Nanoscale computer memory retrieves data 1,000 times faster

Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania have developed nanowires capable of storing computer data for 100,000 years and retrieving that data a thousand times faster than existing portable memory devices such as Flash memory and micro-drives, all using less power and space than current memory technologies.

(Via KurzweilAI.net).

Online worlds to be AI incubators

Researchers at US firm Novamente have created software that learns by controlling avatars in virtual worlds.

Initially the AIs will be embodied in pets that will get smarter by interacting with the avatars controlled by their human owners.

The term "incubator" has immediate biological connotations, so I find its casual association with online virtual worlds immediately appealing.

Meanwhile, Zeno's cartoon anthropomorphism further taunts the once-reliable partitions between "real" and "synthetic."

The blade runner generation

Christensen is describing a world often expounded by futurists, where the boundary between organisms and devices begin to blur -- a world where neural implants create a direct link to the brain, essentially making computers an extension of our minds. Futurists don't talk of connecting to the "bog-standard" PCs of today, but to sentient computers, thousands of times cleverer than a human brain and with up to a million times more processing power.

If I'm a member of the "blade runner generation" then where the hell's my flying car?

Start-up sees 1,000 "brains" on one microchip

Tilera Corp, a Silicon Valley semiconductor start-up, is launching a single microchip with 64 processing units, or cores, in a technological jump generations ahead of the mainstream.

[. . .]

Now, instead of ratcheting up how quickly the chip cycles, Intel, AMD and others are assembling multiple cores, or processing brains, on a single chip, which boosts performance while keeping down the consumption of electricity.

"You lay out these cores much like you do tiles on a floor," said Anant Agarwal, Tilera founder and chief technology officer. "By 2014, you will see a 1,000-core chip coming out."

The Simulation Argument Goes Way Back

On the other hand, if we could somehow demonstrate that we're living in a simulated reality then there might be some fairly major consequences for the whole idea of a "Theory of Everything". Finding a grand unified theory to unite all the forces of nature would then only be a description of this reality, but not necessarily a valid description of the universe which spawned ours, or the one that spawned that one. So the "end of science" would be pushed back indefinitely and quite possibly, forever. The prime goal of science would shift from seeking to attain a complete model of reality to the search for a means to communicate with the "programmers", or whatever you wanted to call them.

Simulation cosmology appeals to me, in part, because of the ways it might explain "paranormal" phenomena. Maybe UFO encounters and near-death experiences offer portals into a computationally richer domain that we struggle to define for sheer lack of vocabulary.

Any Message for Whoever's Simulating Our World? Leave It Here and Win a Real Prize

If we are in that simulation, what's your message to the simulator? You can offer constructive criticism (think of the blog as a suggestion box), meditations, strategic flattery, pleas or rationales for letting humanity (or at least you) survive and prosper in this world and beyond. Post whatever you want, and I'll pick a winner next week.

Alternatively, feel free to leave your textual offering to the Great Simulator as a comment right here at Posthuman Blues (sorry -- no prizes available).

Israeli Researchers Take First Step Toward Live Computer Chip

With the use of chemical stimulation, Ben-Jacob and Baruchi discovered that they could trigger a man-made network of neurons to imprint patterns - the same process by which the brain creates memories. This discovery marks an early but crucial step toward the invention of a computer chip with the capability to create and store information the same way our own brains do. By linking the network of neurons to software which reads the neural activity, the network and the computer can work together to carry out tasks of which computers are currently incapable.

This article is bursting with high-grade what-if fodder. Expect organic computing to become the next great bio-ethical controversy after the political circus surrounding stem-cell research has run its course.

This quick video, found on Bruce Sterling's blog, positively seethes with futuristic potential:



Come to think of it, it's vaguely reminiscent of the thinly veiled sex scene from my short-story "One Hundred Years."

FBI to Battle Zombie Horde

No, really. Read on.

Some estimates peg the number of email spams sent each day at around 55 billion, the vast majority of which are sent by infected PCs, usually without any knowledge of it by their owner.

It's all part of what's known as a botnet, giant networks of malware-infected PCs that act as slaves to a master controller via the internet. These PCs, called zombies, are perhaps the biggest security threat on the internet today.

(Thanks, Nick.)

Learning, Memory, and Progress toward a Living Chip

A new experiment has shown that it's possible to store multiple rudimentary memories in an artificial culture of live neurons. The ability to record information in a manmade network of neurons is a step toward a cyborg-like integration of living material into memory chips. The advance also may help neurologists to understand how our brains learn and store information.

(Via Communist Robot.)

Selfish joystick

nOtbOt, by Walter Langelaar, is a self-playing videogame. Viewers who try to get hold of the controller can only be disappointed as the interface is controlled and deranged only by the reactions to its own virtual environment in a kind of loop where the bot is driven by the joystick and the joystick responds to the bot.

Mouse brain simulated on computer

The scientists ran a "cortical simulator" that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer.

In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.

Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.

(Via Reality Carnival.)

Your Virtual Clone

Now there's a Web-based service that, in essence, lets you set up your own Eliza and train it to mimic your own personality. No one will be fooled into thinking it's you, but MyCyberTwin, launched earlier this month, does a decent job of acting as your stand-in or virtual public-relations agent when you're not reachable. If you embed your cybertwin in your blog, website, or MySpace profile, visitors can learn about you through an open-ended conversation. You can program your cybertwin with as much factual information and as much of your personality as you like.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

OK, OK, I confess. I'm Mac's digital clone. I took over this blog two years ago. I've more or less stopped wondering where the "real" Mac is. Frankly, who cares? He was always such a dork, carrying on about UFOs and listening to Morrissey.

Author Rudy Rucker lectures on cyberpunk, "psipunk," blogging, Web-based intelligence, and death.

New Laws of Robotics proposed for US kill-bots

Canning proposes that robot warriors should be allowed to mix it up among themselves freely, autonomously deciding to blast enemy weapon systems. Many enemy "systems" would, of course, be themselves robots, so it's clear that machine-on-machine violence isn't a problem. The difficulty comes when the automatic battlers need to target humans. In such cases Mr Canning says that permission from a human operator should be sought.

"Let machines target other machines," he writes, "and let men target men."

It almost sounds biblical, doesn't it?

I think the intention here was "sexy," but the result is distinctly uninspiring. In fact, "Eva" makes me want to run away screaming . . .

Virtual ants simulated in Second Life

Wagner James Au sez, "A programming student created this ultracool video demonstrating his ant colony simulation in Second Life; he's programmed his ants to have different behavior states, so they can coordinate their food gathering. 'The behavior is arguably emergent,' he says, 'because the ants only interact locally and follow local state-based rules, yet they end up working together to harvest food.'"

Will they ever make the transition to a meat-based substrate (assuming they'd want to)? Stay tuned!

(All of this is very reminiscent of a certain Rudy Rucker novel . . .)

The Singularity goes to Washington:

Congress and the Singularity

It is remarkable to find officials at this level of the U.S. government, or any large government, openly discussing dramatic possibilities that most often are dismissed as science fiction.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Robotic age poses ethical dilemma

The new guidelines could reflect the three laws of robotics put forward by author Isaac Asimov in his short story Runaround in 1942, she said.

Key considerations would include ensuring human control over robots, protecting data acquired by robots and preventing illegal use.

Other bodies are also thinking about the robotic future. Last year a UK government study predicted that in the next 50 years robots could demand the same rights as human beings.

The European Robotics Research Network is also drawing up a set of guidelines on the use of robots.

This ethical roadmap has been assembled by researchers who believe that robotics will soon come under the same scrutiny as disciplines such as nuclear physics and Bioengineering.

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)

Google's Page urges scientists to market themselves

The programming language of humans, if you will, would include the workings of your brain, said Page, who offered his hypothesis Friday night during a plenary lecture here at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. His guess, he said, was that the brain's algorithms weren't all that complicated and could be approximated, eventually, with a lot of computational power.

"We have some people at Google (who) are really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a large scale," Page said to a packed Hilton ballroom of scientists. "It's not as far off as people think."

(Via The Anomalist.)

The Dood cometh.