Nova Spivack – Minding the Planet

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 [...]

New research suggests that all the world’s ocean seafood stocks will be gone by 2050…

WASHINGTON (AP) – Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even
humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few
decades. If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the
populations of just about all seafood face collapse by 2048, a [...]

This is so sad. Elephants are increasingly being wiped out due to encroachment by nearby human populations, and also by inept human attempts to help them — and of course by poaching. As their species is increasingly backed into a dead-end corner, and as older elephants are separated from their herds, younger elephants are developing [...]

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…)
A. MY PERSPECTIVE…
Even if [...]

For an interesting read — download this wonderful presentation on zooming out in time as a way to predict the future. It’s from a talk given at the Long Now Foundation. Nice visual slides illustrate how the world changes over vast timescales.
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So as a kid you watched Star Wars and since then you’ve wanted your very own Landspeeder. The problem is, how to make things hover without using fans, magnets, or special effects? Well, a maverick UK scientist may have invented a way to do it. By harnessing microwaves, and a loophole provided by special relativity, [...]

I recently listened to a talk by Dr. David Martin, given at the Arlington Institute, a think tank I advise. You can listen to it here. It takes some patience to get to the main point — but you will be rewarded with a mind-blowing new perspective on what may unfold in the next few [...]

Russian scientists are now predicting a period of "Global Cooling" will begin in 2012. Well at least the good news is that Al Gore can make a sequel. And I guess this means San Francisco will have even colder summers…er winters…now? But all jokes aside, this is something to track. The term "global warming" is  [...]

Check out this video demo of Microsoft Photosynth — an experimental technology that combines multiple photos of the same thing into a 3-D model that can then be navigated and explored — it’s beautiful, visionary and well… just awesome.
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Amazon Rainforest Faces Desertification
Amazon rainforest ‘could become a desert’
And that could speed up global warming with ‘incalculable consequences’, says alarming new research
The Independent (U.K.), July 23, 2006
The vast Amazon rainforest is on the
brink of being turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for
the world’s climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which
would be irreversible, [...]

The next generation of the breathalyzer won’t just measure blood alchohol content, it will detect many types of disease as well. A laser-based technology for measuring the breath is being proposed as a viable alternative to blood tests.
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A tribe in South America has been found to have a reverse concept of time from all known cultures:
New analysis of the language and gesture of South
America’s indigenous Aymara people indicates they have a concept of
time opposite to all the world’s studied cultures — so that the past
is ahead of them and the future behind.

[...]

South Korean researchers have synthesized a molecule that seems to not only stop, but also reverse, the built-in aging functions of cells.

A team of South Korean scientists on Sunday
claimed to have created a “cellular fountain of youth,’’ or a small
molecule, which enables human cells to avoid aging and dying.

The team, headed by Prof. [...]

OK this is a clip from Fox News, which is not normally a source that I consider to be factual or trustworthy — but it cerrtainly is an interesting story. The video clip profiles an inventor who has developed a novel method of converting water to useful fuel. He powers a welding torch and a [...]

US military researchers are working on devices that augment human sensory perception, through the tongue:
By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other
equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite
soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish.

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This is a very interesting scenario showing how China could potentially trounce US forces in a single, calculated strike. While it doesn’t consider the option that US would retaliate nonconventially, shifting the game to a new playing field, it certainly makes a compelling case for China winning in a conventional conflict in their territorial waters [...]

Researchers continue to make progress in fusing living neurons with computer chips:

The
line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot
blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which
living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.
The achievement could one day enable the creation of
sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the
development of [...]

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 [...]

The head of the Russian space corporation, Energia, has been quoted as stating that Russia is planning on setting up a permanent mining base on the moon to mine Helium-3. Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope of helium that is rare on earth but plentiful on the moon. It is an ideal fuel for nuclear fusion. [...]

This is a great overview of the current state of the art in quantum computing, and how it could benefit all of us in the future.
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Introduction:
This article proposes the creation of a new open, nonprofit service on the Web that will provide something akin to “collective self-awareness” back to the Web. This service is like a “Google Zeitgeist” on steroids, but with a lot more real-time, interactive, participatory data, technology and features init. The goal is to measure and visualize [...]

The ACLU has a nice little animation of what life will be like once the government, and corporate America, have access to all personal data. It’s a nice little simulation.
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The Norwegians are planning to create a deep underground vault near the North Pole to house a backup copy of seeds for all known varieties of crops. The goal is to ensure food supplies and enable humanity to regenerate in the event of nuclear war, global warming or other catastrophes. It’s a good idea. This [...]

A radical new form of propulsion is being researched that may enable travel from Earth to Mars in 3 hours, and travel to nearby stars in just 80 days. The system is based on a novel quantum theory termed Heim quantum
theory (HQT).
The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is
based on a controversial [...]

The Edge has published mini-essays by 119 "big thinkers" on their "most dangerous ideas" — fun reading.
The history of science is replete with discoveries
that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally
dangerous in their time; the Copernican and
Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious.
What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think
about (not necessarily one you originated)
that is [...]

I recently read a report of new neuroscience research in which researchers are able to predict what a person will recall by analyzing their brainstate. You can read a summary here.
This reminds me of an idea I had a while back for using biofeedback to guide brainstates, in order to improve memory. Here’s a [...]

Amazon has launched a new service that seeks to create a marketplace for human intelligence on the Net. The idea is to utilize humans like one might utilize intelligent agents, to help complete tasks that humans do better than computers — for example like image adjustments, formatting, tagging and marking up content, adding metatdata to [...]

George Dyson wrote a nice piece on his impressions from a visit to Google, and some speculations about the future of AI on the Net.
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This just in…
NASA has outlined what it could do, and in what time frame, in case a
quarter-mile-wide asteroid named Apophis is on a course to slam into
Earth in the year 2036. The timetable was released by the B612
Foundation, a group that is pressing NASA and other government agencies
to do more to head off threats from [...]