Bionic Contact Lenses!
Posted on 10. Sep, 2009 by Cameron in technology, transhumanism
According to InventorsSpot.com – it’s called “A Twinkle in the Eye” and these lenses have been fabricated with an LED, a small radio chip and an antenna.The unit is powered wirelessly by the RF electrical signal and represents the start of research that could eventually lead to screens mounted onto contact lenses inside your eyes.
This reminds me of Vernor Vinge’s novel, RAINBOWS END which was set about 20 years into the future when everyone wore contact lenses that had the net and all sorts of augmented reality overlays. I did an interview with Vinge about it which you can listen to here. Sign me up for this shit NOW.
Four More Years Before Machines Surpass Humans
Posted on 09. Jun, 2008 by Cameron in science, singularity, transhumanism
Hans Moravec has suggested that the human brain has a processing capacity of 10 quadrillion instructions per second (10 billion MIPS). In comparison, it was announced today that the fastest supercomputer in the world, called Roadrunner and devised and built by engineers and scientists at I.B.M. and Los Alamos National Laboratory, is capable of handling 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.
In 2007, it was announced the previous fastest supercomputer, IBM’s Blue Gene /l, had been upgraded to achieve 478 TFLOPS sustained and 596 TFLOPS peak. So in less that 12 months, we’ve doubled (hey, I should create a law around that prediction).
So, if Moore’s Law holds out:
2009 – 2 QIPS
2010 – 4 QIPS
2011 – 8 QIPS
2012 – 16 QIPS – which puts it 6 QIPS above the suggested ability of a human brain.
Are you ready for that? Do you think the human race is ready for that?
We have NO IDEA what the consequences of that are. On one hand, it could be nothing. On the other hand, what if sentience is nothing more than massive computation?
Either way, here we are, a mere 4 years before a machine is likely to be built which will have a bigger brain than a human and we aren’t even discussing what that means for the human race.
Well, that’s not exactly true – Tyler’s Singularity Institute are discussing it, but where is the debate in mainstream media, in the government, in polite society?
It reminds me of a chat I had with Australian SF author Damien Broderick over dinner about ten years ago. I asked him when he thought these subjects would be discussed by the general populace. He replied “when it’s way too late to do anything about it”.
G’Day World #323 – Aubrey de Grey
Posted on 19. May, 2008 by Cameron in Australian media, Podcast, big brains, science, transhumanism
In #323 I welcome back a previous G’Day World guest, one of my favourite scientists, Dr Aubrey de Grey.
Aubrey is the founder of The Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit 501c(3) organization committed to the acceleration of progress toward a cure for age-related disease, disability, suffering, and death.
They are running a special conference on aging at UCLA from June 27 – 29 and the Friday night session, with three hours of speeches from leaders in the field, is FREE. Book tickets here.
If you want to learn more about SENS, here’s a link to the show I did with Aubrey back in August 2005:
G’Day World #42 – Aubrey de Grey
The music on today’s show is “1,000,000″ from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.
NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..
ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!
Aubrey de Grey on Colbert
Posted on 14. Feb, 2008 by Cameron Reilly in transhumanism
Aubrey de Grey was a guest on G’Day World #42 and recently he was also on The Colbert Report. I love his line “aging is a major cause of death… but it’s not the ONLY cause.”