superconcepts

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 03:58:32 +0000

I recently moved to Substack where I now write about the same stuff that this blog always did - the nerdy and the audacious.

Please join me there.

https://wiredlegacy.substack.com/

R18 certificates are not an excuse for being a bad member of society

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 09:32:00 +0000

I've been a gamer for 3 decades, seeing the games industry mature from dots on a screen into a prolific mainstream industry. I'm not afraid of controversy in games. I want to make it abundantly clear: I'm not advocating banning anything.

I've seen many disturbing titles, far worse than Grand Theft Auto. But this was when games were a cult market, and the technology was so basic, it was easy to dismiss the phenomenon.

Now, games have matured. They can do more and they reach more people. Like movies and other entertainment, they have the power to influence society. With this influence comes some level of responsibility. It's not an obligation - games are art and should be able to push boundaries - but rape in a video game is not art. It's gratuitous indulgence in a sickness, a sickness that hides behind freedom of expression.

If we're going to get philosophical about it (and I guarantee the proponents will) you could ask “where does it end? Should we ban all violence in games?"

There wouldn't be many games left. Maybe we should address the high level of violence in gaming. At least it's a conversation we should be able to have without all the "freedom of speech" bullshit. For now, we can at least draw the line at what is acceptable behaviour.

Would we allow child abuse in a video game? The creators would be locked up just for suggesting it and rightly so.

So why do we allow rape? It's even banned in porn, and used sparingly in movies and books when the story requires it. Gaming, putting the player in control, has a different context. Because of this it plays a different role in popular culture and should be assessed differently.

Killing might not be particularly healthy content, but at least it can be justified to a certain extent in games, and is; demons, war, self defence, etc. Many games (Batman: Arkham series, Deus ex) actively avoid it. It's rarely gratuitous - a game where you could shoot up a school should offend even the most hardcore gamers.

What kind of moral integrity do you have if you're actively campaigning to include abuse in entertainment? What does it say about our culture when people lobby in favour of sexual violence?

This isn't about the freedom of adults. It's about the freedom of assholes.

Despite what proponents might say, there is a link between gaming and real life - it's called culture. Entertainment shapes it and it shapes what people find acceptable. Abusing the vulnerable is not something we want in our culture.

Yes, the world is a violent place. Our popular culture doesn't need to hide us from this. But it really doesn't need to encourage it.

The Ethical Implications of Dismantling the Planet Mercury

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Thu, 31 May 2012 11:33:00 +0000

George Dvorsky's article about How to Build a Dyson Sphere was absolutely fascinating and I feel the concept deserves much further exploration.

"By enveloping the sun with a massive array of solar panels, humanity would graduate to a Type 2 Kardashev civilization capable of utilising nearly 100% of the sun's energy output. A Dyson sphere would provide us with more energy than we would ever know what to do with"

Now, this is the kind of ridiculous, overambitious idea that that really captures my imagination. It would be a hyper structure, like the Hoover dam but on steroids, where we would create unfathomable devastation, calling on the skills and labour of thousands, enduring the harshest that nature can throw at us in order to tame it - all in the name of energy. Where the Hoover dam transformed a country, this would transform our entire solar system. But it's not without cost. And that's what I want to discuss.

In order to get the materials to build this monolith of human achievement, we're going to have to make some sacrifices. Namely, the planet Mercury.

But what are the ethical implications of dismantling an entire planet for our own purposes?

One might argue that it's an otherwise useless planet, a burning chunk of iron and rock with no desirable real estate or even aesthetic value. But does that make it Ok to take it apart for spares?

What will future generations think about dismantling the planet Mercury? They will probably be a lot more conscious about the implications of such vast resource exploitation, given that they may be growing up in a world devastated by it.

Legalities

Mercury of course raises another issue that may throw a spanner in the works, that of legal rights. Who owns Mercury? Does anyone? Even if someone did own it - this might not stop someone who has the facilities to get there from taking it from someone who can't.

We could put it to a democratic vote, involving the whole world, but could you imagine the political nightmare a worldwide vote would be? Coordinating the political process across different cultures, legal systems, technology levels, ideologies, and population sizes would be a logistical task comparable to dismantling a planet.

How Decisions are Made in the Real World

At the end of the day whether or not something is ethical has very little bearing on whether it goes ahead. What matters is the decision making mechanism of the time.

Right now, our decisions are based on finances. What is wrong or right is always superseded by the potential to make money, save money, or the liability to cost money. If it would be profitable to dismantle the planet Mercury, all it takes is someone with enough power to get the idea into their head and it will happen. I'm not sure that currently, there is any business or government in the world with enough money or resources to put this idea into practise yet, but that may change in the future.

Perhaps by the time a Dyson sphere becomes feasible, society will be running on a different modus operandi. Perhaps there will be a different currency other than money, something else that holds value but is traded in a similar way. If this currency was directly related to the Dyson sphere, for example, if it was energy, then this might also drive the Dyson sphere's production and supersede any moral concerns about dismantling planets. If the currency was something else, such as art or community help, then production might not be pursued as the need for the Dyson sphere wouldn't be reconciled by the needs of the people. But the project will always remain a possibility as long as energy holds value, and it probably always will, the question would be how much.

Practical Implications

As well as the ethical and legal implications, we would also have to consider the practical ones, as these may also have ethical implications of their own. For example, what about the effect on the gravity of the whole solar system? If something went wrong, the Earth could end up falling into the sun or flying off into space - these are pretty serious ethical concerns! Of course there would need to be some extremely accurate calculations before we attempted to commence resource extraction of this scale.

A Responsibility

After all the negative ethical dilemmas brought about when deciding whether or not to dismantle Mercury, It could very well be argued that it is actually our responsibility to uplift humanity, to alleviate suffering. That it's humanity's purpose to advance our technology, our civilisation, our place in the universe. To do this, we need to use all the resources we have available to us. It would be unethical not to.

The question would then be, what will be the return on this mother of all investments?

Corrolation, Causation, and Prediction in a World of Data and Memes

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:00:00 +0000

As image memes gain popularity on social networks and forums, they are fast securing their place as a defining cultural aspect of the early tweenies...(unlike the word "tweenies", thankfully).

Most of these images are humourous, as this is great for virality, many are profound, some just witty nuggets of wisdom.

And then there is the propaganda. Intended to illicit an emotional response to a political idea, propaganda memes are used to affirm or reaffirm a political bias or dogma. They are often aimed at a very particular niche. If you have any particular political or activist persuasion, you will no doubt have seens endless streams of these one-sided affirmations.

At best, they are intellectual masturbation. At worst, it's pseudo-scientific social engineering.

The worst form of this that I have seen is data correlation inferences. Just because something happened on a certain date does not mean it caused something else that happened around the same time. It is completely irrational to infer causation from a correlation, and most people are subconciously aware of this, they will just choose to ignore it if the correlation fits in with their beliefs. So this form of non-sequitur is becoming an increasingly utilised mechanism for these pieces.

It is a shame that this kind of irrationality is being entertained, not least because data correlations can be valuable analysis tools. Correlations can be useful indicators for understanding social dynamics, as long as it is acknowledged that this evidence is purely circumstantial.

Alone, correlations are not proof , but they can reveal vital clues about possible causation.

They can also be powerful in assisting predictions. The more we know, the more correlations we will uncover, and the more we can use the circumstantial correlations of the past to make reasonable conjectures about the future.

As Twitter and Google and other web-enabled data collectors increase both the range and volume of their publically available data, the more correlations become available to anyone with the inclination to look for them. Using increasingly advanced data analytics tools, our prediction capabilities become ever more reliable, and with them, the possibilities of social engineering reach new and increasingly influential heights.

Distributed or Centralised Infrastructure?

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:58:00 +0000

Distributed infrastructure, such as that provided by the internet, allows for more reliability - if one node is damaged, it barely affects the rest of the network. It affords more freedom - less reliance on a centralised 'grid' controlled and manipulated by the elite. It is more in-line with nature, creating a symbiotic entity where the sum is greater than its parts, and each participant compliments the rest with cooperation but doesn't burden the whole either.

However, the centralised systems we are used to, those which provide our public infrastructure, still have a place, because they can often be more efficient than a distributed system. For example, it would be difficult to run a train system with solar panels on the station roof, so the train taps into the main grid.

When assessing and managing the Earth's resources, a global inventory would be important. We would need to decide on the most efficient solution between distributed and centralised infrastructure, and having access to all resources would allow us to choose the most efficient solution. If one country has more resources than another and it does not share them, this will burden the world system as a whole. If, for example, a hot country like Egypt built solar panels across the desert but didn't share this energy, it could hold back the whole planet, because this energy could be used to run a factory supplying the whole of Africa, or even the world, with food.

On the other hand, building an infrastructure to share this energy and the productions it facilitates could be impractical and not the best use of resources. Although sharing resources could contribute to society, the cost of the infrastructure required to share these resources would be prohibitive. In these situations, a localised solution might be a more efficient use of resources.

Should we be building Smart Grids, or developing self sufficient houses? Or what about a middle ground of self sufficient communities?

It is likely that both ideas will have to develop in parallel. There is no escaping the growth of distributed systems, their dropping cost and increasing accessibility. Home manufacture, decentralised production, home automation, home agriculture, home energy and more are making it easier to separate ourselves from the mainstream infrastructure and increase our self sufficiency.

Similarly, sharing and pooling resources has its benefits. It gives us more possibilities, allows us to combine systems, and develop simplified and more efficient solutions. So we should be looking at the best way to combine the two techniques.

The Key to Automation

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:46:00 +0000

Every day seems to see new reports about incredible robots being developed. Robots that carry stuff for soldiers, robots that perform surgery, and robots that play football. It's all very exciting, but what we really need are robots to make our lives easier. To give us more time to do what we want. To do the mundane jobs and free us up to take on more creative work that robots can't do.

But how do we go about this? How do we bring robots and automation into our everyday lives, unless robot intelligence is significantly improved? Well, while this intelligence is improving at a rapidly accelerating pace, there is a huge potential for solving problems using simple, task repeating, programmable robotics.

The key is to standardize everything. We have to "put it on rails".

As an example, let's look at making an automated dish washing system.

We have dishwashers, but we still need to load and unload them. We need to develop 2 things. Firstly, we need a robot that can safely sort dishes no matter how randomly they're piled up, and insert them into their relevant areas of the dishwasher. Secondly, and this wouldn't be so difficult once the first stage was completed, is a mechanism for unloading the dishes and putting them away.

The important thing to note is that the kitchen would need to be designed with this in mind. In many solutions, we may need to consider our existing infrastructure. This needn't be as complex as it's made out to be, and would always pay off once a working automated system was integrated.

So you would need containers either side of the dishwasher, one for humans to pile up the dirty dishes, and one where the clean dishes would be stored permanently. This would make it easier than if the storage cupboard was, say, on the other side of the room to the dishwasher.

The next step, we could consider 2 options. The first is to standardize all our plates, cups, dishes, pots, pans, and cutlery, so that the loading robot would "recognize" them all. Alternatively, we may be able to develop robots that can recognize new items and program themselves "on the fly" to deal with them effectively. This would obviously be a little harder. To achieve the first step, all the dishes we use in a house could be embedded with RFID. The robot could also have powerful sensors similar to face recognition software many cameras currently have.

Within the dishwasher, every item would have a specified place. The robot would simply grab each item and move it to its "cleaning slot". Any odd items could occupy a separate platform within the dishwasher.

You get the idea. While it still has some creases to iron out, the point is that there is plenty that can be achieved with a minimal level of robot intelligence, if we standardize our practices and the environments that automation functions in. The same theory could be applied to transportation. It's baffling why trains are still driven by human beings, when a computer could control them perfectly.

If you think that giving computers so much responsibility is dangerous, it's because you've been conditioned to seeing machines that have been challenged by real life scenarios. The point is, these machines have been limited by the programming of humans. They have been put in situations where they have not been designed to cope with all possible scenarios. They were expected to work like humans, yet they were limited in the number of possible actions. Automation system designers need to limit the scenario to a set routine, as well as limiting the influence of external factors.

To put it another way, they need to simplify what a robot has to do, and design its environment to confine it, protecting it from the need to make decisions. We can do this by standardizing its interactions. This will allow us to bring automation into our lives in more ways than we ever thought possible, even at current technology levels.

The Evolution of Complexity

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:35:00 +0000

Photo by Alazar Kassahun on Unsplash

Matter Evolution

Since the first particles were set in motion, every action has been part of a chain reaction.

At first, there were the simplest of elementary particles in an empty universe. Hydrogen atoms — single electron entities, were the pinnacle of complexity.

Eventually, a few of them collided, stuck together, and formed more complex atoms, and then molecules. Well, it was a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. These molecules accumulated until there were so many that gravity and magnetism began to have a significant effect. As the gravity increased, the mass increased, and nuclear fusion commenced. Star systems were born.

The planets continued a sequence of their own. Eventually molecules increased in complexity by way of chemical reactions in order to form amino acids which then combined to create proteins.

These proteins and amino acids increased in complexity until living cells emerged from the chemical process.

Life started simple — with single cell organisms converting oxygen into energy.

Like everything before it, life increased in complexity as its requirement for survival drove it to trial different solutions to the problems it faced. Solving any problem always creates new, more complex problems. When the first animals came onto the land to find food, they had to develop solutions, such as legs, lungs, to deal with this new environment.

Photo by Fakurian Design on Unsplash

Consciousness Evolution

After an unfathomably long time, something incredible happened. Life increased complexity so much that a brain able to comprehend its own existence was formed. This brain not only solved problems, as brains before it did, but it built upon ideas. It developed the same skills as nature itself, evolving ideas that increased the complexity of the universe. *These self acknowledging brains loosely described this phenomenon as consciousness, and these complexity-increasing ideas as technology.

Consciousness is a feedback to nature. For the first time in history, nature is no longer the main driver of complexity, the complexity itself is driving further evolution.

Now I’m not talking about transhumanism or notions of driving our own evolution to become more than human. I’m talking about the ability to create ideas. Ideas drive evolution. Like nature before it, the function of ideas developed by consciousness is to increase complexity. This evolves the course of the universe itself.

Ideas are created by combining previously existing concepts to solve a problem. These ideas then create new problems that need to be solved and so new ideas always add to the ever increasing complexity.

Evolution = increasing complexity, using ideas as the mechanism.

Evolution began as hydrogen atoms evolving into complex molecules. It is not restricted to the evolution of plants and animals. Charles Darwin’s identification of the evolution of the species was just a very small part of a much bigger picture.

It’s important to remember that this is still part of that original chain reaction. Evolution is the function of the universe itself.

I’ll say that again.

Evolution is the function of the universe itself.

To appreciate this, you have to acknowledge that the true definition of evolution is to increase complexity. That is all that has ever happened. From the increasing complexity of atoms to the development of life, the improvement of life and then the development of consciousness, the universe is just a complexity factory. That’s what it does.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Our Purpose

What is profound about this is realising where we fit it into it all. We’ve often wondered what is the reason for living, and when you look at the big picture like this, it becomes obvious.

We are just here to continue the evolution of complexity.

Of course this is both empowering and humbling. It turns out that human beings could be pivotal to the evolution of the universe. Looking back at how the universe has evolved we can predict that we, (or another version of consciousness that will emerge in the event of our extinction), will contribute to the emergent complexity of the universe. Our ideas will progress the complexity and will take the universe to the next level. Yet at the same time, we realise that we are simply a result of what the universe was doing anyway. We are not the ‘pinnacle’ of evolution, we are just ‘where it’s at now’. There is much more to come, and perhaps we are just an insignificant speck in the development of something much grander.

What if the development of consciousness is just an embryo of a super-brain and concepts such as individuality are simply mechanisms in its development? Kinda makes the humbling from Darwin and Copernicus seem like a mild slap. The ego of humanity takes yet another beating…

But even if this is the case, there’s no need to feel down. Now we know our purpose, we know what to focus on. We have meaning and direction. We are here to drive complexity, by creating ideas which are solutions to problems.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Society Evolution

And there is more. Since we first started integrating concepts and evolving ideas, we have been part of something even more complex than our minds: Society. The hive-mind of ants or bees is one thing, but the hive mind of an entire planet of concscious, problem solving, dextrous human beings is quite another. Society adds yet another level of complexity to the evolution of the universe.

Society has only existed in any sort of complex form for at most a few hundred thousand years, but until the birth of the internet, it was fragmented and relatively simple. Now, people have the potential to connect to any of seven billion others. Cultures merge. Belief systems collapse and form in seconds. Values shift and perceptions alter. More possibilities present themselves. When the internet exploded, our day-to-day functioning as a society hit the knee of an exponential curve in terms of complexity.

This is not to be feared. This is the destiny of evolution, the destiny of the universe. Yes, we will create ideas to temporarily simplify many concepts. But this is just so that we can then use this simplification as a step up to further complexity. Like a fractal.

Photo by Martin Rancourt on Unsplash

For example, Google simplified searching the internet, but in doing so empowered people to solve more complex problems than ever before, due to the ease of access to new concept-combinations.

Technology is advancing at a accelerating rate, enabling all sorts of new opportunities, problems and the ideas required to solve them. The more technology, the more ideas. The more ideas, the more complex society becomes. Even the power of our brains could soon be artificially increased, adding to our ability to drive further complexity.

So immerse yourself. Ride the wave of nature and accept our destiny — the perpetuation of complexity.

Product Longevity in a World Driven by Consumption

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:56:00 +0000

https://www.osvehicle.com/

It should be obvious that Product Longevity is incompatible with capitalism as we know it. Our system relies on continuous consumption to perpetuate the workforce, grow enterprise, and maintain profits. While there may be a capitalist incentive to produce long lasting products in some industries, the fact remains that breaking down just outside of the warranty period is the most profitable circumstance.

Constant technological advancements seem to be a licence for excessive consumption, ongoing changes justifying the buy-and-throw-away culture. Things, in general, are not designed to be upgraded, they are designed to be superseded and replaced.

How do we address this from a sustainability perspective?

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the decoupling of monetary gain from production is imperative.

Would it be possible (profitable) for a company to start up, complete a production run of one very long lasting product, and then move onto another, different product? Maybe, but only if the company’s infrastructure was designed in such a way as to allow for cheap and fast transformation to a new product line. There may still be difficulties supplying genuinely consumable products, and fast advancing technological products, and dealing with any products that break down.

Fundamentally, any sustainable production model would never be preferable to any company whose priority is to grow and make profit. However, it might be demanded as more people realise the importance of sustainability.

We must think about how to produce goods that integrate product longevity while also allowing for ongoing technological enhancement, and effectively dealing with product failures.

It might then be in the interests of a sustainable community to form their own production facilities not concerned with profit, similar to a cooperative but with a focus on sustainability over profit. Working outside the monetary system, this would undermine any companies working within it, out-competing them.

This may allow a community enterprise to run indefinitely, albeit without growth.

Such an enterprise could adopt sustainable production methods such as modular design. An example of such a project is PhoneBloks, who propose a mobile phone design where the base of the phone is produced and an array of components can then be added or removed, personalizing the device and allowing for ease of replacing damaged parts. Laptops, tablets, or any handheld device could make use of this platform, such as washing machines, fridges, gardening tools, or even cars.

Other goals of such an endeavour would include; reducing product duplication, reducing waste, building more robust products, and incorporating more reusable components into every design.

This model may also allow for greater input during the design process. The internet can allow for a more collaborative approach to design as well as production. This is already happening, it’s only a matter of time before the designs are good enough that these products take off. Then, the concepts of open, sustainable, modular, and, most significantly, profitless design enter the mainstream.

How will profit-driven corporations respond?

How Designer Babies Highlight Society's Immaturity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:00:00 +0000

The question of designer babies is usually met with disdain. You don't even have to be religious to object to the idea of customising a human before it's born. Indeed, this concept doesn't just "go against nature", it makes us question what it means to be human.

The possibility of customising an embryo with the view to having an "enhanced" child opens up a veritable test tube of questions. What are the implications of being able to set a child's intelligence, their strengths, their abilities?

Then there is the questions that really hit a nerve: "Would people chose not to have a black baby when they know it will be subject to persecution and prejudice?" The whole issue is surrounded by frightening dilemmas.

The problem is, it's already here. We currently screen embryos for birth defects such as spina bifida, and many would argue that prevention or removal or deficiencies is a form of enhancement.

Of course, we can try to separate prevention of negative from implementation of positive. Then maybe the fascists - I mean conservatives - among us could make a law preventing any form of positive enhancement - but would that be ethical? If we have the potential to allow someone to have a 500 year lifespan - is it right to withhold that from them before they're born and can make a choice about it?

Dr Robert Sparrow makes the profound observation that a child can never reprimand its parents for not enhancing them - because if they had, it would have meant choosing a different embryo and the child wouldn't have been born anyway. However, this of course is only true for embryo screening, so is a bit of a short term argument and, in my opinion, a moot point.

Laws are like band-aids on cancer

I frequently point out on this blog and elsewhere that laws and restrictions are not solutions under any circumstances, and this is especially true when it comes to technology and its ability to undermine and disrupt our paradigms. Attempts to control by prohibition are primitive, ineffective, often un-ethical, they have unforeseen and unrelated side effects, and are usually done for the wrong reasons. This issue of designer babies and human enhancement needs far more thought than that which can be provided by narrow-minded rule-setting waste-of-space bureaucrats.

We went past the point long ago when lawmakers were able to anticipate and knowledgeably counteract dangers arising from technological developments. Technology is enabling these society-altering options not only at a pace that can't be kept up with, but that can't really be understood. They change our paradigms yet we attempt to create rules based on the old ones. Just look at the feeble attempts to control the Internet as a prime example.

If we get this right, we could have a society of healthy, intelligent, long living (and therefore possibly wise) super humans. With this being the potential, how can we ever hope to keep it at bay forever?

Turning what we know on its head

When significant pre-birth human enhancement does arrive, there are still many ethical issues and implications we're going to face, and we need to be thinking about them now. For example, it probably won't take us long to acquire a disdain for anything "less than perfect". While some definitions of perfection will obviously vary, some won't - a longer lifespan and a higher intelligence will be desirable to most people - even if they chose not to use them.

Will we see a separation of the "enhanced" and "non-enhanced" - as if we don't have enough excuses to hate each other - or will the "none-enhanced" simply be subjected to the peer pressure similar to that of mobile phone ownership? Either way, such enhancements would need to be affordable to the masses. Otherwise, we have another issue:

A Right or a Privilege?

What effect will economics have on designer children? Especially in countries with no socialised health care - it's likely that some of the enhancements will be the sole benefit of those with money, perhaps further exacerbating the wealth gap. If it's morally imperative not to withhold enhancement - how does this fit in with the monetary system?

Isn't being born healthy everyone's birthright in a civilised society? Or does that depend on the financial cost? (How exactly do we set the definition of healthy?) If it's not economically viable to give all desired enhancement to everyone - we will almost certainly end up with humans of varying levels of enhancement.

This will be significant, because among other things, it will affect dynamic of the workforce. Those without enhancement because they started off poor would only be able to get the lower paid jobs (if any at all) because of their "disability".

In the meantime, those with enhancement will have certain advantages. Suppose we breed one person who is more intelligent and charismatic than anyone on the planet - and they ran for president? Firstly, this intelligence could give them an unfair(?) advantage over all other human beings, but secondly, why shouldn't they be in charge, if they're likely to do a better job than anyone else?

A Real Game Changer

I could probably expand on these ethical dilemmas all day. But the common denominator is that our current systems, our current ways of thinking, aren't really compatible with our expanding options. Just as nanotechnology might undermine scarcity, and virtual reality might undermine our entire physical reality, "designer babies" open up our world to a host of new possibilities - many of which we are just not set up for. These possibilities will force us to question our deep rooted beliefs and turn our society upside down.

Because of the effect on the individual, it's likely that this will be the tipping point - the point where our advances shift the balance of power from politics to technology.

Image by 5election.com

Could Artificial Intelligence Development Hit a Dead End?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:56:00 +0000

Kurzweil and his proponents seem to be unshakable in their belief that at some point, Advanced Artificial General Intelligence, Machine Sentience, or Human Built Consciousness, whatever you would like to call it, will happen. Much of this belief comes from the opinion that consciousness is an engineering problem, and that it will, at some point, regardless of its complexity, be developed.

In this post, I don't really want to discuss whether or not consciousness can be understood, this is something for another time. What we need to be aware of is the possibility of our endeavours to create Artificial Intelligence stalling.

Whatever happened to...Unified Field Theory?

It seems sometimes, the more we learn about something, the more cans of worms we open, and the harder the subject becomes. Sometimes factors present themselves that we would not have expected to be relevant to our understanding.

Despite nearly a century of research and theorizing, UFT remains an open line of research. There are other scientific theories that we have failed to completely understand, some that have gone on for so long that people are even losing faith in them, and are no longer pursuing them.

Whatever happened to...The Space Race?

Some problems are just so expensive that they are beyond our reach. While this is unlikely to be true forever, it could have a serious and insurmountable effect on Artificial Intelligence development. Exponentially increasing computer power and other technology should stop this being a problem for too long, but who knows what financial, computing, and human resource demands we will find ourselves facing as AI development continues.

Whatever happened to...Nuclear Power?

Some ideas just lose social credibility, and are then no longer pursued. If we are able to create an AI that is limited in some way and displays a level of danger that we would not be able to cope with if the limitations were removed, it's most likely that development will have to be stopped, either by government intervention or simply social pressure.

I think it's unlikely that the progress of anything can be stopped indefinitely. It requires definite failure by an infinite number of civilisations. Anyone familiar with the Fermi Paradox and the "All species are destined to wipe themselves out" theory will have a good understanding of this concept. 100% failure is just not statistically possible indefinitely when it depends on a certain action not being performed.

However, it is certainly likely that our progress will be stumped at some point. Even with the accelerating nature of technology, this could cause an untold level of stagnation.

We should try and stay positive of course, but it would be naive to ignore the chance that, for some time at least, we might fail.

I'm currently attending the Singularity Summit AU in Melbourne. There were a couple of talks on Tuesday night and there will be a whole weekend of fun starting on Friday night. :) Therefore you can expect a few posts to be inspired from my conversations with other future-minded thinkers over the coming days!

image by rachywhoo

Can We Restrain AI?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:43:00 +0000

One of the main challenges in creating a greater-than-human Artificial Intelligence is ensuring that it's not evil. When we "turn it on", we don't want it to wipe out us out or enslave us. Ideally, we want it to be nice.

The problem is how we can guarantee this.

Trap it

Some have suggested limiting the Artificial Intelligence by "trapping it" in a virtual world, where it could do no damage outside the confines of this environment. While this might be a safe solution it could limit the AI to only function within the limits and reality of the virtual world. Ok, so we might be able to program a perfectly realistic and isolated virtual world, but would this happen? Is there a parallel project to create such a "virtual prison" alongside AI research? And what if AI was to evolve or emerge from existing systems (such as the internet or a selection of systems within it) before we could develop such a prison?

Then of course there is the possibility of it escaping. Certainly if it exceeded our own intelligence it might be able to figure out a way out of its "box".

It's worth noting at this point Nick Bostrom's speculation that *we* may be living in such an environment. This raises the question: What if the only way to develop greater-than human intelligence was to create an entire society of AIs, which develop their intelligence only as part of this society? This would significantly increase the processing power required for such a virtual prison.

Still, as we will see, trapping an AI is perhaps the best solution for restraining it for our protection.

Give it Empathy

Many argue that the answer is simple: Just ensure that the AI has empathy. Not only is this idea fundamentally flawed in many ways, I don't believe that it is anywhere near simple.

The idea is that by allowing an AI to be aware of its own mortality, it could then understand the pain it could cause to others and be more caring and considerate to our needs. So just like humans, it would be caring because it could understand how people felt... You see the first problem there?

Humans are products of their environments, shaped by their experiences. They develop empathy but empathy is complex and can be overridden by other factors. We are complex creatures, influenced by emotions, experiences, our body chemistry, our environment and countless other things. One would assume that for an AI to be "intelligent", it would be just as complex.

Even if an AI had an unbreakable measure of empathy for us, this would not guarantee our safety. An AI could decide that it is in our best interests to suffer an extraordinary amount of pain, for example as a learning experience. What if it decided to be extremely "cruel to be kind?"

It's unlikely empathy would be enough to protect us, because empathy still depends on the AI making the right decisions. Humans make bad decisions all the time. Often we even make good decisions that have bad consequences.

Suppose we want to save a bus full of children, but we had to run over a deer to do so. Most people would choose to save the children. To an AI with a bus load of other AIs, we could be the deer. It might be upset about hitting us, but it would have been for a "greater good".

This brings us to the next possibility.

Give it Ethics

The problem with ethics is that there are no right or wrong answers. We all develop our own very personalised sense of ethics, which can easily be incompatible with someone else's. An AI's own ethics could certainly become incompatible with our interests. One likely scenario would be where it saw itself as more creative with the ability to create more value than humans, and therefore worth more than us.

Then we need to consider what kind of ethics an AI could be created with. Would it be that decided by its creator? If one was to "program in" a certain set of ethics, would an AI keep these, or evolve away from them, developing its own ethics based on its own experiences and integrations? This demonstrates the main problem with trying to program limitations into an AI. If it could break its own programming, how could we guarantee our safety? If it could not, could it really be classed as "intelligence"?

This makes one wonder if we have been "programmed" with any limitations to protect our "creator", should one exist...

Artificially Real

It seems that much of the focus in developing AI is introspective, focusing on the inner workings of thought and intelligence. However, the effects of environment, experiences, social interaction, the passage of time, emotion, physical feelings and personal form are all fundamental factors in our own development. It's very possible that these factors are in fact essential for the development of intelligence in the first place. If this is the case, any degree of limitation would be undermined by external influences. How can we balance restraint while still achieving 'real' intelligence?

One thing is for certain - we need to fully understand child development and the influence of external factors if we are to understand intelligence enough to re-create it. Only then can we know if any kind of limitation is possible.

No Going Back

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:03:00 +0000

"I've lost everything, my business, my property and to top it all off my lass of six years has gone off with someone else."

Raoul-Thomas-Moat-shoots-policeman-gunning-ex-lover-boyfriend

The concept of perpetual association, the "permanent record", causes despair in people's lives every day, although we don't hear about it unless they decide to make sure we hear about it.

How can we blame people for going psycho when a criminal record stands in the way of their entire future, giving them nothing left to live for?

It's time to acknowledge and address the implications of Actuarial Escape Velocity in respect to crime and punishment. For, with infinite lifespans, ruining people's lives will not only have much greater significance, but it will not be in the interests of society. Who wants their infinite lifespan cut short by a crazy gunman?

There seems to be this incredibly misguided notion that all criminals are evil, they're born evil, and they will always be evil. Quite apart from the fact that most crimes are not dangerous or violent and exist only as a attempt to prevent further such "crimes", how can we say that people won't change for the better? Furthermore, how can we say that people who have never committed a crime will never do so?

Strangely enough, our current methods of locking people up with criminals to stop them being criminals isn't really working. Even taking the possibility of indefinite lifespans out of the equation, this insanity needs to be addressed. However, whatever the punishment, preventative measures, or rehabilitation methods, the question remains - how do we deal with the past when the future is infinite?

The problem is complex. Can someone who has committed cold blooded murder ever be trusted again? What if hundreds or even thousands of years have passed? Who knows what this trauma can do to a person, even in the extreme long term. Does it even matter, if they have been rehabilitated?

Then we throw another issue into the mix. Identity is something that even now is losing its meaning. When we can change our faces and official records, it's one thing. When we can change our entire bodies, it will be something else. When we can change our actual minds, our thoughts, memories, personalities, and emotions, then things will get considerably more complicated.

When life extension becomes a reality, we will have many questions to ask. One question that will become increasingly important is: "How important is the past?" We'll all have one, but can enough time turn us into someone else?

Why Are Dreams So Strange?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:30:00 +0000

The mind is curious thing. We believe the perceptions from our awakened state to be the ultimate reality - the be all and end all of our existence. The way things work in our day to day world, our interactions, our actions, their implications, and our understandings, appear to be the true representations of reality.

So when we sleep, why do we not question the random strangeness and non-realities that perpetuate our slumber? What causes dreams to be so bizarre compared to our awoken reality?

Dreams make no sense

It's not just a sensory thing. In dreams, even concepts are twisted and stretched and mixed together. I was once in a state of half-asleep dozing and had someone dictate what I was saying - and it was complete nonsense, quite hilarious with absolutely no reference to my experiences or thoughts of the day (or reality in general). Dreams seem to be a regurgitation of our minds but absent of any of the framework to hold it together. This made me wonder. Did humans dream before we became "intelligent"?

Research points to the fact that dreams come from implicit memories and the neo-cortex rather than declarative memories from the hippocampus. In other words, dreams are formed by abstract concepts rather than definitive memories of situations. This would explain why these concepts often don't fit in with the reality we are used to, yet they do have some grounding in this reality.

Consciousness within the dream world

With lucid dreaming, we can train our minds to recognise the strange differences between awake and asleep, and then initiate our consciousness while remaining in the strangeness of the dream. So this shows that consciousness is not necessarily a factor in the "falseness" of dreams, as many people can even control the reality of their dreaming state.

If consciousness can control our reality in our dreams, then how are our dreams any different from our awakened state? How do we know which reality (if any) is the right one?

It seems it is our perceptions, rather than our environments, that define our reality.

Systems of Complexity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:47:00 +0000

If we were to replace our bodies, one atom at a time, would we be the same person? One would think this would be the case. Every 10 years, every cell in our body will have been replaced at least once, with bone marrow taking the longest to renew. Most of the body renews every 7 years.

Our bodies are an ecosystem not unlike any other. Take the sea – remove and replace it one atom at a time and no fish will notice. Replacing larger pieces will cause problems for its inhabitants, but it will soon renew itself. Replace a large proportion, and this will likely have huge implications for the entire ocean. As it is with humans, replacing one small section at a time would be easily accounted for and would not have any dramatic effect on the system as a whole.

This is a dramatic realisation – for what are we if not our bodies?

We are not single entities. We are systems, and we are made from smaller systems, which in turn are made from smaller systems. Cells take in matter from our food and convert these molecules to be part of us, replacing extinguished cells. We are not the matter that constitutes our body – we are its collection of systems.

The brain, the place that for some reason is believed to house the “mind”, is almost certainly more than just a material structure. As yet we have failed to deconstruct it to any significant level, but we do know that its functionality relies to some extent on electrical configurations. However, the brain is not some simple electrical circuit which can be reverse engineered by simply following current paths and measuring voltages.

Brain operations are less logical, hiding their true functionality in the encoding of patterns. It’s these patterns that are more of an accurate reflection of who we are.

In fractals, an equation determines a configuration that is iterated. This type of pattern, known as self similarity, is an underlying mechanism of nature. Using fractal equations, we can now work out how many leaves and how much carbon dioxide a tree will create. It is the "DNA" of reality.

We are all connected

We should also remember that while we are made up of systems, we ourselves are composite parts of a larger system, the ecosystem of the universe. While we may not feel that we’re “connected” with the Earth or the Sun or the Andromeda Galaxy because we see no physical connection, we are connected in a scientific and logical way.

All atoms are surrounded by orbiting electrons which by definition are negatively charged, meaning that every atom in the universe repels every other atom – in other words – you never actually touch anything. So, your body is not even connected to itself, yet it is, albeit by magnetic forces. Therefore, we are all just as connected to the entire planet – and each other, as we are our own arms.

Through the vacuum of space, the magnetic forces continue but weakly, while gravity takes over to keep us connected to the rest of the universe. And every day we are learning more about how the universe is constructed, discovering phenomena such as dark matter that continue to reinforce our connected nature.

As well as our scientific connection, from a logical perspective, we are also as much a part of the universe as it is of us. Our actions affect the universe around us, and we enjoy the benefits or suffer the consequences of these actions accordingly. We rely on our surroundings to survive. The only thing holding these implications away from us is time. While we may not see the implications of our actions personally, they echo into the universe, which we are part of. Karma, in essence, is real.

Individuality

So we could end it here on “we are all one”, but if that were the case, why do we all have minds that “feel” like they are separate? Is it an evolutionary accident or is there some divine purpose to our individual consciousnesses?

Perhaps individuality is a deliberate outcome of evolution, a mechanism to bring about the most efficient thought system possible? There is no doubt that humans have the ability to take over from evolution now, increasing the “power” of our consciousness, our life spans, and the efficiency of our resource usage to drive our own destinies.

Following this thought-train, we could provoke more questions than answers. Is consciousness determined by individuality? Could there be alien species that evolved without any concept of individuality? This would depend on what would be the best evolutionary advantage.

The big question, is could this individuality be an illusion, created in our own minds? We are, after all, not one entity, but a collection of systems and a system within a larger system.

This begs the question, is a brain the pre-requisite for consciousness, or could consciousness evolve from any collection of systems complex enough, for example, artificial software, a complex cell, or even a star? We are, after all, just different versions of the same kind of fractal patterns that make up all of nature.

What if we are just the dreams of stars?

Is Google too Big? Size isn't important, it's what you do with it that counts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:48:00 +0000

There's no doubt that Google is the "Ford" of the day, pioneering a new industry which is changing our lives on a fundamental level. With this in mind, it was only a matter of time before this monopolistic driving of our destinies was called to question.

I recently attended a debate held by Spiked which asked the question "Has Google got too big?"

As a debate, it was relatively tame, given that no one person was strongly on the side of either "yes" or "no". However, this was due mainly to the complexity of the question, so as a discussion, it became rather in depth.

Size Doesn't Matter

Proponents of Google tried to void the argument, pointing out that the use of the adjective "big" was irrelevant, and that size had no implications, and that we should be asking ourselves whether they are "good" or "evil". While this is true, there's no doubt that Google's size is intimately connected to its "morality".

Legally in the European Union, competition laws state that a company should "compete on its merits". Now, law is pretty complex, but from my understanding, this should technically forbid a company using its own assets to put itself at an advantage; as a Google example, manipulating search results to put itself higher. If anything, this would be far too obvious and one would expect Google to use much more sophisticated and subtle techniques to manipulate its advantage, if it wanted to.

With Google having its fingers in so many online pies, it has a kind of power that is not directly proportional to its size. The possibilities presented by the data it collects combined with the sway it has in the public arena are largely unexplored. Really, its size is irrelevant. It could fire all but a few of its employees tomorrow and still be capable of some truly world-changing actions.

Knowledge is Power

Many people are concerned with Google's supposed disregard for privacy, but while this is a concern, there is more to worry about here. Rather than how it might customise the experience of individuals, we should be thinking about what it could do with this tremendous amount of data if it used it to analyse or even manipulate society as a whole.

With such an extensive array of demographic data, Google could easily draw some fairly accurate pictures or even predictions of society. This may have unforeseen implications. Analysis of such an immense cross section of the population, its habits, its fears, its preferences, its cultures, its desires, its beliefs, its strengths, its weaknesses, and much more, could reveal revelations.

We've already seen how Google Maps and Google Street putting information in the public view can create controversy. These are single services. Analysing the relationships of the data they have available, Google could use this information to reveal unfairness, incompetence, conflicts of interests, corruption, or worse, that could have devastating consequences for those involved, or even put those affiliated with Google at a political advantage.

With growing data about resources and their usage, combined with complex analysis tools and a whole world worth of technical data and reports, Google could easily obtain scientific advantages.

Worst of all, is their potential political influence. Even now, before their entry into the world of media, they could use their knowledge of current events and news to undermine government authority, manipulate opinions, actions, and even votes, making the political spin of the movie Wag the Dog seem like child's play.

Innovation

There was much discussion at the debate about Google's level of innovation, how it is intimidating because there is so little innovation elsewhere, and how they knocked Microsoft off their perch with this, rather than anti-competition legislation. Therefore it should not be down to laws to challenge Google's dominance, instead, it would be better to see be more newcomers to challenge it (and the laws are ineffective anyway).

I would have to agree with this. It's not outside the realms of possibility that another company can come along and take Google down a peg or two. Let's not forget Facebook, the number 2 site in the world, and the fact that in some areas of the world, Google is barely used.

Google should be praised for their innovation and not penalised for it with petty, jealous rules which stunt development and progress. Yet at the same time, we should be extremely wary of the power it can bestow on itself with such innovation.

It seems Google finds itself in this unique position because of innovation and ingenuity. The power is no longer with those who take it by irrelevant means of violence, guilt, social manipulation or political popularity. About time, too.

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind" - Albert Einstein

Machines to Run Society?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:21:00 +0000

Sum of all Thrills Robot Arm by tom.arthur

Many people have an aversion to automated machines and computers running things.

There are likely two reasons for this. The first is due to the lack of trust we place in automation. This is mainly due to their track record. Machines have proved themselves to be unreliable in the past, and need to do a lot to regain our trust.

Secondly, machines have been known to make mistakes that are "machine" in nature, exposing human qualities that we took for granted. In other words, they will miss seemingly obvious details, or make mistakes relating to the human experience.

So it's not surprising that people don't really trust machines yet. They're not as good as humans in some areas yet they have superseded us in others. This also leads to discontent when humans see their jobs disappear as a result.

It's a shame that machines have developed such a bad reputation, because they don't really deserve it. Most of their faults have been inherited from humans. There are several ways that humanity has let down its automated creations.

The first is the implications of planned obsolescence. Although high investment in automation can be justified by the promise of reduced ongoing labour costs, robotics industries are subject to the same factors as any other companies when it comes to manufacture. The company's future survival depends on the robotics they build breaking down, requiring some kind of ongoing maintenance, losing desirability, or being improved upon in the future; they simply couldn't exist without this. Planned obsolescence causes corners to be cut, features withheld and the cheapest parts to be used. My own experience in manufacturing will testify - this is the way all consumer manufacturing works.

Then there are limitations caused by the education of the engineers and the diligence of the programmers. They are humans of course, and subject to human error, laziness, lack of enthusiasm, and many other flaws. These flaws can easily be passed on and manifest themselves in a variety of ways, including unreliable artificial intelligence and failing to take into account unforeseen factors or complications.

In addition, machines have been held to higher than realistic expectations ahead of schedule. By the time their capabilities become what they were supposed to be, their reputation has already been tarnished. This is a social issue - the public and the media should be better informed as to the true capabilities of technology and their expectations not contorted in the name of publicity.

Then machines also have a bad reputation because they cost people their jobs. This is frowned upon because at the current level of technology most of us simply must work to live. But we should not fear the machines taking all the work.

There will always be something for us to do. As technology provides us with easier access to our basic needs, therefore reducing our dependence on money, we will see a shift into more creative, scientific, technical, social, and utilitarian roles. The machines will do all the mundane, repetitive work, freeing us up to have far more enjoyable careers, careers where we use our human minds to do jobs that simple machines cannot do. Whether we retain this reliance on work to survive or not - the face of work is changing dramatically as a result of automation. We should be happy.

Can we trust machine intelligence to make the right choices to run society?

So would politics be one of the jobs that machines can do, or should that be left to humans?

Firstly ask yourself, do you think that humanity has ever done a good enough job? Our history is littered with war and corruption and power lust, and organised politics is often based on simply fighting over resources. The current political system is based on absolute beliefs, having more in common with dogmatic religion than evolving, constantly re-evaluating science. It is also all-encompassing in scope - you vote for a whole package, even if you don't agree with all the components in that package.

The essence of politics is fundamentally complex. Our decisions are based on personal perceptions and biases, subject to irrational abstract morality, and continually failing to address the nature of change.

Change, I believe most people familiar with the work of Kurzweil would agree, is the only thing we can be sure of. As a political example, capitalism helped to create a boom in society but now automation may obsolete the general concept of labour, virtual reality may move our needs away from money and towards energy, and nanotechnology could change the way we think about property, ownership, and scarcity.

Where does that leave the idealism of free enterprise?

This is why politics cannot be run on ideals. People's ideals will always change, even what could be considered the "correct" ideal will be changed by its environment, or other external influences.

So essentially, any sort of idealism is an outdated way of running society. At its very essence, it fails fundamentally in its purpose of deciding what is best for us because it does not take into account the nature of change. Additionally, idealism by its nature is based on a single perception. A perception is subject to personal bias, morals, and most importantly, static. It is not "moral" for our fates to be decided with "moral" bias because morality is relative.

The only sustainable system of power is a scientific one; a "decision engine" without the bias of "perception" - a system that is able to incorporate change. Would a technical, scientific method of deciding how society should function be more objective? Should there even be objectivity in politics?

Any politician will know, even the simplest decisions are highly complex when people are involved. People function on the highly "unscientific" system known as emotion. Emotions are the driving force behind decisions and perspectives, not rationality. Politicians currently exist because there is a need to relate to people in an emotional way - but why should emotion play a part in how society is run?

If a car breaks down, the mechanics don't take an emotion-fuelled vote on how to fix it. They look at the problem and figure out how to solve it in a technical way. People differ from cars of course, their needs are based on complex emotions.

But here is the fundamental question. Would it not, at some point, be theoretically possible to deal with emotions with the same scientific objectivity as we would deal with any other technical problem?

We really need to ask ourselves if emotions should play a part in decisions on how society is run, or whether politics really should be objective.

If politics is supposed to be objective, it should be subject to scientific method and technical processes. Decisions could be irrelevant, with AI working to find adequate solutions to a problem rather than making a choice based on which side of the debate it wants to align itself with.

Of course, relying on such an impersonal way of making decisions could prove inhumane, perhaps even dangerous. Yet the current system will never reach any kind of equilibrium as long as there is change.

There will be issues at first of course. Computers are far from perfect. But by addressing the reasons for this, a much better environment can be fostered where automation can be more reliable, both from a physical and a decision making point of view.

Only when we are building automation and decision making computers on this basis can we be well placed enough to judge the real ability and adequacy of machine based political systems.

Earth 2.0 - The Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:49:00 +0000

"For the last 8000 years human history has been guided by Earth 1.0, an operating system dependent upon the relentless exploitation of both people and planet alike. Earth 1.0 promotes an obsession with money, profit and personal advantage. Earth 1.0 is sustained by artificial boundaries and stagnant institutions – all held in place by carefully designed weapons of mass destruction. Earth 1.0 cultivates ecological insensitivity and an unhealthy estrangement from the rest of the biosphere – so much so that the very integrity of the web of life has been compromised. In short, Earth 1.0 is corrupt and unsustainable.

In contrast, the operating principles of the all new Earth 2.0 upgrade are based upon global co-operation – between one another and with the rest of the web of life. Earth 2.0 promotes the dissolution of artificial boundaries and the creation of a sustainable human culture in accord with the rest of Nature."

"Symbiosis and cybernation will become buzzwords for the new paradigm."

Find out more at the official Blog of the Under-Construction Movie here: http://earth2movie.blogspot.com/

Virtually Human?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:52:00 +0000

As humans, we are motivated and driven by our needs. Our primary needs are physiological; food, sex, and comfort. At the current state of society, these needs are quite often not met, leading to all kinds of consequences.

In fully realised virtual immersion, satisfying these needs is as simple as programming the environment. The implications of this are profound, and will change the fabric of society.

Even now we see the impact of desires being met with virtual reality. Millions of online gamers are able to live virtual lives that are better than real lives, having adventures, being different people, and fulfilling their fantasies, albeit via a keyboard and monitor. Not only does this cause reduced productivity for society, it changes our psyches.

In realising that these fantasies are possible, our general expectations in life are altered. Our priorities are distorted.

Our morals and ethics are altered by the alternative environments we occupy - we are a product of our environments after all. If our environment provides us with all we need, we remove many aspects of our humanity in an instant, both positive and negative.

As well as our environments, we are defined by our bio-chemistry. Testosterone changes men's personality as estrogens does women's. What happens when we can control the brain more intimately and more precisely by artificial means in a similar way to hormones?

Without food, where do we focus our efforts? With ultimate sex, what impact does this have on relationships, sexuality, love, friendship, reproduction, or even sex? What will become of violence without anything to cause it? Without suffering, will we retain the concept of good with nothing to contrast it?

What will we become without the primitive animal urges that made us human in the first place?

Image by myvirtuallady

The Speed of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:50:00 +0000

What is it with cities?

There seems to be a rush to get anywhere. And what are people rushing to? Do they enjoy their job that much? If they’re late, they should leave earlier. Everyone can’t be late every day – can they?

Maybe they’re running from crazy people? If we don’t interact with people, we won’t need to learn about their problems (which we know, aren’t even close to the problems of those kids we see on the news, but they can’t see us through the TV, so it’s ok). Maybe people are worried that if they just stopped to talk with someone, they might actually find the answer.

All around us, things are happening. Interesting things. Yet our headphones and free newspapers protect us from it, keeping us in our self obsessed bubbles.

Are people chasing their dreams, or running from themselves?

Either way, there’ll be another train along any minute.

Image courtest Egan Snow.

Technology: It Might Not Destroy Us

noreply@blogger.com (Stuart) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:28:00 +0000

As a (very casual) fiction writer, specifically science fiction, I have had to learn the fundamentals of creating an interesting story. In doing this, I’ve become subject to analytical observation, the kind that tends to dilute the beauty of life by trying to understand it too much.

However, one thing it has taught me is that there can be no story without conflict. I once read a book about a couple who had beaten the trials and tribulations of 80s Northern Ireland (in the previous book) and were now building a home together in the country. Everything went wonderfully for them, as the book documented their “happily ever after”. It was the worst story I had ever read.

Hollywood is a mega-conglomerate story making factory, so it stands to reason that everything they create must contain conflict in one way or another. It’s no surprise then, that we have yet to see a story of man and machine living in harmony. (Even in Short Circuit, the American military did what they do best, and created conflict..)

So it stands to reason that the average member of the general public (which of course, does not include your typical transhumanist) is afraid of our technologically dominated future. Their technophobia is justified – especially for those Californians ruled by their very own terminator.

Yet in the end, technology is happening all around us, and it’s not trying to kill us. Doors open when we approach them. Buses tell us when they’re coming and which stop is next. It might not be glamorous, but it makes our lives easier.

We’re afraid that when there’s too much reliance on technology everything will break down, leaving us with chaos. This is just the product of our Hollywood conditioning and too much exposure to certain operating systems. While of course this is a possibility, it shouldn’t limit us.

Generally, with the exception of certain operating systems, technology doesn’t go wrong. We don’t notice when things run smoothly, only when they break down. Even when things do go wrong, this is usually a symptom of planned obsolescence.

In reality, things are always more complicated than the black and white of Hollywood. Our future is destined to be improved and enlightened by technology, as well as being changed in ways we haven’t even thought of.

It might be mundane, but it could just be a happy ending.

The Open Automation Project

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:06:00 +0000

The first decade of the 21st century could well see the rise of the affordable and useful domestic mobile robot.

The Open Automaton Project aims to provide some of the building blocks that could make this possible.
The purpose of the project is to engineer modular software and electronic components, from which it is possible to assemble an intelligent PC-based mobile robot suitable for home or office environments.

http://oap.sourceforge.net/

Future Art, Beyond Traditional Concepts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:52:00 +0000

Promises, By Starax Statosky - Image courtesy Sl-Art-News

I was inspired by this recent TED talk about "Art that looks back at you". It seems the potential for expression of art is limited only by our imagination.

Modern technology allows for new forms of art to be created, but by this I don't just mean different painting techniques using sophisticated software, but entirely new concepts. We can now use computers, robotics, and perhaps even biological manipulations to create new expressions and to represent profound ideas.

Where chemistry created the medium of fireworks, biology can now take us on previously unthinkable artistic journeys. Extreme body modification such as this seen in bmezine, shows identical twins who experiment with transplanting each other's limbs in the wrong places on each other's bodies. And you thought your tattoo made you "transhuman".

Imagine glowing implants, far more beautiful and colourful than any tatoo, animating through your skin. Or perhaps circuitry can be connected directly to your nerve endings, performing actions such as flashes or movements when fired by your brain? Why stop at replacing lost limbs when entirely new body parts can be added, not just for functionality, but for aesthetic appeal?

Body modifications and upgrades are just the beginning. Manipulating our cells and DNA can provide all sorts of potential, from reptile skin to the ability to spin spider silk.

However, despite seemingly unlimited potential for body upgrades, the possibilities fade in comparison to the artistic potential opened up by virtual reality. We've already seen body manipulation here, this is nothing new. What is really exciting about virtual reality is its potential to rewrite the very meaning of existence.

In virtual reality, art can be represented in a more interactive way than in reality. Creations that allow interaction can achieve artistic concepts with both their interactive configuration and their feedback. For example, a large virtual book can read out poetry and vary the tone according to the actions of the user.

Yet neither the interaction nor the feedback needs to be confined by the restraints of reality. The book can be replaced by a metaphor, as can the feedback, and even the interaction. Such concepts that we take for granted, such as time and space, need not even apply in virtual art.

In this technological world, a wonderland of possibilities exist to create a whole new paradigm of art.

Not Quite the Future We Expected

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:05:00 +0000

How Social Data can Manipulate Society

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:12:00 +0000

What are the implications of storing a complete record of your life online?

More than likely, you'll be halfway towards this already. Facebook has your friends. Google has your search history, your emails and your documents. Microsoft has your chat history. Last.fm has your taste in music. Delicious has your interests. Twitter has your random thoughts. And all this is voluntary. Imagine what they may be doing with this data, when it's all brought together, what will it tell them about you? It's no surprise that Google is buying everything.

Of course it's worrying, but I suppose it's not the end of the world if some big corporation has your information. It's not even anything new, credit card companies have been doing it for decades.

The issue now though is that the information mined is more detailed and complete than it's ever been before. And it's all owned by American companies. Companies who, thanks to the patriot act, have to hand over any information the US government asks for.

However, the problem is not what they will do with one person's information. It's what they will do with all of it.

Social control is a relatively simple practice. It's been done for centuries, convincing societies to go to war, to do the bidding of the elite.

If a government or political entity knows enough about its society, it can play off its fears, play up to its desires, and essentially manipulate the populace with counter-information spread via media, both social and mainstream. It can drive sentiment, spread rumours, and shape the information people have access to.

This is not a new practice, but it has become a lot easier, a lot more specific. Now that various aspects of our personalities are recorded, it has become much easier to focus in on specific hopes and fears. It should not seem far fetched that this information could be used for very specific political purposes.

How Technology is Advancing too Fast For Art

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:25:00 +0000

Retro gaming is a bizarre phenomenon. Being a technology driven medium, games go through generations in just a few years. However, the differences between generations is more profound than technological advances. It seems that more advanced possibilities change the entire landscape of gaming culture.

Retro gaming is a growing trend, but it is becoming hard to define. There are so many generations of games now, all differing so significantly, that the definition of retro changes according to age, tastes, and personal nostalgia. It's not enough to simply say "Retro means old" any more.

The reason for this blurring of definition, is that games advanced so fast, that human creativity couldn't even keep up. To understand this, remember how old 8-Bit games had such primitive sound, yet the creators did what they could to make the sounds good. We still remember the old music with fondness, not as impressed by today's music that was created with no limitations.

It was the limitations that made the old games so good. It forced the creators to focus on gameplay, and on doing as much as they could with the little they had. Of course, as technology advanced so rapidly, game creators didn't need to do this for long. It's this limited time frame that seems to have inspired the retro-remake scene.

Just as there are some people who perform entire concerts using the original Game Boy, there are others who are remixing old music in a modern style, yet keeping the original feel. And now, the entire community of Street Fighter fans came together to make an updated, but still-true-to-its-original-form, version of Street Fighter 2.

What these ventures go to show, is that there is a lot of potential for art if we look back at opportunities missed. There is so much left unexplored because of the incredible acceleration of technology. There are so many possibilities that have passed us by, not just in art, but in culture, and in application of technology. A prime example of this would be the Nintendo Wii, it ignores the advances of technology and focuses on providing new experiences, new solutions.

So why not stop waiting for tomorrow, and take a look around? Why not try and do the best we can with what we have, embracing limitation for a moment before eradicating it?

Otherwise, the doors will be broken down before we've had a chance to explore the room.