Nova Spivack – Minding the Planet

(DRAFT 7. Work-In-Progress) What is the universe and where does it come from? There are two major schools of thought on this question: Science: One is modern-day science, which takes the position that universe is strictly a physical phenomenon and that everything about can be explained by repeatable physical measurements, testable scientific theories, and the [...]

Notes: – This article last updated on March 11, 2009. – For follow-up, connect with me about this on Twitter here. – See also: for more details, be sure to read the new review by Doug Lenat, creator of Cyc. He just saw the Wolfram Alpha demo and has added many useful insights. ——————————————————————– Introducing [...]

If you are interested in collective intelligence, consciousness, the global brain and the evolution of artificial intelligence and superhuman intelligence, you may want to see my talk at the 2008 Singularity Summit. The videos from the Summit have just come online. (Many thanks to Hrafn Thorisson who worked with me as my research assistant for [...]

Kevin Kelly recently wrote another fascinating article about evidence of a global superorganism. It’s another useful contribution to the ongoing evolution of this meme. I tend to agree that we are at what Kevin calls, Stage III. However, an important distinction in my own thinking is that the superorganism is not comprised just of machines, [...]

I’ve posted a link to a video of my best talk — given at the GRID ’08 Conference in Stockholm this summer. It’s about the growth of collective intelligence and the Semantic Web, and the future and role the media. Read more and get the video here. Enjoy! Related Posts:My "A Physics of Ideas" Manifesto [...]

Video from my panel at DEMO Fall ’08 on the Future of the Web is now available. I moderated the panel, and our panelists were: Howard Bloom, Author, The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google Inc. Jon Udell, Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation Prabhakar Raghavan, [...]

This is an older version of this article. The most recent version is located here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/future_of_the_desktop.php ————— I have spent the last year really thinking about the future of the Web. But lately I have been thinking more about the future of the desktop. In particular, here are some questions I am thinking about and [...]

Here is the full video of my talk on the Semantic Web at The Next Web 2008 Conference. Thanks to Boris and the NextWeb gang! Related Posts:Interest Networks are at a Tipping PointA Few Predictions for the Near FutureTwine's Explosive GrowthMy Visit to DERI — World's Premier Semantic Web Research InstituteHow about Web 3G?

I highly recommend this new book on Collective Intelligence. It features chapters by a Who’s Who of thinkers on Collective Intelligence, including a chapter by me about “Harnessing the Collective Intelligence of the World Wide Web.” Here is the full-text of my chapter, minus illustrations (the rest of the book is great and I suggest [...]

There has been a lot of hype about artificial intelligence over the years. And recently it seems there has been a resurgence in interest in this topic in the media. But artificial intelligence scares me. And frankly, I don’t need it. My human intelligence is quite good, thank you very much. And as far as [...]

Jason just blogged his take on an official definition of "Web 3.0" — in his case he defines it as better content, built using Web 2.0 technologies. There have been numerous responses already, but since I am one of the primary co-authors of the Wikipedia page on the term Web 3.0, I thought I should [...]

In recent months we have witnessed a number of social networking sites begin to open up their platforms to outside developers. While this trend has been exhibited most prominently by Facebook, it is being embraced by all the leading social networking services, such as Plaxo, LinkedIn, Myspace and others. Along separate dimensions we also see [...]

Web 3.0 — aka The Semantic Web — is about enriching the connections of the Web. By enriching the connections within the Web, the entire Web may become smarter. I  believe that collective intelligence primarily comes from connections — this is certainly the case in the brain where the number of connections between neurons far [...]

The Business 2.0 Article on Radar Networks and the Semantic Web just came online. It’s a huge article. In many ways it’s one of the best popular articles written about the Semantic Web in the mainstream press. It also goes into a lot of detail about what Radar Networks is working on. One point of [...]

It’s been an interesting month for news about Radar Networks. Two significant articles came out recently: Business 2.0 Magazine published a feature article about Radar Networks in their July 2007 issue. This article is perhaps the most comprehensive article to-date about what we are working on at Radar Networks, it’s also one of the better [...]

John Markoff published an interesting article today in the New York Times about the shift in software and operating systems from the desktop to the Web, in which I am quoted. The article focuses on the rivalry and different styles between Microsoft and Apple’s next-generation projects that attempt to tie desktop operating systems and the [...]

I’ve been thinking since 1994 about how to get past a fundamental barrier to human social progress, which I call “The Collective IQ Barrier.” Most recently I have been approaching this challenge in the products we are developing at my stealth venture, Radar Networks. In a nutshell, here is how I define this barrier: The [...]

Google’s Larry Page recently gave a talk to the AAAS about how Google is looking towards a future in which they hope to implement AI on a massive scale. Larry’s idea is that intelligence is a function of massive computation, not of “fancy whiteboard algorithms.” In other words, in his conception the brain doesn’t do [...]

NOTES Master Copy can be found at this URL or http://tinyurl.com/yynb93 Last Update: Tuesday, November 7, 2006, 10:17AM PST License — This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Deed. If you would like to distribute a version of thisarticle, please link back to http://www.mindingtheplanet.net from yourversion, thanks. Printable version — Click here to download [...]

Below is the text of my bet on Long Bets. Go there to vote. “By 2050 no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware (ie. will become conscious).” Spivack’s Argument: (This summary includes my argument, a method for judging the outcomeof this bet and some other thoughts on how to measure awareness…) [...]

As the distance a spaceship travels through space increases, so do the odds that it will collide with debris in its path – such as interstellar dust, micrometeorites, asteroids, dark matter, dark stars, etc. If you are traveling at super high-speed, through uncharted territory, there is no way to know what is out there. Even [...]

Japanese cell phone company KDDI is offering a new GPS-enabled 3D navigational tool to their 17 million subscribers (see article and picture). Their system helps consumers navigate city streets and even within buildings, using an innovative 3D map and audio directions. This system is similar to (but possibly more advanced than) the in-car navigation systems [...]

Today I read an interesting article in the New York Times about a company called Rite-Solutions which is using a home-grown stock market for ideas to catalyze bottom-up innovation across all levels of personnel in their organization. This is a way to very effectively harness and focus the collective creativity and energy in an organization [...]

This article discusses recent research into encoding short 100 word messages into the DNA of living organisms. The error-correcting characteristics of DNA enable such messages to be passed down without degrading across generations. By embedding short messages into hardy organisms such as particular strains of bacteria, it may be possible to preserve information over longer [...]

I’ve been thinking a bit about how the GUI for computer desktops could be improved so that it is possible to have more information available without cluttering the screen with windows and folders etc. One approach that is kind of interesting is to think of the desktop as a sphere instead of a plane. You [...]

Today I read this nice article which provides a short consumer-friendly overview of the history of the Digital Physics paradigm. Digital Physics is not mainstream physics — but it is growing and someday could become huge. It brings together computer scientists and physicists in an interdisciplinary approach to physics. While many advocates simply take the [...]

Japanese researchers have developed a technology for the remote control of humans. Hmm… sounds kind of creepy. The system uses weak electrical stimulation of the vestibular system, causing the subject to shift balance and change direction. This technology can also be used to create vestibular illusions — for example, it can be used to make [...]

I’ve been following the drama of the stranded Russian mini-sub. One of the main problems is that they have limited oxygen, which doesn’t give the rescue team much time to retrieve the sub. This got me thinking and I came up with a simple idea that could make all submarines safer: Every submarine should have [...]

I just read that a Japanese team is actually developing technology to store data in human fingernails. I proposed this concept on this blog last year in this  post.   That may qualify as prior art. I wonder if they are going to try to patent this? Not that I mind, I think it’s a great [...]

I’ve been thinking about different types of communities recently. Two forms of community that are often discussed are "communities of interest" where the members share a common set of interests (e.g. a community of people interested in Japanese culture), and "communities of practice" where the members share a common set of skills (e.g. a community [...]