Interview with venusplusx - Alison Gardner and Dan Massey

I interviewed venusplusx.org polymaths Alison Gardner and Dan Massey on sexual freedom, the occupy movement, transhumanism, the singularity, physics, religion and spirituality, and their forthcoming book. LGBT rights and quantum entanglement in the same talk. Thanks to Khannea Suntzu for filming. Thanks to Hank Pellissier for transcribing part of the interview for the IEET, and join the discussion at IEET | Sexual Freedom - an interview with VenusPlusX.

For this first teleXLR8 show using an interview format I have invited two Renaissance persons interested in everything. All these topics and many others will be explored in forthcoming interviews and talk shows on highly imaginative technologies, science, art, culture and society, hosted by show leaders (to be announced soon), with one or more guests and a selected audience. The videos will be edited and posted online a few days after the shows.

La Voz de la Ciencia - Is the Singularity Near?

A spectre is haunting the world - the spectre of the Singularity. All the powers of the old world have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: The Pope and the ayatollahs, the banks and the political parties, and "bioethicists" of both the right and the left.

Read more on La Voz de la Ciencia (in Spanish)...

The futurists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at the Singularity. Humans 1.0 have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a universe to win.

Between the opening and closing paragraphs adapted from the Manifesto of Karl Marx, my article ¿Está cerca la Singularidad? (in Spanish), published by La Voz de la Ciencia.

The article is a simple and fairly standard overview of the Singularity, with some (less standard) considerations on Singularity politics and spirituality.

La Voz de la Ciencia is an open multidisciplinary project of Aviador Dro on the scientific and technological challenges of the XXI century, from the perspective of their impact on society and the human mind through a unified double vision, scientific and artistic.

Aviador Dro (short for El Aviador Dro Y Sus Obreros Especializados) is an electronic band from Spain formed in Madrid in 1979 with influences such as Gary Numan, Devo and Kraftwerk. They were part of the Movida Madrileña. The article includes the lyrics of their forthcoming musical El momento de la Singularidad.

In this video interview after a talk of Ray Kurzweil in Madrid, my good friend Alejandro Sacristán (aka Aviador Dro's CTA 102) outlines the Singularity (in Spanish).

Back from trip to NYC and Vermont

In the picture taken by my daughter I am in the New York subway with my late lamented Terasem travel bag, which was stolen by an asshole on the Amtrak train to Vermont. To the asshole: I guess you can make some money by selling the computers and cellphones in the bag, and there was some cash too, but I hope you spend it all on diarrhea pills.

I was a few days in Vermont where I attended the Terasem monthly gathering and annual graduation. In the video below I listen to Martine Rothblatt who talks of satellite radio, electric cars and solar energy... driving an electric sport car powered by solar energy in beautiful Vermont. Awesome.



On Cctober 13 I gave a talk on Transhumanism and Religion at Manhattan College. Thanks to Robert Geraci for organizing the talk, and thanks to all participants for the great questions and comments.

On October 15 and 16 I attended the Singularity Summit 2011. See my Singularity Summit 2011 roundup report at KurzweilAI.

In the picture below I am with my good friend Guillermo Santamaria, whom I met at the Summit face to face for the first time. I met many other friends face to face for the first time, including Robert Geraci and Rachel Haywire, who is organizing the Extreme Futurist Festival in December in LA to bridge counterculture and academia ("if the original Burning Man was to meet the Singularity Summit, you would have Extreme Futurist Fest 2011"). An event not to be missed (though I am afraid I will have to miss it).

I was happy to meet again many good friends (too many to list). A special mention to Alison Gardner and Dan Massey (please see their website VenusPlusX and support their work), who also came to my talk on October 13. After David Brin's talk at the Singularity Summit (David said that the Singularity community should seek a dialog with religious people), Dan and I agreed that the religion of Science and the religion of Love are one and the same, or at least they should be.

ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds

About 30 persons attended the ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 16-17th. Besides the participants in San Francisco, about 25 remote participants attended online in Teleplace. The two main organizers Randal A. Koene and Suzanne Gildert appear in the image above (right screen).

The interactive live streaming of the ASIM 2010 Conference has been covered by KurzweilAI News (TOP STORY of today): Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds conference to be streamed live. I think this has been a really excellent mixed-reality event (see below).

Previously the subject of the conference had been described by KurzweilAI as: "What might brains and minds look like in the future? It can be difficult to manage and organize ideas from many highly specialized fields of expertise that must necessarily converge to answer this intriguing question. Not only must one consider the areas of brain imaging, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology, but also artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, computational hardware architectures, and philosophy.

In the past, the transferal of minds into computer-based systems has been rather vaguely referred to as “uploading.” However, those hoping to advance this multidisciplinary field of research prefer to use the term Advancing Substrate Independent Minds (ASIM), to emphasize a more scientific, and less science-fiction approach to creating emulations of human brains in non-biological substrates. The term ASIM captures the fact that there are several ways in which hardware and software may be used to run algorithms that mimic the human brain, and that there are many different approaches that can be used to realize this end goal. On May 22, 2010, carboncopies was born in an effort to unite the disparate areas of research contributing to ASIM..."

Note: the term ASIM provides some plausible deniability to serious scientists, which is very useful. But I am not a serious scientist, and I think I will continue to use the good old term Mind Uploading. It is deliciously retro with a flavor of the wild, visionary, irresponsible and unPC transhumanism of the 90s. I am persuaded that future science and technology will permit achieving our wildest dreams, including mind uploading. In the meantime, the ASIM project will contribute to advancing step by step and developing enabling technologies.

The ASIM 2010 Conference featured 7 talks followed by lively discussions:

ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, Day 1, with pictures and videos

Introduction to Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, by Randal A. Koene
Computational complexity, by Suzanne Gildert
Advanced Tools – Synthetic biology, Nanotechnology, etc., by Mark Hamalainen
Preservation & large-scale high-resolution structural analysis, by Ken Hayworth (talk given via Teleplace)

ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, Day 2, with pictures and videos

Fundamental Issues – Resolution & Scale, “Me” Programs, by Randal A. Koene
Actionable Approaches – ASIM Now, by Peter Passaro (talk given via Teleplace)
ASIM in Context – Ongoing Advances in neuroprosthetics, AGI, Cyber-augmentation, embodiment, VR, etc., by Monica Anderson

Remote participants in Teleplace were able to follow the talks via interactive video streaming, ask questions to the speakers, and contribute to the discussion. Two speakers (Peter Passaro on Day 2 and Ken Hayworth on Day 1) gave their talks via Teleplace. After attending both days of the conference remotely in Teleplace, I am very happy with the performance of the Teleplace system as a means to open up conferences to a global remote audience in “mixed reality”, with crisp video and audio (after properly setting up the microphones) and deep interactivity for all participants. I have participated in ASIM 2010 from the middle of nowhere in Central Europe, with a 3G phone link to the Internet and a very weak signal (in other words, my current Internet connection is VERY slow). Even with this poor connection, I have been able to participate in ASIM 2010 without any problem. There are, of course, special problems to deal with in mixed reality events. For example, in the first half of Day 2 remote participants could not hear well the on-site participants far from the microphone. In future events, we will use cordless microphones to give to on-site participants when they want to say something. In this case, the problem was solved by asking on-site participants to go to the microphone to comment and ask questions. Mixed reality via the professional and social collaboration platform Teleplace permits merging on-site and remote participants in one virtual group, and it is the best way to open up a conference to remote participants that I have seen. The 2-way video and audio link enables each participant, on-site or remote, to be seen and heard by all other participants, on-site or remote.

Remote access via Teleplace to the ASIM 2010 Conference, San Francisco, August 16-17

If you cannot be in San Francisco next Monday and Tuesday you can virtually attend in telepresence the Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds (ASIM-2010) conference, the satellite to the Singularity Summit arranged by carboncopies.org, focusing on the potential ways to realise substrate independent minds. The conference will take place on the 16th and 17th of August, in the evenings (after the Singularity Summit workshop sessions) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown San Francisco.

Those who already have a Teleplace account for teleXLR8 can just show up at the conference, others who wish to attend should contact the organizers. Note for European participants: the time is PST - the conference starts at 4am (in the middle of the night) continental EU time, 3am UK, on August 17 and 18 (the night between Mon and Tue for the first session, the night between Tue and Wed for the second session). Note for new participants: please read our Practical Teleplace Help page for new users.

This ASIM conference is the first of its kind, with previous workshops being held online. We are hoping that the enthusiasm for the topics and the discussion sessions displayed during these online events will carry over to the real life workshop. The conference has a practical, action-oriented structure that is aimed at inciting discussion rather than dissemination of points of view. Topics on day one (August 16th) and day two (August 17th) are divided into distinct categories: Day 1 - Practical and Immediately Actionable Directions. Day 2 - Fundamental and Long-term Considerations.

Several participants and speakers will be joining us remotely via Teleplace software, an increasingly useful virtual conferencing tool. The conference will also be webcast live using the same software. If any attendees have friends or colleagues who are unable to attend the real-life conference but would like to join us remotely, please contact us for information on how to set up a Teleplace account.

This formula permits full 2-way interaction between two groups of participants, those physically present at the conference, and those attending in telepresence ("mixed reality"). Through a combination of 2-way video and audio feeds, each participant in either group will be able to see and hear participants in the other group. In particular, speakers and participants attending via Teleplace will be able to give presentations, ask questions to other speakers, and participate in the discussions.

See Carboncopies–Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds on KurzweilAI: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds 2010 (ASIM-2010) to be held after Singularity Summit. In addition to the virtual events, carboncopies is holding an official launching conference in real life: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds (ASIM-2010) will take place at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco on August 16 & 17, 2010, immediately after the Singularity Summit. A virtual link will also be provided for those who wish to attend remotely. Please join us in person, or through virtual presence in Teleplace on August 16 and 17, 2010, for an action-oriented event aimed at advancing substrate-independent minds. Contact us to find out more about each option. Regarding the ASIM-2010 conference, all are welcome and there is no registration fee -- although donations to offset our expenses are greatly appreciated. Please RSVP the organizers to secure your seat.

iLabs Singularity Summit, March 5 2011 in Milan

From the iLabs site: May 24, 2010 - Road Map to iLabs Singularity Summit, Stage 1 - iLabs meet transhumanist associations and researchers to present the iLabs Singularity Summit, the iLabs international summit on Singolarity to be held on March, 5 2011 in Milan. The speeches and the presentations will be soon available on our websites.

I participated in the first workshop and will keenly follow this important initiative.

Video: David Orban on the Singularity University, Teleplace, May 11

David Orban, Chairman of Humanity+ and Advisor to the Singularity University, gave the second teleXLR8 talk in Teleplace on May 11, 2010, at 11pm continental EU (10pm UK, 2pm PST, 5pm EST). David presented an overview of the Singularity University, including program details and recent developments. The talk was followed by a lively Q/A session.

Read more on the teleXLR8 blog, and see the full video of the presentation and Q/A on blip.tv.

The viseo is also on Youtube. Part 1:



See the other parts on the teleXLR8 channel on Youtube or on this post on the teleXLR8 blog.

David Orban on the Singularity University, Teleplace, May 11

See telexlr8.workpress.com

David Orban, Chairman of Humanity+ and Advisor to the Singularity University, will give the second teleXLR8 talk in Teleplace on May 11, 2010, at 11pm continental EU (10pm UK, 2pm PST, 5pm EST). David will present an overview of the Singularity University, including program details and recent developments.

Date and time: Tuesday May 11 at 23pm continental EU (22pm UK, 2pm PST, 5pm EST)

Title: Presentation of the Singularity University

Abstract: The Singularity University (SU) is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. With the support of a broad range of leaders in academia, business and government, SU hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges. SU is based at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley and offers two main types of programs: an annual 9-week Graduate Studies Program as well as 3- and 10-day Executive Programs throughout the year.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). It is a powerful telepresence environment where multiple participants can stream their webcam video to interactive 3D online meeting areas and workspaces. The virtual 3D space permits effectively organizing the work areas and creates the impression of "being there", which is fundamental for effective remote collaboration. One of the main features of Teleplace is its ability to immediately import Office documents from the desktop for presentations and collaborative editing.

The talk is sponsored by Teleplace and Italsat.

There are a few seats available for the online interactive event, please contact me by email if you wish to attend, or request to join the teleXLR8 Facebook group. For those who cannot attend, the talk will be posted to telexlr8.blip.tv on May 12.