Alt approaches to AGI

50+ year old attempts at creating AGI have not been successful. It is possible that AGI cannot be generated from current methods and technologies; the wrong tool is being used, sort of like trying to build a 747 with a toothbrush. Electromagnetism, silicon and Von Neumann architectures may not ever have the capacity to achieve AGI even allowing for continued increases in processing, storage and memory and architectural shifts such as parallelism.

Other substrates might work
Getting around the rigidity of Von Neumann, mathematical, logic-based, computational approaches, symbolic approaches and traditional computers, other computational substrates like quantum computing, DNA computing, etc. might work and also those that humans have not yet invented, discovered or exploited for this purpose like light, air, memes and information. There must be other substrates, and other viable approaches that are not constrained by mathematics and logic.

Information as a substrate
Narrowly, the only existing example of general intelligence is the human brain and the basic requirements of AGI are self-replication and self-improvement. Considering self-replication, there are many examples of more effective self-replication than humans, for example, memes, disease and microbes. Considering self-improvement, memes also self-improve more effectively than humans as they are refined through repetition, and have the unbounded ceiling for improvement of true AGI.

Taking advantage of the self-reproducing and self-improving properties and using memes and information as a novel computing substrate might be one way of extending AGI progress.

Information as a substrate could be developed symbiotically with a very broadly applicable new understanding of the laws of physics based on information and entropy as opposed to mass and energy.

Machine creativity

What are the relevant differences between humans and the machines of the future?

The general claim is that the uniqueness of humans is creativity, imagination and fallibility.

Creativity is rationality
Examining and demystifying the concept of creativity suggests that machines can be every bit as creative as humans. Creativity is merely a new idea or approach, a novel solution to a problem, a fresh representation; a process, a personality attribute, a mindset, an approach to life.

Alternative intelligences/machines can use brute force to rationally crunch through the set of all possible answers to a problem and suggest which are best. Much human creativity comes from "out-of-the-box" thinking which is largely applying knowledge, structure or skills from another domain, and also making mistakes (penicillin, 3M's post-its, Nike's waffle soles, painter Apelles' foam depiction, etc.). Machines can easily do all of this and more, testing a wide range of "out-of-the-box" domains and applying inverse or orthogonal analysis to incorporate human creativity by trial and error.

It is not clear that humans have any positive aspect that cannot be replicated or superseded by an alternative intelligence/machine. Therefore, nothing appears to be lost in the potential extinguishment of the human form as intelligence evolves to non-biological substrates.

Reducing US greenhouse emissions

The Kyoto Protocol, the developed world's effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions relative to their 1990 levels, has largely failed. Only the UK and Germany have managed to reduce their emissions, in part due to the implementation of market mechanisms via a cap-and-trade system.

The US has increased emissions 16% since 1990 and China and India, while not precisely covered by the Kyoto Protocol, have been increasing emissions and are together with the US the biggest three polluters. The International Energy Agency predicts that China will surpass the US as the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter in 2009.

What is the lowest handing fruit in the US for reducing emissions?
Petroleum is responsible for the majority of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Of the four energy-using sectors; transportation, industrial, commercial and residential, transportation contributes a disproportionately large share of the US's carbon dioxide emissions. The chart below from the US Department of Energy shows expected emissions by sector and fuel type.

Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/

Industrial and Commercial Sectors not appropriate to address
According to Stanford energy economist and policy advisor, James Sweeney, the industrial sector has a complex energy usage mix and is not the best area to address first. Commercial energy use, with an emphasis on fluorescent lighting, is also not an obvious area for initial pursuit since the sector is one of the most efficient.

Transportation restructuring - the biggest impact
The single biggest impact on reducing US carbon dioxide emissions would be a redesign of motor vehicles, in particular, incorporating more stringent fuel efficiency requirements and redefining “truck” to not apply to passenger vehicles such as PT Cruisers, SUVs, etc.

Residential sector - additional gains
In the residential segment, a substantial improvement in energy efficiency can be gained by switching from incandescent bulb lighting to compact fluorescent bulb lighting. It appears likely that California and other forward-thinking states will pass compact fluorescent lighting legislation and that more efficient mercury-free bulbs will be introduced in the next few years.

End of religion

The positive aspect of religion seems to encompass three things: 1. Offering an explanation for the unknown, the as yet scientifically unproven, 2. (most impactfully) Providing comfort in uncomfortable matters such as death, one's own and the deaths of others and in other unpleasantries; war, pestilence, disease, misfortune, etc. and 3. Providing a moral code of behavioral conduct.

It is easy to see many ways in which religion could become evolutionarily outcompeted, eventually disappearing. First, as science's accelerating advances continue, the unexplained territory shrinks to asymptotically small proportions. Second, if death becomes obsolescent through life extension, there is no longer a need to postulate anything that might occur after death and no need to comfort the non-dying. Third, there are many appropriate moral behavioral norms, particularly those which do not involve religious models or the introduction of artificiality (for example, sinning exonerated by confessing).

It will become increasing difficult for religion to persist in the face of radical life extension and eventual immortality. Everyone is their own Jesus in this new empowered age of agency. Implicit shifts away from religion are codified in the recent publication of books bringing scrutiny and analysis to religion: "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris, "God is not Great" by Christopher Hitchens, "Breaking the Spell" by Daniel Dennett and others.

Cryonics and the art of the long view

How surprising it is that those with a long view in thinking and behavior are not those with traditional religious beliefs but include sponsors and supporters of the Long Now Foundation and cryonicists. The Long Now Foundation has trans-millennial views on the order of 10,000 years, roughly the forward counterbalance to the history to date of human civilization. Cryonicists, in general, have a practical stance, simultaneously acknowledging the unproven nature of reanimation and assessing and focusing on contributing to the key challenges of the next 200-400 years, as opposed to the 20-50 year (or less) timeframe that appears to be implicit in current individual and political thinking.

Erstwhile cryonicists will do well to remain practically absorbed. It is easy to imagine a long-distanced future visit to the Met, where alongside the Egyptian tombs and mummies, dewars have been emptied to display frozen heads, bodies and pets. Excited expedition excavators from the three key sites, Alcor/Arizona, Cryonics Institute/Michigan and Suspended Animation/Florida pose next to their digs.

Stored possessions and artifacts of the time are neatly arranged in an exhibit with terse placards. "Little is known about the belief systems of these peoples. Middle-era Americans carried many nonmalleable gadgets though it is not clear how useful they were to daily life. It was not atypical for one person to carry cell phones, MP3 players, laptops, power cords, PDAs, cameras, recording devices, cords, batteries and recharging units at all times. [Portable lightweight inexhaustible energy source] was not yet available and devices were not yet appropriately nano-miniaturized and physically embedded."

Massive info processing needed

Step function improvements in information processing and communications capabilities are needed now and in the future.

Massive amounts of data are becoming increasingly available and currently humanity only has narrowband access to these biomedical, genetic, astronomical, particle accelerator and other data sets.

Large and diverse data sets requiring storage, processing and upload/download will only continue to proliferate. For example, as the web goes 3-D, rapid video, audio and data download and upload are needed, as objects become IP tagged, sensor and RFID networks require instantaneous data collection and summarization.

Scientific philosophers such as Anders Sandberg correctly point to information processing capability as the main limit on any society's growth and development. To attain a new level and not just asymptote out on the current plateau, a re-envisioning of information processing is necessary.

As with energy, some alternatives are being explored at the fringes but there is no real replacement methodology on the horizon. Also as with energy, there may be a dearth of real progress until the present means is more substantially threatened, however this point is coming very soon in information processing as compared with energy.

Radical Life Extension and Population Growth

The world population just passed 6.6 billion in mid-June and is estimated to reach 7 billion in 2012.

The Conventional Thinking
The conventional thinking is that the world population will continue to grow to a peak of about 9 billion in 2050 before starting to decline. The chart below shows the number of years it took for each billion to be added to the population.

Source: Wikipedia

Another Approach
In reality, many factors could change how population growth will actually occur. The basic inputs to population growth estimates are fertility rates and mortality rates.

Fertility rates have dramatically dropped since 1960 (push play at this Gapminder link to watch the global decline in fertility rates and increase in longevity 1960-2005). The accelerating informationalization of the developing world and increasing literacy and participation by women in the economy could trigger even greater drops in fertility rates than have been included in the UN and other projections.

Mortality rates could see even more change than fertility rates. Disease treatment and prevention, personal genomics and radical life extension technologies could all trigger hugely discontinuous increases in longevity.

What would the world be like with huge populations of baby boomers and others living healthily into their 100s, 120s, and beyond? Six-seven generation families could be alive simultaneously.

Immortality
At some point in the next few or several years, longevity will likely start to edge up in fast spurts and plateaus until immortality is ultimately achieved, probably synergistically with digital options such as uploading mindfiles (for backup at minimum!) and downloading into any variety of human and other corporeal forms (Hack your Body!).

Wikinomics Ideagoras

There are many great perspective-shifting points in Wikinomics, a 2006 book by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams.

One of the most interesting ideas is how organizations (companies, teams, groups, institutions, etc.) are opening beyond their traditional boundaries to solicit external contributions to their problems and challenges. Consumer products behemoth Proctor & Gamble, for example, currently sources 35% of new product and service ideas externally from participative global R&D communities such as InnoCentive where scientists solve R&D problems for cash rewards.

Ideagoras
Wikinomics refers to online ideas marketplaces like InnoCentive as ideagoras. Other examples of global ideas, R&D and project communities in life sciences and technology include NineSigma, InnovationXchange Network, Eureka Medical, YourEncore, Innovation Relay Centres and TopCoder.

Ideagoras give a huge boost to efficiency in at least two primary ways:

1) Multidisciplinary approaches accelerate advance of human progress
Ideagoras expose challenges to participants from both within the field and across many other fields allowing infinite creativity to be applied. In the gold mining example in Wikinomics, a plethora of diverse solutions using applied math, advanced physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics, organic solutions to inorganic problems, etc. were received, 50% of which were completely new ideas and over 80% of which were useful.

Ideagoras allow a wildly diverse and large group of participants to apply their special tools and approaches to problems. In this saturation of approaches, a fuller solution set of possible answers is quickly obtained and the pace of the Earth's meme encephalization, the increasing interconnectedness of human minds extending and implementing knowledge and information, is quickened.

2) More effective use of human capital - mindset of abundance
Ideagoras allow human capital to be more effectively utilized both inside and outside the organization. Internally, just as companies may be using only 10% of their patented IP, they are most assuredly also underutilizing their staff in terms of project fit vs. skills and interests. Instead of being assigned to projects, staff members could self-select projects of value and interest by participating in remunerative ideagoras or open-source practice communities as in the software example.

The new abundance of external human capital resources promotes the corporate mentality that a land grab to get the best people on staff is no longer required, just the need to provide the best project incentives. An entity's workforce can extend way beyond any salaried employees, to those employed elsewhere and others. Ideagoras provide a tremendous opportunity for retired or underemployed participants, such as women, to find activities where they can make a useful contribution.

This is a Transparent Society

As with any new technology, there is the useful application and the dark side. Google Street Views, real street-level photographs of places, is no exception.

The benefit of Google Street Views is being able to virtually experience a place without having to go there physically, such as a tour of Times Square. Most of the time, specific people are not yet identifiable, but sometimes they are in varying embarrassing or even possibly illegal situations.

Is it worth it? Too late!
Some debate whether the perceived privacy loss is worth it but it has already happened. Even the usually forward thinking Internet rights watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation exemplifies the mistaken understanding of the current world, as staff attorney Kevin Bankston remarks that "Everyone expects a certain level of anonymity as they move about their daily lives."

In reality, we have already been a surveillance society for some time. If anything, Google Street Views brings a more explicit realization of this and as David Brin importantly points out, an open availability of the information.

Privacy was already lost in many ways but especially when the cost of audio and video recording equipment dropped, the reach and quality improved and devices became ubiquitous. The technology is small and can used in unnoticed ways. One has to assume that everything one does or says in public or semi-public environments is being recorded and will be increasingly played back. There are opportunities in this as lifecammer TV is showing and also risks but most importantly inevitability. What are creative ways to provide value in a transparent society?

Do bits want to be free?

There is a lot of focus on the question of whether IP protection fosters or inhibits growth and whether bits should be free or proprietary. In reality, the response to this question can already be seen in present economics.

There are more types of offers available in a broader marketplace with more sophisticated value propositions than ever before. One example of this the wide availability of hybrid offerings - different flavors of free and pay versions of the same product or service.

For example, Linux is free but companies pay millions each year for a related service, support contracts. Individuals are paying for offsite data backups of their personal information (read: trusting offsite data backups of their personal information). Products as services, e.g.; SOA, salesforce.com, etc. are expanding, with the infinite feedback loop of the Internet available for instantaneous rating, ranking and review.

The same cable television show can be watched live, TIVO'd, downloaded onto an iPod, viewed for free on YouTube, rented via Netflix or the local video rental store or purchased on DVD just to name seven distribution mechanisms, each with its own price point. Consumers are paying for the attributes - the quality, timeliness, convenience and control of the content. Paying for attributes is not new (e.g.; higher priced convenience store milk) but the number of attributes has increased as well as the purchaser's ability to control the experience he/she has acquiring and interacting with the product.

Attribute pricing models will likely continue to proliferate, imagine customers paying for their point of maximum utility on an attribute gradient, a security/privacy gradient for example, where different levels of the service provider not tracking and selling user profiles and activities is more expensive. When will life Flashblock be available?

Annoyance-based models are another example of attribute pricing already in existence. For example, directory assistance 411 costs $0.50 - $1.50 per call where as 1-800-FREE-411 is free but requires the caller to listen to an advertisement before obtaining the requested information. Similarly some European wireless carriers are contemplating free devices and service if the customer accepts advertising-based service.

The primary principle of economics is value exchange, not price or protection. If it is not competitive to be free, or not competitive to be protected, the market will align to optimum value exchanges as can been seen on a daily basis.