10:10 AM
Douglas Hofstadter has just been introduced and is beginning his presentation.
Uh-oh, so far (after five minutes) he's just talking and not using any slides; that makes it a bit harder to follow what he's saying and also blog at the same time.
I see he is holding a few handwritten notes. Apparently he is not using PowerPoint.
Ah, finally! He's showing a slide that starts from the "Kurzweil/Moravec visions" and goes off in two directions:
- "Hofstadter's concerns" -- humanity being left in the dust by our technoprogeny
- "Bill Joy's concerns" -- we are smothered by self-reproducing technodust
He says he strongly recommends Ray's recent book, although he accuses Ray of doing quite a bit of "hand-waving" about how future technological progress will be achieved.
He says that computers achieving human-like common sense is, in his opinion, "pie in the sky."
Now he's showing a few slides containing simple cartoons he's drawn...I'm not sure I get the point he's trying to make...the cartoons are humorous, but, as he admits, they raise issues without expressing his opinion about the issues. So why bother? Hmm...
He's says that he does not necessarily doubt that so many remarkable changes will occur -- such as those suggested by Ray's book -- but he has strong doubts that they will happen on a scale of decades, as opposed to centuries.
He says that mixing so much of what he calls "science fiction" together with more "serious" speculation makes one wonder about the "sanity" of the author.
And that concludes Douf Hofstadter's talk.
10:45 AM
Nick Bostrom says he will speak about existential risk.
Risk can be measured by scope, intensity, and duration. The biggest and worst are existential, i.e., threatening the continued existence of humanity. He's also distingushing between anthropogenic (arising from human activity) and non-anthropogenic existential risks.
If you know Nick's work, then you'll be familiar with Bangs, Crunches, Shrieks, and Whimpers. He is listing and describing them now for the audience. Number one on the list of "Bangs" is nanotech-enabled global war.
He tried to cover a lot of very dense material in his talk. Unfortunately I think it was generally too much for his audience. Nick is fun to listen to, but his work is so academic that it takes a lot of concentrated thought to absorb.
: : : : : :
We're taking a short beak now...
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
Thank you Mike, you are always so wise, even when just summarizing this event. love
David
Posted by: David Ish Shalom | September 18, 2006 at 02:03 PM