I attended my first Singularity Summit last year, and was surprised and happy about the breadth of topics covered. Sure, artificial intelligence took up a lion’s share of the presentations, but there was plenty of synthetic biology, nanotech, and general scientific philosophy to keep my head reeling for weeks afterward. Watson serves as an exciting center piece for the 2011 Summit, but you should still expect the computer’s victory over Jeopardy! champions to push the conversation to every corner of technological interest. And with Jennings himself giving an address, you can bet there will be plenty of wry, yet insightful humor about the practical implications of Watson’s success.
If the first video of Jennings getting whooped by Watson doesn’t show off his cool under fire demeanor, the second clip (a favorite of mine from his record breaking run on Jeopardy!) definitely will.
As always, we should expect futurist Ray Kurzweil, who’ll be opening the Summit, to play an influential role. He’s been testing out his material on the Watson victory since April, so hopefully we’ll get a nuanced and insightful look at how this development shapes his vision for the future. With his predictions forecasting nothing less than humanity’s complete blending with machines, you can bet Kurzweil will have much to say about Watson’s impressive language skills and how human such a computer system may really be.
The Singularity Summit is always a mind-awakening experience. Last year I got to play music on water, talk to a child robot, and watch a magician trick some of the smartest minds in the world. If you’re at all interested, I recommend you register and attend. At $300 a day (or $485 for both days), Singularity Summit 2011 isn’t the cheapest conference out there, but it is one of the best.
As always, Singularity Hub will keep you up to date on Summit news as we lead up to its arrival in October. Check in with us regularly to hear more about the speakers, special guests, and surprises in store.
[image credits: Singularity Summit]
[sources: Singularity Summit]