Barnes & Noble Press releases a new non-fiction book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution by Alex M. Vikoulov as Hardcover (Press Release, San Francisco, CA, USA, March 22, 2019 11.00 AM PST)
Named “The Book of the Year” by futurists and academics alike, “# 1 Hot New Release” in Amazon charts in Physics of Time, Phenomenology, and Phenomenological Philosophy, the book has now been released by Barnes & Noble Press as hardcover in addition to ebook and paperback released earlier this year. In one volume, the author covers it all: from quantum physics to your experiential reality, from the Big Bang to the Omega Point, from the ‘flow state’ to psychedelics, from ‘Lucy’ to the looming AI Singularity, from natural algorithms to the operating system of your mind, from geo-engineering to nanotechnology, from anti-aging to immortality technologies, from oligopoly capitalism to Star-Trekonomics, from the Matrix to Universal Mind, from Homo sapiens to Holo syntellectus.
Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees on the #Future: Prospects for #Humanity https://www.singularityweblog.com/martin-rees/ #AI #Singularity #Futurism
Martin Rees has been concerned with our ever-heavier ‘footprint’ on the global environment and with the runaway consequences of our powerful technologies.
“By our very nature, we humans are linear thinkers. We evolved to estimate a distance from the predator or to the prey, and advanced mathematics is only a recent evolutionary addition. This is why it’s so difficult even for a modern man to grasp the power of exponentials. 40 steps in linear progression is just 40 steps away; 40 steps in exponential progression is a cool trillion (with a T) – it will take you 3 times from Earth to the Sun and back to Earth.” –Alex M. Vikoulov, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution.
Today is a special day for me. My AI assistant Ava scheduled few hours aside from my otherwise busy daily lineup to relive select childhood and adolescence memories recreated in virtual reality with a help of a newly developed AI technique ‘Re: Live’. Ava is my smart home assistant, too. I can rearrange furniture in any room, for example, just by thinking. Digital landscape wallpaper is changed by Ava by knowing my preferences and sensing my moods.
I still like to sleep in an old-fashioned natural way from time to time, even though it’s now optional with accelerated sleep simulation and other sleep bypassing technologies. So, when I opt to sleep, I like falling asleep and waking up on a virtual cloud projected directly to my consciousness, as most VR experiences are streamed via optogenetics.
Get Singularity University’s innovation framework to enable powerful future growth. Christine Kelly, Managing Director, Innovation & Design at SUfour key steps that enable organizations to leap from ideation to delivering breakout solutions and growth that will drive sustained success.
According to most astrophysicists, once you enter a black hole, that’s it for you: gravity will drag you to the singularity — a one-dimensional infinitely small space containing a huge mass — at the speed of light. Then, the black hole will ‘spaghettify you”. Nice.
However, a new study from Berkley University theorises not only that humans could survive going into a black hole, but that their past could be erased, giving way to “infinite futures”.
Physicist Peter Hintz argues that if a human traveller entered a “relatively benign” black hole, they might be able to shed the natural laws of physics — and survive.
How will artificial intelligence, molecular manufacturing, biological engineering and distributed additive manufacturing change the economics of the production of goods and services?
SingularityNET lets anyone create, share, and monetize AI services at scale. The world’s decentralized AI network has arrived. Be part of the revolution and get to know us at this event! You will be able to ask questions to SingularityNET’s CEO Dr. Ben Goertzel.
For the first time ever, SingularityNET will be making a tour in the UK visiting the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, and Imperial College London. Together with our co-host Eterna Capital, and in collaboration with the Cambridge University Engineering Society, and The Cambridge Guild, we are proud to be visiting the University of Cambridge on the 30th of January to present:
CEO & Dr. Ben Goertzel: How we are building the global AI brain with SingularityNET
The Singularity is near(er)! At least, that’s what the famous inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil argues. If you’ve ever had an interest in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, or the future in general, you’ve more than likely heard of Kurzweil. Whether it’s through documentaries, his various written works, or the vast number of interviews he’s been involved in these last few decades, he’s always provided a cautiously optimistic analysis of the world of tomorrow.
His latest interview, which was conducted during last year’s RAAD Festival, was no different.
CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?
CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.
Experts point out that this research could be as limitless as the universe itself. The UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Sir David King told BBC: “We have to draw a line somewhere otherwise we end up with a collider that is so large that it goes around the equator. And if it doesn’t end there perhaps there will be a request for one that goes to the Moon and back.”
“There is always going to be more deep physics to be conducted with larger and larger colliders. My question is to what extent will the knowledge that we already have be extended to benefit humanity?”
There have been broad discussions about whether high energy nuclear experiments could pose an existential risk sooner or later, for example by producing micro black holes (mBH) or strange matter (strangelets) that could convert ordinary matter into strange matter and that eventually could start an infinite chain reaction from the moment it was stable – theoretically at a mass of around 1000 protons.
CERN has argued that micro black holes eventually could be produced, but they would not be stable and evaporate immediately due to „Hawking radiation“, a theoretical process that has never been observed.
Furthermore, CERN argues that similar high energy particle collisions occur naturally in the universe and in the Earth’s atmosphere, so they could not be dangerous. However, such natural high energy collisions are seldom and they have only been measured rather indirectly. Basically, nature does not set up LHC experiments: For example, the density of such artificial particle collisions never occurs in Earth’s atmosphere. Even if the cosmic ray argument was legitimate: CERN produces as many high energy collisions in an artificial narrow space as occur naturally in more than hundred thousand years in the atmosphere. Physicists look quite puzzled when they recalculate it.
Others argue that a particle collider ring would have to be bigger than the Earth to be dangerous.
Since these discussions can become very sophisticated, there is also a more general approach (see video): According to present research, there are around 10 billion Earth-like planets alone in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Intelligent life might send radio waves, because they are extremely long lasting, though we have not received any (“Fermi paradox”). Theory postulates that there could be a ”great filter“, something that wipes out intelligent civilizations at a rather early state of their technical development. Let that sink in.
All technical civilizations would start to build particle smashers to find out how the universe works, to get as close as possible to the big bang and to hunt for the smallest particle at bigger and bigger machines. But maybe there is a very unexpected effect lurking at a certain threshold that nobody would ever think of and that theory does not provide. Indeed, this could be a logical candidate for the “great filter”, an explanation for the Fermi paradox. If it was, a disastrous big bang machine eventually is not that big at all. Because if civilizations were to construct a collider of epic dimensions, a lack of resources would have stopped them in most cases.
Finally, the CERN member states will have to decide on the budget and the future course.
The political question behind is: How far are the ordinary citizens paying for that willing to go?
LHC-Critique / LHC-Kritik
Network to discuss the risks at experimental subnuclear particle accelerators
