I while back I read Stross's Accelerando. Parts of it I liked a lot and parts, not so much. One thing that stayed with me was his description of the exocortex -- basically mind processes that function outside the head or brain, but are still perceived as integrated with the self.

An interesting idea, but not one that had much relevance to my own life, I thought. Recently I've been noticing that I've, quite unintentionally, been integrating systems into my own life that improve and expand certain abilities in ways that I think point the way to the kind of thing Stross was writing about.

None of these on their own seem very breathtaking, but when you look at their purposes, I hope you'll see what I mean:

Nintendo DS --Brain Age. Here's a pretty sophisticated little toy. It combines voice and pattern recognition capabilities with software expressedly intended to improve my cognitive functioning. What's more, it tracks my progress and provides feedback that allows me to focus on specific abilities.

FaceBook -- A Web 2.0 social networking site. My profile is just a photo and some clever text I've set up to stand in for myself -- but by using this system I'm able to manage a huge number of social relationships at whatever level of commitment I see fit. It supplements a range of social and relationship skills. 

Getting Things Done -- A book by David Allen. No computers here -- instead it's a sophisticated system of organization that optimizes productivity by taking advantage of external, intentionally created cues, to enhance mental clarity and productivity. 

Again, none of these on there own are that remarkable (or maybe they are...) but when people start to combine them, it makes me wonder whether we're looking at steps along the way to something greater. These sorts of systems are improvements on older versions and the improvements are continuing.

They're powerful as they are, but what happens when we're able to integrate advanced versions of these things into everything we think and do? If it's starting in a recognizable way now, how long before things start to get seriously weird? And when they do, will most people notice?

Last Tuesday I attended an event at Science World in Vancouver titled, Quantum Leap Forward: Nanotechnology as an Agent of Change for the 21st Century Nanotechnology. Officially I was there for business, but it was one of those happy occasions where my personal interests and my job overlap. The event and the speakers were very interesting and I came away with a few thought that I wanted to share with betterhumans.

The event was put on by the BCTIA, the Vancouver Enterprise Forum and Nanotech BC. I believe that the gentleman who started things off was a representative of the Vancouver Enterprise Forum. He was in his late fifties and admitted to knowing nothing more about nanotech than that he could dip his tie in wine without leaving a stain. This application of nanotechnology was commented on several times throughout the evening. Yes, it was a bit painful, but also interesting in that it expressed the general level of knowledge about nanotechnology for that generation -- yet clearly the guy was shrewd enough to have a sense that something was going on, or the event probably wouldn't have been held at all.

Next a representative of Nanotech BC took over and acted as the MC for the rest of the evening. He gave a brief outline of nanotech basics to the audience. It was a pretty basic explanation, but since at least half the audience probably didn't know a thing before that evening, I think he did a fairly good job. There were two things that stood out for me however, one thing he said and one thing he left out.

Partway through his outline he specifically said that nanoscale robots and gray goo were not concerns. He didn't say they would never happen, and if you looked at the powerpoint presentation closely you could see that the projection included molecular manufacturing at its far end, but the message was clearly that that kind of thing wouldn't be around for fifty to seventy years (i.e. long after most of the people in the room would be dead.) I'm honestly not sure if the speaker believed that, or if he was just saying it to put the conservative segment of the audience at ease. As to what he left out, it was interesting that there was no mention of Drexler at all. Fenyman on the other hand was invoked right out of the gate.

The first speaker was from Mettech. They do surface engineering -- using a plasma spray to apply coatings to metal. That looks pretty futuristic, but the reality is that their processes haven't changed for fifty years. Now they've gotten into the business of using their technology to produce nanoscale powders. Is this really nanotechnology? That's perhaps debatable, but by moving their business in that direction Mettech is now producing a valuable product to a growing market instead of a service to a shrinking one.

Next was a representative of the forestry industry, I think with FPInovations. I was a little surprised by that -- I hadn't imagined that the forestry industry would be particularly interested in nanotech. It turns out that they've been working on a nanoscale version of cellulose. I don't think they've figured out what to do with what they've come up with so far.

Neither of those presentations were particularly forward-looking, or, to be blunt, interesting. I'm still glad I heard them speak though because I think they were typical of the business community's level of engagement in nanotechnology. A lot of it is really just materials science, but unlike in the past, it connects to paths that lead to much more advanced stuff. At any rate, both of the first two presenters were very interested in how nanotechnology can be used for business right now.

The next speaker was, for me, by far the most interesting. We heard an explanation of quantum computing and its relation to nanotechnology by the vice president of D-Wave. D-Wave, for those who haven't heard, is the first company in the world to produce a working, private quantum computer. First there was a brief and general explanation of quantum computing and how what it will be able to achieve is different from what classical computers can do. The speaker also took some time to explain how D-Wave's approach is different from the academic community's methods.

The link from quantum computing to nanotechnology is that quantum computers, once they get to a certain level of qbits, will be able to model molecular structures faster and more effectively than classical computers will ever be able to. This means that biotechnology and nanotechnology (a distinction that is, incidentally, breaking down) will be able to move from a mostly empirical methodology to one that takes full advantage of simulations and modeling. Essentially the prediction was that quantum computing is going to be the key enabling technology for nanotechnology, allowing the field to develop at speeds and in ways impossible now.

And that point was the most interesting of the evening for me. All of the predictions up until D-Wave were looking at progress from a linear point of view. Mettech and companies like that are looking at todays technology and cautiously projecting that into the next decade. They're imagining what they could achieve if they had twenty years to refine what's possible today. That's where the seventy year molecular manufacturing time-line comes from.

 
What was ironic to me was that the third  of their invited speakers was standing up there telling them that a jump to an entirely new level of computing was virtually here -- and as far as I could tell none of the other speakers got the implications of that. I went home that night with the feeling that the Singularity might be more than near -- I'm starting to think that it's happening now, but that most people simply cant see it.
 

I'm about half through the second season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, and it has gotten to the point where I won't let myself rent more than one at a time because I know that I won't be able to stop once I start watching.

The show itself is both fascinating and infuriating--infuriating because it is based up the same old Frankenstein meme, but fascinating because it brings up all sorts of questions about artificial intelligence, consciousness, faith and identity. Just when it starts pissing me off there's a twist that gives the story a little more depth than I expected...

I'm wondering what everybody else thinks of the show. In what ways does it intelligently present transhumanist ideas? In what ways does it misrepresent them? What do you like? What flaws do you see? Does it represents a step forward for transhumanism into the mainstream, or a step backwards?
 

Hey everybody. Just joined up.

Nice to "be" here. 

A few questions I wanted to throw out -

It used to be that it was fairly common for people to have one job for all of their adult lives. More recently, most people still found careers, built up some expertise, and then settled in. Now things have gotten to the point where a lot of people change careers every ten years or so, and shuffle jobs more often than that.

If change, technological and social, is speeding up, how many careers do you think people will typically go through within the next, say, fifty years? What kinds of jobs make sense to pursue in that context?

Also, how would working longevity treatments affect your plans for the future? If you're looking at a 300 year life-span, what kinds of work or activities do you want to fill your time with?

Lastly, given that nanotechnology and AI will/would change pretty much every aspect of life as we know it, how do you make realistic plans for the future?