Searching For The Question

Human technological civilization existed on the planet for ten thousand years, and has had an effect strong enough all around for this period to be called the Antropocene by Nobel Prize winning chemist Paul Krutzen. It is not exactly clear how people lived twenty or thirty thousand years ago, with idealistic views about communal sharing of food contrasting with others based on a bloody in teeth and claw view of nature.

When agriculture was invented, the surplus of food produced started the demographic explosion, and enabled the differentiation of roles in society, beyond those imposed by gender alone. There is almost universal consensus on how for a long time this change represented a worsening of the living conditions of most of the humans.

It has been a long journey, until we’ve been able to fully leverage the knowledge that was being acquired, and until the more complex but more useful methods of collecting, and sharing knowledge themselves have been learned, and applied.

For many people it used to appear that the process somehow might have reached an apex, that we stopped finding new challenges, or needing new knowledge. Famously even those who should have known better, like Thomas Kelvin on physics, or Hilbert on mathematics, from time to time declared that Humanity was more or less done. More recently, it has become more difficult to make that claim: philosophically due to Gödel opening up endless scientific paths; economically due to so many people needing help; existentially due to our radically expanding astronomical horizons; and foremost because of the undeniable acceleration of technological applications, and their more and more visible impact on the daily lives of billions of people.

So what is going to happen? How will Humanity change? How will humans change, to adapt to a world that is shaped by their technological creations? Can we muster the collective courage, and preserve our acquired freedoms, or extend them even further, while this change bring us to unexplored territories needing radically new adaptations, and definitions of what is to be human?

Humanity+ (humanity plus, or H+), the world transhumanist association, a non-profit action tank, is dedicated to proactively explore the space of possible answers to these, and other questions. Without pollyannaishly naive optimism, but with a rational, non-zero sum technological cost/benefit analysis, unclouded by dogmatic prescriptions, the organization is bound to provoke. Provoke thought, hopefully action, explore policy, and opportunity in shaping what Humanity has the opportunity to become, and understanding what level of strength, dedication, and determination is going to be required to make sure that this spectrum of opportunities is fully explored, and the most fruitful ones are chosen, and implemented by all those who are ready to shape the future.

You can also become a member in Humanity+, and support its activities!

The next major event is in less than a month: H+ Summit – The Rise Of The Citizen Scientist is going to feature 50 outstanding speakers, and up to 500 attendees at the Harvard University Science Center in Cambridge, MA, on June 12-13. I’ll be there, and you should too: grab a ticket for H+ Summit at 20% discount (50% if you are a student)!

Ray Kurzweil is speaking about his forthcoming book “How The Mind Works, And How To Build One”, with all new supporting materials. Stephen Wolfram is going to talk about “Computation And The Future Of The Human Condition”. There’ll be robots (!), dogs (!?), a Transhumorist, and it is so sure, lots, and lots of fun…

Even the tag cloud of the topics of the conference is the coolest collection of mind-bending memes:

Full disclosure: I have been recently elected Chairman of Humanity+, and am helping Executive Director, and Summit Chair Alex Lightman with the organization of the H+ Summit conference.

The January 2010 issue of  Wired Italia. has a very nice article by Luca Sofri about Singularity University, and even more in depth about Ray Kurzweil, one of SU’s founders together with Peter Diamandis.

Luca came to visit Singularity University at NASA Ames during the inaugural GSP-09 in July 2009, and went back to visit Ray at his Boston area office in August.  I love his take on the institution, and the people behind it.

While the current editorial guidelines of Wired Italy make it so that not all of its content is online, so you can’t find the full text of this article there, a lot of additional material is available, in the form of videos that I shot with some of the faculty, and guest lecturers. On the Wired Italy Video page you can find eight 3-4 minute videos with:

• Salim Ismail, Executive Director of Singularity University
• Susan Fonseca Klein, Founding Architect of Singularity University
• Dan Barry, President Danbar Robotics, and former NASA astronaut
• Ralph Merkle, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing
• Carl Pilcher, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute
• Matt Mullenweg, Founding Developer of Wordpress, Automattic
• Chris DiBona, OpenSource and Public Sector Program Manager of Google

(The videos on the Wired website are not embeddable, so I will also be uploading them to my YouTube channel)

It is great to see that Wired Italia keeps covering SU, and SU-connected people, after featuring an article about Peter Diamandis, and Dan Barry. That’s sure, there are a lot of interesting people and activities that are going on at Singularity University… And, yes, the applications are open for the next 9-day Executive Program at the end of February which is almost sold out, and the next 10-week Graduate Studies Program starting in June 2010. Go ahead, and enroll!

Photo by eschipul

That you may spend in the year that comes and the ones after it those ten thousand hours that according to Malcolm Gladwell it takes to become truly expert in the field of your passion, even if new, even if it has nothing to do with your work now. Prepared to recognize the value of what to others may sound crazy but that over time will prove to have great value for everyone, not just for you and your dreams.

(Written for Nova Il Sole 24 Ore, 24 December 2009)

Internet is not just a tool. Its effects are not neutral, and symmetrical for good, or evil. There is a net drift of beneficial consequences as people gain from it in expressing creativity, transparency, and communicate freely across the globe.

On November 20 the official candidacy of the Internet and the people behind its development for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize will be unveiled.

You can express your support on the Internet For Peace website.

Image by david.orban via Flickr

The Singularity University Executive Program just started this weekend and I will be lecturing in the Networks and Computing Systems track about the Internet Of Things, and holding a Spime Design Workshop.

The program of nine weeks has been condensed—appropriately enough for a course talking about accelerating technologies—into just nine days! (And I can’t wait to experience the forthcoming ones of nine hours, nine, minutes, and nine seconds…)

The students are great, as the last time in the summer, and actually many of the summer’s students are back as Teaching Fellows, which is itself a testimony to the loyalty that the school engendered right from the start.

The schedule is incredibly packed, with lectures, workshops, site visits, group work, from 8.30 in the morning to 10.30 in the evening, and more… But it is worth each minute!

The videos of the summer lectures are starting to be posted online in the Singularity University YoutTube channel, and even Ray Kurzweil’s opening keynote lecture from the Executive Program is already online.

If you want to be part of Singularity University, the enrollment is open for the forthcoming courses.

There will be those who say that this is just rhetoric. But if it is—and I say this as a missionary atheist—then it is an “in the beginning was the Word” kind of rhetoric  which creates the worlds drawn from the words. Making real what for others is not even imaginable. We need not fear people whose inadequacy defines their narrow horizons. Their miserable influence will be washed away by history. There are these examples that allow us to look beyond, to look farther. Let them call us naive, let those who cynically reject the ideals that these words express discover for themselves the impossibility of creating a consistent set of values.

A fertile future , a desirable future: this must be our bet.

For Immediate Release October 9, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON WINNING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Rose Garden
11:16 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Well, this is not how I expected to wake up this morning. After I received the news, Malia walked in and said, “Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo’s birthday!” And then Sasha added, “Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up.” So it’s good to have kids to keep things in perspective.
I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build — a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action — a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.
These challenges can’t be met by any one leader or any one nation. And that’s why my administration has worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek. We cannot tolerate a world in which nuclear weapons spread to more nations and in which the terror of a nuclear holocaust endangers more people. And that’s why we’ve begun to take concrete steps to pursue a world without nuclear weapons, because all nations have the right to pursue peaceful nuclear power, but all nations have the responsibility to demonstrate their peaceful intentions.
We cannot accept the growing threat posed by climate change, which could forever damage the world that we pass on to our children — sowing conflict and famine; destroying coastlines and emptying cities. And that’s why all nations must now accept their share of responsibility for transforming the way that we use energy.
We can’t allow the differences between peoples to define the way that we see one another, and that’s why we must pursue a new beginning among people of different faiths and races and religions; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.
And we must all do our part to resolve those conflicts that have caused so much pain and hardship over so many years, and that effort must include an unwavering commitment that finally realizes that the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security in nations of their own.
We can’t accept a world in which more people are denied opportunity and dignity that all people yearn for — the ability to get an education and make a decent living; the security that you won’t have to live in fear of disease or violence without hope for the future.
And even as we strive to seek a world in which conflicts are resolved peacefully and prosperity is widely shared, we have to confront the world as we know it today. I am the Commander-in-Chief of a country that’s responsible for ending a war and working in another theater to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies. I’m also aware that we are dealing with the impact of a global economic crisis that has left millions of Americans looking for work. These are concerns that I confront every day on behalf of the American people.
Some of the work confronting us will not be completed during my presidency. Some, like the elimination of nuclear weapons, may not be completed in my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it’s recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone. This award is not simply about the efforts of my administration — it’s about the courageous efforts of people around the world.
And that’s why this award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity — for the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard even in the face of beatings and bullets; for the leader imprisoned in her own home because she refuses to abandon her commitment to democracy; for the soldier who sacrificed through tour after tour of duty on behalf of someone half a world away; and for all those men and women across the world who sacrifice their safety and their freedom and sometime their lives for the cause of peace.
That has always been the cause of America. That’s why the world has always looked to America. And that’s why I believe America will continue to lead.
Thank you very much.

Here’s day two:

Stephen Wolfram, author of the book A New Kind Of Science, creator of the Mathematica symbolic calculation software suit, and of the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine is a recent addition to the roster of speakers at the Singularity Summit in New York.

In a recent webcast the audience in large numbers asked Stephen to comment on his views about the Technological Singularity and I captured it on video (sorry for the awful image quality due to multiple compression and cross-conversion):

You can also view the full webcast.

This conversation with science fiction author Gregory Benford is promising to be really interesting, and a great addition to the program.

If you haven’t registered yet to the Summmit, you can still do so until midnight EST Oct, with a 20% discount.

Whole Brain Emulation is going to create synthetic humans, if the functionalist point of view of neuroscience is right, by implementing their thought processes in forthcoming hardware, and software systems, which could arrive as early as the middle of this century. What are the rights of these uploads? How will their existence impact our economy, and the society as a whole? Anders Sandberg of the Future Of Humanity Institute of the University of Oxford talks about these issues, which are also going to be the subject of his talk at the Singularity Summit 09 in New York.

See the video “Anders Sandberg, and the Ethics of Uploading“:

You didn’t register for the summit in New York yet? Grab a Singularity Summit Registration with 20% off here!