events, and design of future
devices. The main applications of NIMROD are ITER, present
generation tokamaks and alternative concepts.
The NIMROD code development project is based on a process called
Quality Function Deployment operating in a concurrent engineering
environment. It is a multi-laboratory project supported by the
Office of Fusion Energy (OFE) and the Mathematical, Information,
and Computational Sciences (MICS) Division of the U.S. Department
of Energy. http://wwwofe.er.doe.gov/More_HTML/NIMROD.HTML
=============================
The Age Of Spiritual Machines
Ray Kurzweil, <http://www.kurzweiltech.com/>, a world expert
2099 - The reverse engineering of the human brain appears to be complete.
The hundreds of specialized regions have been fully scanned, analyzed
and understood. Machine analogues, which have been enhanced and
extended, are based on these human models. There is a strong trend
towards a merger of human thinking with the world of machine
intelligence.
There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers.
Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence.
Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human
intelligence claim to be human, although their brains are not based on
carbon-based cellular processes, but rather electronic and photonic
equivalents. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific
computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans
vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation.
Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons,
there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology, which provides
enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities.
Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully
participate in dialogues with those who do. Because most information is
published using standard assimilated knowledge protocols, information
can be instantly understood. The goal of education, and of intelligent
beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn. Life expectancy is no
longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings. Some many
millenniums hence... Intelligent beings consider the fate of the
Universe.
Copyright (c) Ray Kurzweil, 1999. Extracted from The Age Of Spiritual
Human System Integration Recommendations
Air Force 2025 [www.au.af.mil/au/2025/]
"...The technologies needed in the human system integration component
will require the Air Force to focus research on areas unique to military
missions while maximizing its leverage on the advances in the commercial
world. Supporting technologies in this area are improvements to human
sensory capabilities and technologies that improve the human cognitive
capabilities. These technologies will allow the human and system to work
with one another to maintain the best situational awareness possible.
The Air Force must also pursue an effective training program for humans
and systems to achieve good integration and provide the best environment
for making decisions. Interactive and learning displays will be a key
component of the information operations systems of 2025. To improve the
ability of the decision makers to receive the information necessary to
make decisions, the Air Force must continue to advance the capabilities
of HSI technology..."
http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume1/chap01/v1c1-5.htm
=============================
BIOMOLECULAR COMPUTER : ROOTS AND PROMISES.
James Hunter
Janitor Chip wrote:
If you look around, you'll probably find that -every- military organization
of the major country's has a similar doctrine. The top level decision
makers are probably the last people in world who need or would
*want* those implants. How you would use direct implants to improve
cognition isn't really clear.
James Hunter
Janitor Chip wrote:
If you look around, you'll probably find that -every- military organization
benkind
surely everyone shoudl have some worry about a machine that can think for
itself and is 40 times smarter than a human!
ben
>At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute,
>Professor de Garis switched on a machine with which he will build
>the world's first neural circuits for a true artificial brain.
>
>In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
>laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
>similar in capability to those in a human brain.
>
>When it is finished some time in 2001, this artificial brain or
>"artilect" will go into a four-legged robot called Robokitty.
>
>By then work will have begun on the next generation of the artificial
>brain which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007 and
>would have more than 10 billion neurons. This would bring it to about
>the level of a village idiot but within reach of the 23billion organic
>neurons contained in the cortex of a human male (19 billion in a female).
>
>Then comes the third generation, which Professor de Garis expects to be
>finished about 2011 - a fearsome creation of 1000 billion neurons, vastly
>larger than that of a human.
>
>A massively powerful artificial brain could easily develop contempt for
>its comparatively puny human makers, says Professor de Garis, who predicts
>that such a question could be this century's burning issue.
Jim R Feliciano
>> >of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
>> >may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
>>
>> >which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007
>>
>> suicide notes in history. The BIRDBRAIN project will, however, no doubt
>> have finance much more such specious copy before we are rendered obsolete.
>
> Since when "science" predicts the extinction of the human race
> that usually simply means that there is a funding sortage, if this brain
> can decode quantum mechanics, the extinction of "scientists",
> at least, may be a plus rather than a minus for the human race.
>
>
It won't be the "decode quantum mechanics" aspect that will make it special.
When it explains quantum mechanics in a way that I can understand, I will say
that the mechanism is close to a brain.
Sincerely from,
Jim R Feliciano
jfe...@sfusd.edu
-"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
-H.L. Mencken
Hey my site Take your sense of humor with you.
http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/banzai/834/shake1.html
X-MEN Fusion
> surely everyone shoudl have some worry about a machine that can think for
> itself and is 40 times smarter than a human!
Yes, seems like a logical solution, but nothing ever really goes the way
of logic. Smarter is better, so maybe that is the logical direction...?
Conscious machinery or sentient cybernetics interfaced with human neurology
is inevitable. The question is: 'how far' is that particular future?
Either way, we owe it to the universe that built us, to build our enhanced
successors. It's in our nature to do so. By the way... do you own a wearable
cell phone with built-in computer monitor yet?
And... how will we power it all while maintaininhg a viable biosphere?
P.S. maybe if there is such a thing as sentient reincarnation, we'll one day
find ourselves waking up in an enormous latice work of orbiting platforms made
up of synthetic networks. In the meantime... it better rain in Los Alamos.
Phillips Laboratory Exploratory Development
http://209.207.236.112/spp/military/budget/peds_98f/0602601f.htm
Magnetized Target Fusion
Measurements of Solid Liner Implosion for Magnetized Target Fusion IC
R. Siemon, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
Data are presented on the implosion symmetry of a 1-mm-thick 10-cm-diameter
30-cm-long solid alu minum cylinder (called a liner.) At the moment when
radial compression of more than 10:1 is achieved, the inward velocity of the
inner liner surface is 5 km/sec and liner symmetry is excellent (rms variation
in radius less than 10%). This technology is important for Magnetized Target
Fusion, the approach being developed where magnetically insulated plasma is
compressed to fusion conditions by means of an imploded liner. Progress on
developing a high-density field-reversed configuration (n ~ 10 17 cm -3 with
T ~ 300 eV) to serve as the plasma target will also be reported.
Measurements of Solid Liner Implosion for Magnetized Target Fusion* IC
R. SIEMON, T. INTRATOR, M. TACCETTI, F. WYSOCKI, R. FAEHL, K.
SCHOENBERG, D. CLARK, K. FORMAN, I. LINDEMUTH, G. WURDEN , and the MTF
TEAM, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA 87545
J. DEGNAN, D. GALE, W. SOMMARS, S. COFFEY, http://fusionenergy.lanl.gov/
Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, USA 87117
Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) is an approach to achieve fusion conditions by
compressional heating of a magnetized target plasma. This represents a
cheaper, faster method for a fusion break-even experiment in the short run,
and an innovative pathway to fusion energy for the longer term. Among the
various possible MTF configurations, we have chosen a cylindrical liner shell
imploding a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC). We show data demonstrating
liner characteristics that exceed our requirements for liner compression of an
FRC, namely high compression ratio and symmetry for a cylindrical aluminum liner
with 3:1 length to diameter aspect ratio. Radiographs are consistent with
experimental measurements of magnetic flux compression of a seed magnetic field,
and a novel ZnSe Faraday rotation diagnostic with high sensitivity and dynamic
range. These all indicate the time history of an aluminum liner’s radial position
and speed agreeing with models. To achieve 10-keV temperature and interesting
thermonuclear burn of fuel in a 10:1 cylindrical compression requires formation
of a dense FRC (n ~ 10 17 cm -3 ) with T ~ 300 eV.
Progress on the design and construction of an experiment to test the required
FRC formation, resembling work originally done in the late 1960s, will also be
described. Liner experiments without plasma were carried out at AFRL Kirtland,
<http://www.sandia.gov/pulspowr/hedicf/highlights/index.html> using the SHIVA Star
capacitor bank. <http://www.af.mil/news/Jul1998/n19980715_981034.html> The 1300-mf
capacitor bank, marxed to 80 kV (5 MJ stored energy) uses low-inductance star-
configured current feeds to drive the liner. The coaxial current feed assembly
operates under vacuum. These initial experiments used a cylindrical 270-gram 30-cm
long aluminum liner with inner radius 4.89 cm and wall thickness 0.11 cm.
The cylinder was press fit between upper and lower conical glide planes that
provide electrical contact during the implosion. Current maximum was 11 MA at 10 ms,
which coupled 1.4 MJ of kinetic energy to the liner during the 24 ms collapse.
Radiographs in Figure 1 show three snapshots of the contracting liner. On axis is a
0.635-cm diameter stationary SS tube that contains Bdot probes and a novel ZnSe
Faraday rotation diagnostic to measure the compression of an initial 60-90 Gauss
seed field. At the last frame, a small 0.05 cm gap exists between the inside of the
liner and the diagnostic SS tube. This indicates a final radial compression ratio
of 13:1, which exceeds the 10:1 design goal for MTF compression. Not shown are an
axial and azimuthal array of 16 optical impact probes located at a radius of 0.5 cm
at the other end of the liner. The optical probes show that the final cylindrical
shape was distorted to an oval, but symmetry was better than ± 300mm at the 0.5-cm
probe radius. After correcting for the time-dependent magnetic diffusion through
the SS tube, magnetic probe data allow the liner inner radius to be determined as
a function of time...
*This work supported by DOE Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36
http://fusionenergy.lanl.gov/
IAEA-abstract-synopsis2000.pdf
See also, "Advanced Propulsion Technology", JPL Research & Technology
http://techinfo.jpl.nasa.gov/www/wwwr&t/94r&t/n170sp.htm
Oliver Sparrow
>This is the "big enough pile of the right stuff" theory of
>intelligence. The AOL experiment, in which millions of the elementary
>atomic units of intelligence (morons) were connected together via the
>internet, is only the latest version of the Big Pile Theory to bite
>the dust.
Superb.
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
NIMROD
from The Magickal Revival
by Kenneth Grant
H.P. Lovecraft, in one of his tales of terror, alludes to certain
entities which have their being "not in the spaces known to us, but
between them. They walk calm and primal, of no dimensions, and to
us unseen."
This aptly describes Austin Osman Spare. The circumstances of his
birth emphasize the element of ambivalence and inbetweeness which
forms the theme of his magic. He told me he was not sure whether
he was born on the last day of December 1888, or on New Year's Day,
1889; whether, as he put it, he was Janus backward-turning, or Janus
forward-facing. But whichever aspect of the deity he more closely
represented, it is a fact that his life was a curious blend of past
and future. Despite his inability to remember quite when he was born,
the place was certainly Snowhill, London: he was the only son of a
City of London policeman.
When barely twenty years of age he began writing The Book of Pleasure,
in which he used art and sex to explore the subconscious mind. The Book
of Pleasure reeks of diabolism to such an extent that Mario Praz in The
Romantic Agony (Oxford, 1933) refers to Spare as an English "satanic
occultist", and he places him in the same category as Aleister Crowley.
Spare's intense interest in the more obscure aspects of sorcery sprang
from his early friendship with an old colonial woman who claimed descent
from a line of Salem witches that Cotton Mather had failed to exterminate.
Spare always alluded to her as Mrs. Paterson, and called her his "second
mother". She had an extremely limited vocabulary composed mainly of the
fortune-teller's argot, yet she was able to define and explain the most
abstract ideas much more clearly than could Spare with his large and
unusual vocabulary.
Although penniless, she would accept no payment for her fortune-telling,
but insisted on the odd symbolic coin traditionally exacted as a sacrifice
fee. Apart from her skill in divining, she was the only person Spare ever
met who could materialize thoughts to visible appearance.
Aleister Crowley - who met and attracted all kinds of psychically active
individuals - met two only in the course of his life who had this
particular siddhi (Allan Bennett was one; the other, Crowley did not name).
Mrs. Paterson, when visited for purposes of fortune-telling, would read a
person's character immediately as a matter of course before going into
details about the future. If she prophesied an event she was unable to
describe verbally, she would objectivize the event in a visual image and
the querent would see, in some dark corner of her room, a clearly defined
if fleeting image of the prophesied event. And this never failed to follow
at the appointed time.
It was undoubtedly Mrs. Paterson's influence that stimulated Spare's innate
interest in the occult, which, allied to his remarkable skill as a draughtsman
enabled him to reproduce through his art the strange entities he encountered
in transmundane spheres. He drew several portraits of Mrs. Paterson, one of
which appeared in The Focus of Life, published by the Morland Press in 1921.
Another drawing of her by Spare recently appeared (1971) in the part-work
encyclopaedia Man, Myth and Magic, where she is shown after having
"exteriorized" herself in the form of a nubile girl.
Spare too was able occasionally to conjure thought-forms to visible
appearance, but whereas in the old witch's case it was an unfailing
power, in his own case it was erratic and uncertain. On one occasion
it worked only too effectively, as two unfortunate persons learnt to
their cost. They were of the dilettante kind, mere dabblers in the
occult. They wanted Spare to conjure an Elemental to visible
appearance. They had seen materialized spirits of the dead in the
seance room, but had never seen an Elemental. Spare tried to dissuade
them, explaining that such creatures were subconscious automata
inhabiting the human psyche at levels normally inaccessible to the
conscious mind. As they almost always embodied atavistic urges and
propensities, it was an act of folly to evoke them as their intrusion
into waking life could be extremely dangerous. But the smatterers did
not take him seriously.
Using his own method of elemental evocation, Spare set to work.
Nothing happened for some time, then a greenish vapour, resembling
fluid seaweed, gradually invaded the room. Tenuous fingers of mist
began to congeal into a definite, organized shape. It entered their
midst, gaining more solidity with each successive moment. The atmosphere
grew miasmic with its presence and an overpowering stench accompanied
it; and in the massive cloud of horror that enveloped them, two pinpoints
of fire glowed like eyes, blinking in an idiot face which suddenly seemed
to fill all space. As it grew in size the couple panicked and implored
Spare to drive the thing away. He banished it accordingly. It seemed to
crinkle and diminish, then it fell apart like a blanket swiftly
disintegrating. But while it had cohered and hung in the room like a
cloud, it was virtually opaque and tangible; and it reeked of evil.
Both the people concerned were fundamentally changed. Within weeks,
one died of no apparent cause; the other had to be committed to an
insane asylum.
Although Spare was convinced that an occult Intelligence frequently
painted, drew, or wrote through him, he was unable to discover its
identity. He was, however, in almost daily contact with a familiar,
a spirit-guide, known as Black Eagle whom he had clearly seen and
drawn on several occasions. But he was convinced that Black Eagle
was not the sole source of his automatism. Spare had but to turn his
head suddenly and he would sometimes catch a glimpse of the familiar
spirits that constantly surrounded him. Several times he had "caught"
one of them long enough to make a lightning-swift sketch.
Spare's frequent traffic with denizens of invisible realms led to his
evolving a graphic means of conjoining all thoughts - past, present,
and future - in the ever-fluid ether of Consciousness. His graphic
symbology represents a definite language designed to facilitate
communication with the psychic and subliminal world.
It was Spare's opinion that for this language to be truly effective,
each individual should evolve his own, creating his sigils from the
material nearest to hand - his own subconscious....
Cont. @ ... http://www.brainwashed.com/nww/words/bio.html
Austin Osman Spare's Obituary
The Times, 1956
AUSTIN SPARE, an artist of unusual gifts and attainments and of an
even more unusual personality, died on May 15th 1956, in hospital
in London at the age of 67.
A dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, he had that complete
other-worldliness so often depicted in romantic fiction and so
rarely found in real life. Money meant nothing to him. With his
talents as a figure draughtsman he might easily have commanded
a four-figure income in portraitive, but he elected to live quietly
and humbly, rarely going out, painting what he wished to paint,
and selling his works at three or four guineas each. Even in outward
aspect he conformed to type - with his untidy shock of hair, small
imperial, and a scarf instead of a collar. But for most of his fife
he did not mix in what are called 'artistic circles'. Not Chelsea,
Fitzroy Street, Bloomsbury or Hampstead claimed him, but for years a
little fiat 'in the south suburbs by the Elephant' far removed from
the coteries, deep-set in the ordinary life of the people.
Austin Osman Spare was born in Snow Hill, near Smithfield Market,
London on December 31 1888, the son of Philip Newton Spare, A City
of London policeman. Leaving his elementary school at the age of 13,
he took his higher education into his own hands, working not only at
art but at general subjects, in particular the occult. He had some
formal tuition at the Lambeth School of Art and the Royal College of
Art. He was already exhibitioning at the Royal Academy at the age of
16, but in later years ceased to send anything there. In July 1914 he
had his first one-man exhibition at the Bailie Gallery, showing a
number of his so-called 'psychic' drawings and some very powerful
generalizations of animal nature.
Just after the 1914-1918 War Spare became friendly with John Austen
and Alan Odle, figure draughtsmen differing considerably from him and
from each other, but each having certain aims in common with his.
>From October 1922 to July 1924 Spare edited, jointly with Clifford Bax,
a sumptuously produced quarterly called the Golden Hind for Chapman
and'Hall. It collapsed for lack of support, but during its brief career it
reproduced in large scale some really superb figure drawing and
lithographs by Spare and others. In 1925 Spare, Odle, Austen, and Harry
Clarke showed together at the St George's Gallery, and in 1930 at the
Godfrey Philips Galleries.
Thereafter Spare was rarely found in the purlieus of Bond St. He would
teach a little from January to June, then up to the end of October,
would finish various works, and from the beginning of November to
Christmas would hang his products in the living-room, bedroom, and kitchen
of his flat in the Borough. There he kept open house; critics and purchasers
would go down, ring the bell, he admitted, and inspect the pictures, often
in the company of some of the models - working women of the neighbourhood.
Spare was convinced that there was a great potential demand for pictures at
2 or 3 guineas each, and condemned the practice of asking L20 for "amateurish
stuff'. He worked chiefly in pastel or pencil, drawing rapidly, often taking
no more than two hours over a picture. He was especially interested in
delineating the old, and had various models over 70 and one as old as 93.
During the last war, while on fire watching duty, he was blown up and
temporarily lost the use of both arms. His memory was also affected,
but in 1946 in a cramped basement in Brixton, he began to make pictures
again, starting, as he said, from scratch.
In 1947 an exhibition of no less than 163 of the pictures he had painted
in the previous few months attracted many people to the Archer Gallery,
in Westbourne Grove.
Spare's alleged 'automatic' and 'psychic' drawings tended to lack discipline,
and were on the whole inferior to his 'straight' work. The last chiefly
comprised nudes, which combined strength and delicacy of a high order and
have a wonderful three-dimensional feeling. His minute draughtmaship may
have owed something to the Pre-Raphaelite influence, though general his art
was much more human and full blooded than that of the 'brethren'. Of his
technical mastery then can be no manner of doubt. The collection of his
drawings may yet become a cult.
http://www.cybercomm.nl/~cyberspc/spare.03.jpeg
http://www.kheper.auz.com/topics/Hermeticism/Spare.html
Austin Osman Spare
Malcolm & Sparrow,
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz... Wake up!
One (AOL) does not imply the other (self-teaching neural nets), hence,
a pathetically naive 'non-argument'. Typical dismissive pseudo-academic
"arrogance-without-an-object"...
Re: "Why Robots Won't Rule the World"
<http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/hypothetics.shtml>
"1901" is NOT 2000! Sheesh! Perhaps a bit of "Division of Informatics
Artificial Intelligence" wishful thinking there, no? Do you guys really
imagine in the wildest recesses of your collective cerebrums that the next
99 years will look anything at all like the last 99 years? AOL notwithstanding?!
Pleasant dreams...
--AOS
James Hunter
Jim R Feliciano wrote:
> In article <39199631...@Jhuapl.edu>, James Hunter <James....@Jhuapl.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Oliver Sparrow wrote:
> >
> >> Austin Osman Spare <aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now
> >> >of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
> >> >may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
> >>
> >> >At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute,
> >> >Professor de Garis switched on a machine ...
> >> >which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007
> >>
> >> The first paragraph implies that the second is one of the more elaborate
> >> suicide notes in history. The BIRDBRAIN project will, however, no doubt
> >> have finance much more such specious copy before we are rendered obsolete.
> >
> > Since when "science" predicts the extinction of the human race
> > that usually simply means that there is a funding sortage, if this brain
> > can decode quantum mechanics, the extinction of "scientists",
> > at least, may be a plus rather than a minus for the human race.
> >
> >
>
> It won't be the "decode quantum mechanics" aspect that will make it special.
> When it explains quantum mechanics in a way that I can understand, I will say
> that the mechanism is close to a brain.
I usually think of the situation as, since physicists say that they understand
quantum mechanics, which they don't, this artificial brain
may be able to -decode- quantum mechanics.
jjs
> >Artificial brain brings food for thought
> > By GARRY BARKER
> > TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
> > http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
Food for thought - not!
Catatonics, brain-dead humans, morons and idiots also have billions of brain
cells.
Bob Myers
@ . <@ .> wrote in message ...
>In article <3919458C...@osman.spare.com>, Austin Osman Spare
<aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote:
>>In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
>>laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
>>similar in capability to those in a human brain.
>
Ummm...at least as the way the original sentence was
presented, I would've interpreted it as saying that each
of the 75 million "neurons" in the device were similar
in capability to a human-brain neuron - not that the
numbers of neurons were comparable.
Bob M.
Gary Forbis
news:8fersc$kob$1...@fcnews.fc.hp.com...
>
> @ . <@ .> wrote in message ...
> >In article <3919458C...@osman.spare.com>, Austin Osman Spare
> <aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote:
> >>laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
> >>similar in capability to those in a human brain.
> >
>
> Ummm...at least as the way the original sentence was
> presented, I would've interpreted it as saying that each
> of the 75 million "neurons" in the device were similar
> in capability to a human-brain neuron - not that the
> numbers of neurons were comparable.
I thought about saying as much but I doubt these silicon neurons are
similar in capability except as defined by their designer. For instance,
I doubt they acquire power in similar ways. I doubt they form new
connections in similar ways. I doubt they have similar transmission
and switching speeds. I doubt they have similar interconnection
characteristics. I doubt they have much in common.
James Hunter
Gary Forbis wrote:
> Bob Myers <bmy...@hp.com> wrote in message
> news:8fersc$kob$1...@fcnews.fc.hp.com...
> >
> > @ . <@ .> wrote in message ...
> > >In article <3919458C...@osman.spare.com>, Austin Osman Spare
> > <aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote:
> > >>In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
> > >>laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
> > >>similar in capability to those in a human brain.
> > >
> > >Bullshit, the human brain has over 1 trillion neurons.
> >
> > Ummm...at least as the way the original sentence was
> > presented, I would've interpreted it as saying that each
> > of the 75 million "neurons" in the device were similar
> > in capability to a human-brain neuron - not that the
> > numbers of neurons were comparable.
>
> I thought about saying as much but I doubt these silicon neurons are
> similar in capability except as defined by their designer. For instance,
> I doubt they acquire power in similar ways. I doubt they form new
> connections in similar ways. I doubt they have similar transmission
> and switching speeds. I doubt they have similar interconnection
> characteristics. I doubt they have much in common.
Those are the good points about silicon devices though. They are fast
on their toes, rather than slow and often dim-witted like
human neuro-transmitters/word-beamers often are.
Chris Malcolm
>Oliver Sparrow wrote:
>> c...@holyrood.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) wrote:
>> >This is the "big enough pile of the right stuff" theory of
>> >intelligence. The AOL experiment, in which millions of the elementary
>> >atomic units of intelligence (morons) were connected together via the
>> >internet, is only the latest version of the Big Pile Theory to bite
>> >the dust.
>> Superb.
>Malcolm & Sparrow,
>ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz... Wake up!
>One (AOL) does not imply the other (self-teaching neural nets), hence,
>a pathetically naive 'non-argument'. Typical dismissive pseudo-academic
>"arrogance-without-an-object"...
>Re: "Why Robots Won't Rule the World"
><http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/hypothetics.shtml>
>"1901" is NOT 2000! Sheesh! Perhaps a bit of "Division of Informatics
>Artificial Intelligence" wishful thinking there, no? Do you guys really
>imagine in the wildest recesses of your collective cerebrums that the next
>99 years will look anything at all like the last 99 years? AOL notwithstanding?!
Exactly my point in the web page you cite. The arguments in favour of
malevolent machines taking over have not advanced much since they were
put forward satirically by Samuel Butler in 1901. I say that after
having carefully studied them. Today's arguments are decorated with
modern buzzwords like "neural nets" and "genetic algorithms" and
"artificial intelligence" but the arguments are basically the same as
Butler's Professor of Hypothetics. Whereas our knowledge of
computers, cognition, and related topics has advanced a great deal. As
it happens, advanced enough to show the flaws in these arguments for
the dangers of takeover by malevolent machines.
Åke Tyvi
> Dear Sir,
> Date:
> Fri, 12 May 2000 19:12:49 +0300
> From:
> Åke Tyvi <ake...@hotmail.com>
> Organization:
> -
> To:
> deg...@starlab.net
>
>
>
>
> Dear Sirs,
>
> As one the leading expert in the area of Divinity and PS study I am kindly asking You where
> is
> the limit of the free mind and consciousness?
>
> I'm also requesting You to consider the fact, why brains weren't invented for commercial
> purpose;
> Simply because people have their motives for doing things.
>
> Have a nice day.
>
> Thank You.
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
>
> Mr Åke Tyvi
>
> [Source: Newsgroups]
>
> [Ps. Sorry about all these typing mistakes...]
>
>
>
andrew ketley
Austin Osman Spare <aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote in message
news:3919458C...@osman.spare.com...
> Artificial brain brings food for thought
> By GARRY BARKER
> TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
> http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
>
> Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now
> of Kyoto in Japan [Brussels, Belgium]*, fears that his experiments
> may ultimately lead to the extermination of the human race.
> What do you think?
>
> At the Kyoto Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute,
> Professor de Garis switched on a machine with which he will build
> the world's first neural circuits for a true artificial brain.
>
> In the next 12 months the cellular automata machine (CAM) in his
> laboratory will create a device composed of 75million silicon neurons,
> similar in capability to those in a human brain.
>
> The neuron networks are built up so that their connections are random,
> as they are in the human brain. Most of them fail in production and are
> discarded by a system based on Darwin's theory of evolution. Even so,
> the circuits are built, tested, accepted or rejected at blinding speed,
> many thousands every minute.
>
> When it is finished some time in 2001, this artificial brain or
> "artilect" will go into a four-legged robot called Robokitty.
>
> By then work will have begun on the next generation of the artificial
> brain which, Professor de Garis says, could be finished about 2007 and
> would have more than 10 billion neurons. This would bring it to about
> the level of a village idiot but within reach of the 23billion organic
> neurons contained in the cortex of a human male (19 billion in a female).
>
> Then comes the third generation, which Professor de Garis expects to be
> finished about 2011 - a fearsome creation of 1000 billion neurons, vastly
> larger than that of a human.
>
> "By then," says this unconventional Australian, "I expect we'll be in a
> debate about whether we should proceed any further.
>
> "Long-term I am very worried about the political impact of brain building.
>
> "Since I am helping to pioneer this brain-building field, I feel a strong
> moral obligation to stimulate discussion on this enormous question. Do we
> allow the artificial intellects to take over or not?"
>
> Futurologists, such as the American computer engineer and author
> Ray Kurzweil, agree with him. While they themselves are riding and
> driving the technological revolution, they also see its scary side.
>
> A massively powerful artificial brain could easily develop contempt for
> its comparatively puny human makers, says Professor de Garis, who predicts
> that such a question could be this century's burning issue.
>
> On one side will be those afraid of the consequences of the science. On
the
> other those who see it as part of human destiny and who say that if
artilects
> are created by humans, then humans can set the boundaries for the
artificial
> intelligence.
>
> Professor de Garis is not so sure about humans retaining control,
particularly
> when it comes to a silicon brain 40 times smarter than your average man.
These,
> he says, should be coming out of the CAM machines by the second half of
this
> century.
>
> Some see parallels with the debate raised by the cloning of Dolly the
sheep.
>
> The CAM machine with which Professor deGaris is working was built by
Genobyte,
> a US company based in Boulder, Colorado. It produces microscopic modules
on
> silicon chips each of about 1000 artificial neurons. Such electrical
> connections in our human brains control our movements, our senses and,
perhaps
> most ominously when it is seen in an artificial environment, our emotions
and
> our imaginations.
>
> In his profile on his personal website, the professor says: "My dream in
> life is to build artificial brains with billions of artificial neurons,
and
> see brain-like computers become a trillion-dollar industry within 20
years."
> http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
>
> |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
>
> "...evolved cellular automata (CA) based neural circuit modules..."
>
> * Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis
> Head of STARBRAIN
> STARLAB's Artificial Brain Project
> http://foobar.starlab.net/~degaris/
>
> ... I head the Brain Builder Group at STARLAB, a
> research lab in Brussels, Belgium, Europe. The
> original aim of our "CAM-Brain Project", as stated
> at its beginning in 1993, was to build an artificial
> brain with a billion artificial neurons, by the year
> 2001, using evolved cellular automata (CA) based
> neural circuit modules. In reality, 7 years later, this
> number will be maximum 75 million neurons and
> 64,000 modules. These CA based neural network
> modules grow and evolve at electronic speeds
> inside special FPGA based hardware called a
> CAM-Brain Machine (CBM), which can update CA
> cells at a rate of 130 Billion a second, and can
> evolve a neural net module in about 1 second. This
> speed should make brain building practical. Tens of
> thousands and more of these evolved modules can
> be assembled into humanly defined artificial brain
> architecures. The evolved CA based circuit modules
> are downloaded into a large RAM space and
> updated by the CBM fast enough for real time
> control of a kitten robot called "Robokitty"...
>
> [Cont. http://foobar.starlab.net/~degaris/ ]
>
> See also: http://diwww.epfl.ch/lami/team/floreano/
> FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS
> THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
> THE SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB2000)
> 11 - 16 September 2000, Paris, France
> http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/
> Specifically:
http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/images/SAB2000_page_de_garde.jpg
>
> |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
>
> Bayesian methods are often used for training neural networks.
> See: ftp://ftp.sas.com/pub/neural/FAQ3.html#A_bayes
>
> |||||-~o -=[|^_o_^|]=- o~-|||||
>
Austin Osman Spare
Jetison the notion of "malevolence", yes? Then add "99 years", no?
The Ten Ox-Herding Pictures
1.Looking for the Ox
2.Noticing the Footprints
3.Catching Sight
4.Getting Hold of the Ox
5.Taming the Ox
6.Riding home
7.Ox vanished, herdsman remaining
8.Ox and herdsman vanished
9.Returning to the Source
10.Entering the Marketplace
Simian Stressors
2000-04-04 16:53:58
By Arkuat
<http://www.pigdog.org/auto/special_ideas/shortfeature/1347.html>
o o o
Arkuat gives you the inside scoop on the "Spiritual Machines" panel
and conclave. Wacky excitement ensues!
[Last Saturday (4/1/2000) a group of people at Stanford University came
together to discuss a recent article
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html> by Bill Joy in
W I R E D magazine ("Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", April 2000).
The article discusses some of the difficult ethical questions that new
technology is bringing. And by "new technology," I don't mean
computers and cell phones: they're talking about nanotech, AI, and
all the other crazy sci-fi stuff that is bringing us to "The Singularity."
Pigdoggers Arkuat and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine headed to the
conference, and Arkuat submits this excellent report. Beaujolais! --Mr.
Bad]
o o o
Okay, apparently Doug Hofstadter
<http://www.psych.indiana.edu/cogsci/hofstadter.html> set this whole
thing up, and he did a great job moderating. He invited a bunch of prickly
egomaniacs, and managed to extract some useful information from them
in public without allowing any murder or mayhem to be committed.
I think Ray Kurzweil <http://www.kurzweiltech.com/techfirsts/techfirsts.htm>
opened. I don't really understand Kurzweil very well, to tell you the truth,
but he seemed to be trying to soothe people into comfortable
acceptance of the notion of using prostheses that are your intellectual
("spiritual", even!) equals or superiors. "How to Keep and Hire Ueberdaemon
Godlings for your Domestic Help without getting Eaten by Cthulhu" or
something.
Hans Moravec <http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/> got up and tried to
soothe people likewise, mostly be telling them how in ten years there
would be a robot to do their vacuuming, and one to load and unload
the dishwasher just five years after that. Gene kept muttering "Heil Hans!
Heil Hans!" in my ears, excitedly, throughout Moravec's presentation.
Bill Joy <http://www.sun.com/corporateoverview/ceo/mgt_joy.html> got up
and explained how back when he was busy trying to keep tabs on the moves
of the research departments of Oracle and Microsoft and IBM, he didn't
worry about this stuff because he assumed Moore's Law would hit a
ceiling at about three or four atoms per transistor. With computational
performance stuck there, he didn't think biotech/nanotech/robotics would get
out of control. But a physicist friend of his apparently informed him in detail of a
technique (which I don't yet have even the vaguest understanding of, myself)
that would extend the progress of Moore's law one-million-fold (yes, six orders
of magnitude) beyond where Joy had pegged the ceiling. This, he claims,
suddenly made the prospect of full-speed development of
biotech/nanotech/robotics far too frightening leading him and his buddies to call
for an application of the brakes. He even called for a "relinquishment" of
nanotechnological research.
Ralph Merkle <http://www.merkle.com/> got up and pointed out that you could
relinquish published research in democratic societies all you wanted to, but that
wouldn't do much to prevent secret research, and particularly secret research in
undemocratic nations, going forward full speed ahead. It started looking like a
classic Teller vs. Oppenheimer moment (mostly because Joy had commented on
Oppenheimer's career at length). Merkle also claimed that in order to make
informed and effective public policy decisions, policymakers should be
exposed to as many results of early research in nanotechnology as possible, to
minimize the chances of their making disastrous mistakes. Merkle did a good
job of presenting the Foresight Institute <http://www.foresight.org/> party line
in this one... forewarned is forearmed, if this stuff is dangerous, then the more
we learn about it in advance, the better, etc etc etc.
John Holland <http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/notebooks/john-holland.html>
and his student John Koza, <http://smi-web.stanford.edu/people/koza/> the
initial developers of genetic-algorithms, or genetic-synaptic-weighting of
artificial neural network "synapses" (which is probably how the golems will
be grown, ultimately, yes) seemed to be the token conservatives. They kept
emphasizing how remarkable and poorly understood and incredibly powerful
animal nervous systems (including human brains) are, and tried to soothe
the audience by denying that human-equivalent machines were going to be
available anytime before 2100 at soonest.
Frank Drake <http://www.ucolick.org/~board/faculty/drake.html> showed some
nice slides about the most economical designs for very-large ground-based
radio telescopes. Don't even ask me what this has to do with spiritual robots,
but I guess Hofstadter had the idea that the only thing that could compete with
spiritual robots in the Materialist Weirdness front would be Ay-leenZ, and so
they had to be worked in there somewhere for extra color or something.
Kevin Kelley <http://staff.hotwired.com/kevin/> also did an "upbeat" piece,
asserting that "replacement" was just the wrong way to think about this stuff,
and that we would rather be"symbiotic" with the pheared new challengers.
Stewart Brand <http://www.well.com/user/sbb/> later fed him a few softball
questions from the audience. It made me wonder why these people, who have
done some brilliant work, are wasting their time on their current "Clock of the
Long Now" masturbatory shenanigans. I suspect that the orbits of the Earth,
Moon, Mars, etc will continue to be keeping good time long after their vaunted
clock has fallen into disrepair, though I'm still not sure where they are planning
to locate the thing. Even after we disassemble the various large bodies of the
solar system for spare parts (and probably the Clock with them), the nearby
pulsars will still provide excellent time for gigayears. But this is all beside the
point, and has nothing to do with Spiritual Robots either. I just wanted to
comment yet again on my continuing incredulity on the vagaries that
age-related mental decline can induce in members of my species.
A couple of times someone in the audience tried to ask why there were no
non-materialists on the panel (though they usually asked this much less
succinctly, rambling about God and summarizing a few idealistic metaphysical
theories instead or asking why the Dalai Lama or the Pope wasn't up there
too). Hofstadter's reply (paraphrased rather brutally) was "Yeah, there are no
non-materialists on this panel because I planned it that way. Next question?"
After Moravec and Kurzweil and Merkle had combined to make Bill Joy
extremely uncomfortable and upset (Merkle seemed to think that Joy was
dangerously insane and irresponsible, and Joy seemd to think that Merkle was
dangerously insane and irresponsible), Hofstadter closed by posing a question
to Moravec about whether it would be so terrible if human beings really were
replaced by their memetic offspring, and then read a quote from a Moravec
interview (I wish I had it handy, because it was beautifully phrased, but I
don't... perhaps Gene can find it?) to the effect that getting replaced by the
progeny of your mind would be much less of an evolutionary failure than
stagnating as an unchanging, "stuck" species for billions of years would. The
latter, he said, would be the real failure. Moravec just said that he still stood by
his earlier reply, and the crowd broke out into vigourous applause while Bill
Joy looked slightly puzzled and very indignant.
<http://www.pigdog.org/auto/special_ideas/shortfeature/1347.html>
Oliver Sparrow
>ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz... Wake up!
>One (AOL) does not imply the other (self-teaching neural nets), hence,
>a pathetically naive 'non-argument'. Typical dismissive pseudo-academic
>"arrogance-without-an-object"...
Charmed, I'm sure. Have a look at http://www.chatham.demon.co.uk for some
material on scenario planning. The engines of change are primarily social
and institutional at present, reinforced by a growing technology concerned
with how to organise contentious, distinctive clusters of opinion to useful
ends across arbitrary distances. This uses some IT but is not predicated
upon IT. We find ourselves confronted with an enormous meccano construction
set, from which almost anything can be envisaged, organised, financed,
carried through. Around half of all the life time costs in straightforward
manufacturing are concerned with preliminary 'getting it right', in the
sense of clarifying goals and roles, options and responsibilities. Doing
this well creates the intangibles for which companies are now valued and
draws upon the growing discipline of knowledge management.
Now, within this immense super-organism that is the political economy of
the (chiefly commercial-technical) elite structures of the (chiefly
industrialised) world, what is the role of smart widgets? A role focused on
providing interface services: the receptionist of the knowledge economy.
Where might this in some sense break down?
1: In devices/structures explicitly constructed
to proliferate and do damage. Such structures
are finely targeted, by an large - see under
'papers' on the above w/site. Could one be
designed to survive and proliferate in a 2020
global communications infrastructure? It is
conceivable, but would require insight-resource
of governmental scale and would have to surmount
many embedded countermeasures already in place and
not public. What would be the consequence? A mess,
like a crop infested with a disease. But not, I
suggest, a superordinate entity that we could
not turn off.
2: In situations where the 'receptionist' becomes
indispensable and increasingly a player, able
to call the shots to their agenda. In which case,
a new class of political agent would be entering the
arena.
3: Where conceptually and practically transcendent
systems are created such that the old bets are off.
One bet that would almost certainly not be off is,
however, that these systems would be hybrid, drawing
upon the vast complexity of the integrated human and
systems network of the times. Having thought hard and
commercially about e-commerce in the early Eighties,
it is clear to me how very long complex things take
to instantiate, whatever the imperatives that seem
to drive them. Life in 2020, IMHO, will be faster and
more complex than today, will have different social
segmentation and differing preoccupations, but it
will as familiar as 2000 seems to someone plucked
from the 1980s. Life in 2050, however, may well have
quite new concepts at its heart.
Biology proliferates, and there is a reasonable fear that modified
organisms will have the capacity to spread if released. After all there are
epidemics, there is disease and biological invasion. This perspective is,
however, often ported into the debate on offensive software. It forgets
that biological entities are already wild, independent and surviving
through their adaptability and resilience. They have 3 bn years of
selection behind them and an internal operating system on which 'new'
instructions are set to operate. Artificial information structures (save
those running on human society and its component parts) have no such
infrastructure, save perhaps the telephone network. There is no resilience
(!) and no independence. In some far distant future, von Neumann machines
designed to mine asteroids (or whatever) may have such resilience built
into them, but this is a Long Way Off. When such a situation is envisaged,
I feel sure that people will think about the potential dangers.
In the meanwhile, the key consequence of the information age is the shifts
which it affords in social balances, in employment and the social
acceptance of fast change. One scenario (Atlantic Storm, see web site)
arrives at hostile relations between the US and EU as a partial consequence
of exactly this. The major security problems that the world faces over the
next 20-30 years are not addressed as a consequence, international and
local institutional growth is stunted, economic development stutters,
environmental problems mount... Here are the most likely crises: indirect,
flowing from technical capabilities, but driven by that most potent and
complex engine, human society.
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Gary Forbis
news:391F5CA4...@stressors.net...
> Report from Spiritual Machines
> 2000-04-04 16:53:58
>
> By Arkuat
> <http://www.pigdog.org/auto/special_ideas/shortfeature/1347.html>
>
> o o o
>
> Arkuat gives you the inside scoop on the "Spiritual Machines" panel
> and conclave. Wacky excitement ensues!
>
> [Last Saturday (4/1/2000) a group of people at Stanford University came
> together to discuss a recent article
> <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html> by Bill Joy in
> W I R E D magazine ("Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", April 2000).
> The article discusses some of the difficult ethical questions that new
> technology is bringing. And by "new technology," I don't mean
> computers and cell phones: they're talking about nanotech, AI, and
> all the other crazy sci-fi stuff that is bringing us to "The Singularity."
>
> Pigdoggers Arkuat and Gene Gene the Dancing Machine headed to the
> conference, and Arkuat submits this excellent report. Beaujolais! --Mr.
> Bad]
An interesting read. Thanks for the heads up.
I find I have a lot in common with Bill Joy's views on this issue.
Sometimes I think people look at the Hope diamond and think
"My, just think of all the industrial uses one could put that to!"
I'm sure there are people who look at pristine forests and think,
"If I paved that it would make a wonderful parking lot."
The strangest thing about the mentioned "materialists" is that they
seem to believe the most basic quality to our humanity is not tied
to the materials making up humanity. Many times I have relayed
my story about my grandmother's "pumpkinless pumpkin pie."
Unlike the pretense of mock apple pie made from Ritz Crackers,
my grandmother just didn't have the pumpkin for the promised
pie so had to substitute custard for filling. The materialists seem
to believe in a humanless humanity and not see the contradiction,
maybe they believe it will taste the same--there are those who
believe boxed wine is as good as any--but I think the designed
systems will not notice the difference because they lack the quality
and the replaced systems will be gone and not able to notice.
Years ago when discussing nanotech I was given this story:
On my way to work I walk past many doorways and in many
of those doorways live panhandlers. At first took notice of
them and wanted to help. Then I began to resent them because
I've worked hard to get what I've got and they could do likewise.
Then they became just part of the scene and I ignore them.
I owe no species allegiance to anyone. There's no point in
worrying about those who cannot keep up and over time they
fade from my notice.
ELIZA has been a very successful program, taking on a life of
its own. Dr. Weizenbaum looked on the effect it had with horror.
He knew how simple it was and yet people were attributing much
more to it than it had. He became somewhat disillusioned with
the AI field. I heard him say he believed those who promote the
notion of AIs as our replacement have a death wish for humanity.
I believe the same.
What do so many bright people have against humanity?
I am well aware that we are not the end of evolution but why
are so many people looking for and actively attempting to build
our replacement?
Doktor Caligari
Oliver Sparrow wrote:
>
> Austin Osman Spare <aus...@osman.spare.com> wrote:
>
> >ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz... Wake up!
> >One (AOL) does not imply the other (self-teaching neural nets), hence,
> >a pathetically naive 'non-argument'. Typical dismissive pseudo-academic
> >"arrogance-without-an-object"...
>
> Charmed, I'm sure.
Always a captivating fascination, this subliminal
neurolinguistic "hypnagogery"; the latent
persistence-of-vision after affects of carefully
constructed word smything and well punctuated prose
are, undoubtedly, truly much appreciated, "I'm sure."
> Have a look at http://www.chatham.demon.co.uk for some material on scenario
> planning.
Thanks will do... [Note: bad link @ "The Forum"]
> The engines of change are primarily social
> and institutional at present, reinforced by a growing technology concerned
> with how to organise contentious, distinctive clusters of opinion to useful
> ends across arbitrary distances.
I like that. A rather convoluted paraphrasing of uncle Siggy's famous
utterance:
"Our logic is at fault if we ignore the fact
that right is founded on brute force, and even
today needs violence to maintain it."
- Sigmund Freud
> This uses some IT but is not predicated
> upon IT.
Don't kid yourself. We are deeply entrenched in an information economy,
particularly the "technocrats of enforcement", a.k.a. the military-industrial
complex.
> We find ourselves confronted with an enormous meccano construction
> set, from which almost anything can be envisaged, organised, financed,
> carried through. Around half of all the life time costs in straightforward
> manufacturing are concerned with preliminary 'getting it right', in the
> sense of clarifying goals and roles, options and responsibilities. Doing
> this well creates the intangibles for which companies are now valued and
> draws upon the growing discipline of knowledge management.
Superbly stated.
> Now, within this immense super-organism that is the political economy of
> the (chiefly commercial-technical) elite structures of the (chiefly
> industrialised) world, what is the role of smart widgets? A role focused on
> providing interface services: the receptionist of the knowledge economy.
> Where might this in some sense break down?
e s c h a t o l o g y
"... What was said was that culture is the shockwave of
eschatology. Nothing is unannounced. This is like a weird
quality of experience, you can't learn this from physics
or economics. (Maybe you can learn it from economics.)
Nothing is unannounced. Everything is preceded by the
shockwave of its coming. So somehow the spreading zaniness
of reality is part of the boundary-dissolving qualities
that are going to make up this new cultural mix of
disembodied human beings, nanotechnologically-maintained
environments, dissolved self-definitions, people living
at many levels at the same time; intelligence as a kind of
free-flowing nonlocal resource that comes and goes as
needed; prosthesis, implant, boundary dissolution -- these
things are usually presented as fairly terrifying. But in
fact I think behind it all lurks, you know, the demons who
do calisthenics in the angles of every room on this planet
to keep it all from collapsing into a flat line."
Terence McKenna [1946 - 2000]
> 1: In devices/structures explicitly constructed
> to proliferate and do damage. Such structures
> are finely targeted, by an large - see under
> 'papers' on the above w/site. Could one be
> designed to survive and proliferate in a 2020
> global communications infrastructure? It is
> conceivable, but would require insight-resource
> of governmental scale and would have to surmount
> many embedded countermeasures already in place and
> not public. What would be the consequence? A mess,
> like a crop infested with a disease. But not, I
> suggest, a superordinate entity that we could
> not turn off.
My money's (metaphorically speaking) on the tripartite
merger of the "global, military/industrial complex", the
"entertainment industry", and the cybernetics of the
iconolastic, ontologically minded, A.I. expediting
physicist-laborers who are plucking "superluminal volocities
attained by practical propellantless propulsion systems" out
of their (or somebody's) heads!
Or has that particular three-way merger already occurred?
I suspect it will be recognizable by a general increase
in __________...?
> 2: In situations where the 'receptionist' becomes
> indispensable and increasingly a player, able
> to call the shots to their agenda. In which case,
> a new class of political agent would be entering the
> arena.
Excellent Plan!
Ontologically speaking, the Nanomorphic SimUjahedin
RetroFlux Field (NSURFF) approach to funky spatial
"para-intrapolative" optic recourses to conceptualize
the many-sheeted, tightly stretched latex simulacrum,
vis a vis, sentient self-modeling, is a lot like
multi-helical spaghetti noodles in virtual nonlocal
scalar-like, antivectored, totally outre' wyrd (sic)
space... don't you think?
Has this already been patented by the Germans?
> 3: Where conceptually and practically transcendent
> systems are created such that the old bets are off.
> One bet that would almost certainly not be off is,
> however, that these systems would be hybrid, drawing
> upon the vast complexity of the integrated human and
> systems network of the times. Having thought hard and
> commercially about e-commerce in the early Eighties,
> it is clear to me how very long complex things take
> to instantiate, whatever the imperatives that seem
> to drive them. Life in 2020, IMHO, will be faster and
> more complex than today, will have different social
> segmentation and differing preoccupations, but it
> will as familiar as 2000 seems to someone plucked
> from the 1980s. Life in 2050, however, may well have
> quite new concepts at its heart.
Perhaps a more accurate analogy emulating Toffler's "Future Shock",
might be to pluck a hearty soul from 1880 and plunge them into 2000?
Maybe that is fairer to the rate of change, however "living" thru
the rate of change is one thing, while quantum leaping is another, e.g.
waking from a coma across a rather slow two decades.
> Biology proliferates, and there is a reasonable fear that modified
> organisms will have the capacity to spread if released. After all there are
> epidemics, there is disease and biological invasion.
I suspect that this is Bill Joy's primary concern - bio-nanoengineering-tech -
run rampant: <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html>
> This perspective is,
> however, often ported into the debate on offensive software. It forgets
> that biological entities are already wild, independent and surviving
> through their adaptability and resilience. They have 3 bn years of
> selection behind them and an internal operating system on which 'new'
> instructions are set to operate. Artificial information structures (save
> those running on human society and its component parts) have no such
> infrastructure, save perhaps the telephone network. There is no resilience
> (!) and no independence. In some far distant future, von Neumann machines
> designed to mine asteroids (or whatever) may have such resilience built
> into them, but this is a Long Way Off. When such a situation is envisaged,
> I feel sure that people will think about the potential dangers.
Define: "Long Way Off" with informed certitude please.
> In the meanwhile, the key consequence of the information age is the shifts
> which it affords in social balances, in employment and the social
> acceptance of fast change. One scenario (Atlantic Storm, see web site)
> arrives at hostile relations between the US and EU as a partial consequence
> of exactly this. The major security problems that the world faces over the
> next 20-30 years are not addressed as a consequence, international and
> local institutional growth is stunted, economic development stutters,
> environmental problems mount... Here are the most likely crises: indirect,
> flowing from technical capabilities, but driven by that most potent and
> complex engine, human society.
> _______________________________
>
> Oliver Sparrow
Thanks! A nice overview, clearly elucidated. I suspect, though, that
we are all in for some big "quantum-leaping" surprises in the next
20 years. Anyway... the question is not, when will machines replace humans,
but, rather, when will machine/human hybrids assimilate old earth gene pools?
Place your bets!
A couple minor U.S. military links below:
Lockheed Martin Corporation
The Skunk Works
http://www.lmsw.external.lmco.com/
Classified Programs:
"Classified programs are the lifeblood of a company like the
Skunk Works and are indicative of our commitment to ongoing
development of cutting-edge technology and innovation. For
obvious security reasons, those programs deemed 'classified'
progress on a need-to-know basis. Many current internationally
known programs had their beginnings in this venue."
Human System Integration Recommendations
Air Force 2025 [www.au.af.mil/au/2025/]
"...The technologies needed in the human system integration component
will require the Air Force to focus research on areas unique to military
missions while maximizing its leverage on the advances in the commercial
world. Supporting technologies in this area are improvements to human
sensory capabilities and technologies that improve the human cognitive
capabilities. These technologies will allow the human and system to work
with one another to maintain the best situational awareness possible.
The Air Force must also pursue an effective training program for humans
and systems to achieve good integration and provide the best environment
for making decisions. Interactive and learning displays will be a key
component of the information operations systems of 2025. To improve the
ability of the decision makers to receive the information necessary to
make decisions, the Air Force must continue to advance the capabilities
of HSI technology..."
http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume1/chap01/v1c1-5.htm
Ten/Four-Over-&-Out,
Doktor Caligari
Oliver Sparrow
>Perhaps a more accurate analogy emulating Toffler's "Future Shock",
>might be to pluck a hearty soul from 1880 and plunge them into 2000?
Not really. Economic output in 1900 fits into two working weeks now, one in
2010, two days in 2020. Output from 1980 should take 15 weeks to deliver in
2020: 3% growth has been characteristic since 1850 and there seems no
reason to change a view, despite the lunatic US stock market. EG Goldman
Sachs best bet is that E-whatever will add a cumulative 4% to overall
output by 2010, or a bit over one year's normal increase in output, speard
over ten years. Hyperbole is a poor guide to anything, liminal eschatology,
or no.
>"S'cuse me while I kiss the sky"
Your relations with Mr Murdoch are entirely your own affair.
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Oliver Sparrow
>What do so many bright people have against humanity?
Hold that horsey.
Being a material girl is not the same thing as being an inhuman girl. There
is no need for a ghost in the machine to turn its ethical engine. Material
systems are anyway undetermined - for the many reasons that I have
rehearsed here before - and what we choose to do has real implications. We
can build ourselves a city on the hill or a city in hell, to taste. If
there were to be a g-i-t-machine, I am not sure what the implications to
human worth would be. There would be new things to worry about, but the old
things would not be invalidated. Indeed, the g-i-t-m might be as ephemeral
as mortal flesh, and a side show; or immortal but utterly determined in a
way that hierarchical systems are not - a sort of non-physical PROM. That
is the toe of most organised religions, after all: moving fingers and so
forth.
If a material girl is a worth girl, then why should not a material widget
be a worthy widget? Just because some multifaceted* entrepreneur has hired
a public relations flack does not mean that we are all doomed.
* From Princeton's WordNet:
1. glib, pat, slick -- (having only superficial plausibility; "glib
promises"; "a slick commercial")
2. crafty, cunning, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, sly, tricksy,
tricky, wily -- (marked by skill in deception; "cunning men often pass for
wise"; "deep political machinations"; "a foxy scheme"; "a slick evasive
answer"; "sly as a fox"; "tricky Dick"; "a wily old attorney")
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Tagged Sequences
>
> Doktor Caligari <dok...@caligari.com> wrote:
>
> >Perhaps a more accurate analogy emulating Toffler's "Future Shock",
> >might be to pluck a hearty soul from 1880 and plunge them into 2000?
>
> 2010, two days in 2020. Output from 1980 should take 15 weeks to deliver in
> 2020: 3% growth has been characteristic since 1850 and there seems no
> reason to change a view, despite the lunatic US stock market.
It is a "lunatic" global economy, and that statistic is a cumulative
view of objective industrial output, not an individual's gestalt
perception of subjective reality experienced during radical change,
which is what was previously being addressed, or so it seemed at the
time. Has a curious element of disingenousness crept into the dialectic,
as if something fragile needed defending? Spooky... spooky...
> EG Goldman
> Sachs best bet is that E-whatever will add a cumulative 4% to overall
> output by 2010, or a bit over one year's normal increase in output, speard
> over ten years. Hyperbole is a poor guide to anything, liminal eschatology,
> or no.
Careful with that understatement, Eugene, you run the risk
of wishfully thinking yourself into downsized obsolescence
before the tide turns fully metric!
--((with apologies to Pink Floyd))
> >"S'cuse me while I kiss the sky"
>
> Your relations with Mr Murdoch are entirely your own affair.
Heheh... [Not a Hendix fan, eh? OKayyyy... Rupert plays a mean
guitar with gold picks and bad taste... the diet of a generation.]
Buzzwords and hyperbole notwithstanding...
the times, they are *certainly* a changin'. --((ditto Dylan))
> _______________________________
>
> Oliver Sparrow
Weary Reiterations:
Thirty One Months Ago...
Monday, October 27, 1997
Caltech scientists devise first neurochip
http://broccoli.caltech.edu/~media/lead/102797JP.html
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/media/mirage4.jpg
"Quantum mirage" may enable atom-scale circuits
IBM Scientists Discover Nanotech Communication Method
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/almaden/media/mirage.html
"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)"
See: http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa00-34.htm
Does "EHPA" [Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation] sound
like a worthy, utilitarian goal with potential life-enhancing
applications in fields far beyond just the military-industrial?
Announcement and call for papers Ninth Annual Symposium on
HAPTIC INTERFACES FOR VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT
AND TELEOPERATOR SYSTEMS
To be held at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress
and Exposition [ http://www.asme.org/conf/congress00/index.htm ]
The Winter Annual Meeting of the ASME
November 5-10, 2000 Walt Disney World Dolphin Orlando, Florida
Sponsored by the Robotics Panel of the Dynamics Systems and
Control Division [ http://www.ecn.missouri.edu/~asme2000/ ]
of the ASME [ http://www.asme.org/ ]
A gallery of haptic interfaces:
http://haptic.mech.nwu.edu/intro/gallery/
"Magnetic Levitation Haptic Interfaces
The Microdynamic Systems Laboratory operates within
the Robotics Institute [ http://www.ri.cmu.edu/ ]
which is a department of the School of Computer Science
[ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/FrontDoor.html ] at Carnegie
Mellon University [ http://www.cmu.edu/ ]. Some of our
projects are affiliated with the Institute for Complex
Engineered Systems [ http://www.edrc.cmu.edu/ ] at CMU."
NANOTECH:
NAS Nanotechnology Gallery
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Groups/Nanotechnology/gallery/
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom
An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics
by Richard P. Feynman
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
Nanotechnology
http://www.zyvex.com/nano/
"ISMDA 2000" - URL: http://medan.de/ISMDA/
Selected Call for Papers
Conferences
"AI General": http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~silvia/CFP/
Perhaps interesting conferences in 2000:
http://phyq5.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~jeti/conferences.html
100 Tetrahertz Atomic Precision
Silicon Crystal Switches Produced
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000410S0057
MEMS tie the knot with nanotechnology
http://www.eetimes.com/story/technology/OEG20000418S0019
FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS
THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
THE SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB2000)
11 - 16 September 2000, Paris, France
http://www-poleia.lip6.fr/ANIMATLAB/SAB2000/
Do cyborgs live among us?
Scientists blur the boundaries between
'wetware' -- the living brain -- and
computer hardware
by Jay Bookman
http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife.asp?s2=life&f=000411/256606.html
Machine Learning Archives:
http://www.egroups.com/messages/machine-learning/
"MACHINE PSYCHOLOGY
and the politics of everyday robots"
http://users.uniserve.com/~culturex/Machine-Psychology.htm
Towards a Jungian Psychology of Technology
http://www.cgjung.com/psychtech/rrdreambody.html
"The Pearl" by Frank Savino
http://www.cyber3.com/instructor_images/thepearl_med%20.jpg
THE HEDONISTIC IMPERATIVE
[ ... http://www.hedweb.com/hedab.htm ]
Tagged Sequences
"Interspecies Global Mind"
by Howard Bloom 08.12.1999
"...It is said that we have enraged nature by tearing at the pattern
of her tracery, and for this transgression we shall be punished mightily.
But we are nature incarnate. We are made up of her molecules and cells.
We are tools of her probings and if, indeed, we suffer and we fail, from
our lessons she will learn which way in the future not to turn. For all
that lives and all that ever has is part of a collective brain, a neural
net of the most sprawling kind...an evolution-driven, worldwide,
multi-billion-year-old interspecies mind."
From: The History of the Global Brain XX
http://ftp.ix.de/tp/english/special/glob/6556/1.html
AlecX
<dok...@caligari.com> writes
>"S'cuse me while I kiss the sky" -- Jimi Hendrix
>
Cheers Doktor.....for 30 odd years I thoughtit was <kiss this guy>
>Always a captivating fascination, this subliminal
>neurolinguistic "hypnagogery"; the latent
>persistence-of-vision after affects of carefully
>constructed word smything and well punctuated prose
>are, undoubtedly, truly much appreciated, "I'm sure."
This would complement my sig.file beautifully
HugeSnip
>
--
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
Post Partum
The Bewildered Bodhisattva lingering in my tired
old brainpan suggests this parting bit of do dah,
and then I really must be off to revive my embattled
career of scraping barnacles from dry-docked tug boats.
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have
a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
-- Former U.S. Vice President, Dan Quayle, May 09, 1989
Yes, quite so. This brilliant insight from the great Amerigo
Vespuccian statesman comes vividly to mind as I view this
redundant wasteland of strenuously defended opinions without
merit. The visual image is stuck:
"The Fool" <http://users.erols.com/jacksn/rohfool.jpg> driving
his/her car ever forward with eyes fixed, gazing upon the rear
view mirror, determining the unknown future by reflecting
hopelessly on the reversed field of past territory already
crossed. If nothing else, at least deflect the rear view mirror
from your stubborn, hypnotized stare, and 'see' the uncharted land
ahead before you drive off a cliff.
There are no maps. There are no experts.
No opinion is final. Happy trails.
---Post Partum Blues
A Layman's Guide to M-theory
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/9805177
|||||~^~^~o0-O-0o~^~^~|||||
See also: The Chatham House Forum
http://www.chatham.demon.co.uk/80/about forum.html
...And: Chris Malcolm's Homepage
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/daidb/people/homes/cam/index.shtml
Oliver Sparrow
>For all
> that lives and all that ever has is part of a collective brain, a neural
> net of the most sprawling kind...an evolution-driven, worldwide,
> multi-billion-year-old interspecies mind.
Well, a nice thought that perhaps has operational meaning. Try Greg Egan's
Darwin's Radio for a fictional treatment of the same concept.
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Oliver Sparrow
>Has a curious element of disingenousness crept into the dialectic,
>as if something fragile needed defending? Spooky... spooky...
Eh?
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
andrew ketley
jjs <Jo...@Staffprd.net> wrote in message
news:8fegv3$usk$1...@Urvile.MSUS.EDU...
>
> > >Artificial brain brings food for thought
> > > By GARRY BARKER
> > > TECHNOLOGY REPORTER
> > > http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
>
jjs
Billions of brain-like cells are not enough to create intelligence. An
Idiot, a Moron, a brain-dead human has billions of brain cells. So do some
True Belivers, but not many.
ARGONNE
>
> Eh?
> _______________________________
>
> Oliver Sparrow
http://church.tristesse.com/dthayer/photos/spooky.jpg
This is what drives you:
"Learning from the motors that cruise a
cell's highways will have revolutionary
consequences, says Roger Highfield
"AS you read these words, tiny motors are guiding your
eyes precisely across the page. Others are whirring within
your brain to enable you to think about this sentence. Many
more are getting on with the serious business of life itself,
delivering heart beats, digesting food and driving
metabolism.
"Each one of your cells can be thought of as a metropolis
within which these motors trundle about. Millions dart hither
and thither along the cellular equivalent of roads at speeds
approaching 18 millimetres per hour.
"They come in more shapes and styles than the cars in
London: some go 'forward', some 'backwards'. Others
glide and skip. There are even some that do cartwheels.
They stop, start, speed up and slow down in response to
still unknown traffic signals..."
Continued at: Connected²
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
ARGONNE: DIA: et al.
[ http://140.47.5.4/ ]
[ http://www.sri.com/ ]
[ http://www.farsight.org/ ]
[ http://www.af.mil/sites/alphabetical.html ]
[ http://oso.adam.com/ency/article/003202.htm ]
[ http://www.oxford.de/main.htm ]
The UK Street Map Page http://www.streetmap.co.uk/
----RAF Mildenhall: http://www.mildenhall.af.mil/
AlecX
<oh...@chatham.demon.co.uk> writes
Or perhaps try UK BBC Radio 4 tonight for HRH`s Princely thoughts
Oliver Sparrow
>Try Greg Egan's
>>Darwin's Radio for a fictional treatment of the same concept.
Actually Greg BEAR. My mistake.
>Or perhaps try UK BBC Radio 4 tonight for HRH`s Princely thoughts
Oh, the fun of it all.
_______________________________
Oliver Sparrow
Zeqiel Baraqel
Darwin's Radio
by Greg Bear
Hardcover - 430 pages 1 Ed edition (August 31, 1999)
Ballantine Books (T); ISBN: 034542333X
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
All the best thrillers contain the solution to a mystery, and the
mystery in this intellectually sparkling scientific thriller is more
crucial and stranger than most. Why are people turning against their
neighbors and their newborn children? And what is causing an epidemic
of still births? A disgraced paleontologist and a genetic engineer
both come across evidence of cover-ups in which the government is
clearly up to no good. But no one knows what's really going on, and
the government is covering up because that is what, in thrillers as
in life, governments do. And what has any of this to do with the
discovery of a Neanderthal family whose mummified faces show signs
of a strange peeling?
Greg Bear has spent much of his recent career evoking awe in the deep
reaches of space, but he made his name with Blood Music, a novel of
nanotechnology that crackled with intelligence. His new book is a
workout for the mind and a stunning read; human malignancy has its
role in his thriller plot, but its real villain, as well as its last
best hope, is the endless ingenious cruelty of the natural world and
evolution. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec99/bear.htm
> < BATH OF THE TWIN DRAGON: http://www.anc.net/~neff/twindragon.html
> <
> < ANASAZI CANNIBALISM?
> < http://www.he.net/~archaeol/9709/newsbriefs/anasazi.html
> <
> < CANNIBALS OF THE CANYON
> < http://www.prestonchild.com/thunder/thunder_cannib.htm
> <
: American Neanderthal?
: Unearthed Native American Could Help Solve Mystery
: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/neanderthal000218.html
> <
> < Transcript of Chat with Ray Kurzweil on March 4, 1999
> < http://www.eventhorizon.com/sfzine/chats/transcripts/pages/030499.html
> <
> EXOPOLITICS: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/exopolitics.html
-- Guido Von Roach <mailto:vonr...@popd.ix.netcom.com>
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach.html