The Future Is Here Today...Robots, Genetics, AI, Longevity, Singularity

This is a guest post written by entrepreneur and visionary David Orban.  He is an Advisor and the European Lead of the Singularity University. He is a Founder and Chief Evangelist of WideTag, Inc., a high technology start-up company providing the infrastructure for an open Internet of Things. David cuts across the limits of deep specialization to contribute to the new renaissance. He explains,“My vision is at the crossroads of technology and society as defined by their co-evolution.” His personal motto is,“What is the question I should be asking?” This concept is his vehicle to accelerating cycles of invention and innovation in order to build the new world ahead.

The Singularity Summit 2009 was a resounding success in New York this past weekend, Oct 3-4 2009.  For those who are not familiar with the Singularity Summit, it is the most prominent, high profile annual event focused on the Singularity.  Over 800 attendees crowded the prestigious venue of the 92 Street Y, an important landmark in the cultural scene of the city.

During the two days of the conference there were over 30 speeches and panels, luckily in a single sequence without the burden and compromise that parallel sessions so too often put on the attendees. From the creation of an Artificial General Intelligence, the Whole Brain Emulation approach, Synthetic Neurobiology, Intelligent Agent, there were many somewhat technical sessions, interspersed with others that were more generally concerned with cognition, and its biases, quantum computing, or lighter but not less important subjects such as autonomous vehicles, the petaflop macroscope, and others. Surely there will be detailed reports of many if not all of these. All the talks were recorded by both SIAI and 92Y, and the videos should be online soon.

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singularity-summit-2009In a radical shift from previous years, the  fourth annual Singularity Summit is slated to take place October 3-4 in New York instead of technology hotbed Silicon Valley.  The Singularity Summit, hosted by the SIAI, for several years has been the premier singularity focused event of the year.  Last year the hub attended the summit in San Jose, CA and produced the web’s most comprehensive review of the event – we hope to do the same this year as well.

Headlining the event will of course be de facto singularity frontman Ray Kurzweil.  Also speaking at the event will be dozens of other distinguished individuals from the scientific and philosophical community, including David Chalmers, Ben Goertzel, Aubrey De Grey, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Peter Thiel, and William Dickens.  The full list and schedule of speakers is located here.

Below is a promotional video about the summit:

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The SIAI (Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) recently posted the videos from its Singularity Summit 2007 on their website. These videos offer an amazing perspective on the singularity from the biggest names in the field (Ray Kurzweil, Peter Norvig, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Barney Pell, and more). I am still working my way through all of the videos, but already one of my favorites is the discussion with Ray Kurzweil:

http://www.singinst.org/media/singularitysummit2007/raykurzweil

Logo from SIAI Website