[clue-talk] The Coming Storm? Nano/AI/Skynet

[Timothy Klein]

On 8 Mar 2005, at 11:47 PM, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html
> http://www.kurzweilai.net/
> http://www.cio.com/archive/101504/interview.html
>
> His book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines" is pretty heady stuff.
> http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/ 
> exmain.htm
> and I recommend it for anyone who has an interest in the future of
> technology.

Artificial life is a great topic.  I read _The Age of Spiritual  
Machines_, though, and can't recommend it.

One interesting thing in the field of cellular automata are Stephen  
Wolfram's ideas (the guy that wrote Mathematica).  He is of the opinion  
that cellular automata are how we should be representing the universe,  
rather than differential equations.  I don't know about all of that,  
but he wrote a 1,000 page book on the subject called _A New Kind of  
Science_. (Me, I love differential equations, I'd be bummed if  
something supplanted them as our primary model-building tool).

There are also several packages you can get for *nix to do your own  
artificial life simulations.

And on a tangentially related note, BoingBoing just posted a link about  
researchers that are going to be creating mice with brains constructed  
of human brain cells.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/08/mice_with_human_brai.html

Tim
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Timothy Klein: tecce at silverklein.net
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