the Singularity

A number of noted scientists and technologists have predicted that after the Singularity, humans as we exist presently will no longer be driving technological progress, with models of change based on past trends in human behavior becoming obsolete.

In the 1950's, legendary information theorist John von Neumann was paraphrased by mathematician Stanislaw Ulam as saying, "The ever-accelerating progress of technology...gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue."

In 1965, statistician I.J. Good described a concept similar to today's meaning of the Singularity, in "Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine":

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.

The concept was solidified by mathematician and computer scientist Vernor Vinge, who coined the term "technological singularity" in an article for Omni magazine in 1983, followed by a science fiction novel, Marooned in Realtime, in 1986. Seven years later, Vinge presented his seminal paper, "The Coming Technological Singularity," at a NASA-organized symposium. Vinge wrote:

What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent entities – on a still-shorter time scale.

In 2000, AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky and entrepreneur Brian Atkins founded the Singularity Institute to work toward smarter-than-human intelligence by engaging in Artificial Intelligence and machine ethics research. On the Institute's site, Yudkowsky states:

The Singularity is beyond huge, but it can begin with something small. If one smarter-than-human intelligence exists, that mind will find it easier to create still smarter minds. In this respect the dynamic of the Singularity resembles other cases where small causes can have large effects; toppling the first domino in a chain, starting an avalanche with a pebble, perturbing an upright object balanced on its tip. All it takes is one technology – Artificial Intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, or perhaps something unforeseen – that advances to the point of creating smarter-than-human minds. That one technological advance is the equivalent of the first self-replicating chemical that gave rise to life on Earth.

In 2005, inventor Ray Kurzweil released The Singularity is Near, where he presented the Singularity as an overall exponential (doubling) growth trend in technological development:

What, then, is the Singularity? It's a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Although neither utopian or dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the cycle of human life, including death itself. Understanding the Singularity will alter our perspective on the significance of our past and the ramifications for our future. To truly understand it inherently changes one's view of life in general and one's own particular life.

While some regard the Singularity as a positive event and work to hasten its arrival, others view the Singularity as dangerous, undesirable, or unlikely. The most practical means for initiating the Singularity are debated, as are how, or whether, it can be influenced or avoided if dangerous.

The Singularity Summit is the world's leading dialog on the Singularity, bringing together scientists, technologists, skeptics, and enthusiasts alike. It was created to provide a much needed forum to discuss the risks and opportunities presented by our expanding relationship with technology.

ReadWriteWeb's Top 5 Web Trends of 2009:

1. Structured Data
2. The Real-Time Web
3. Personalization
4. Mobile Web & Augmented Reality
5. Internet of Things

Agriculture and Science Hero Norman Borlaug has Died

from Next Big Future by bw

Norman Borlaug has died. Norman (and his research team) saved more human lives than any other in history. At the end of this article is a comparison of rice yields 1968, 1997, 2008 and what is expected for 2020.

More than 30 years ago, Borlaug wrote, "One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy." As REASON's interview with him shows, he still believes that environmental activists and their allies in international agencies are a threat to progress on global food security. Barring such interference, he is confident that agricultural research, including biotechnology, will be able to boost crop production to meet the demand for food in a world of 8 billion or so, the projected population in 2025.

Borlaug was the Father of the Green Revolution, the dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity that swept the globe in the 1960s. For spearheading this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

In the late 1960s, most experts were speaking of imminent global famines in which billions would perish. "The battle to feed all of humanity is over," biologist Paul Ehrlich famously wrote in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb. "In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also said, "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971." He insisted that "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980."

But Borlaug and his team were already engaged in the kind of crash program that Ehrlich declared wouldn't work. Their dwarf wheat varieties resisted a wide spectrum of plant pests and diseases and produced two to three times more grain than the traditional varieties. In 1965, they had begun a massive campaign to ship the miracle wheat to Pakistan and India and teach local farmers how to cultivate it properly. By 1968, when Ehrlich's book appeared, the U.S. Agency for International Development had already hailed Borlaug's achievement as a "Green Revolution."

In Pakistan, wheat yields rose from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 8.4 million in 1970. In India, they rose from 12.3 million tons to 20 million. And the yields continue to increase. Last year, India harvested a record 73.5 million tons of wheat, up 11.5 percent from 1998. Since Ehrlich's dire predictions in 1968, India's population has more than doubled, its wheat production has more than tripled, and its economy has grown nine-fold

The Atlantic also profiled Borlaug in 1997.

Borlaug has never received much public recognition in the United States, where it is often said that the young lack heroes to look up to. One reason is that Borlaug’s deeds are done in nations remote from the media spotlight: the Western press covers tragedy and strife in poor countries, but has little to say about progress there. Another reason is that Borlaug’s mission — to cause the environment to produce significantly more food — has come to be seen, at least by some securely affluent commentators, as perhaps better left undone. More food sustains human population growth, which they see as antithetical to the natural world

By the 1980s finding fault with high-yield agriculture had become fashionable. Environmentalists began to tell the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and Western governments that high-yield techniques would despoil the developing world.

Environmental lobbyists persuaded the Ford Foundation and the World Bank to back off from most African agriculture projects. The Rockefeller Foundation largely backed away too -- though it might have in any case, because it was shifting toward an emphasis on biotechnological agricultural research. "World Bank fear of green political pressure in Washington became the single biggest obstacle to feeding Africa," Borlaug says.

Borlaug's reaction to the campaign was anger. He says, "Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things."

Borlaug, Carter, and Sasakawa traveled to Africa to pick sites, and the foundation Sasakawa-Global 2000 was born. "I assumed we'd do a few years of research first," Borlaug says, "but after I saw the terrible circumstances there, I said, 'Let's just start growing.'" Soon Borlaug was running projects in Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, and Togo. Yields of corn quickly tripled; yields of wheat, cassava, sorghum, and cow peas also grew.

Borlaug made progress even in Sudan, near the dry Sahel, though that project ended with the onset of Sudan's civil war, in 1992. Only Sasakawa's foundation came forward with more funds, but although well endowed, it is no World Bank. Environmentalists continued to say that chemical fertilizers would cause an ecological calamity in Africa.

Opponents of high-yield agriculture "took the numbers for water pollution caused by fertilizer runoff in the United States and applied them to Africa, which is totally fallacious," David Seckler says. "Chemical-fertilizer use in Africa is so tiny you could increase application for decades before causing the environmental side effects we see here. Meanwhile, Africa is ruining its wildlife habitat with slash-and-burn farming, which many commentators romanticize because it is indigenous."

From the 1997 Atlantic article: rice yields 1.6 tons per acre in China

1997 Agriculture Yields

Privatization and dwarf rice have enabled China to raise rice yields rapidly to about 1.6 tons per acre -- close to the world's best figure of two tons.

Lester Brown, the head of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental organization, fears that China may soon turn from an agricultural success story into a nation of shortages

2008

Rice plants have been greatly improved over the last three decades. Plant breeders have created plants that mature in 110 days instead 160 which means that regions with warm climates can grow three crops instead of two. The height of the average plant has been reduced from five feet to a stocky three feet, which means that the plant nutrient go into producing grains of rice and are not "wasted" on the stalks that lean over when there is too much weight. In addition, rice plants have been bred and bio-engineered to be resistant to bacterial blight, plant hoppers and stem borders.

Tall conventional rice plant used before 1968 grew in 140-180 days and yielded between 0.6 and 1.4 tons per acre. Modern rice grows in 110-140 days, produces 100 seeds per panicle, and yields between 2.4 and 4.0 tons per acre.

2020 Agriculture

By the year 2020 it is believed the world's rice crop will increase by an additional 60 percent. Current dwarf varieties have 15 productive panicles, or seed clusters per stalk (out 25 or so total stalks) that produce about 100 grains (seeds) each. New strains will have fewer, but stronger and thicker, stalks that will yield 200 or more grains each. These new plants are expected to account for most of the increased productivity

There is a project to re-engineer photosynthesis in rice to increase yields

There is work to enable plants to survive on the moon and Mars. Success or anywhere close to success will also mean plants that can grow in deserts on earth.

Technology and economic growth has been occuring in Africa and looks promising.

Bold Ideas that Changes the World

Partners In Health: http://www.pih.org/home.html
GPHIN: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/media/nr-rp/2004/2004_gphin-rmispbk-eng.php

Web2.0 Toolkit Planning

Basic Concept: Desktop Computer + Web Portal + Mobile Device

Task classification | Importance | Urgency
1 yes yes
2 yes no
3 no yes
4 no no

Mobile Device (something with mini- western keyboard): iPhone/blackberry; in the future, possibly cellphones with Google Android (Nokia as the cell phone provider)~
Mac/PC: Mac offers best integration with Apple Products, PC has best integration with softwares, Windows/Linux double system is a must
Google Products as web portal: Browser accessed

Hopefully time consumption:
70% time dealing with my own career related information
20% time dealing with leisure reading
10% time dealing with entertainment~

Time Management:
Planning:
Google Calendar
Remember the Milk (to do list) imported into google calendar
Outlook Synchronized with Google Calendar
Execution:
G-Calendar tasks text messaged to Mobile Device

Unconcious Knowledge Management (for leisure reading and long term knowledge accumulation)
Source:
Google Reader for RSS
Track particular website updates
Videos/Audios: podcast + webcast + youtube, etc.
iPhone/Blackberry - online reading/email/...
Plastic Logic (e-reader? possibe substituted by iPhone)
Evernote for online notemanagement
Manage - classify/tag/information processing:
Download to desktop/specific folder: To Read List
File name, PC folder as a coarse classification (for easy retrive by Window/Google Desktop Search)
MindMap (Brainstorming)
Google Wave for long distance project (cooperation, interation)
Information Retrieval:
Windows/Google Desktop Search (personal knowledge - gain and retrieve)
gmail search

Research/Task Oriented Knowledge Management (short term, high density of researching on specific topics, short term project oriented)
Initial Phase, gathering background:
Lectures + Seminars + webcast + videos + youtube (videos all played at 130% speed by KMplayer ) | Textbooks+Review Articles | *** Talk to Experts (plan ahead of time what to learn and make appointments with experts) | google products
Deeper Phase (Independent research): #### literatures **** Databases
Management:
Download to desktop/specific folder: To Read List
File name, PC folder as a coarse classification (for easy retrive by Window/Google Desktop Search)
CiteULike for academic citation management - synchronized to EndNote
***Spreadsheet in Excel
Wiki (high information dense management - for personal reviewing a field)
Brain Storm (interaction with others, mapping the knowledge in my own brain):
Mindmap - face to face interaction (for personal/group discussion, especially useful for drafting stage)
Google Wave - long distance interaction with other people(for project progress control during execution)
Microsoft Project Manager + another Progress Control designed for engineers (construction projects) - timeline

Personal Skills Planning and Management (Long term leisure planning, must execute, but can execute leisurely)
Wiki Tool: confluence
Mind Map
Review all the previous plans to see what may be missing~

Financial Tools:
Excel Spreadsheet! King of finance!!
Google Finance (Stock and Commodity) - personal portfolio~
Real Estate in Shanghai and U.S.(I don't really trust the online information, prefer field trip and direct inquiry)
Firefox extension (update scanner) for making investment decisions: tracking startups/venture captalist report/government report/company news/new technology
Youtube: Bloomberg News, BBC, and other companies news updates

Virtual Personal Network:
Facebook (private network)
xiaonei.com (almost obsolete)
Twitter managed by Seesmic Desktop (managing public community)
MSN - very very private
Google Wave~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(

definitely the future!)

Multitasking:
listen to podcast, or any mp3 files during boring mechanical experiments: Language learning: Japanese, German, ?Spanish?