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.

Edit this entry at Future Wikia

Arguments for cryonics

I just posted the arguments for cryonics in a special "truth mapping" format. Everyone can post critiques, agree and disagree with the reasonsing, etc.

It starts with the evidence and concludes that cryonics is likely to work and signing up for a cryopreservation is a rational choice for everyone.

• The original argumentation graph in Russian.

A Map of All Science

All knowledge mapped

In 2002 Kevin Boyack and Katy Börner created a Map of All Science. This map was based of citation and other data from 7121 scientific journals. All scientific fields were grouped according to the citations between the clusters. Not surprisingly, the map makes a lot of sense.

Enjoy the map, read the presentation and think of any gaps in your knowledge you need to fill. It sure feels nice to know that the field of human knowledge is comprehensible. Even if I can't read every single journal that was used in this project, at least I can now get the "Big picture".

Original article: Mapping the Backbone of Science. Scientometrics, 2005. 64(3), 351-374

Look at this map as it was designed for Places & Spaces or look below for a simplier and clearer version.

Connections between scientific fields

Exercise for the reader: think about how NBIC-convergence could be displayed on the map or how super-technologies can be overlayed on this map.

Mapping the Mind

Mapping the Mind cover

"Gnothi seauton" was the precept inscribed in gold letter upon the temple of the Oracle of Delphi. The authorship of this famous maxim was ascribed to every great Greek philosopher, from Pythagoras to Socrates. According to Juvenal, this precept descended from heaven. It is immensely strange, then, that most people, including you, my dear reader, never really make the effort to 'know thyself.' The number of misconceptions, superstitions and myths that we spread about ourselves is indeed astonishing. Fortunately for you, someone else has already taken the time to understand you and present the results in entertaining, easily digestible, but at the same time scientifically rigorous format. Let me introduce Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter, an illustrated user manual to the software that runs inside our skulls -- the human mind.

Rita Carter is a British medical writer. She was twice awarded the Medical Journalists' Association prize for outstanding contribution to medical journalism. The book gives a comprehensive description of our knowledge about the brain (as of 1998, when the book was written). It covers popular topics, such as the causes for optical illusions, the nature of the Mona Lisa's smile, the differences between the left and the right brain, between males and females, the mechanisms of drug addictions. It also delves into less popular subjects, such as the need for rationalization, the mechanisms of speech and reading, the "programmability" of patients with a lobotomy, the causes of face-blindness and many others. In fact, after finishing the book I can hardly name any aspect of the mind that the book didn't tell me about.

Throughout the book, Carter's descriptions invariably remain strict, rigorous and factual. The book doesn't make any empty claims about our minds, nor does it delve into controversies perpetrated by the uninformed. Everything written is always based on pure hard science, with references aplenty.

This doesn't prevent the book from being easy to read and immensely entertaining. Imagine the weirdness of thousands of clinical histories condensed into 330 pages for our education. The simplest way to understand the function of some part of the brain is to find a person in whom it is damaged. Here you have it all: A man who believed that copulating with the pavement was normal; the famous man who mistook his wife for a hat; Vladimir Nabokov and his account of synaesthesia; people with Fregoli's syndrome (who constantly mistake strangers for people they know, even though they realize they look totally different); chickens excited by Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut"; Nadean Cool, her false memories of baby-eating Satanic cults and her 120 different personalities, including a duck; and people with anosognosia, who refuse to realize their illnesses, such as blindness or paralysis. And what's even better, you will be able to find explanations for your own quirks and deficiencies. There are bugs in every program; your mind is no exception. It is an amazing feeling to be able to realize how your mind works, what makes you tick, what constitutes "you" -- why you feel, think and act the way you do.

The book is a treat for the eyes: the huge number of helpful, pretty illustrations makes it both easier to comprehend it and more pleasant to read. The numerous diagrams and brain scans illustrate every subject, showing which areas become more active when you have depression, which areas cause OCD (caudate), what causes eating disorders (faults in hypothalamus), the pathways activated during face recognition, etc. This helps dispel the illusion of our brain being an incomprehensible black box, letting you get a grip on the physical basis for thoughts. It's like ignoring the EULAs and looking at the source code for your mind for the first time.

The book consists of eight chapters. It begins with an introduction to the brain structure in "The Emerging Landscape," starting with an overview of the misconceptions of phrenology, and ending with a short comment by a neurophysiologist Horace Barlow, who explains the usefulness of a reductionist approach as a first step to studying the brain. The section covers all brain modules, the neural pathways and explains the evolution of the brain.

After we are through the basics, our journey around the brain starts. First, in the "The Great Divide," Carter explains the roles of the left and the right hemispheres and the corpus calossum -- the connection between them. Among other things Carter explains the alien hand phenomena, describes experiments that demonstrate that people whose corpus calossum have been severed exhibit two separate personalities, and touches the puzzle of left-handedness.

After that, we delve deep into the brain, into its more primitive part, the limbic system, which is responsible for our emotions. Then we are shown the nature of perceptions and how they achieve their meanings. After that the author breaks from the confines of the brain and explains the social nature of humans, and how language enables most of our social interactions.

Then Carter describes the nature of our memories. She explains amnesia and Alzheimer's disease, explains the amount of memory we have, and where different memories (such as procedural memory, fearful experiences, or normal memories) are stored. She describes H.M., a patient with most of the hippocampus and amygdala removed. His mind had no continuity at all; H.M. lost the ability to form most types of new memories, but he could form procedural memories and could learn some new music to play on the piano. Another man, after having a minor stroke in the middle of a family dinner, suddenly found that he didn't remember where he was, and no longer recognized the people at the table. He didn't do anything, though, and later told the doctor: "I felt quite happy being with them even though I didn't know who they were," and "they seemed rather an agreeable lot." We are shown why false memories are the norm, rather than an anomaly.

Finally, our most unique and advanced feature -- consciousness -- is explained. Carter describes the "working memory" model developed by Alan Baddeley, where images and speech-based information is held for short time in a cache-like space, while the "central executive" part co-ordinates the information processing. She demonstrates how complex programs can be easily triggered in patients with lobotomy. French neurologist Francois L'Hermitte once invited two of his patients, a man and a woman, to his home. He ushered the man into a bedroom without explanation. In the middle of the day the man saw the ready-to-use bed and immediately undressed, preparing to go to sleep. When a woman was let in and saw the rumpled bed, she immediately started to make it. Carter explains the illusion of the free will and its evolutionary origins.

She ends the book with the optimistic conclusion: "I believe one thing is already clear: there is no ghost in this place, no monsters in the depths, no lands ruled by dragons. What today's mind voyagers are discovering is instead a biological system of awe-inspiring complexity. There is no need for us to satisfy our sense of wonder by conjuring phantoms -- the world within our heads is more marvelous than anything we can dream up."

What does this book leaves the reader afterwards? It left me with the insatiable desire to immediately read it again, this time with a notebook and a pencil at hand, so that I do not miss a single fact, a single lesson, a single bit of truth about who I am. To me the book was perfect -- a unique combination of scientific rigor and entertaining writing. Each amusing medical account was always accompanied with a detailed explanation of the physiological basis for it and a handy illustration. It was complete, well-structured and accessible.

I think it was the best book (fiction or non-fiction) that I read in the past year. The only other book that approached it was another take on the nature of the mind - the amusing Permutation City by Greg Egan, which takes the technologically feasible idea of mind uploading and pushes it to its limits, exploring the philosophical and mathematical consequences along the way.

You can browse the book at Google Print or at Amazon. Please do so and then read it in full. Learning about yourself should be the top thing on your agenda, if you consider yourself an intelligent creature. And for a computer scientist or a programmer there can hardly be a more interesting subject than the most complex software application, written over the millions of years, an amalgamation of legacy features, sloppy code, perfectly optimized routines, special cases and the ever-harmful neural goto operators. "Gnothi seauton," and have fun doing it.

• Discussion of this review at Slashdot.org

An introduction to mind uploading

I want to quickly bring everyone up to date on the subject. First, the facts:

1. Humans are complex machines.
2. Our minds are complex computers running complex programs.

This isn't really open to debate any longer and the only valid philosophical viewpoint is the one that takes the above into the account. To get comfortable with these ideas it helps to have at least some idea about molecular biology and the neurophysiology. There is nothing mysterious at the basic level down there - the complexity is in the interactions.

Our life is essentially just proteins being built according to a large collection of "IF THEN" instructions written in our DNA. Our metabolism and our behaviour is just a long sequence of chemical equations going on in our bodies. When we move a finger, this happens because an electro-chemical signal came to the muscle cells from a particular brain neuron. The interactions between neurons is just proteins being synthesized, randomly moved around, being stuck with other proteins, reacting or not reacting, etc. There are no mysterious quantum effects, it's just very complex chemistry.

To come to grips with this it helps to know that there are already some simple viruses that we understand down to the smallest detail (down to the atom). When you get to the bottom of things, there is no soul or anything, it's just atoms. It also helps to know a bit about the neurophysiology (read Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter) to start to realise that all our behavior is programmed.

Now that we have the facts, here is the conclusion:

We can simulate the brain or the whole human organism and the simulation will run just as well as the real thing. The implementation is irrelevant, the interactions of two hydrogen atoms in two proteins do not possess any special significance. What matters is the program, because the program is all there is. The underlying computing substrate can be anything.

Some people may be uncomfortable with that, but there is simply no evidence against that. We already can simulate neurons and as far as we know the simulations work just as well as real neurons. There are also reasons to think that our simulation doesn't need to be accurate down to the single neuron, because our brain evolved to be resistant to the loss of neurons.

This is also important - our brains have no grand design, they are just highly evolved structures of organic molecules. It's not hand-written software code, where changing one bit can destroy a program - it's a genetically (in both senses) evolved mess that was functional from the very beginning when it was just a single neuron 3 billion years ago or so. Our brain has evolved to have parts added or removed, we can't break it by carefully tweaking and replacing real neurons with simulated ones is not going to break everything (once we get over a certain accuracy threshold).

With the feasibility of uploading covered, let's get to the mechanics.

The simpliest "brute-force" approach is to simulate every neuron and neural connection as it is. For that you scan a brain, either invasivly by slicing it and scanning each slice, or noninvasively by a combination of scanning methods (positron tomography, infrared scanning and other techniques which we don't have yet). Then you launch a full simulation of the neural system on a supercomputer. Once you get bugs worked out, it is guaranteed to work. It can even run slower than the real brain (if you don't have another processing power yet), but the great thing is that it's very easy to make it go faster - just add more hardware.

There is also an inefficient method, which is good for one thing - to persuade stubborn uninformed humans that uploading is indeed possible. The method is typically used in (perhaps not surprisingly) thought experiments. :) It works like this: you take one neuron and simulate it down to the single atomic interaction. You then replace the real neuron with the chemo-electro-mechanical device that runs the simulation or gets the results of the simulation from the outside computer. You connect that artificial neuron with other neurons properly. Is the person whose brain we are working on the same person? Obviously yes, because even if that artificial neuron went haywire, the brain could handle it - it has been know to handle an iron rod going right through it. But since the artificial neuron works just as well, the brain would work just as well. Now we replace all neurons one by one with the artificial ones. Does that person stop being himself? Obviously not, because there are no important functional changes (all neurons still work the same way) and there is no discontinuity. Of course, I am jumping over lots of steps here (most authors spend pages dwelling on this possibility), but I hope you get the idea. In the end we essentially have a computer (or a bunch of computers) running the mind and the person is still himself.

By the way, all the "controversial" questions of is the copy still you are rubbish. The copy is a copy, which in case of software is indistinguishable from the original. These questions are nonsensical. People in the future would be happily forking themselves and happily destroy the copies, once they've done their job, sometimes incorporating parts of copies into the main process. Our notions of human/mind/individuality/etc will have to accomodate the future fractal world. There won't be neither only one you, nor several of you, there will be a non-integer quantity of you that is constantly changing depending on the needs of the moment.

The real technological way to do the uploading (after the brute force and ignoring the thought experiment) will be to connect existing brain with electronic chips for virtual reality, for thought control of devices in the material world, of our cybernetic implants, etc. Then mind upgrades will be added into the mix, including vision pre-processors (in the form of optical nerve upgrades), perfect memory extensions, etc. These will be doing some one function very well and would be possible before we have perfect understanding of the brain. Soon it will become possible to take parts of the brain and replace them with equivalents (and we neither have to do the whole brain at once, nor work on the level of individual neurons). Obviously, many of these additional parts will not be based on natural human intelligence, but will be programmed. In other words, we will have parts of artificial intelligence in ourselves. This compatibility will come handy when we are finally merging with AIs later in this story.

But the big thing here is that we aren't just replacing the neurons or inserting chips, we are removing the mind from its substrate. It no longer is location- and substrate-dependent. You can have that optical upgrade run on a PDA or on the Internet in a distributed way. You can have that perfect memory backed up online on a distributed network or on a server in secure location. This way you already have "partial uploads". This is what complexity is about. People will not keep their brain in a jar, they will not keep it on their head. Parts of people will run in different ways. People may have partly robotic bodies, with some of the intelligence (required to operate them) will run on computers in those bodies. People will have parts of their personalities still in parts of their original brain and some parts of them will be running in microchips. These people will not be facing "total conversion", they will just be normal people adapting to new opportunities. There won't be a single right way to upload, this will happen gradually and the process will be shaped by free choices, by market forces and by brain health research.

After we are running these partial (or full) uploads for some time, we will get mature advanced nanotech — i.e. very small (not just built on nano level, but designed on the nano level, i.e. every atom is in its optimal place and nothing is wasted in design) and self-replicating nanobots. At that point the favourite uploading procedure would be to get a nanobot to each neuron and then either 1) study the neuron, consume it and stay in its place, acting just like it or 2) study the neuron and send the data to the central computer. If the first way is used, we get a nanotech brain that can effortlessly be converted to an uploaded mind (the difference being that uploaded brain doesn't have to run inside the skull - it can be distributed). If the second brain is used, you have the brain intact and can either destroy it or keep running (then you get two persons, which wouldn't really be a problem, as I told before).

With all that flexibility the question of substrate will become pretty meaningless. With computing power as cheap (essentially free and unlimited) as it will be then, our minds will run wherether it is optimal and we won't care that much about the choice. We won't be a civilization of brains in vats, we will be totally ok with being "executed" anywhere, even more comfortable than we are with moving around in the meatspace. We will also be fine about parts of our minds not being neural simulations, but software written in FORTRAN. :) Since we are just programs not only it doesn't matter what they are ran on, but also how exactly they are written. Those parts of code (such as our susceptibility to optical illusions) that aren't perfect can be rewritten. Of course, where you can rewrite one bit, you can rewrite anything. And this will totally eliminate the distinction between AIs and humans, because we will all be part AIs and the actual percentage of our humanness will become irrelevant. Now, it's actually possible that strong (human-level) AI will become possible before full uploading is possible. It is also possible that it's simplier to design strong AI from scratch, without basing it on human minds. In that case the Singularity (see below) may actually happen (not sure how likely it is) before full uploading (which may complicate things).

Now a bit about when this is going to happen. The key factors here is 1) our ability to run the simulation and 2) the ability to scan the brain structure. Ray Kurzweil wrote about that in details, with extrapolations and explanations. The main important point is that our ability to scan is rapidly improving, our ability to manufacture small objects is improving (we are moving towards nanotech) and the speed of our computers is improving as well. There are really no chances that this progress will stop or will noticeably slow down. Nanotech and fast enough computers will come around 2020-2030. Of course, it can happen sooner or faster - we can't be 100% sure about the date until it actually arrives, but all evidence points to about that time. But it's pretty certain that it will happen before 2100. And it probably won't happen until at least 2015.

Now what will this all lead to. Of course, the society will change a lot. How exactly will it change is a very big topic and we still haven't figured it out. One thing is certain - the change will be radical. The biggest consequence of uploading (or strong AI, if it happens earlier) is the ability to accelerate the progress by 1) is the ability to increase speed and scale of thinking (you can make the uploaded mind or AI perform faster just by adding hardware). This leads to a rapid increase in the number of thought/second in the world, which accelerates research (by that time, obviously, all experiements will be easier to do in simulation as well, so you aren't tied to reality in any way). This will allow to quickly invent better nanotech and faster computers, which in turn leads to faster thinking. And it just so happens that the laws of physics allow for computers that are many orders of magnitude more powerful (per unit of volume) than the human brain. And we will be able to get to that point very quickly, because the faster we think the faster we invent even faster computers and the faster we think. We can become millions of millions of times "smarter" (though it may be not entirely correct to assume that smartness is linearly dependent on thinking speed) and we may get there in just a few years.

This even is called TechnologicalSingularity and it's a very big deal. In fact, you are almost certainly unable to fully comprehend how profoundly hugely important that event is. You should read Staring into the Singularity to even be able to begin to start to comprehend it.

Well, I hope you are impressed. And remember, this is going to happen relatively soon. Better tell everyone.

Edit this page at Futures wiki.

Pirates suffer from lost profits, nobody to sue

Confiscation of disks isn't the biggest problem...

Making profits in the Internet Age is tough. Only yesterday we lamented the horse-and-buggy business models of music labels and movie studios. But today even the pirates, who temporarily gained the edge in the darwinian business struggle are in danger. Commersant, a Russian business daily, reports that the Internet is depriving Moscow pirates of potential profits. For the first time in 7 years the sales of pirated media dropped. According to Moscow government, 812 stores sell more than 850,000 software disks each month, grossing about 68-85 mln. rubles in monthly sales, down from 130 mln. rubles in January. Sales of pirated MP3s dropped even more — almost by 60%. Only the sales of DVD collections with 3-8 films recorded on each disk are still stable, though experts do not expect this to last long.

The reason for this? Well, it's isn't the War on Russian Piracy waged by the US Congress or the feeble attacks by local anti-piracy organisations. It's the Internet, the great destroyer of business models. According to the experts of commission for safety of information market, pirates have suffered from competition from online downloads, as the number of broadband subscribers in Moscow increased 115% over the last year and has reached 540,000 households.

The Future of Genetic Engineering (2005-2030)

"How neat it would be to have genetic engineering treatments to get extra eyes, fur or tentacles?", asked Conan K. Woods on wta-talk.

I am normally not psychologically comfortable to speculate too much, chiefly because I feel (perhaps wrongly) that everything was already said by someone more competent (e.g. by one of the book authors such as Kurzweil, Naam, etc.) and I will be just stating obvious. But perhaps this is due to me having read only a few of the transhumanist books. :)

Anyway, without further ado, this is how I think genetic engineering will unfold in the next 25 years.

The foretaste of things to come

First (now-2015) we will see more and more smart drugs, i.e. drugs increasingly designed based on understanding on how genes and proteins work and not just random hit-and-miss experiments with organic molecules. It will become increasingly possible to regulate the human metabolism using the THIRD way (i.e. not neural or hormonal, but artificial drug-induced way). Things like Viagra, working drugs for losing (not gaining) weight, nootropic drugs, etc.

Then (2015-2025) we are going to see first health-related genetic modifications. As e.g. Naam describes in his book, there are several ways to modify ourselves - inject the protein (drug - see above), add the DNA into the cell (noninsertional vectors) or into the nucleus (insertional). By that time we will strongly feel the fallout from the Human Genome project, understanding a signficant part of the complex genetic chemistry. First we are going to change the DNA to fix the health defects, removing bad genes or fixing them.

At the same time we will have genetic treatments in competitive sport (Olympics) to enhance the strength, endurance, etc. Some say that first such treatments are already being used. Each next Olympics will have more and more and by 2016 a very large portion of athletes will be using some form of genetic enhancement.

Ossur bionic leg (video)

By that time (mid-2010s) we will have some cyborgisation in healthy humans going on. Chips for interacting with the electronic environment, some enhanced senses (e.g. cochlear implants for healthy people). Enhancement surgery will be growing in popularity (things like LASIK, muscle surgery, lots of cosmetic surgery and a bit more advanced stuff). The "traditional" body modification techniques will be gradually improving. Everything that is cool today will be already passe and retro. Hard to predict these things, since they are irrational and random to a large extent like all fashion is. But one may speculate about subdermal displays, limited neuro-electronic connectivity (i.e. "implanted remotes"). Disabled people will have their artificial hands, legs, eyes and stuff in increasing numbers. But we still won't see genetically modified people with tentacles, except in a few freaks, like the leet body modders today (however, even those would probably opt for surgery + drugs, not full-scale GE).

Real-time avatar face modification (video)

Starting from about 2015 we will spend more and more time in both virtual and augmented reality. We will be more and more comfortable with modifying our appearance in arbitrary ways, spending time in animal bodies (even though only virtually), etc.

By, say, 2020 we (at least the early adopters, not luddites) will be controlling our metabolism artificially a lot (using a combination of implanted automatic smart drug-release devices and genetic therapies). There will be a few cases when humans will be enhanced significally changing their genetic code, when this can be done in a very safe manner and without side effects (this might come from one of the sports modifications). The parents will have great freedom in defining the DNA code of their kids to get rid of all bad stuff and ensure that good stuff is there, but no fins or fur yet. We will also have many artificial parts and will spend a lot of time in virtual worlds.

The onset of extensive genetic engineering

Around 2020-2025 we will see the spread of biotechnologies to the general population. We will also have desktop fabrication labs by then (and robots), some pretty useful (but not fully mature) nanotech (to compliment the biotech that we are talking about). We will have some good AI (but not human-level), so a lot of R&D will be possible to do using existing software. Software methodologies will be more advanced than today, so ordinary people will be able to get digital designs for a bio-lab, assemble it using their (may be not personally owned) desktop fab lab, get the information databases with genetic and other biological information and synthesise the DNA.

There are likely to be some regulatory issues by than. Both scaremongers and responsible scientists/politicians will demand some control mechanisms and some will definitely be established, but we can also expect bio-hackers (and pirates) to emerge. There will obviously be a gradient - if some people are doing legit body-modifications (like people in tattoo/piercing parlors today), they can add a bit of illicit modifications, provide access to illegal drugs (controlled substances) without prescriptions (like offshore Internet pharmacies today), etc. This may end up looking a little bit like the cyberpunk predictions (e.g. traditional Gibsonesque cyberpunk).

In 2025-2030 people will start to notice the exponential technological growth. Kids born in 2010 will be getting through their teenage phase (modified using mind-enhancing drugs, but not enough to turn them into obedient zombies). They will probably be the first to use the technology in radical ways. The transplantation industry would be mature by that time, with millions of transplantations performed every year - cloned parts, xenotransplants, artificial organs, etc. Stem cells would also be used to grow new organs (in vitro and in vivo). So it would be quite easy to do heavy cyborg and biological body-mods with little risk (and almost zero risk of serious complications that can't be fixed). As much as I am uncomfortable with that (today), more and more people will be experimenting with heavily modified bodies. Genetic engineering will be used in conjunction with surgery. We will also have the ability to direct body reconstruction - first selective apoptosis, then generation of stem cells and regrowth of the organs/tissues. This will obviously first be used for corrections, but eventually for rebuilding the body for other reasons.

A mermaid (from Cross Genetics)

By that time technologies for genetic engineering will be widespread and accessible. Software products would exist (not in the form of products, but downloadable routines, AI modules) that can be used easily. By 2030 most people will have the ability to design new organisms from scratch and change their own bodies at will. My imagination is betraying me a bit, but when walking (or otherwise moving) on the street (or the future analogue of it) you will see people of different colours (including pink, orange and striped yellow-green), people with fur, people with animated skin, people with various additional parts (combs, spikes, etc.) added for aesthetic reasons, people with various face adjustments ("unnatural" eyes, nose, lips, teeth, etc.), people with parts of them resembling animal parts (feline eyes, etc.).

By that time the society will likely change enough to make these things not only more acceptable, but in a sense expected. Mind-enhancement techniques, significant social changes will mean that there won't be conservative job-places that don't let you come to work with wings and horns. Many people will not be working in the traditional sense, but living life in more creative ways, while the society/nature supplies them with necessities.

The precise nature of the future society in regards to the look of its members will depend on an unpredictable factor - the relative success of different development approaches. It is clear that virtual reality, cyborgisation and genetic engineering will all provide almost unlimited possibilities for human expression. But which of the three methods will be more populat (at certain point) is hard to predict, because it depends on which one will be more advanced, more efficient, safer, cheaper, more available, easier to use, etc. It is likely that all methods will complement each other to some extent, but personally I am not ready to predict with certainty whether the society of 2030 will consist mostly of people inhabiting VR worlds, robots walking the streets or mutated chimeras flying and swimming around...

Well, that was me imagining what the future will be like. Stay tuned (or not) for the visions of life in the world of mature nanotech and life after uploading.

Comments, criticism and discussion obviously welcome.

This text can be edited at the Future Wiki

Children of the Secret State - North Korea

"Children of the Secret State" (ed2k link) is a propaganda movie made in 2000. The film was mostly likely planned by psyops specialist and is a good example of the information warfare campaign waged against North Korea. But North Korea is not the only victim — we all are the victims too when we are led to believe lies and fabrications. I believe it is useful to train yourself in critical thinking skills and to try to build up some mental defences against manipulation. That's why I wrote this commentary.

This review present an analysis of some of the scenes of the film. My conclusion is that this film is an attempt at manipulating the viewer to believe that North Korea is a horrible place, its leader Kim Jonh Il is evil, his regime is brutal and the economic system has collapsed. But a careful and impartial viewing of the film with a critical eye and constant online doublechecking demonstrates that there is very little in this film that should be believed. In this film no evidence was presented, although the authors tried extremely hard to make it seem as if such evidence was in fact shown. And I have no doubt that most viewers believed that it was.

North Korea pioneers

The film starts with the video of hungry child orphans (still, apparently looking healthy enough) that is going to shock everyone, especially combined with the matter-of-fact narrative. The narrator claims that 3 million people died from hunger. Another claim is made - that UNICEF estimated there are 200000 orphans in the country (BTW, don't trust all statistics about orphans, lies and manipulations are an ever present danger). It's awfully hard to find data on orphans in the US, but it appears to me from what data is available that the number of children without parents as a percentage of general population is about the same in the US - about 1%.

The population of the North Korea is 23 million, BTW, the population growth rate in 2005 was 0.9% (0.38% in South Korea), life expectancy 71.73 years (75.82 in SK) and infant mortality 24 deaths/1000 live births (7 in SK). While we are at it, the literacy rate is 99% (compared with 97.9% in SK). But everyone is still shocked, that's expected, even I am. However, I now start to think what they are trying to say, whether I am being manipulated and how this agrees with other things I know.

OK, we move into the capital. The presenters never ignore a chance to manipulate the viewer. From mentioning the Big Brother to emphasising the censorship. First they are trying to make a ridiculous point by implication. They present the visuals as if the whole capital is essentially fake and everyone else lives in poverty and hunger in secret towns. Well, to begin with, that doesn't make any sense. Why would the North Korean government want that? Do they really care that much about impressing foreign journalists who manage to enter the country despite the apparent restrictions? That doesn't make sense (since they actually try to prevent foreign journalists from visiting).

Pyongyang street

Then every image is twisted as the presenters need. For example, there is no one in the street in the middle of the day, there aren't many other guests in the hotel and there are few cars on the streets. Somehow all this proves that North Korea is bad. But, of course, there is no one in the streets - everyone is working. Then the hotel is empty, because it was designed and built in a different time, but it turned out to be a mistake and there aren't many foreign tourists today. And there aren't many cars, but there is examplanation - cars are too expensive, not very efficient and North Korea is short on fuel.

The fact that the journalists are well fed is somehow a proof of how evil and corrupt the regime is (if they weren't, doubtless they would use this as another proof of the hunger). Supposedly, one can't find such a stark contrast in the US, no way. But filming a dinner in an expensive Manhattan restaurant and some child suffering from hunger (there are millions of those in the US) doesn't enter the minds of the journalists. Then we hear some unsubstantiated claims that all well-fed children rehearsing for the parade are the children of the elite. How do they know it? Of course, the American viewer is unlikely to question the words of the journalists.

I mean, you don't need to go far. Russia is no longer a totalitarian state, but you can find children, who are drug addicts, alcoholics, homeless, orphans, prostitutes and theives. How are isolated facts (even filmed on video) a condemnation of a country? Also, how is it a fault of the government, when the people living in that town/village do not help the kids?

Pyongyang Palace of Pioneers and Children

Then the Children's Palace. Here even the fact that there are apparently some children who are not hungry presented as an evil deed of the Dear Leader. He is told to have "decided to favour these children". I wonder if the journalists have any ideas of why exactly did he make this decision. Does he have anything against those other, hungry children? Does he have an evil plan?

The journalist is near the Chinese border. He is allowed to drive there in a car and he has to exaggerate the dangers. If they spend too much time in one place, they may be interrogated by the police. Well, try to spend too much time in one place next to the Mexican border. I bet you would be interrogated by the police as well. It's illegal to film at the border (like in many other countries), but the brave fighters for freedom managed to do it. Apparently, they filmed some border guards, who appear to be guarding the border. Clearly, that is some evil North Korean plot. Is it possible that they are looking for possible violators, who intend to cross the border illegally? Well, I am sure no civilized nation would ever do such a thing. Certainly not the United States... Well, pardon me my sarcasm, but insinuations are everything. It is possible to film perfectly legitimate activities, but if they are in North Korea, they suddenly become menacing, dark and evil. Such as border guards hiding in bunkers.

Then we get a lie about refugees facing execution after being returned from China to North Korea. There is no evidence, just hearsay. Signs such as "Never help an illegal alien" are presented as something horribly wrong, even though (no sarcasm this time) most countries have some regulations against illegal aliens and helping illegal aliens is a misdemeanour in many countries as well (North Koreans are facing a fine, which, supposedly, is horrible).

We are in China now. The woman buying some foodstuffs who is looking strangely at the foreigner filming her is presented as visual evidence of "paranoia and suspicion" filling the air. Perfectly ordinary images of normal life, combined with a alarming music reinforce the feeling that the air is indeed filled with paranoia. It might be the paranoia of the journalist, however. Then we have one interview, where we are not told anything substantial except that some people died from hunger.

OK, we're back. Here a child repeats to the journalists some hearsay about cannibalism. I don't think this can be considered evidence, but the guy appears to have some very lax journalistic standards. Some child drawings and "a friend told me he saw" are now considered sufficient evidence.

OK, now we are shown some Chinese girl eating some soup. We are told that "these children are well-fed". This time we aren't told that Chinese leaders "decided to favour these children", no, it's implied that there is no hunger in China. But, as a matter of fact, China (the "nice" neighbour of North Korea) is still home to the world's second largest number of undernourished people after India. According to some estimates, all over the world over 1 billion people are chronically undernourished. 20 millions die each year from hunger and its effects (almost the population of North Korea). And yet the US and its venal journalists chose to pick on North Korea. Even though, the United States isn't without its own share of problems... Particularly, 3.5 million people are homeless and 35.9 million people live in poverty. They don't seem to notice the mote in their eye...

It's part three and franly I am tired. It's not easy to consciously withstand attempted psyops. But I can't leave the task unfinished, I will have to endure the lies and deceit for 20 minutes more.

We are shown some positively chubby North Korean children, but the disquieting music somewhat compensates for that. We feel that all is not well. We are shown something which is claimed to be a "ghost town" (shot from the nearby mountain). Then we are informed that "industrial activity has ground to a halt". We are made to think that this isn't an exaggeration, but a statement of fact - this is accompanies by the image of the supposed "ghost town". Of course, simple logic dictates that it's impossible for all industrial activity to stop in a country and even the CIA factbook admits real GDP growth of 1% in 2004. But who needs logic in a times like this? Then we hear an account of a well-dressed "escapee" from the town, who tells us that the town's poor stole the equipement and parts from the factories and sold them... The question of whom did they sell factory equipment in small town in a country with a planned economy is not discussed, perhaps, for the better.

We are shown some more children and told some more stories about hunger.

Then a random guy tells us about growing opium. There are some links online that support this claim, however, they all tend to rely on people who make questionable claims such as "Ninety-nine percent of their factories are not operating"...

OK, we are going to South Korea now. In passing we are told that one in every 100 North Koreans is in prison camps. We are not told that 1 in 142 USA residents is in prison as of 2002. One in a hundred (if accurate at all) doesn't sound that bad now, does it? Anyway, images of capitalism (skyskrapers, well-dressed people, etc.) demonstrate that South Korea is clearly a better place.

Then we hear a story of a former guard, which (if genuine) does make a point. What is happening in the camps, if true, is brutal and horrible. However, no other evidence is presented and it's extremely easy to exaggerate (or downplay) the reality.

Who needs photos when you can draw your evidence?

I am going online to look up some information related to aid. In one place we find that "An estimated 200,000 to two million people died in the famine." Well, that's bad, but that's not 3 million people claimed in the beginning of the program. It does confirm the fact (which no one really doubted) that a large fraction of children ("62 percent of children under the age of seven" in 1998) is chronically malnourished. Thanks to the aid, the "chronic malnutrition has dropped to 21%" by 2002. However, in order to blackmail North Korea over its nuclear program, the US and Japan severely decreased their aid, knowing well what would be the effect of it. The film claims that the US didn't do that.

We are told that North Korea receives more food per capita in aid than any other country. Well, it appears to have received about 30$ per person served per year (in total), which is about average of what WFP does... Other sources, while providing some criticism of North Korea's handling of aid, disagree that it's a deliberate diversion and say that the problems are not as significant.

We see the black market, but the opinion of experts is that this diversion of aid doesn't affect the situation that much.

Again we are shown some children. This time the journalist claims "but children go empty-handed as these pictures reveal". I don't know what these pictures reveal, other than blatant attempts at manipulation. Does he claim that all children are denied food in Korea according to some evil plan? Does he claim that Korean government actively discriminates against children? He is trying to mislead. The footage of children he presents is biased so much as to be almost useless.

Well, the film is over. What can we say? That Discovery, Channel 4 and the journalist are manipulative? Yes. That people are being systematically mislead about North Korea? Certainly. That people in North Korea suffer from hunger? Yes. That Kim Jong Il is evil, his regime is brutal and the economic system has collapsed? That's not so clear. In this film no evidence was presented, although the authors tried extremely hard to make it seem as if such evidence was in fact shown. And I have no doubt that most viewers believed that it was.

See my previous post about North Korea: Remembering the Revolutions

The photos are from a report of a Russian visitor to North Korea, who saw a very different picture while travelling around the country.

NISTEP 2030 forecast

The Japanese National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) runs a technology foresight project every five years, looking 30 years into the future. The last such exercise was carried out in 2000, producing the report Future Technology in Japan toward the Year 2030 (download).

The 2007-2030 timeline in this report is one of the most methodologically sound.It was produced in a large Delphi study involving several thousand experts. Past NISTEP reports had predictive accuracy of 60-70%.

But the forecast shies away from advanced transhumanist technologies and looks rather traditionalistic and non-controversial (this is not to say these were not included among the original topics, but that they were not considered important by experts and so less attention is paid to them).

• The report barely makes a passing mention of nanotechnology: only one item — "Practical use of single atom/molecule manipulation techniques as methods for device fabrication and gene manipulation.", scheduled for 2015, is included.
• Artificial intelligence is apparently ignored. It's mentioned in only one topic: "Development of software (expert systems) capable of completely taking the place of specialist professions such as judges, lawyers and patent attorneys.", is slated for 2025 and is deemed unlikely to ever be realised by 48% of respondents.
• Brain enhancements are mostly ignored, despite predictions of understanding much of how the brain functions between 2015-2025.
• Despite listing a plethora of medical advances, the report says nothing about possibilities of life extension, reversal of aging and achiving immortality.

One non-traditional area (although it is much more traditional for the Japanese) that features prominently is robotics.

A forecast that ignores nanotechnology and artificial intelligence — undoubtly the key enabling technologies for human transformation in the coming decades — can not be deemed accurate and is at best extremely misleading.

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My Personal Answers to 15 Global Challenges

My Personal Answers to 15 Global Challenges.

1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all?
By making technological development sustain itself and not rely on frail Earth's ecosystem.

2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?
With technologies, such as nanotech, that will be widely available by 2015-2020.

3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance?
They will never be. Population growth simply won't catch up with the exponentional growth of resources provided by the supertechnologies such as nanotech and AI.

4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?
We need to realise that "genuine democracy" is a fiction and that democracy is simply one of the ways to structure the society, worthless by itself. Authoritarian regimes usually have a valid reason to be such.

5. How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?
By eschewing democracy of uninformed idiots and encouraging an autocratic government of educated technocrats.

6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?
As a result of people, companies and governments working on this issue. The digital divide is unsustainable and is easy to bridge - all it takes is work.

7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor?
By replacing them with planning, taking the profit motive out of the economy and nationalising capitalist enterprises.

8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced?
By spending more on medical and biotech research and controlling big pharma better.

9. How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?
By promoting intelligence, rationalism and science, by destroying the plutocratic elite and by instituting public control of the media.

10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?
By disarmanent of the United States, by stopping the exploitation of the third world and by building strong national economies there. Shared values can't do anything if you don't share the bread as well.

11. How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition?
By having them do some work more useful than cooking and doing laundry, perhaps?

12. How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?
A better question would be how can powerful transnational global enterprises be stopped from becoming more like organized crime networks?

13. How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?
By using solar and fusion power and by severely restricting private ownership of cars, while building better public transport systems.

14. How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition?
By spending more on science, promoting future-oriented thinking, taking public control of all media and starting intensive atheist and rationalist propaganda.

15. How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?
By replacing the plutocratic capitalist society with meritocratic socialist or communist society, so that the leaders are more motivated to work for the benefit of all people.

Connections and Knowledge Web

There is an amazing BBC series Connections by a famous science historian James Burke. The films explore how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events have linked together over the centuries to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. The series (40 films in total) are the most delightful and accessible approach to the history of the world and its' sciences since the Cosmos series.

Then I was researching information about the Connections series online and accidentally stumbled on a link to KnowledgeWeb. I was amazed to learn that such project already exist, because I dreamed about something like it for a long time. I am extremely interested in the development of science and technology (goes in the family, my father's doctoral thesis was done in this field) and was envisioning a tool similar to K-Web for a long time. Now I found it. :) Have to find whether it's actually useful (i.e. if custom content can be added there).

• Video demonstration of Knowledge Web (streaming RealVideo)
• More on Knowledge Web at Future Wiki.
• Connections can be downloaded from eDonkey 2000 network. Search for "bbc connections". So can Cosmos, BTW.

From custom manufacturing to universal assemblers

Using custom manufacturing a Wired journalist with no design experience designed his own an electric guitar in eMachineShop and had the parts printed to spec.

Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, makes a reasonably good case that soon every house will have its own personal fabricator. He has already taken an important step - he has shrunk the personal fabricator down to a single room's worth of off-the-shelf tools, all of which are available right now.

Custom manufacturing in a fabrication lab -

The CBA fabrication labs are already used to produce peculiar one-off individualised devices, such as GPS-enabled tags for sheeps, electrode-driven device to measure the fat content of milk, motion-detector security system to protect a personal diary.

Current precision of cutting (Epilog Legend 24TT) and milling (MDX-20) tools is about 25-50 microns.

Further path:

• miniaturise all components of a personal fabricator
• combine it all together into a set of compatible devices
• add some robotics so that manual labour is not needed for assembly
• make it use cheap standard raw materials and parts
• simplify, make more user-friendly, interface with an online library of designs

OK, that doesn't actually sound too far-fetched, but would quickly make the fabricators ubiquitous and extremely useful.

Next steps:

• continue the minaturisation
• replace the components one by one with nanotechnology based machines
• optimise the design of a fabricator to make sure no space/matter is wasted

Tabletop nanofactory

Now you have a nanofactory (vision, 60Mb video). This is already functional nanotechnology and will set off the final stage of the revolution (super-exponential computing power growth and the singularity).

Further steps:

• break down the nanofactory from a single machine into small parallelised units, each capable of producing small nano-objects to spec
• make the units as small as possible

Finally, we have a nanoassembler.

Nanoassembler

Final step:

• make it possible for this assmbler to make copies of itself

We have a unversal self-reproducing nanoassembler. Finally an end to material scarcity. This would signify final liberation of the man and the control of mind over matter. This is a posthuman level, where turning all dumb matter into smart matter is finally possible.

Nanoassembler making nanocomputers in a nanofactory

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Fake diplomas

Just stumbled today on the site of a genuine looking company (in Russia) that provides fake diplomas and other papers of all kinds. Looks extremely professional and reliable (as far as you can judge it from their site). Call +7 (901) 372-31-14 to order anything from fake diplomas (registered in university's archives) to a passport (domestic or foreign) to Council of the Federation (Russian Senate) Member's certificate.

That's neat. The only hope for preservation of privacy and freedom from totalitarian government surveillance may come from professional criminals (as one can also see from countless sci-fi movies such as Johnny Mnemonic, etc.).

Hermitage panorama

A view from the Peter and Paul fortress.