Jul
27
A few years back, a computer won a chess match against the world’s most highly rated player. More recently, a computer beat a pair of highly skilled human competitors on the game show Jeopardy! IBM, the company responsible for building both of these remarkable machines, announced that Watson, the computer that won on Jeopardy!, is …
Jul
20
We can only imagine that, some 6 million years ago, when hominids began to stand upright, there was a tremendous controversy amongst the proto- australopithecines as to whether assuming this new posture was “natural.” Weren’t Lucy and her ilk simply violating their most basic nature? The debate has continued ever since, as humans have learned …
Jul
19
We’re asking each of the participants in The World Transformed to give us their thoughts on one major coming transformation. Here are Sonia Arrison’s thoughts on human upgrading and enhancement Why should we be concerned about this transformation? The ability to enhance and augment humans will affect all of us, even those who choose not …
Jul
18
Some ponderings from J. Storrs Hall in the form of excerpts from his book, Nanofuture. A well-used basketball is covered with a layer of sweat, oils, dead skin cells, and living bacteria. This layer is thicker on the scale of the basketball than the layer of life, the biosphere, is on the scale of the …
Jul
13
The World Transformed 2, Part 3 The digital age has fundamentally transformed humanity’s relationship with information. Through the advent of personal computer, Internet, smart phone, and social media technology, we have access to knowledge, to transactions, and to interpersonal communication that far transcends what was possible a few decades ago. The digitization of information has …
Jul
13
We’re asking each of the participants in The World Transformed to give us their thoughts on one major coming transformation. Here are Christine Peterson’s answers: If you were to pick just one current or coming transformation that you would advise people to focus on, which one would that be? While all of the transformations covered …
Jul
08
We’re asking each of the participants in The World Transformed to give us their thoughts on one major coming transformation. Here are Aubrey de Grey’s answers: If you were to pick just one current or coming transformation that you would advise people to focus on, which one would that be? The defeat of aging, obviously …
Jul
05
We’re asking each of the participants in The World Transformed to give us their thoughts on one major coming transformation. Here are Dr. Terry Grossman’s answers: If you were to pick just one current or coming transformation that you would advise people to focus on, which one would that be? As a practicing physician I …