Nanotechnology and life

Accelerating Change Conference 2003

To learn more about these topics, come to this conference!

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Accelerating Change Conference
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Exploring the Future of Accelerating Change

What: Accelerating Change Conference (ACC2003)
The world's first multidisciplinary conference on science,
technology, business, & humanist issues in accelerating change.
Where: Tressider Union at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
When: September 12 - 14, 2003 (Fri-Sun)
Who: Business professionals, civic leaders, humanists, investors,
journalists, philosophers, scholars, scientists, students,
technologists, writers, and many others
Cost: $395 ($295 before July 28), Student $150/$100, Virtual $99
Web: http://www.accelerating.org

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What will the world be like if Moore's Law (the exponential growth in
computing power) holds for another 30 years?

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ACC2003 Presentations, Debates & Discussions (partial list)*
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KEYNOTES
Ray Kurzweil (via Teleportec's 3D holography): "The Singularity is Near:
Multifold Trends in Accelerating Change"
James N. Gardner: "The Selfish Biocosm Hypothesis"
Steve Jurvetson (DFJ): "Venture Capital in a World of Accelerating Change"

PLENARIES
Howard Bloom (video and teleconference Q&A): "'An Infinity of Singularities:
From Big Bang to the 23rd Century'"
Robert Wright: "Technology and Interdependence: Nonzero Sumness as the Arc
of History"

DEBATES
Ray Kurzweil & Michael Denton: "Evaluating Kurzweil's 'Law of Accelerating
Returns'"
James N. Gardner, William A. Dembski, and Nick Bostrom: "An Anthropic
Universe: Replication, 'Intelligent Design,' or Ensemble?"

BREAKOUTS
William H. Calvin: "Social Symbiosis, Stability, & Foresight"
James H. Crawford (NASA): "Autonomy, Robotics, & World-Modeling"
Matt Dennig (Nuance): "The Linguistic User Interface"
Keith Devlin (CSLI): "Interface, Information, Communication"
K. Eric Drexler (Foresight): "Nanotechnology & Nanoscience"
Ben Goertzel: "Artificial General Intelligence"
Scott A. Hunt: "Accelerating Change & World Peace"
Ross Mayfield (Socialtext): "Social Software Solutions"
John R. Koza (Genetic Programming): "Biologically Inspired Computing"
Paul H. Ray: "Values and Consciousness Trends"
Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly & Assoc.): "Diffusion of New Memes in the Media"
Greg Papadopoulos (Sun): "Network Entropy: A Driver of Change"
John Smart: "Development & the Singularity: Understanding Accelerating
Change"

*Some sessions will occur simultaneously. For details, see the ACC2003
schedule: http://www.accelerating.org

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For More Information
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* Conference overview & schedule
* Full list of speakers with bios
* Sponsorship opportunities
* And much more!

Go to: http://www.accelerating.org

ACC2003 is a service of the Institute for Accelerating Change (IAC), a
501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation based in Los Angeles. IAC's mission is to
help society explore the risks and benefits of the accelerating rate of
change through our conferences, publications, reading groups, websites, and
sense of community.

Please forward this email to your future-oriented, change-aware friends and
colleagues. Thank you!

 

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Many nanotechnology working models and ideas are still far away from reaching what many media say about the utopia of nanotech

Many working macro objects like engines, electric engines, mechanics and the wheel itself arent of any use in nano scale machines


Until now the only proof that its possible to build small nanobots to do a lot of thing for us is this:

We already have the most advanced nanotechnology robots/machines! Ever!

Its us! Animals and biology in general..

We are the ultimate proof that nanotechnology surpasses our current robot technology.

If we can replicate what many bacteria do we can resolve alot of problems..
And As many composiums and research as been doing, is finding that bacteria are indeed what we must imitate if we want our utopian idea of nanoscale machines

After so many centuries were still trying to keep up with mother nature advanced nanoscale biomachines

 

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Perhaps you would like this subject I started a long time ago:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14814

 

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Sentience in nanobots? Um, no!

Sentience is human-like intelligence (for my argument at least). To be intelligent requires a neural network of some kind. You can crunch a neural network with standard computer processing, but it doesn't work very well. So we'd need to build artificial neurons - what's more efficient than a version of the real thing. Enough neurons to build any kind of human-intelligence is probably going to be a lot. You could probably find out how much of the human brain is for intelligence & training and not nerve processing/etc by looking at the mass of humans and the mass of their brains, versus the mass of our ancestors versus the mass of their brains. I bet the amount of our brain being used for intelligence is going to be quite large. Even with nano-neurons, things can only get so small. So I don't think they would get beyond using a form of artificial dna. That does not alone produce intelligence. No need to worry.

When I think of nanotechnology, I think of manipulating protons and neurons individually. I don't normally think of nanobots. You guys are dreaming.

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Manipulating atoms has many uses already. You could build better products, create fuels from anything (mountains even, who need 'em), and precisely manipulate biology.

I would think that with nanotechnology we could better understand the human body, and eventually replace broken parts or even innovate. Need a new eye? No problem, what frequencies would you like to see?

Besides, who needs nanobots to wipe their ass? My nanobots would take over the functions of my crappy organs (pun intended). They'd take the place of my stomach by maybe reassembling air into food molecules. Or I could eat rocks and they could prepare that for my system.

But since they'll never be intelligent enough, there will always be work for humans. (unless we build huge artificial brains to control them all, bwahahaa)

 

biotechnology = nanotechnology

nanoscale and all the basic principles are the same in each technology, but one is artificial made by man, but is based on biotechnology
In theory and basic mechanics biotech is the same thing as nanotech

 

I see we think alike, sure your not my clone?

 

I'm reading a book about Nanotechnology right now called Nanocosm.

Cheggitau.. The author is mentioning a collective opinion of high-ranking IBM officials saying that digital isn't going to have much of a future in computing. They're saying analog computing is the future. Think about it. What if computing were done in a different number system than binary, say, base ten, or base infinity. Each bit could contain an extraordinary amount of data, provided it doesn't get lost from static. What if computers didn't use a number system, but worked somehow to suit our needs, closer to the human-level. (Application Layer.. if anyone knows computer networking)

They're turning to analog because of biomimicry, which is copying natures' designs. Our bodies and brains use analog. Today's computers are on the large part, serial. They chew through math problems linearly, one after another, after another.. These guys are talking about analog computers' components doing problems all at once, just like how our brains do.

If our goal is to create human-like computers, who's to say they won't become self-aware? After all, we're also machines that became self-aware... somehow. I, personally think it's a bit scary: biomimicry.

 

It sounds to me like you are implying the use of neurons that humans use for their calculations. As I said, neurons aren't small. Our head is filled with them. I'd like to see you fit that in a nanobot. No brain, no self-awareness. I think nanobots would have a nerve system (to take in input), but otherwise it follows preprogrammed instructions via some (biological or mechanical or electromagnetic) binary information storage method.

Neurons are no doubt, the only way we're going to be able to produce artificial intelligence. I think our immediate ancestor had a brain about 3/4ths the weight of ours, but I don't think they had our creativity or intelligence. So minus the extra baggage for input/output of our bodies, a smart computer ready brain would easily fit into a computer case. But no nanobots.

Read up on neural networks. A cool feature is that they learn. People have taught their computers to play backgammon even with artificial neural networks. It even had a higher than 50/50 success rate in competition i believe.

The only downside is the training involved. It took hundreds of thousands of games to train an ANN for backgammon. You can preweight the network though, so once you train one for all the computer instructions they need, you can just copy it to the others. (I'm not entirely sure how you would do that with a living neural network - I guess you'd have to build it carefully)

 

Biological neurons aren’t small with 50mircometer minimum.
Biological neurons are also very slow with a firing rate no faster then 30 times a second and an impulse speed (ionic) a million times slower then an electrical impulse in silicon.

Electronic Neural networks though are the future for AI.

 

Wouldn't it be possible for the nanomachines to communicate with each other, creating a neural-network? So all of the machines would be part of one whole thing(organism?)

 

and hence the emulations of biological life is completed.

 

If you've ever looked into a microscope at bacteria, some of those things can really move! What if you used E. Coli's 800 RPM spinning flagella to propel your nanomachines that could communicate with each other.. What if in the process of copying nature, you found ways to "one-up" it?

That's what scientists are speculating and working on. Even looking at reproducing photosynthesis for an energy source. I mean, nature doesn't work perfectly. It just works.

 

I don't think communicating nanobots would help much. Neurons get wrapped around one another is really complex ways. So if you outfit each nanobot with as many neurons as you can, and then make them communicate via wireless (perhaps), you aren't increasing the power of the network much. Even if you used a bunch of different frequencies to try and increase throughput I don't know if that would come close to what a neural network is like.

Not to mention I don't think it would work on the fundamental basis that neural networks are trained. If you optionally add primitive communication to try and make a smarter network it wouldn't really work in that regard. (or you'd start weighing all the bonds screwily)

That's just trying to use many little brains for one big one though. Since they are electronic maybe they could save their single brains and then use other versions for different modes of communication (as in the number of bots involved). Still the issue of throughput and how neurons get arranged.

But maybe if you could dedicate some parts of them for intelligent communication - like people collaberating on some work. Again I dunno if you could fit in enough neurons to make it worthwhile. My latter paragraph had my best idea I think.

Edit: For power, human bodies are warm...

Cool stuff.

I hope people are working on electronic neurons... I read some stuff about people designing circuits that were better suited to neural networks than standard computers, but that probably comes nowhere close to a proper one with neurons.

(Disclaimer: I'm merely speculating)