This is the first demonstration that this microelectrode array technology can provide useful neuroprosthetic signals allowing a person with tetraplegia to control an external device for an extended period of time.”

In the past 5 years, research into Brain-Computer Interfaces has been progressing rapidly. For example, devices which rest on the scalp are now good enough at reading brain waves that they can be used to play video games. In this TED Talk, Tan Le of Emotiv Systems demonstrates one such device.

Another company, Intendix, offers a similar brain-wave reading (EEG) product which allows it’s users to type on a virtual keyboard using only thoughts. BrainAthlete also uses EEG technology, marketed as a tool for helping athletes find “the zone”.

It makes me wonder whether paralyzed people could use these less invasive devices, at least until the technologies such as BrainGate reach a more advanced stage. Research into direct, physical connections between brains and computers will eventually play an important role, not only in medicine, but in human enhancement.

To help accelerate the process, the X-Prize Foundation is planning to offer a bounty for the development of next-generation BCI. Futurist Ray Kurzweil, who is on the board of the X-Prize Foundation, offers some ideas of how the prize might work in this video. A breakdown and further discussion of Kurzweil’s talk is provided by The Singularity Hub. Kurzweil’s most specific suggestion seems to be exactly what BrainGate is working on — allowing people with locked-in syndrome to communicate. Rod Furlan expresses some other possibilities under consideration in the X-Prize planning process:

Our deep-future vision for the technology was crystal clear: we want to give vision to the blind, new bodies to disabled people and maybe a GPS sixth sense to the willing. We want to communicate with each other and with our technology using thoughts alone – the possibilities are endless.

Hopefully a large cash reward will stimulate some competition in these areas, which everyone will benefit from.

Although I love Kelly’s idea of The Technium and it being an extension of (our) life, and even the defining feature of our condition, I disagree with his teleological interpretation of technology in general having it’s own wants. After we develop some real independently thinking technology, then it will have intention, but up until now — sorry, not so.

My hopes for technology in the near to long term future are probably on the extreme end of the scale, when compared with average views of where technology is going. For example, I think that many of Ray Kurzweil’s predictions on the merging of technology with our own biology will probably come to pass, and I look forward to it. However, fantasizing about The Technium’s intentions, treating it like some sort of ephemeral galactic life force, is akin to worshiping gadgets.

After his story of technology as an extension of humanity, Kelly’s talk is at best confusing and at worst incoherent. For example, he defines technology as a human invention, and then goes on to describe it as predating humanity by billions of years.

My working definition of technology is anything useful that a human mind makes (7:17)… the origins and roots of technology go back to the Big Bang (7:37).

Kelly makes some very loose connections between energy, information, entropy and order, and somehow draws conclusions in cosmology and biology from it. This involves some dubious claims about the “energy density” in life being greater than that of a star, and that of a microchip being greater than everything else in the universe.

I’m not sure how this is calculated, but I suspect that if my Mac used as much energy per gram as the Sun outputs, my power bill would be more than the power bill of the entire planet combined.

Even if we accepted the numbers about the flow of energy per gram per second through stars vs microchips, what can we conclude from it? Kelly sees a general trend, placing our technology into a “7th Kingdom of Life”, which is evolving from entropy into greater order, and has been doing so independently of us from the beginning of time.

While we can all agree that technology is progressing, I prefer the simpler explanation that it is progressing from and due to human effort alone, and not a mysterious, cosmological-scale life force. In any case, Kevin Kelly’s talk is thought provoking, and well worth your next 17 minutes!

Much of the thinking and effort into strong AI development concerns the obvious risk of the project — how do we ensure that the resulting super-intelligence will be friendly? Or, as Johnathan Goldstein puts it in his interview with AI and robotics researcher Professor Noel Sharkey:

… twenty years from now, you think it’s more likely that a robot will be changing my bedpans than chasing me down the street, with lasers coming out of it’s eyes?

Dr. Sharkey thought that the latter scenario would be very unlikely.

There is another aspect of this super intelligence project that seems to get little mention, at least in the popular literature: what will it be like for them? Will the AIs be able to communicate with us, or for them, would it be like trying to explain calculus to a pigeon? How long will they try before giving up, if indeed at all?

That idea is artfully expressed in the following little piece of creative genius. It is from one of my favorite podcasts, CBC’s Wiretap, with Jonathan Goldstein. This is from the November 21st episode, The Answering Machine, where Goldstein played a reading of “Spirals”, a short story from David Eagleman:

I highly recommend that you listen to the whole episode, which includes the interview with Professor Sharkey and other humourous AI-related material. You can get it here, or in iTunes.

I’ll be attending the Humanity+ Summit next weekend, where one of the leading proponents of strong AI, Ben Goertzel, is speaking. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to ask him about how communication with a super-intelligence will be possible, given the gap.

If you’re interested in learning about some exciting developments in science & technology, then I highly recommend that you listen to these podcasts — they’ll blow your mind:

• Part 2: The Era of Indefinite Lifespan
  

  Visionary aging researchers and best-selling authors Aubrey de Grey (Ending Aging) and Terry Grossman (The Baby-Boomer’s Guide to Living Forever, Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever) explain how indefinite healthy extension of human lifespan is not only possible, but may well soon be within our grasp.

• Part 3: The Nanotechnology Revolution
  

  Nanotechnology promises to change our world in ways that are difficult to predict, or even imagine. Are you ready for:

  …Star Trek style replicators that would allow you to make anything, ANYTHING, you wanted?

  …artificial robotic blood cells that will turn an Average Joe into a world-class athlete, or allow you to hold your breath under water for an hour at a time?

  Nanotechnology promises all of this plus a lot more. We’re joined by a distinguished panel of guests who will help us understand the benefits, and risks, of this technology that will be with us sooner than most of us expect.

• Part 5: Achieving Friendly Artificial Intelligence
  

  In the near future, is machine intelligence going to equal or overtake human intelligence in terms of speed and capability?

  If so, what can we do to make sure these new intelligences are on our side?

• Part 9: The Technological Singularity
  

  Ray Kurzweil has been described as “the restless genius” by the Wall Street Journal, and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes magazine. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison.” He is a man who wears many hats — businessman, inventor, artist, visionary, and bestselling author. With his book The Singularity Is Near he has probably done more than anyone else to alert the the public as to the amazing period of transformation in which we now live.

I have picked out what I thought were the best of the 10ish podcasts that make up The Speculist’s The World Transformed series, but by all means, check out the full series at their website. Thank you very much, Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon, for putting together this fantastic series to raise awareness and encourage discussion about the promise and peril we face in times ahead.

2011 Update:

It looks like they’ve put up a new website and have a sequel series, the creatively named, A World Transformed 2.

Aside from the obvious poking fun at the sheer nerdiness of S.U. and it’s perceived cult-like vibe, some things of note in the letter are the jab at the cost of the S.U. program ($25,000), that “speculative instruction” is on offer, and that Hardwick estimates the school will be dissolved in three years.

From the Singularity University website:

Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.