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Domain: accelerating.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to accelerating.org.
Stories · 11
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The Search For Starivores, Intelligent Life That Could Eat the Sun
sarahnaomi writes: There could be all manner of alien life forms in the universe, from witless bacteria to superintelligent robots. Still, the notion of a starivore — an organism that literally devours stars — may sound a bit crazy, even to a seasoned sci-fi fan. And yet, if such creatures do exist, they're probably lurking in our astronomical data right now.
That's why philosopher Dr. Clement Vidal, who's a researcher at the Free University of Brussels, along with Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology Stephen Dick, futurist John Smart, and nanotech entrepreneur Robert Freitas are soliciting scientific proposals to seek out star-eating life. -
The Second Life Future Salons
Jerry23 writes "Next Thursday, April 28th, the Second Life Future Salon will begin holding free, monthly mini-conferences inside the digital world of Second Life. These Salons will feature invited presenters on topics exploring the future of technology, business, society, and digital worlds. The first Salon will take place in design team Bedazzle's China Town setting and feature Randal Moss from the American Cancer Society on an upcoming Relay for Life fundraising project in Second Life, and Jim Purbrick AKA Babbage Linden on his personal experience developing digital worlds as well as some emerging opportunities for paid jobs working in (not just on) digital worlds. The Salon is being started up by the Acceleration Studies Foundation, a futures research nonprofit." -
Meshing Developmental Evolution and Technology
Jerry23 writes "IT Conversations has free audio of a very provocative talk by futurist and developmental systems theorist, John Smart. He weaves a big-picture narrative featuring developmental evolution, technological acceleration, computational autonomy, the emergence and behavior of human social systems, why prediction has such a poor history, the unique growth properties of Information and Communication Technology and the limitations of biotech, finally culminating in his case for the inevitability of digital personality capture and a ubiquitous Linguistic User Interface. Among many other things, he asks 'What will Windows (and the Google Browser) of 2015 look like?'" -
Segway vs. Roomba
Jerry23 writes "We all knew it would happen. We just didn't know when. But Second Life's Cory Ondrejka has just blogged The Encounter: At last weekend's Accelerating Change Conference, Dean Kamen's demon seed, the Segway personal transporter, met Helen Greiner's lovechild, the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, in a climactic crash that will echo through the ages. And I quote: "That night also had what was, for me, the highlight of the conference. I refer, of course, to the ultimate convergence of technology. The perfect connection of human and robot. The consumate collision of 21st century geek products. I am referring, of course, to the moment that a Segway ran over Roomba." " -
Segway vs. Roomba
Jerry23 writes "We all knew it would happen. We just didn't know when. But Second Life's Cory Ondrejka has just blogged The Encounter: At last weekend's Accelerating Change Conference, Dean Kamen's demon seed, the Segway personal transporter, met Helen Greiner's lovechild, the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, in a climactic crash that will echo through the ages. And I quote: "That night also had what was, for me, the highlight of the conference. I refer, of course, to the ultimate convergence of technology. The perfect connection of human and robot. The consumate collision of 21st century geek products. I am referring, of course, to the moment that a Segway ran over Roomba." " -
Will Wright Vs. Jaron Lanier on Our Human Future
Jerry23 writes "At Accelerating Change 2004 (November 5-7 at Stanford University), Virtual Reality pioneer Jaron Lanier and Sims creator Will Wright will face each other in a debate entitled "Finding Humanity in the Interface: Capacity Atrophy or Augmentation?" As our interfaces get continually smarter, how do we keep them from dehumanizing us? Can we avoid the world of MT Anderson's masterful dystopia, Feed (2002), where the Internet-jacked, childlike teens of 2030 speak pidgin English and live primarily as vehicles for highly sophisticated and automated corporate marketing and political programming?" -
Will Wright Vs. Jaron Lanier on Our Human Future
Jerry23 writes "At Accelerating Change 2004 (November 5-7 at Stanford University), Virtual Reality pioneer Jaron Lanier and Sims creator Will Wright will face each other in a debate entitled "Finding Humanity in the Interface: Capacity Atrophy or Augmentation?" As our interfaces get continually smarter, how do we keep them from dehumanizing us? Can we avoid the world of MT Anderson's masterful dystopia, Feed (2002), where the Internet-jacked, childlike teens of 2030 speak pidgin English and live primarily as vehicles for highly sophisticated and automated corporate marketing and political programming?" -
Will Wright Vs. Jaron Lanier on Our Human Future
Jerry23 writes "At Accelerating Change 2004 (November 5-7 at Stanford University), Virtual Reality pioneer Jaron Lanier and Sims creator Will Wright will face each other in a debate entitled "Finding Humanity in the Interface: Capacity Atrophy or Augmentation?" As our interfaces get continually smarter, how do we keep them from dehumanizing us? Can we avoid the world of MT Anderson's masterful dystopia, Feed (2002), where the Internet-jacked, childlike teens of 2030 speak pidgin English and live primarily as vehicles for highly sophisticated and automated corporate marketing and political programming?" -
Accelerating Change Conference
gui noir writes "The first annual Accelerating Change Conference will go from September 12-14 at Stanford University. It will be 'the first conference in the world to focus on the multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a technological singularity'. The all-star cast of speakers includes Ray Kurzweil, Tim O'Reilly, John Koza, Eric Drexler, and more than fifteen others (full list here). Attendance starts at $100. The closest the academic world has come to these subjects in recent memory was Douglas Hofstadter's standing-room-only Spiritual Robots Symposium back in 2001." -
Accelerating Change Conference
gui noir writes "The first annual Accelerating Change Conference will go from September 12-14 at Stanford University. It will be 'the first conference in the world to focus on the multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a technological singularity'. The all-star cast of speakers includes Ray Kurzweil, Tim O'Reilly, John Koza, Eric Drexler, and more than fifteen others (full list here). Attendance starts at $100. The closest the academic world has come to these subjects in recent memory was Douglas Hofstadter's standing-room-only Spiritual Robots Symposium back in 2001." -
Accelerating Change Conference
gui noir writes "The first annual Accelerating Change Conference will go from September 12-14 at Stanford University. It will be 'the first conference in the world to focus on the multidisciplinary implications of accelerating change and the consequences of a technological singularity'. The all-star cast of speakers includes Ray Kurzweil, Tim O'Reilly, John Koza, Eric Drexler, and more than fifteen others (full list here). Attendance starts at $100. The closest the academic world has come to these subjects in recent memory was Douglas Hofstadter's standing-room-only Spiritual Robots Symposium back in 2001."