Rainbows End Contacts Coming Soon!

A future predicted in the novel Rainbows End is a bit closer to becoming the present. A very cool technology described by Vernor Vinge in his amazing novel centers around contact lenses that do a whole lot more than improve vision and change your eye color.

Vinge's contacts are actually connected wirelessly to an omnipresent Internet on steroids. They overlay what you see with everything from private text messages to an alternate reality. With these contacts you can share an augmented reality with others so that you all see the same things. For example, you could be sitting together at a table at a sidewalk cafe in Paris, enjoying good conversation and a view of the Parisian landscape, when each of you is in a different city.

Another use of these contacts would be informational overlays that could tell you what the restaurant you happen to be walking by is serving for lunch. A city utility worker could see which cables run under the sidewalk he stands on. The possibilities are virtually endless.

So here comes this article:

Scientists have taken the first step toward creating digital contact lenses that can zoom in on distant objects and display useful facts.

For the first time, engineers have installed an electronic circuit and lights on a regular contact lens.

Remember this little article when you see what follows.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Don't Play God? Someone Has To.

One very energetic group of opponents to technological advance and bioengineering happens to be composed of people who believe that the human race lives under the concern and protection of a benevolent deity. In their view, tinkering with something that this god made and called "good," is not only an affront to this god but also a path to destruction. The problem with this point of view is that science has proven it wrong. Throughout the history of life on this planet, species have come and gone. Nature does not care about perpetuating our species.

Take a look at an excellent article by Sam Harris, featured on RichardDawkins.Net entitled "Mother Nature is Not Our Friend." A brief excerpt:

The fossil record suggests that individual species survive, on average, between one and ten million years. The concept of a "species" is misleading, however, and it tempts us to think that we, as homo sapiens, have arrived at some well-defined position in the natural order. The term "species" merely designates a population of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring; it cannot be aptly applied to the boundaries between species (to what are often called "intermediate" or "transitional" forms). There was, for instance, no first member of the human species, and there are no canonical members now. Life is a continuous flux. Our nonhuman ancestors bred, generation after generation, and incrementally begat what we now deem to be the species homo sapiens — ourselves. There is nothing about our ancestral line or about our current biology that dictates how we will evolve in the future. Nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way. Very likely, they will not resemble us. We will almost certainly transform ourselves, likely beyond recognition, in the generations to come.

Will this be a good thing? The question presupposes that we have a viable alternative. But what is the alternative to our taking charge of our biological destiny? Might we be better off just leaving things to the wisdom of Nature? I once believed this. But we know that Nature has no concern for individuals or for species. Those that survive do so despite Her indifference. While the process of natural selection has sculpted our genome to its present state, it has not acted to maximize human happiness; nor has it necessarily conferred any advantage upon us beyond the capacity raise the next generation to child-bearing age. In fact, there may be nothing about human life after the age of forty (the average lifespan until the 20th century) that has been selected by evolution at all. And with a few exceptions (e.g. the gene for lactose tolerance), we probably haven't adapted to our environment much since the Pleistocene.

Sam Harris makes a profound point. The continuation of what we call human is not a given. If we do not play god on our own behalf, who will?

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Computer Simulation of Human Brain Only a Decade Away

We have all heard an aphorism that enjoys an unearned degree of credibility based on no evidence whatsoever, to whit: The human brain can never be intelligent enough to understand itself. Poppycock. Scoffers will continue to believe in it, however, until a fully-developed computer simulation of the human brain smacks them on the noggin, jarring their not-smart-enough brains into the 21st century.

An ambitious project to create an accurate computer model of the brain has reached an impressive milestone. Scientists in Switzerland working with IBM researchers have shown that their computer simulation of the neocortical column, arguably the most complex part of a mammal's brain, appears to behave like its biological counterpart. By demonstrating that their simulation is realistic, the researchers say, these results suggest that an entire mammal brain could be completely modeled within three years, and a human brain within the next decade.

The rapidity with which developments are advancing continues to astound even me, one of the most optimistic singularitarian transhumanists around.



Technology Review Article

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

It is Time for a Real PDA

Picture this: Your meeting with the team is over, you say your goodbyes and walk down the hall to your office. Sitting in a tray near your desk are the pages of a transcript of the meeting, which ended only a few minutes ago. You call up the project that was the subject of the meeting on your screen, and you see that every assignment is already listed, every appointment is already scheduled. You thank your PDA, and she replies, "Any time, Barry."

This scenario, which has been portrayed in many a science fiction novel, may become the real deal not too many years from now. An artificial general intelligence who lives in your corporate network, organizes your work life without being asked, and converses with you in natural human language. If truth be told, you've often fantasized about asking her out for a drink.

Enter CALO, "a massive, four-year-old artificial-intelligence project to help computers understand the intentions of their human users."

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and coordinated by SRI International, based in Menlo Park, CA, the project brings together researchers from 25 universities and corporations, in many areas of artificial intelligence, including machine learning, natural-language processing, and Semantic Web technologies. Each group works on pieces of CALO, which stands for "cognitive assistant that learns and organizes."

Adam Cheyer, program director of the artificial-intelligence center at SRI, explains that CALO tries to assist users in three ways: by helping them manage information about key people and projects, by understanding and organizing information from meetings, and by learning and automating routine tasks. For example, CALO can learn about the people and projects that are important to a user's work life by paying attention to e-mail patterns. It can then categorize and prioritize information for the user, based on the source of the information and the projects to which it is connected. The system can also apply this type of understanding to meetings, using its speech-recognition system to make a transcription of what's said there, and its understanding of the user's projects and contacts to process the transcription intelligently into to-do lists and appointments. Finally, a user can teach CALO routine tasks such as purchasing books online and searching for bed-and-breakfasts that meet specific criteria. CALO can interact with other people, taking on tasks such as scheduling meetings, coordinating among people's schedules, and making decisions, such as deciding to reschedule a meeting if a key member becomes unable to attend.

Look for the progeny of CALO to appear first in large corporations, filter down to medium-sized businesses, and eventually arrive in your own home network. I can't wait.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Your Brain is a Machine - Get Used to It

There are many whose penchant it is to romanticize the human condition. It somehow makes them feel better about their lives to do so. One of the outgrowths of this habit of spiritualizing material things is the expressed certainty that machines can never become conscious. After all, they think, if machines can ever be made to experience consciousness, then it is very likely that we are no more than machines: There is no soul, no heaven, no spirit, no existence after death. For many people, this possibility is not to be countenanced.

However, more and more researchers are concluding that even our experience of conscious will is an illusion arising from our neurological programming. In a new book authored by Harvard professor Daniel Wegner titled The Illusion of Conscious Will, professor Wegner argues that:

“When you drive to work, you don’t feel there are hundreds of little gears in a machine in your head that make you do this. You think, ‘I’m going to get up and go to work,’ ” Wegner said in an interview

“We think the intentions cause the actions, and we get the feeling we have willed what we do. It could be the intentions and actions are being caused by the machinery of the brain.”

I have written previously about the startling finding that our actions in fact come before our conscious intentions, that our minds are inventing reasons for actions over which we have no conscious control. If, as writes Dr. Wegner, our brains are trying to convince us that we are choosing actions that are merely the result of our neurological machinery, then it is only a matter of time before machines become conscious. According to some, that time may even have already arrived.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Your Kids Could Soon Have a Virtual Teacher

My wife teaches 8th-grade algebra. She is very good at her job. She should be paid more than she is, but that is a complaint that often falls on deaf politician's ears. In any case, the time may soon come when at least certain parts of her curriculum are taught by a virtual teacher called Eve.

Eve is what's know in in the field of information systems an intelligent or affective tutoring system. It can "adapt its response to the emotional state" of its students (Blogging the Singularity).

The ability of virtual Eve to alter her presentation according to the reaction of the child facing her at the keyboard has been hailed as an exciting development in the $25 billion e-learning market.

The Massey scientists, led by Dr Hossein Sarrafzadeh at the Auckland-based Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, tell the story of creating Eve and the teaching system in the latest issue of the leading international journal on information sciences, Elsevier.

Because one-to-one teaching is known to be the most effective teaching method, Dr Sarrafzadeh says the researchers wanted to create a virtual teacher that could pick up body language and facial expressions – like a real teacher – to interact and to ensure they are holding the attention of students.

He says the realisation that software systems would significantly improve performance if they could adapt to the emotions of the user has spawned research and development in the field of affective or intelligent tutoring systems.

“With rising demand for long-distance learning and online tutoring, a computer programe capable of detecting human emotions may become a critical teaching tool.”

Although Eve was developed for one-to-one maths teaching with eight-year-olds, she is a significant new character in the future of human computer interaction and could be a personalized virtual tutor by any name.

Linked to a child via computer, the animated character or virtual tutor can tell if the child is frustrated, angry or confused by the on-screen teaching session and can adapt the tutoring session appropriately.

If you plan to go into teaching, it's unlikely that Eve will completely replace all teaching kind, but there can be no doubt that there will be significant and far-reaching implications. Maybe you should think about teaching computer engineering.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Making Enhancement Acceptable

A possible way forward for transhumanists is emerging. Since there is such a strong bias in our politically correct society against the idea of making human enhancement available to humans, and since the negative bias tends to focus on the distinction between restoration of function and enhancement, transhumanists are beginning to use the word enablement and point out that there is no clear line between therapy and enablement.

Zack Lynch reports on this transformation and posts a link to a just-published report from a human enhancement workshop held in D.C. back in June 2006. He highlights this particular paragraph from the report:

The line between therapy or restoration and enhancement is another piece of ongoing debates about HE. After noting at the workshop that the line between therapy and enhancement is particularly faint and subjective, Zack Lynch, managing director of NeuroInsights, recommended the term “enablement” as a replacement for the current buzz-word “enhancement.” He believes the term enhancement is already politically charged in both its meaning and use among science policy players. He sees no hard line between “therapy” and “enhancement”; instead, there is a range of capacities already in normal distribution among the population, and enablement refers to maximizing each person’s latent potential. While these arguments are explored in greater detail later in this essay, this report will utilize the more familiar term of “enhancement.”

Could this be the way forward?

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Self-Enhancement Unethical?

Safety concerns over people taking drugs to improve themselves is fine, but this article seems to go beyond the issue of safely. It seems to imply that well people should not be trying to enhance themselves.

The ability of prescription drugs and medical procedures to improve intellectual performance is likely to increase significantly in the next 20 to 30 years as technology advances.

"We know that there is likely to be a demand by healthy individuals for this treatment," Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the BMA's Medical Ethics Committee said at the launch of a discussion paper on the issue.

"However, given that no drug or invasive medical procedure is risk free, is it ethical to make them available to people who are not ill?"

Why wouldn't it be ethical to make drugs or procedures available to people who are not ill? What is wrong with letting well people make themselves better? Perhaps it's competition they fear. Can't have the average idiots making themselves as smart as the cognoscenti, can we?

I am all for safety, but some folks seem to have a socialist view of medicine and do not want to see a day when people can make themselves more competitive by enhancing their "god-given" abilities. That wouldn't be "fair." But self-enhancing products do not remain out of reach for the average citizen for very long. Technology is always too expensive for most people in its early stages, but eventually everyone can have it. Computers and cell phones are just two examples of this phenomenon. So I say let the rich be the testers. Perfect the stuff with them and then, when all the bugs have been worked out, let me at it.

Brain-boosting drugs spark ethical debate in UK

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Scientists Shy Away from Human Enhancement...Again

I have written before about this phenomenon and wondered aloud about its psychological and sociological underpinnings. Here I go again. The article in question describes the creation of so-called super-mice: able to leap tall buildings, etc., but very quickly quotes the researchers as follows:

They emphasized that the aim of the research was not to prepare the way to enhance the genes of people.

And again:

"We humans have exactly the same gene. But this is not something that you'd do to a human. It's completely wrong. We do not think that this mouse model is an appropriate model for human gene therapy. It is currently not possible to introduce genes into the skeletal muscles of humans and it would not be ethical to even try."

No, no, no. We aren't even thinking of enhancing anybody. That would be wrong. We only want to help cure diseases:

Professor Hanson accepted that it was possible athletes might misuse any future drug developed in this way. He said: "It's very possible. It's a different approach to putting a gene into a human. I would only do that to help anyone who suffers from disorders such as cystic fibrosis."

Apparently it's politically incorrect to consider making humans better. We can only use science to bring everyone to the same level. I absolutely believe that we should find cures for diseases. I also believe that we should not shy away from enhancing ourselves.

How will the current mentality play itself out? I know there are researchers out there working at human enhancement, but when will it be seen as "ethical"? Will it ever?

The mouse that shook the world

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Humans and AI: A Symbiotic Relationship?

The idea that artificial intelligence will soon become super-intelligent and discover that humans are a nuisance to be exterminated forthwith is certainly a frightening vision of the near-term future. Some of the people who are actually engaged in what is transpiring take the position that the merest chance that this may actually happen should persuade us to cease and desist from all work on AI. Others, myself included, see the “us-them” separation between human and artificial minds as a disappearing distinction, and therefore beneath our concern. This, more optimistic, group envisions a symbiotic relationship that transforms into a complete melding of human with machine, until there are just minds, comprised of various amalgams of both.

In fact, symbiosis already exists between organic and non-organic intelligence. In my real-world occupation I am a financial aid adviser. At my finger tips are networks of schools, lenders, government agencies, and the machines and software applications that make the whole thing work. In a few minutes I can put together a financial aid package for a student so that their entire education at my school will be paid for. The machines could not do it without my mind’s assistance. I certainly could not do it without the technology, certainly not with the efficiency and productivity that is possible now. This symbiosis reminds me of Vernor Vinge’s excellent novel, A Deepness in the Sky.

In the novel, a race of humans called the Emergence develops a unique method of focusing the minds of humans to such an extent that, together with computers, they can transcend the power of either in previously unimaginable ways. This human-machine collaboration is not merely science-fiction, however. Some of the most effective search engines in existence today have humans in the loop. My prediction is that this symbiosis will continue, until technology arrives at literal physical blending, either by the instantiation of human minds into machines, or machine parts being connected directly with human neurons. Or both.

The result of this symbiosis/blending will be that there will exist no substantial distinction between humans and machines once AGI comes into being. I sure hope it turns out this way.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Vinge's Future: A Deepness in the Sky

I've been reading, and thoroughly enjoying, the Vernor Vinge classic, A Deepness in the Sky, in which he paints a fairly discouraging picture of our common future.

If you'll recall, Vernor Vinge is credited with coining the term technological singularity, a phrase that refers to a near-term predicted future where technological development brings change so rapid that seeing beyond its event horizon is not possible.

In Deepness, as in A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor's future is marked by inevitable cyclical rises and declines of civilizations. No civilization enjoys technology for more than a few thousand years. Every one is inexorably destroyed, whether by war, biological pathogens, or by the crushing complexity of its own automation (Vinge's word for computer programming).

One aspect of the future envisioned in these novels, however, involves what Vinge calls the Failed Dreams of the dawn age of human civilization. He speaks, through his characters, of the naive optimism of humanity's earliest years of technology, when researchers believed that they could create things like general artificial intelligence, negligible senescence, and nano-assemblers.

Of course, those of us who cheer on the singularity believe these things are not only possible, but virtually inevitable. As far and what Vernor Vinge believes, he seems to leave his options open.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

The Call for Human Augmentation is Beginning

There have been innumerable occasions during my lifetime when I have wondered what it must have been like to be part of the beginning of something big. The 60s, for example. The sexual revolution. The birth of personal computing. I was not there at the beginning of many important, transformative periods. But this time, I am there. Or here.

I have written before about the absence of a hue and cry for technologies to augment the human animal. The last time I posted on this topic, a reader commented that cosmetic surgery was a kind of augmentation, but even there the goal is to bring people up to the standards of the super-beautiful, not really to go beyond what it means to be human. And I'm not talking about machines that exist outside of and separate from the body; we already have lots of those. I'm talking about enhancements to our senses that take us far beyond normal human ability, and to our powers of cognition, our durability, our ability to live underwater, etc. Almost no one in the mainstream of business or science is calling for that kind of augmentation. It is heartening, therefore, when someone with influence issues just such a call.

Ed Boyden, Assistant Professor in the MIT Media Lab and MIT Department of Biological Engineering, has written an excellent article called In Pursuit of Human Augmentation
The journey toward making "normal" obsolete. His central point:

It's arguably time for a discipline to emerge around the idea of human augmentation. At the MIT Media Lab, we are beginning to search for principles that govern the use of technology to augment human abilities--that make the idea of normal obsolete. As a codirector of the Center for Human Augmentation, I lead a lab, the Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Lab, that is developing devices that will hopefully eventually allow us to enhance memory, creativity, and happiness in humans.

Will his determination to be at the forefront of such a discipline catch on? I certainly hope so. Stay tuned.

Source article.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated often; the easiest way to get your regular dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Confronting the Social Implications of the Singularity

Imagining the social implications and conundrums that humanity will be faced with in the coming decades with the development of machine consciousness and the uploading of human minds into machine substrates takes a special kind of mind. A mind like the one contained within the brain of Greg Egan.

Greg has both the technical knowledge, writing skills and penetrating imagination that, when combined, allow him to create fiction that examines many of the social dilemmas with which we will be confronted within a few tens of years. In his book of short stories, Axiomatic, Greg conceives some utterly captivating scenarios. Here are the gists of a few:

A ransom demand is made by a group that holds hostage a digital recreation of a man's wife. Does the virtual woman feel pain? Does she suffer? Should the man pay the ransom?

A man who has within his skull a "jewel" which has been matched with his own brain faces the prospect of turning over control of his body to the immortal jewel so that his biological brain can be disposed of. Is his consciousness that of the jewel, or the brain? When his brain is disconnected, will "he" die? Will the jewel be truly conscious, or will it be an imitation of consciousness? Is there a difference?

After an injury to his brain and its subsequent repair by nanobots, a man's perspective shifts to a position outside his body. Although he "knows" only that which his eyes can see, his mind builds a picture of reality as it might appear from a position a few feet above his physical body.

These are just a few of the stories within Axiomatic. If you want to think about what might actually happen when the singularity arrives, this book will certainly set you on the right path.

Axiomatic

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

The Ethics of Enhancing Humanity

Not too long ago I raised the question, When will remediation become augmentation? In other words, when will medical science begin to use technology to enhance healthy people in addition to treating the sick? For the first time I have run across a notable figure actually urging medical researchers to do exactly that.

In Canberra, Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at Oxford University and an eminent bio-ethisist, recently told a gathering there that Doctors are too focused on treating the sick and risk missing the enormous opportunities of using advances in medical science to "make happier, better people."

"If we cured all disease - cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, etc. - we would only prolong life on average by 12 years," the Australian-born Savulescu said.

"So we have pretty much reached the ceiling of what we can do by treating and preventing disease."

The next frontier is enhancing life through medical intervention. We can be brighter, stronger, healthier.

He argued that many of us routinely use cognitive enhancers like caffeine and nicotine. Alcohol is another intervention, this time to improve mood and aid socialization. Prozac and Viagra are interventions.

Savulescu urged the medical profession to embrace new methodologies and not worry too much about ethical considerations.

"The sort of methodologies in science that I'm talking about are stem cell science, cloning and the new genetics," he said.

I predict that this sentiment will, unfortunately, be criticized by misguided people who will accuse scientists of "playing God," who alone, according to them, should have the right to improve humanity. But if a few visionary men and women see that there exists the potential for a massive market for such enhancements, the naysayers will just be whistling in the dark. At least this is what I hope. Let those who are against human enhancement remain as they are if that is their choice, but let them not claim the right to make that choice for me.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Out-of-Body Virtual Reality: Are You Ready?

Researchers are finding out what it feels like to have an out-of-body experience. An interesting use of VR, don't you think? Placing VR goggles on test subjects that show them the view from a set of cameras actually situated behind them, then giving them a poke in the chest while simultaneously poking at the air in front of the cameras, gives subjects the feeling that they are being poked in the chest while outside their bodies. Very weird, but cool, they say.

Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed images from a video camera setup — two cameras spaced like a pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.

As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded their chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras at the same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but not the spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they were being poked in the chest — outside their bodies.

“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants," Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many of them giggled and said ‘Wow, this is so weird.’”

I can't wait till this is available for the rest of us!

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

I Have Set Before You Life and Death

These words, taken from the Bible, may have a meaning for us that is somewhat different to what the author intended. In a completely non-religious context, those of us who are still alive in the next 20 to 30 years may very well face this choice: Do I want to live forever?

In this BBC Channel Four documentary, the ideas of Aubrey de Grey, Ph. D., are examined. For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, Aubrey de Grey is a biomedical gerontologist who is working on the goal he calls engineered negligible senescence.



Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Are We Real? Martin Rees Explores Simulation Hypothesis

Ever since I read the hypothesis that we might be living inside a simulation, the possibility has intrigued me. Not so much that it has affected the way I live in any way, but as an interesting thought-experiment; for example, what might glitches in the software look like?

In this very cool video, Martin Rees, an esteemed British cosmologist, explores this hypothesis, first postulated by Nick Bostrom. It's a five-part, one-hour Channel Four production. Check it out below.



The other parts can be found here.

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Reverse Engineering of the Brain Grows Closer

In a stunning new development, researchers have discovered a revolutionary means of figuring out which of the 100 billion neurons in the brain communicating with each other when people perform various functions, such as learning a new skill.

One of the newest, fastest strategies co-opts a photosensitive protein called channelrhodopsin-2 from pond scum to allow precise laser control of the altered cells on a millisecond timescale. That speed mimics the natural electrical chatterings of the brain, said Dr. Karl Deisseroth, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford.

“We can start to sort of speak the language of the brain using optical excitation,” Dr. Deisseroth said. The brain’s functions “arise from the orchestrated participation of all the different cell types, like in a symphony,” he said.

Laser stimulation can serve as a musical conductor, manipulating the various kinds of neurons in the brain to reveal which important roles they play.

This light-switch technology promises to accelerate scientists’ efforts in mapping which clusters of the brain’s 100 billion neurons warble to each other when a person, for example, recalls a memory or learns a skill. That quest is one of the greatest challenges facing neuroscience.

The channelrhodopsin switch is “really going to blow the lid off the whole analysis of brain function,” said George Augustine, a neurobiologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

Understanding the intricate interplay between neurons and how they are structured within an individual's brain is thought to be vital to the ultimate goal of simulating a human brain in a silicon substrate.

Source

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Instantaneous Speech-to-Speech Translation: Thank You DARPA

In the New Testament there is a story about certain men who spoke in languages they had never learned, and crowds of listeners who heard these men speaking their own languages. As it happens, this tale may soon take place in reality, not through the working of a supernatural being, but through technology now under development by DARPA.

Necessity gives birth to invention, and translators are sorely needed in Iraq. For one reason or another, there aren't enough humans to do the job. So DARPA and NIST have been hard at work on this and are currently testing prototypes. This is not a "could" situation. This is the real thing.

Darpa and NIST are focused on bidirectional translations of English and Arabic spoken in Iraq. NIST, U.S. Marines, and Iraqi Arabic speakers just completed lab and outdoor tests on prototypes in Gaithersburg, Md. The evaluations included controlled background noise from speakers, generators, garage doors, running vehicles, and radio broadcasts to mimic noise in real-world situations.

Participants acted out 10 scenarios, including conversations at traffic checkpoints and neighborhood interviews. Those testing the devices carried them in back packs and other hands-free configurations. Lab participants couldn't see their laptop screens as they recorded the conversations. Iraqis who understand English wore earphones that blocked out the English language portions and relayed the system's Arabic interpretations.

Craig Schlenoff, project leader of the NIST evaluation project, said the evaluations showed improvements to the translation systems and provide information about which technologies are most promising.

"Effective two-way translation devices would represent a major advance in field translators," he said in a prepared statement. "Although American forces in Iraq currently have the use of phrase-based translators, the devices can only translate English into pre-recorded Arabic phrases. They cannot translate Iraqi Arabic into English."

Darpa hopes to eventually provide American forces with palm-sized translators for increased convenience, ease, and safety in war zones and potentially hostile environments. Darpa also wants to position itself to develop automatic translator systems within 90 days of receiving a request for that language.

Obviously, as these "palm-sized translators" come online, there will be an enormous market for them, which will drive further R&D. It will be a better world when we can all understand each other and undo what God allegedly perpetrated on us at Babel.

Source: InformationWeek

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.

Delving Deeper Into Singularity: What is Transhumanism?

From time to time I think it is a good idea to discuss definitions. Otherwise we may find, as we use certain words, that we are not discussing the same things. When it comes to the technological singularity, we cannot assume that everyone understands what it is. The same is true of the concept of transhumanism. What is it, really?

Nick Bostrom has a stellar explanation here. Nick is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and the Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, and a leading thinker in the realm of transhumanism.

According to Nick, although mankind as a species faces many well-known threats to its existence, there is a threat that most people never consider, and that is forever remaining sub-optimal, simply because we accept the premise that human nature will remain forever unchanging. Here I quote from Nick's essay:

This assumption no longer holds true. Arguably it has never been true. Such innovations as speech, written language, printing, engines, modern medicine and computers have had a profound impact not just on how people live their lives, but on who and what they are. Compared to what might happen in the next few decades, these changes may have been slow and even relatively tame. But note that even a single additional innovation as important as any of the above would be enough to invalidate orthodox projections of the future of our world.

"Transhumanism" has gained currency as the name for a new way of thinking that challenges the premise that the human condition is and will remain essentially unalterable. Clearing away that mental block allows one to see a dazzling landscape of radical possibilities, ranging from unlimited bliss to the extinction of intelligent life. In general, the future by present lights looks very weird - but perhaps very wonderful - indeed.

Nick goes on to describe the various technology fields that will impact on human nature and what it means to be human. Take a look, if you dare.

What is Transhumanism?

Singularity & The Price of Rice is updated daily; the easiest way to get your daily dose is by subscribing to our news feed. Stay on top of all our updates by subscribing now via RSS or Email.