Invisus Manus
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Below are the 4 most recent journal entries recorded in the "herithoth" journal:
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09:11 am
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Sexual robot artists
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )
Tags: 2009, aaron, cybernetic poet, ray kurzweil, robot sex
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12:06 pm
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E2, 2019 according to A.C. Clarke, and polyamory carol
E2
I'm catching up on my DVR queue. I just saw a program about Nobel peace prize winner Mohammud Yumus. He created a company Grameen Shakti (Rural Female "divine" Power) that gives microloans to women in Bangladesh. The company also trains women engineers to install solar panels in women's homes that run LED lights that children can read by at night. They also install biofuel processors that extract fertilizer and natural gas from chicken and cow dung that have allowed women to create their own businesses while stopping their use of kerosene and wood. The result is that the human rights of women in this Muslim country have dramatically improved. By enriching their family resources the children are more likely to become educated and the husbands are less likely to work in the city where they would acquire additional wives. As a result, women are providing a significant increase to the national economy and over 1 million homes are moving toward environmental sustainability. This series looks pretty good. Check it out at http://www.pbs.org/e2/episodes/202_energy_developing_world_trailer.html
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I've been reading Arthur C. Clarke's predictions for 2019. Here are a few:
Healthcare
1. Hospitals will use more holistic methodology and that wellness centers will be integrated into care. (already true and many hospitals are increasing revenue by making birthing centers like a spa hotel.)
2. Computer programs and diagnostic devices will provide some of the initial diagnosis and therapy options to physicians. 3. Patient records will be computerized. X-rays and CAT scans will be stored on the computer and projected to the patient's bedside. Computers will monitor doctor and nurses orders and warn against possible dangers. (We have already seen the computerized patient record. Several learning programs to help medical students have appeared but they are not yet sophisticated enough to guide therapy. The computer and palm pilot are integrated into the patient visit, but there are no tricorders yet. Radiology is available electronically as part of the electronic medical record. The computer monitoring of orders and medications is becoming more common with the computerized records.)
4. Surgeries will be either robot assisted or entirely done by robots. (For microsurgery and neurosurgery, robotic devices like the Da Vinci provide doctors will very fine control.)
5. Aging will be stopped by blocking an anti-death hormone. (This may be partially true.)
6. We will regularly transplant multiple organs from others. (I'd look to stem cell grown or cloned organs instead)
7. Family doctors will treat sexual desire problems with electrical stimulation of the pleasure center outside the skull. Drugs to enhance sexual performance and erection assistance devices like pumps or a pacemaker for the penile nerves will be available.
8. Sex organs will be able to undergo "reverse embryogenesis" and then develop into the opposite organ.
Transportation and Space
1. We will travel from U.S. to Australia using jet to get to space station, then rotate with the earth for 40 minutes and then fly back down. (Maybe Earthship Three?)
2. We will have a permanent space station and moonbase. (The first is true and the second is due for 2025).
3. Robots guided by humans and later independent robots supervised by humans will be used for space exploration. Self-replicating robots will set up a factory on the moon to build the moonbase. (The Mars rovers fit the first prediction.)
4. Cars will have microchips to monitor engine troubles and satellite navigation systems. Bodies will be made of dent-resistent plastic or composite. (All already true.)
5. High speed maglev trains will be commonplace. (True in Japan and Europe.)
Entertainment
1. Movie theatres will diminish as widespread high definition television gains popularity. Movies will cost $15 per person.
2. IMAX will not be used for commercial movie viewing. (wrong)
3. Computer generated animation and historical actors will replace some real actors. Robots may also replace actors.
4. Images will be directly projected onto viewer's retinas bypassing the need for screens. (Probably likely).
5. VHS will be replaced by lasercards containing gigabytes of video information in the form of holographic storage.
6. Entertainment will be broadcast by satellite or optic cables to viewers. More specialized programming channels like a travel channel, women's, kid's, sports channels, and perhaps psychotherapy will appear in addition to the big three. Viewers own images can narcissistically be substituted for actors.
7. Music and graphics will be produced electronically. Computers will be able to simulate the ability of historical composers and artists to provide new content.
8. Steroids and growth hormone will be prescribed by doctors to athletes as part of their training regimen. (That's happening but it's not a condoned part of the training.)
9. Olympic athletes brain waves and muscle patterns will be extensively studied to produce similar changes in other training athletes.
10. Some sports will be carried out in space like moon running, spaceminton, and the Space Cup with solar sails to race around the moon.
11. Near death experiences will become a type of entertainment. (There is an institute in VA that claims to be able to induce NDEs using sound waves.)
12. Space travelers will enjoy sex in zero gravity as a popular honeymoon destination. (I couldn't get NASA engineers to comment on this one when I visited.)
Economy
1. Aquaculture will be more widespread to support growing population. (True for some fish production).
2. The economy will be based on information rather than manufacturing, although skilled craftsmanship will still be desired for some produced goods. (This is already true.)
3. People will have continuous education throughout life that will be accessed through teleconferencing. (Online classes seem to be relevant to this prediction.)
4. Some public education will be provided by corporation sponsorship. (This is good if it is funded by corporations, but not so good if they dictate content.)
5. Telepresence through augmented vision glasses and "master gloves" will allow humans to remotely drive vehicles in space, under the ocean, or other hostile environments.
Education
1. The Library of Congress will be available on a single memory storage device. (Not yet but probably will be soon.)
2. All citizens of a particular city will receive computer access through local government. (The wired city concept is still being tested.)
3. Children will have companion computer nanny to help them learn and grow. (Diamond Age anyone? Sounds like a great match for the Millennials.)
Robots
1. Menial household tasks will be done by robots including vacuuming. (Roomba)
2. Factories will be run by robots so that conditions inside the factory don't need to be compatible with human needs including handling hazardous or radioactive materials. Robots may become unionized.
3. Homes and their appliances will be controlled by a robotic majordomo like Hal. Homes may read the moods/preferences of owners and adjust the environment to improve their mood and productivity. Meals will be programmed to be defrosted, cooked, and held at temperature until workers arrive home. Flooring and accessories will be adapted to robot maintenance. (Some of this has already happened, but the mood reading is interesting.)
4. Robocats and dogs will provide the companionship of animals without the need to feed or change litter. They could eliminate need to specially train dogs for the blind. (Simple versions of these exist, but still a long way to go to. The latter is Interesting.)
5. Robots will have complex vision apparatus to monitor many wavelengths outside the human visible spectrum. They will handle objects more appropriately by having a pressure-sensing mechanism like in human skin.
6. Robots will challenge our definition of racism and human rights as they get more sophisticated. We will be challenged to ensure that robots have a "thou shalt not kill" directive toward human beings. Rules like the three laws of robotics will be needed to ensure that humans and robots can live compatibly.
I still need to read the sections on crime, psychiatry, and war. There are a lot of interesting things we have already that he didn't predict in this book, like the Internet, YouTube, Ipods, etc., but Clarke is known for being a good futurist so I thought it would be interesting to see how many of his predictions come true.
On related note, I've been reading Ray Kurzweil's predictions for robot evolution. One is that we will have robots that have the complexity of a mouse brain by 2010. By 2020 they will be able to emulate one human brain. By 2060 one robot will be able to simulate the power of all human beings that have ever lived and by 2100 will exceed that. Individual robots will be able to instantaneously exchange knowledge with other robots through the internet so that all robots would be able to learn through the experiences of individual robots without the need for written or spoken language like humans. The computer "god" planet in David Zindell's "Neverness" crossed with the machines in the Dune series sounds like a good example of what this might look like. If Kurzweil's predictions come true, I think that robotics will fundamentally change humans' day-to-day experience more than any other technology and will probably happen overnight. We may see robots move from toys, to servants, to oracles/masters in the span of my lifetime. I wouldn't be surprised if different robot societies arise with distinct visions of the future role for humanity. I hope that we don't get caught in between them. I was also struck by the observation that a sentient program in a computer without connection to the outside world might be like trapping someone in solitary confinement for 1 million years. I could imagine an insane vengeful robot intelligence arising from a lab tech leaving a plug unplugged overnight.
The future of robots depending on human beings for energy ala the Matrix trilogy might not be so sinister if they were embedded in our clothing and used our body motion to generate power like a self-winding watch. Perhaps they could even combat obesity if we were required to move in order to power our cell phones and other wireless devices.
Tags: arthur c. clarke's 2019, e2, grameen shakti, ray kurzweil
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03:36 pm
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Dec 23
Went to Il Palio for brunch. The prices and the selection have been reduced since our last visit. The dishes were pretty good, especially the salads with pear and walnuts, but not as spectacular as it was under the previous chef. The cinnamon cream brulee and the chocolate and passionfruit mousse cake were a great ending though.
This afternoon Zen_oven had a nap and I started reading "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil. It's pretty interesting, but so far I haven't learned anything new since hearing him speak at UT earlier in the year.
We're going back to A Southern Season at 5pm (since we got too tired to shop yesterday after meeting lapin_de_lune and family for a late lunch. Change in evening plans... Then we'll be doing a tour of the lights in Southern Village followed by a late dinner at Merlion. After dinner, maybe we'll go for coffee or something and talk. If you are interested in joining us and haven't talked with me about where to meet up, call my cell phone.
Tomorrow we'll be spending the Christmas eve day with Abby's parents.
Tags: a southern season, il palio, lights, ray kurzweil
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11:43 pm
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The Future
Sorry I've been away for longer than usual. I'm adjusting to having more to do with work and at home and haven't had as much time to read and write. I think I'm going to need to do some of each of the things that I'm used to doing so that I do some of everything by the end of the week instead of every day.
Zen_oven and I have been going on more evening bike rides since the day is longer, the weather pleasant if a bit windy, and we both have bikes now. We may ride less in the summer.
I had my first lab presentation today. It went okay, but I was disappointed to get so much negative feedback, even though I know as an early adopter that I'm doomed to see where the future is going before everyone else and not getting any credit for it later when it becomes so accepted as to seem inherently obvious to everyone. I just wish that the general rule that people initially react to new or unexpected things as bad or due to some erroneous observations or conclusions. I do have a few people that react with interest to my ideas in the lab so the news is not all bad. Plus my boss gave me some direction after I threw all of my darts on the board.
I want to tell you all about Ray Kurzweil. I went to a talk of his at the University of Houston where he followed up on some tech that he presented at the SXSW festival in Austin a couple of weeks ago. He has a new book out to follow his earlier work "The Singularity is Near". He has a track record of predicting when new tech, biological or computer-based, will be available 10 years in advance with an accuracy +/- 2 months. He has developed a number of devices including a universal translator that is only slightly slower than the one on Star Trek, and a camera that translates free text captured by blind individuals in their environment. Most of his predictive capacity has been based on his observation that most technology (not just Moore's Law) obeys a strict exponential law while experts often assume a linear increase. Then there people are puzzled when they don't see anything changing in the first half of the time-period. He has a number of graphs that show a wide range of things that appear to obey this law, including noncoding RNAs increasing with organism complexity. He made some striking predictions about the next 20, 50, and 100 years. In 20 years solar will meet 100% of our energy needs and energy storage will be distributed similar to the WWW. Computers will be integrated in almost everything. Nanotechnology will revolutionize materials allowing all manufactured goods to be printed on a nanoprinter. Nano blood cells will allow you to sit on the bottom of your pool for hours without breathing. Nanomachines will slow aging and correct our health defects in real time. Emerging viruses will be identified, sequenced, and neutralized in days similar to the timescale for eliminating computer viruses. We will sequence millions of individual human genomes for the price of the first one. Nanotech will interface with our brains and create virtual or augmented reality that is indistinguishable from reality itself. We will reverse engineer the human brain in the process, leading to artificial intelligence that will by centuries end potentially make human beings irrelevant as the primary self-aware intelligent beings in the universe. Many science fiction scenarios are appearing increasingly likely to actually shape the reality we live in including Asimov's intelligent robots; many of the Star Trek tech including the holodeck, the replicator, etc.; Zelazny's "Races of Men" with genetic manipulation of the human species; AI artificial limbs sound like they could have the problems of intelligent swords. We may be faced with human/machine wars like Terminator or Psi-Mechs of Herbert's Dune. We will no doubt experience a series of new debilitating social effects of these technology only to have them made moot by subsequent tech. For example, when everyone's genome is sequenced we will all become uninsurable and privacy will be lost. However, perhaps nanotech will cure us of all diseases and make our genetic makeup and personality completely plastic. Then again weapons that neutralize or alter the functioning of our nanotech in a negative way could be weaponized requiring some additional compensation. In the end we will all have the problem of either literally or metaphorically living out the "brain in a vat" thought experiment from Intro to Philosophy or living out some living fantasy game. In other words, we will either live virtually in WOW, or we will literally be "goblinized", or both. A wish of mine and my friend from high school was that one day we would wake up and "everything would be completely different from before". I think I stand of good chance of seeing that happen by age fifty.
P.S. The Grindhouse was a lot of fun and this weekend "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" opens in theatres.
Tags: ray kurzweil
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