Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Future
First, a note about the course: if you thought it was worthwhile, please pass the word along to anyone who might be interested in taking it this summer (in June). The summer version of this course is less performance, more book-club. Mass Media in the summer is my favorite thing to teach (and students have enjoyed it too). Thanks for helping me spread the word.
I think the best thing to do here, rather than writing at length is just to have a link dump. Send me links to fantastic things you've found and I'll include them here. Before we get to the futuristic stuff, though, here are a couple articles of broader relevance to the course:
This is a MUST READ.
A former MM&S student sent me these:
Why are kids so bored?
And this is a bit disturbing.
THE FUTURE
No matter what happens, the future will be unlike the past. I don't just mean that things will change; I mean that either the Singularity will happen, or the trend that describes all of history will break. This is Kurzweil's view. If you think it feels too broad, too immense or too fantastic, remember that our linear intuitions are a very poor guide in these realms.
Here's a somewhat-old-but-still-cool BBC movie about the post-human future, featuring Ray Kurzweil, a remote control rat (yes, a real rat), and a monkey who can control a computer with his thoughts.
Here's the big dog. And robots with skin. And don't let your enemies get an army of these. ["combining living and machine components, could eventually make robots more effective."] Sorta like this.
This is amazing. Here's a story about the brain-twitter interface. And speaking of brains, I already showed you the visuals picked up in Japan. But practical roll-outs are on the way too. More and more comes out every day.
Implants are cool. Or you could just grow some new organs. And enhance away.
About the state of info gathering and "property" rights. There's this. And more everywhere you look.
I could keep adding things all night, and haven't even gotten to the weird stuff. But you get the idea.
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Big Dog freaks me out a little bit.
ReplyDeleteAfter you watch Big Dog, check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc
The future that you talked about somewhat horrifies me. Is it like they say, we are bringing about the end of ourselves "curiosity kills the cat"? Or do you think we will be just fine with technology overwhelming our life?
ReplyDeleteI hope more people will jump in and answer these excellent questions, Anonymous. First of all, I don't want to quibble, but I didn't use the phrase "end of ourselves." Self-hood and identity, it's true, are caught in a deepening crisis.
ReplyDeleteOne possible outcome might, in fact, be the end of it. For example, a software-based entity would, theoretically, be perfectly copyable. This has strange implications for the concept of "self." But I don't think the destruction of the self is inevitable.
As for being "just fine," I think we have options, but we're less likely to survive this well if we go in blind. Remember the Maelstrom.
I was thinking yesterday the exact same thing after class (about the end of ourselves), but then I also thought, do we need to be pessimistic about the future? if technology creation is as limitless as it seems to be, then war and disease would not be a factor. We could begin to inhabit other planets or galaxies who knows....
ReplyDeletethere's my two cents.
I don't think so Joe... Technology is blooming, but it is blooming here in the U.S., not in Cambodia. I am scared to think about any kind of wars in the era of technology. I wonder what would keep a country like the U.S. from "uniting" the world later on... Forgive me if I in any kind offend you..
ReplyDeleteProfessor, I think I stated it in too extreme a way. However I am wondering how meaningful our lives are going to be with entities functioning exactly the same and even more efficiently walking around us all the time.
Haha, I enjoyed the big dog spoof, thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteYour two cents are worth a fortune, Joe. I also agree with Anonymous, who thinks war must still be a concern. Every war in the last century was viewed in its time as the final war. WWI was billed as "The War to End All Wars" and WWII was truly a global cataclysm, punctuated by the bomb.
ReplyDeleteWar is the crucible of invention. The technology of war is driven forward by an existential desperation, and becomes so horrific that its inventors cannot imagine that anyone would use it. But it gets used.
God, that's depressing. But at least we'll get to live forever in this world.
I go days without media all of the time, it is very much so possible.
ReplyDeleteGreat Video Information about future
ReplyDeleteWoW! looks very interesting.
ReplyDeleteof course like your web site however you have to check the spelling on quite a few of your posts. Several of them are rife with spelling problems and I to find it very troublesome to tell the truth however I will surely come back again.
ReplyDelete---------------------
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ReplyDeleteScience and for what we can note, a few new features can be brought to.
ReplyDelete