February 22, 2007

A visual trip through the 21st Century


If this doesn't give you goosebumps, nothing will.

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:40 PM

    This seems to be Peter Posti's Roadmap, which has some interesting comments.

    I am really curious about the AI, especially Kurzweils predictions. Most arguments I've read seem to suggest we don't know how the brain works, and that Kurzweil seems to be oversimplifying things.

    Great video though ! Are there any more predictive videos out there?

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  2. Anonymous10:49 PM

    Hey George - I loved it, as did my 2 year old son who will be growing up with some of these changes. One thing though - your post should say "A Visual Trip through the first half of the 21st century"! Remember the 2050 hypothesis in my simulation paper? Cheers!

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  3. Anonymous12:39 AM

    It's a cool video and all, but I can't help remember a book I had as a kid called "The world of Tomorrow," that said we should be living in underwater cities farming fish by now.

    Dammit, I want my flying car.

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  4. I'm uneasy with some of the distinctions implicit in the descriptions in the (somewhat optimistic) video - I expect the initial true AIs to be built generally along the biological brain's bauplan in terms of logical topology. Further, if the researchers involved have any scruples, I would expect the child to be raised as a human, see him or herself as human, and generally just be a human, accounting for some inevitable differences between our implementation and nature's. As time goes by and we understand more about how consciousness works I foresee all sorts of extensions and expansions (as well as perhaps some excises, as I don't imagine nature's design to be optimal) that might create a qualitative difference between humanity of the past and humanity of the future, but we'd all do so together. The video seems to assume an initial division between hardware and wetware humans that worrys me, especially as the servitude of the former to the latter seems baked into the assumption. Rhetorically, I think we need to clarify early and often that human is as human does, if we want our hardware children born into a world that largely accepts their basic humanity.

    Unless of course we do want to foster lasting hatreds and resentment that makes hardware consciousnesses want to define themselves as other and reject all that went before. Then we can have a big ol' war in which - as usual - everyone loses no matter who wins.

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  5. Anonymous1:28 PM

    Interesting that despite these technological advances, they have yet to conquer English grammar.

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  6. Anonymous1:36 PM

    Also, I was wondering why the music sounded like Primus but sucked. Turns out it's Les Claypool's Flying Frog Brigade!

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  7. Diss Les Claypool at your own peril ;-)

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  8. Primus sucks...

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  9. Nato, I've just voted you off the island.

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  10. Perhaps it's no longer traditional to chant "Primus sucks!" at a Primus show, but it was 10 years ago.

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  11. Ah, interesting. Having never seen them in concert I didn't know this. Love it.

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  12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  13. Worth watching, but it set my teeth on edge more than it induced goose bumps--at least until I turned off the very annoying soundtrack. :)

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