White Swan Update by Andres Agostini at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
But What Would the End of Humanity Mean for Me? http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/but-what-d…me/361931/
This Is Your Brain on Gluten
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/this-is-yo…en/282550/
I recently saw the film Transcendence with a close friend. If you can get beyond Johnny Depp’s siliconised mugging of Marlon Brando and Rebecca Hall’s waddling through corridors of quantum computers, Transcendence provides much to think about. Even though Christopher Nolan of Inception fame was involved in the film’s production, the pyrotechnics are relatively subdued – at least by today’s standards. While this fact alone seems to have disappointed some viewers, it nevertheless enables you to focus on the dialogue and plot. The film is never boring, even though nothing about it is particularly brilliant. However, the film stays with you, and that’s a good sign. Mark Kermode at the Guardian was one of the few reviewers who did the film justice.
The main character, played by Depp, is ‘Will Caster’ (aka Ray Kurzweil, but perhaps also an allusion to Hans Castorp in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain). Caster is an artificial intelligence researcher based at Berkeley who, with his wife Evelyn Caster (played by Hall), are trying to devise an algorithm capable of integrating all of earth’s knowledge to solve all of its its problems. (Caster calls this ‘transcendence’ but admits in the film that he means ‘singularity’.) They are part of a network of researchers doing similar things. Although British actors like Hall and the key colleague Paul Bettany (sporting a strange Euro-English accent) are main players in this film, the film itself appears to transpire entirely within the borders of the United States. This is a bit curious, since a running assumption of the film is that if you suspect a malevolent consciousness uploaded to the internet, then you should shut the whole thing down. But in this film at least, ‘the whole thing’ is limited to American cyberspace.
Before turning to two more general issues concerning the film, which I believe may have led both critics and viewers to leave unsatisfied, let me draw attention to a couple of nice touches. First, the leader of the ‘Revolutionary Independence from Technology’ (RIFT), whose actions propel the film’s plot, explains that she used to be an advanced AI researcher who defected upon witnessing the endless screams of a Rhesus monkey while its entire brain was being digitally uploaded. Once I suspended my disbelief in the occurrence of such an event, I appreciate it as a clever plot device for showing how one might quickly convert from being radically pro- to anti-AI, perhaps presaging future real-world targets for animal rights activists. Second, I liked the way in which quantum computing was highlighted and represented in the film. Again, what we see is entirely speculative, yet it highlights the promise that one day it may be possible to read nature as pure information that can be assembled according to need to produce what one wants, thereby rendering our nanotechnology capacities virtually limitless. 3D printing may be seen as a toy version of this dream.
Now on to the two more general issues, which viewers might find as faults, but I think are better treated as what the Greeks called aporias (i.e. open questions):
Continue reading “What to make of the film 'Transcendence'? Show it in classrooms.” »
White Swan Update by Andres Agostini at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
This House’s “Bioconcrete” Turns Every Drop Of Rain Into Drinking Water http://www.fastcoexist.com/3030070/this-house-uses-bioconcre…king-water
Google Skunk Works May Tackle Energy and Agriculture http://www.21stcentech.com/google-skunk-works-tackle-agriculture/
Based on the Bloomberg TV program “The Next Space Race” and other reliable sources, I determine the realistic payload costs goals for the next generation of private space companies.
I review NASA’s Space Shuttle Program costs and compare these with SpaceX costs, and then extrapolate to Planetary Resources, Inc.‘s cost structure.
Three important conclusions are derived. And for those viewing this video at my blog postings, the link to the Excel Spreadsheet is here (.xlsx file).
WHITE SWAN GRAPHICS BY MR. ANDRES AGOSTINI. — QUESTION: IN CORPORATE SETTINGS, IS THERE AN OUTRIGHT COUNTERMEASSURING WHITE SWAN TO THE BLACK SWAN? READ at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/White-Swan
Yesterday’s program, The Next Space Race, on Bloomberg TV was an excellent introduction to the commercial aerospace companies, SpaceX, the Sierra Nevada Company (SNC), and Boeing. The following are important points, at the stated times, in the program:
0.33 mins: The cost of space travel has clipped our wings.
5:18 mins: How many people knew Google before they started?
7:40 mins: SpaceX costs, full compliment, 4x per year at $20 million per astronaut.
11:59 mins: Noisy rocket launch, notice also the length of the hot exhaust is several times the length of the rocket.
12:31 mins: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
12:37 mins: Noisy shuttle launch, notice also the length of the hot exhaust is several times the length of the rocket.
13:47 mins: OPF-3, at one time the largest building in the world at 129 million cubic feet.
16:04 mins: States are luring private companies to start up in their states.
16:32 mins: NASA should be spending its money on exploration and missions and not maintenance and operations.
17:12 mins: The fair market value of OPF-3 is about $13.5 million.
17:19 mins: Maintenance cost is $100,000 per month
17:47 mins: Why Florida?
18:55 mins: International Space Station (ISS) cost $60B and if including the Shuttle program, it cost $150B.
19:17 mins: The size of the commercial space launch business.
21:04 mins: Elon Musk has put $100 million of his own money into SpaceX.
21:23 mins: The goals of NASA and private space do not conflict.
Summary:
1. Cost of ISS is $60B, total cost including the Shuttle program is $150B.
2. SpaceX cost is $20M per astronaut (for 7 astronauts) or a launch cost of $140 million per launch at $560 million per year for 4 launches per year.
| White Swan Update by Andres Agostini at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan |
Divestment in Unburnable Assets Begins at Stanford University http://www.21stcentech.com/divestment-unburnable-assets-begi…niversity/
Will Artificial Intelligence Destroy Us? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8-sUovZMI&feature=youtu.be
An interesting activity that is relevant to Lifeboat concerns has been provided for us by the Foundational Questions Institute, styled FQXi. They recently ran an essay contest on the topic, “How should humanity steer the future?” This contest was announced to Lifeboat members. Fourteen of the 155 posted essays are written by Lifeboat members, and some are written by top scientists. The contest is closed to submissions, but we can still participate.
Members of the public are invited to read and rate essays on the FQXi website. Public ratings will not decide the winners, but they may guide official judges. Essay quality varies, and the best might make a real contribution, so FQXi could use help in finding which are best. Their diversity is also interesting, and might show us paths we could take, and perhaps paths to avoid.
Lifeboat members who submitted essays include James Blodgett, Frank Boehm, Angelika Domschke, James Dunn, Preston Estep, Bob Freeman, Giorgio Gaviraghi, Jacob Haqq-Misra, Orenda Urbano Hernández, Alexander Hoekstra, Ted Howard, Randal A. Koene, Alexander MacRae, Federico Pistono, Walter Putnam, and Tihamer Toth-Fejel.
The White Swan Treatise at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
White Swan Graphic 2 by Mr. Andres Agostini at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/White-Swan
The White Swan Treatise at https://lifeboat.com/blog/2014/04/white-swan
Based on the Bloomberg TV program “The Next Space Race” and other reliable sources, I determine the realistic payload costs goals for the next generation of private space companies.
