The Singularity Institute Blog

A Call of Papers has been issued for a track on “Technological Singularity and Acceleration Studies,” at the 7th European conference on Computing And Philosophy—ECAP 2009, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2-4 July 2009.

Historical analysis of a broad range of paradigm shifts in science, biology, history, and technology–in particular in computing technology–suggests an accelerating rate of progress. This observation has led the attempted unification of the predictive power of biological evolution, cultural evolution, and technological evolution under a “Law of Accelerating Returns.” As a consequence, John von Neumann forecasted the arrival of an “essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs as we know them could not continue.” This notion of Singularity coincides in time and nature with Alan Turing (1950) and Stephen Hawking’s (1998) expectation of machines that exhibit intelligence on par with an average human by 2050. John Irving Good (1965) and Vernor Vinge (1993) expect it to take the form of an ‘intelligence explosion’: the process by which ultraintelligent machines design ever more intelligent machines. Transhumanists suggest a parallel process of explosive progress in human intelligence. Unfortunately, the very term ‘Singularity’ also suggests the presence of an ‘event horizon,’ an epistemological barrier on our ability to understand the events that may follow it.

We invite abstracts examining the following issues from a philosophical, computational, mathematical, and scientific points of view:

1. Empirical assessments of the Law of Accelerating Returns
2. Estimating the reliability of a technological forecasts
3. Historical analysis of the Law of Accelerating Returns
4. The impact of acceleration on science and society by 2050
5. Hazards of technological acceleration and preventative measures
6. The nature of the Technological Singularity
7. The nature of an intelligence explosion
8. Beyond the ‘event horizon’ of the Technological Singularity

Papers submitted to the Technological Singularity and Acceleration Studies track in ECAP 2009 will also be considered for publication in a special issue of Technological Forecasting and Social Change (Elsevier).

Received from the track chair, Amnon H. Eden, School of Computer Science & Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, UK and Center For Inquiry, Amherst NY.

PALO ALTO, CA, September 17, 2008 – The Convergence08 Unconference on Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno (NBIC) technologies and their interactions will be held November 15-16, 2008, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The event will use an innovative “unconference” format to enable participants to customize the event in a highly interactive way.

Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster with over two decades experience exploring long-term technological change and its practical impact on business and society, will keynote the event. About Convergence08, he observed, “A host of technologies that seemed like daring science fiction just a few years ago are racing toward practical application with breathtaking speed. Convergence08 is a unique opportunity to look into the coming NBIC future, examine its implications, and prepare for the vast surprises in store for us all.”

Both days feature debates on controversial NBIC topics including Synthetic Biology, Longevity, and Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Barney Pell, founder of Powerset and search strategist and evangelist at Microsoft, stated, “At this event we aim to use the power of collective intelligence to see farther along the convergence trajectories; each of the NBIC technologies is transformative on its own, and there’s a strong interplay among them.”

Headliners include:

• Dr. Bruce Ames, biochemistry professor at UC Berkeley, founder of Juvenon
• Dr. Gregory Benford, physics professor at UC Irvine, founder of Genescient
• Denise Caruso, executive director of Hybrid Vigor Institute
• Dr. Aubrey de Grey, CSO and chair of Methuselah Foundation
• Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO of Novamente, director of research at Singularity Institute
• Terry Grossman, MD, co-author, Fantastic Voyage
• Andrew Hessel, consulting biologist and author
• Dr. Chris Heward, president of Kronos Science Laboratories
• Dr. Peter Norvig, director of research at Google
• Dr. Steve Omohundro, founder and president of Self-Aware Systems
• Dr. Barney Pell, founder of Powerset, search strategist and evangelist at Microsoft

Registration details available at http://www.convergence08.org/register/.

ABOUT CONVERGENCE08

Sponsored by organizations focused on innovative technologies, Convergence08 will bring together an eclectic mix of visionaries, entrepreneurs, scientists, technologists, and independent thinkers to merge their distributed knowledge into an improved view of where the NBIC revolutions are taking us, how to maximize benefits to humanity and the environment, and how to minimize any downsides.

Convergence08 Supporting Organizations include Acceleration Studies Foundation, Foresight Nanotech Institute, Humanity+, ImmInst.org, Long Now Foundation, and Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Cooperating Organizations include CyBeRev, Millennium Project, and Reason Foundation.

Convergence08 is co-chaired by James Clement (Humanity+ Executive Director), Tyler Emerson (Singularity Institute Executive Director), and Christine Peterson (Foresight Nanotech Institute Cofounder and President).