transhumanism 8:26 pm
The transhumanist club network, h+, has massively updated their website recently. The site now includes information on starting your own h+ chapter, a blog, gallery (including flyers and posters), and an events page with dynamic content from Google Calendar. This is an excellent site with a clean design.
futurism 7:18 pm
1) Very light jets (microjets)
Very light jets (VLJs), small jets that use regional airports and carry only about 10 people — have already begun to compete with commercial airliners. Two companies, Dayjet and Linear Air, have recently started service in the United States and Canada. Very light jets, having a much lower overhead than major airliners, could decentralize air travel and make it even more widely available. Bypassing crowded airports, microjets could cut 1-3 hours off a typical plane trip.
2) Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST)
The Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST) is a supersonic version of the very light jet, with a speed between Mach 1.6 and 1.8 (1,056 to 1,188 mph). The QSST uses a aerodynamically contoured fuselage to create multiple quiet sonic booms rather than a single loud boom, giving it a sonic wake about a hundred times milder the Concorde’s. Instead of taking six hours to make it from Los Angeles to New York, a cross-country flight in the QSST would only require a couple hours. The QSST has been under development by Lockheed Martin’s famous Skunk Works division under a six-year, $25 million contract. If all goes well, the QSST will reach the market in 2014.
3) Hypersonic airliners
The Reaction Engines A2 hypersonic airliner, the design of which was only announced a couple months ago, is truly impressive. This aircraft would travel at over Mach 5 (4,000 mph), enough to make it from Europe to Australia in under five hours. The plane would use novel air routes, including a path over the North Pole. With a length of 143 m (469 ft), the A2 would be twice as long as most commercial planes, and able to hold 300 passengers. The company that designed the plane, Reaction Engines Limited, claims it could be commercialized by 2030 if there is sufficient market demand. This plane would have a range of 20,000 km (12,500 mi), longer than any current commercial aircraft. Environmentally friendly, the A2 would be powered by liquid hydrogen.
4) Manned Cloud
The Manned Cloud, a concept design for a flying hotel, could make it around the world in three days with 40 guests and 15 staff. The Manned Cloud and other lighter-than-air craft could usher in a Second Golden Age of Airships, not seen since before the Hindenberg disaster in 1937. The Manned Cloud would cruise at 80 mph, with a top speed of 105 mph. It would contain numerous on-board amenities, including a restaurant, a library, a fitness suite, spa, and even a sun deck. Its purpose would be to take passengers to exotic locales while eliminating the need for ecologically damaging hotels. With dimensions of 210 x 82 x 52 m (690 x 270 x 170 ft), the Manned Cloud would be spacious indeed. The craft was designed by Jean-Marie Massaud in cooperation with ONERA, the French aerospace lab. Similar designs include the Strato Cruiser and Aeroscraft ML866.
5) Orbital spaceplanes
If Virgin Galactic’s suborbital SpaceShipTwo (pictured above) proves successful, it will be followed soon thereafter by SpaceShipThree, an orbital spaceplane. SpaceShipThree would travel at orbital speeds — over Mach 20 — making it far faster than the other craft listed here. The craft could be used merely for a short orbital jaunt, a visit to a space hotel, or even as a jump platform for spacediving. If SpaceShipTwo does well, SpaceShipThree could be rolled out as early as 2010. The craft could take a shot at the $50 million America’s Space Prize, sponsored by Bigelow Aerospace, though it would take at least several times that to develop.
An interesting article by Nick Terse on the possible weaponization of artificially-controlled insects:
“Biological weapons delivered by cyborg insects. It sounds like a nightmare scenario straight out of the wilder realms of science fiction, but it could be a reality, if a current Pentagon project comes to fruition.
Right now, researchers are already growing insects with electronics inside them. They’re creating cyborg moths and flying beetles that can be remotely controlled. One day, the U.S. military may field squadrons of winged insect/machine hybrids with on-board audio, video or chemical sensors. These cyborg insects could conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions on distant battlefields, in far-off caves, or maybe even in cities closer to home, and transmit detailed data back to their handlers at U.S. military bases.”
nanotechnology 3:34 pm
Read Managing Magic by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. Here’s how it begins:
“It seems like magic. A small appliance, about the size of a washing machine, that is able to manufacture almost anything. It is called a nanofactory. Fed with simple chemical stocks, this amazing machine breaks down molecules, and then reassembles them into any product you ask for. Packed with nanotechnology and robotics, weighing 200 pounds and standing half as tall as a person, it can produce two tons per day of products. Control is simple: a touch screen selects the type and number of products to produce. It costs very little to operate, just the price of materials fed into it. In one hour, $20 worth of chemicals can be converted into 100 pairs of shoes, or 50 shovels, or 200 cell phones, or even a duplicate nanofactory!”
singularity 3:11 pm
I disagree with Dr. Vinge on the point that a hard takeoff would necessarily be scary. If the people in the bootstrap group care about human welfare, they’d be careful not to disrupt the world too much in too short of a time, as most humans would probably find this disorienting. If a hard takeoff is necessarily objectionable to most humans, the bootstrap group could artificially stretch it into a slow takeoff.
Interview by David Orban.
Thanks to Bob Mottram for initially posting these.
images 2:21 pm
“Arizona Bay” by Stefan Morrell
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“A Brighter, Cleaner Future” by Stefan Morrell
“Beach Themed Sketch” by Robert Maschke
H/t Extropia.
AI 1:56 pm
On the AGI mailing list, Ben Goertzel, CEO of Novamente, got into a discussion with a businessman who claimed that AGI researchers would be more likely to work towards artificial general intelligence if there were more financial gain involved, and that current AI researchers are only in the business for financial gain, as they’re only human. Ben’s response sheds light on the way that AGI researchers actually think:
“Singularitarian AGI researchers, even if operating largely or partly in the business domain (like myself), value the creation of AGI far more than the obtaining of material profits.
I am very interested in deriving $$ from incremental steps on the path to powerful AGI, because I think this is one of the better methods available for funding AGI R&D work.
But deriving $$ from human-level AGI really is not a big motivator of mine. To me, once human-level AGI is obtained, we have something of dramatically more interest than accumulation of any amount of wealth.
Yes, I assume that if I succeed in creating a human-level AGI, then huge amounts of $$ for research will come my way, along with enough personal $$ to liberate me from needing to manage software development contracts or mop my own floor. That will be very nice. But that’s just not the point.
I’m envisioning a population of cockroaches constantly fighting over crumbs of food on the floor. Then a few of the cockroaches — let’s call them the Cockroach Robot Club — decide to spend their lives focused on creating a superhuman robot which will incidentally allow cockroaches to upload into superhuman form with superhuman intelligence. And the other cockroaches insist that the Cockroach Robot Club’s motivation in doing this must be a desire to get more crumbs of food. After all, just **IMAGINE** how many crumbs of food you’ll be able to get with that superhuman robot on your side!!! Buckets full of crumbs!!! ”
Ben mocks the idea that creating AGI is about money. For him, creating AGI is about finding a pathway to making himself more intelligent, and appreciating the world in entirely novel ways.
Read more about Ben’s company, Novamente, at Novamente.net. The site links to articles that mention Novamente at BBC.com and ComputerWorld.com.
