New graduate school sets out to make sense of rapidly changing technology
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')AN FRANCISCO - Technology is changing the world so rapidly that even geniuses need help making sense of it all.
That's the idea underlying Singularity University, an unconventional school that will host its first class of 30 graduate students this summer. They will take a nine-week course exploring ways to ensure technology improves mankind's plight instead of harming it.
Singularity's founders planned to unveil the school's grand ambitions Tuesday in Long Beach, Calif. at the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, known as TED.
The school will be based on NASA's Silicon Valley campus and revolve around the concept that the exponential advances occurring in various fields should be melded to solve daunting problems like poverty, famine, disease, global warming and dwindling energy supplies.
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The Singularity University
The Singularity University
by Carlhole » Tue 03 Feb 2009, 05:28:11
[web]http://singularityu.org/[/web]
Supposedly, the movie, The Singularity Is Near is due out soon; the website says "early 2009". But I haven't heard about any release date yet.
A while back, I emailed James Kunstler about the Singularity Conference which took place in September 2008 in Silicon Valley. I think Kunstler is at his satirical best when he's tackling something like "delusional techno-triumphalism". As he says in his blog:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kunstler', 'T')echno-grandiosity and techno-triumphalism must be be sedulously monitored and guarded-against. They jointly amount to the great mass psychosis of our time and culture. This array of traps -- from proposed flying cars to "renewable" motor fuels -- is the ultimate Faustian "bargain." It will be at the heart of any campaign to sustain the unsustainable, sucking us ever more deeply into the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity.
I was hoping he would make the trip out to The Singularity Conference to report on it - and to ask questions of the participants. I thought it was a great chance for Kunstler to get another piece published in Rolling Stone or somewhere -- I love to read about all the Singularity stuff, but also like to laugh -- but Kunstler didn't want anything to do with The Singularity people.
At the conference, there had been at least 8 speakers representing Cambridge University's Global Catastrophic Risks Conference -- and not a single one of them spoke about energy supplies or anything remotely connected with a Hubbert curve. Why not?
Someone should have been there to ask about energy and resource depletion. Maybe it was the $500 entrance fee that kept people out. I wonder who's going to be coughing up the $25,000 for a 9-week course?
James, are you out there? Why not bring some of that cynical wit of yours to bear on The Singularity?
[web]http://singularity.com/themovie/[/web]
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Singularity Movie', 'T')he intertwined B-line (between interviews with notable people) is the story of Ramona, Ray Kurzweil’s female alter ego, starting with actual footage of Kurzweil creating and demonstrating his virtual creation at the 2001 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, where Ray – as Ramona – sang Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.” This presentation was the inspiration for the Warner Brothers’ movie Simone, where the character played by Al Pacino turns himself into Simone, just as Ray turned himself into Ramona at TED.
The B-line continues as Ramona goes into the future where she becomes more and more humanlike and independent - a Pinocchio story. She combats an attack of self-replicating nanobots (gray goo) and hires Alan Dershowitz (who plays himself ) to press for her legal rights as a “person.” The judge rules that he will grant her full legal personhood if she passes a “Turing test,” in which she must appear indistinguishable from an actual human in a text conversation. She gets coaching from Tony Robbins (who plays himself ) to become “more human.” The story continues from here. . . .
Last edited by Carlhole on Tue 03 Feb 2009, 05:44:53, edited 1 time in total.
- Carlhole
Re: The Singularity University
by Sixstrings » Tue 03 Feb 2009, 05:36:29
Please tell me federal tax dollars are not funding this university on the NASA campus.
As for the "singularity.." as far as it relates to computing (that is, the point at which artificial intelligence becomes self-aware), it is an inevitability. Moore's Law on processing power has held up for what? 30, 40, 50 years now?
As for the "singularity.." as far as it relates to computing (that is, the point at which artificial intelligence becomes self-aware), it is an inevitability. Moore's Law on processing power has held up for what? 30, 40, 50 years now?
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Re: The Singularity University
by Carlhole » Tue 03 Feb 2009, 05:48:46
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'P')lease tell me federal tax dollars are not funding this university on the NASA campus.
Federal tax dollars are not funding this university on the NASA campus.
- Carlhole
