Human radical transformation?

Information flow

Out of frustration with imperfect existing solutions I often think about reference storage. My latest thoughts were captured on this diagram. It is based on my personal workflow, but I tried to shape it towards an idealised workflow sytem for knowledge workers and knowledge amateurs.

The map shows objects in green and storage areas in beige.

You can easily see where input originates (can be something you find online, an email or a random thought). Information you find can be saved, bookmarked or labelled. Bookmarks and labels have a similar purpose, but usually are realised as distinct features in most browsers.   There is also a History section (top-right), which is ongoing recording of your life/activities (digital immortality). It includes things like photo galleries and (for more advanced users)recordings by ActualSpy or a similar app.   When useful material is saved, it goes into a reference system, which to be usable needs to handle any type of data, but also provide at least tagging. Existing PIMs like WinOrganizer are heavy and usually don't support tagging properly. They also insist on moving everything into their storage system which makes adopting them a somewhat difficult decision.   On the other hand is a knowledge base system, which exists for the purpose of organising knowledge and ideas. It can take form of a set of mind maps (or possibly another technology, like a tag cloud).   Knowledge base integrates bookmarks, reference items, projects, actions and pretty much everything. Eventually (not shown here) thoughts may occur based on the knowledge there and a project will be initiated.   The core of the system is the GTD process, which is implemented quite well in ThinkingRock. The most complicated part is the reference. I think that's where most value may come from, but it's also the most difficult part technologically. For some reason, only Mac OS X applications like Notae exist that support tagging of notes.

Totalitarian nano-control

At Is CRN Playing Politics there is an old discussion of how nano should be controlled. The CRN position (at least at that stage) was that centralised control is the preferred option. The discussion shows pretty quickly that centralised control over nano in practice would mean totalitarian control over pretty much all modern technology and all computers. It is obvious that any government that got that sort of power would never relinquish it. And with nano nobody would ever be able to take it from them. Sad. Need to think better policies...

Singularity

He-he. :) Usually I found most of what Michael Anissimov wrote insightful and interesting. But this post about the Singularity is utter nonsense. Uncofortable with its unpredictability he tried to make a  case that human values could survive through it. :)

If I were the first superintelligence, I can tell you what I would do. I would rationally evaluate every aspect of my personality, improving it using Pareto optimisation and stronger forms of optimisation. I would develop and install powerful decision making subroutines that would ensure every decision I make is as close to optimal as possible. I would use these subroutines to evolve rapidly.

There is no single human value that I expect to keep. Books are of no use to superintelligence. Love and sex are something many of us already want to get rid of, a dark vestige of our evolutionary past. Games are inferior forms of Monte-Carlo simulations and evolutionary algorithms. Work will no longer be needed, thought alone would accomplish everything I might ever need. And the food I would need would be measured in ergs, not in calories...

The Singularity is not unpredictable. One thing we can certainly be sure of - change. Lots and lots of it. That's what you can expect after the Singularity.

Supertechnology areas - a concept map

How computers (the basis for modern science and technology) are related to immortality (the ultimate goal - one of them)? That's how:

Concept map of technology areas

The relationships are top-down. Map done with CMAP Tools.

Russian version.

P.S. This is called a concept map and is a proven effective congnitive tool for knowledge representation (descriptive knowledge - for algorithmic knowledge we have DRAKON).

Supertechnology areas - a concept map

How computers (the basis for modern science and technology) are related to immortality (the ultimate goal - one of them)? That's how:

Concept map of technology areas

The relationships are top-down. Map done with CMAP Tools.

Russian version.

P.S. This is called a concept map and is a proven effective congnitive tool for knowledge representation (descriptive knowledge - for algorithmic knowledge we have DRAKON).

Nanotech images

Some nanobots, DNA and a virus from Dutch transhumanist Philippe van Nedervelde and his e-spaces 3D graphics studio. BTW, many materials there have been created for Technocalyps, a 3-part documentary on transhumanism released in 1999 (!).

The foundations of future economy

Based on our current scientific and technological understanding we can predict (with reasonable confidence) the development of virtual reality, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.

Starting from the predictions of what is technologically possible (in a certain time-frame), we can deduce what is economically feasible and therefore likely.

In a number of stages the structure of the economy will be dramatically changed:

1. Development of virtual reality means that "white-collar" work will be moved to virtual workplaces and much of service and operator work will be done using telepresence.
2. Advanced robotics will gradually replace humans in physical labor (first using some telepresence, but later moving to mostly autonomous systems).
3. Artificial intelligence will replace humans in service, operator, manual (through robotics) and creative jobs.
4. As nanotechnology develops, it will replace robotics as a way to produce objects and do other work.
5. Eventually AI and robots will replace ordinary humans in all work. Only transhumans (cyborgs with augmented intelligence) will be working.
6. Improvement of artificial intelligence (as well as merging of human and AI and uploading) will make reproducing physical workplaces unnecessary, moving work from VR to "idea space"
7. As we move into the information space (through uploading) and change the environment (rebuilding the planet), physical work will increasingly become obsolete (everything important will be happening in the computer space). Only "software" will matter.

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