SecondPlace, QwaqLife or TeleSim?

I am very much in love with both my two favorite virtual meeting technologies: Second Life, partly cloned by the open source OpenSim, and Teleplace, recently open sourced as OpenQwaq. In the pictures, two recent online conferences in Second Life and Teleplace.

I love both, but most VR users tend to strongly prefer one. I am interested in "serious" applications to, for example, online talks and e-learning (no value judgment intended, and please see "Telepresence Education for a Smarter World" for more), and I like both.

The Teleplace / OpenQwaq technology, on which my teleXLR8 online talk program and "telepresence community for cultural acceleration" is based, has much better built-in voice and support for multi user collaboration, document sharing and webcam videoconferencing, all very important features for "serious" applications, but those who prefer Second Life may find it too aseptic and square.

The Second Life / OpenSim technology, much closer to (and directly inspired by) the Metaverse of Snow Crash, has a certain built-in playfulness which is also very important (more important than I used to think) for "serious" applications, and is much more appealing to persons with strong artistic sensibilities, but those who prefer Teleplace may find its more, um, extreme aspects too annoying and distracting.

As I said, I like both. The "conflict" is mostly cultural and psychological, and I have no doubts that both technologies, especially in their open source versions, can easily support both work and play in both square and creative modes. For example, I have prototyped simple examples of videoconferencing and collaborative document sharing in Second Life, and OpenQwaq can import very creative 3D models and avatars.

Open ended, comments welcome.

VIDEO – teleXLR8 highlights 2010

VIDEO – teleXLR8 highlights 2010 (with info, long version, links to the same video also on Blip.tv and Vimeo).

Update: Budapest, Terasem, MOM, Second Life, OpenQwaq

A quick update. We are living in Budapest since beginning April. At the end of April I visited Terasem in Florida (photo composition below).

I have been meaning to join Terasem for quite some time, and I am happy I finally joined. See my joinership video here. I plan to be more and more active in Terasem: more thoughts in a forthcoming article, and please see the great Terasem multimedia website maintained by Fred and Linda Chamberlain. Unfortunately I cannot participate regularly in Terasem gatherings in the US, but I can and will participate regularly in Terasem gatherings in Second Life (picture below). I had not been in SL for ages, but I plan to attend all Terasem events and, I hope, other interesting events. My new SL avatar is, guess, simply giulioprisco (the blue skinned old astronaut in the picture).

After Florida I went to see my daughter for a few days. Her film making team just successfully completed their first fundraising project on Kickstarter! On my way back at the airport I received an email announcing OpenQwaq (the open source version of Teleplace). This is very exciting news, because it permits reloading the teleXLR8 project which was stalled for lack of funds.

We are planning to re-open teleXLR8's virtual doors in a couple of months. We will probably launch a Kickstarter project for teleXLR8 (always learn from the young). In the picture above, a first test of OpenQwaq. Watch the teleXLR8 blog for more related news and thoughts.

The Turing Church of transhumanist spirituality, online in virtual reality for people and pets

The Turing Church Online Workshop 1, on Saturday November 20 2010 in Teleplace, explored transhumanist spirituality and “Religion 2.0″ as a coordination-oriented summit of persons, groups and organizations active in this area. See my report with pictures and videos.

Here I prefer to show this picture of three participants with their pets before the formal start of the workshop. On the left video screen I am holding my sweet little Sacha, who is NOT a cat like the other two pets but a Shih-Tzu doggy with her own Facebook page. En passant, last week we webcast Sacha's 12th birthday party on Facebook via Livestream, see the picture below and the video on YouTube.

Back to the Turing Church Online Workshop 1. Topics and issues discussed:

- To discover parallels and similarities between different organizations and to agree on common interests, agendas, strategies, outreach plans etc.
- To discuss whether it makes sense to establish a umbrella organization, or to consider one of the existing organizations as such.
- To develop the idea of scientific resurrection: our descendants and mind children will develop “magic science and technology” in the sense of Clarke’s third law, and may be able to do grand spacetime engineering and even resurrect the dead by “copying them to the future“. Of course this a hope and not a certainty, but I am persuaded that this concept is scientifically founded and could become the “missing link” between transhumanists and religious and spiritual communities.
- And of course, how to make our our beautiful ideas available, understandable and appealing to billions of seekers.

The workshop made evident that the participants, persons and groups, share very similar, overlapping and compatible ideas. It is also evident that there are different approaches to transhumanist spirituality, each with its own focus and priorities. Some participants observed that, since all of the spiritual transhumanist groups represented at the workshop are inclusive, it makes sense joining all (I am a member of all the groups represented at the workshop which have a formal concept of membership, and I consider myself a member of the others as well). The idea of establishing a umbrella organizations for spiritually inclined transhumanists was discussed. An alternative is one of the existing groups, or perhaps Humanity+ (subject to their interest of course) as umbrella organization. The MTA and Terasem reported significant growth.

My own presentation was very similar to my talk on The Cosmic Visions of the Turing Church at the Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010, with some new elements. In particular I added a few references to Possibilianism, a middle, exploratory ground between religion and atheism first defined by neuroscientist David Eagleman in relation to his book of fiction Sum. Eagleman: "I call myself a Possibilian: I'm open to ideas that we don't have any way of testing right now... Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion… with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position -- one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story." This makes a lot of sense to me, and I consider myself as a Possibilianist and a Cosmist. Our universe is a very big place with lots of undiscovered and unimagined "things in heaven and earth" which science will uncover someday, and perhaps in this mysterious and beautiful complexity there will be room for the old promises of religion.

This was a great workshop of 4 very intense hours and a lot of interesting things were said. I don't have the time to write a full report, please watch the videos.

My presentation at TransVision 2010: Online conferences 2.0

My presentation at TransVision 2010: Online conferences 2.0

One problem with conferences is that participating costs money and time. Today many conferences offer live video streams of all talks and discussion, which is very important for those who cannot attend physically. Some recent conferences like the ASIM 2010 Conference in San Francisco (satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010) have offered fully interactive remote participation with multi-user video, audio, text and document sharing (“mixed-reality”).

Mixed-reality via modern telepresence technology permits opening conferences to remote participants by merging on-site and remote participants in one virtual group. 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 speakers and attendees are able to actively participate, follow the talks via interactive video streaming, ask questions to the speakers, contribute to the discussion, and give talks themselves. Of course, modern telepresence technology permits also online-only “conferences 2.0″, and I think this is an important trend. Going back to “one problem with conferences is that participating costs money and time“, it is evident that online conferences 2.0 permit saving a lot of money and time, thus enabling more people to participate in cultural acceleration.

I will present our teleXLR8 project based on Teleplace, recently covered by Hypergrid Business, one of the best online magazines focused on professional applications of virtual reality, “as an online open TED, using modern telepresence technology for ideas worth spreading, and as a next generation, fully interactive TV network with a participative audience.” See also “teleXLR8 Project News – a telepresence community for cultural acceleration“, our mini-manifesto Telepresence Education for a Smarter World on the IEET site and the interview MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco, by Natasha Vita-More, on H+ Magazine.

teleXLR8 on Hypergrid Business as "online TED", Teleplace talk on BCI

The teleXLR8 project has been covered by Hypergrid Business, one of the best online magazines focused on professional applications of virtual reality, "as an online open TED, using modern telepresence technology for ideas worth spreading, and as a next generation, fully interactive TV network with a participative audience."

The Hypergrid Business article has the first public indications of the monthly membership fee for teleXLR8: $15, or $10 if paid annually. See this administrative note for more details.

I am organizing the TransVision 2010 conference in good old brickspace, and unfortunately many people will not be able to come for the usual reasons: money and time. Of course, the conference will be open to remote participants and speakers via teleXLR8. I am persuaded that, with Teleplace, telepresence technology has achieved critical performance, usability and immersion for online-only conferences, and I believe more and more conferences will move online.

Later today (or tomorrow morning depending on where you are: Sunday October 17, 2010, at 10am PST, 1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET) Max Hodak will give a talk in Teleplace on Brain-machine interfacing: current work and future directions. In the picture above, Max lectures in Teleplace. UPDATE: This was a great talk. About 30 participants attended the talk and contributed to the discussion with very interesting questions and comments. For those who could not attend we have recorded everything (talk, Q/A and discussion) on video.

Brain-Machine Interfacing (BMI), or Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) is one of the emerging technologies which will start having a very big impact in the next decade of the 10s. From the abstract of Max' talk: "Fluid, two-way brain-machine interfacing represents one of the greatest challenges of modern bioengineering. It offers the potential to restore movement and speech to the locked-in, and ultimately allow us as humans to expand far beyond the biological limits we’re encased in now."

See also "teleXLR8 Project News - a telepresence community for cultural acceleration", our mini-manifesto Telepresence Education for a Smarter World on the IEET site and the interview MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco, by Natasha Vita-More, on H+ Magazine. Besides the existing Facebook Group and Linkedin Group, we have created a teleXLR8 mailing list on Google Groups. Please feel free to join the mailing list to discuss the project.

TransVision 2010 Conference to be streamed live interactively in Teleplace

Those who wish to attend the TransVision 2010 conference and community convention (October 22, 23 and 24 in Milan, Italy) but cannot come to Milan will have the option to participate remotely in the TVirtual online extension, watch all talks in realtime, and interact with speakers and other participants. TVirtual, hosted by the teleXLR8 project based on the Teleplace online telepresence platform, will be a mixed-reality event similar to the recent ASIM 2010 Conference.

TVirtual tickets are available at a very reduced price. Those who register for the full 3-days TVirtual before or on Sunday, October 10, including of course those who have registered already, will receive a free yearly membership in teleXLR8. Those who register for the full 3-days TVirtual after this date will be offered a 50% discount for yearly membership in teleXLR8. Current teleXLR8 beta account holders will be welcome to participate in TVirtual.

If you choose to attend TVirtual, you will be able to watch all talks, see and talk to speakers and other participants, and attend special telepresence sessions during, before and after the conference. In the pictures above, a TV10 planning session and several TransVision 2010 speakers giving talks in Teleplace at recent events. Please see the teleXLR8 website for full video coverage of recent transhumanist talks.

For a more detailed description of the objectives of our online events program, see our mini-manifesto Telepresence Education for a Smarter World on the IEET site and the interview MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco, by Natasha Vita-More, on H+ Magazine. See also teleXLR8 Project News – a telepresence community for cultural acceleration.

teleXLR8 Project News - a telepresence community for cultural acceleration

We have been running the teleXLR8 project, a telepresence community for cultural acceleration based on Teleplace, in semi-stealth beta mode for a few months since the first talk by Anders Sandberg on Neuroselves and exoselves: distributed cognition inside and outside brains on April 18, 2010. We have produced some great events, talks by well known experts of futuristic technologies, meetings of closed working groups, and a two day "mixed reality" satellite workshop with the Singularity Summit 2010.

teleXLR8 has been running as a free, invitation-only beta on the Teleplace servers and network infrastructure since March 2010. Due to the limited resources available we have only promoted teleXLR8 in the relatively small community of future studies and "Singularity" enthusiasts. Even so, we have received many more requests to join than we could handle, and the project has been frequently covered by the blogosphere and the online press. The current beta group has about 80 members. Each talk has been recorded on video and posted to the video sharing site blip.tv the day after the talk. The videos have been seen by several thousands of viewers and covered by important technology oriented sites including internetACTU, IEET, KurzweilAI, H+ Magazine, Next Big Future and Slashdot.

We have now reached an agreement with Teleplace, which will permit running the project in fully operational mode our own dedicated servers, network and support infrastructure, and opening it to everyone for a very reasonable membership fee. The current beta will continue until the start of the next phase, and all members of the current beta group will receive extended free membership. Sponsor slots are available.

We will produce great and frequent online events, featuring first class speakers with world-changing ideas, available in interactive realtime telepresence. teleXLR8 can be thought of as an online open TED, using modern telepresence technology for ideas worth spreading, and as a next generation, fully interactive TV network with a participative audience. In the pictures, participants are watching the recent talk by Ben Goertzel on TV. At any moment, they can step in to comment, discuss and ask questions.

For a more detailed description of the project's goals, see our mini-manifesto Telepresence Education for a Smarter World on the IEET site and the interview MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco, by Natasha Vita-More, on H+ Magazine.

Besides the existing Facebook Group and Linkedin Group, we have created a teleXLR8 mailing list on Google Groups. Please feel free to join the mailing list to discuss the project.

VIDEO: Martine Rothblatt on Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles, Teleplace, September 18

Martine Rothblatt gave an ASIM Expert Series talk in Teleplace on “Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles” on Saturday September 18, 2010.

Some questions and comments from the audience have been of a philosophical nature and related to preservation of self (whatever that is), but most of those who attended the talk were already prepared to accept that, depending on the amount of information stored and the accuracy of the reconstruction process, the upload copy may be (and feel like) a valid continuation of the original self. The talk and the discussion have been more focused on actual technologies and technical issues: How to extract enough information? How to prove that the information extracted is enough? How to quantify a critical treshold? How to make sure that nothing really important is left behind? How to reconstruct a thinking and feeling mind from a database? Martine gave a detailed presentation of the preliminary implementation of software mindfiles in her twin projects CyBeRev and LifeNaut (similar, but kept separate mainly as a fail-safe measure) and their forthcoming mobile clients and integration with social networks.

Thanks Martine for the great talk and thanks to the (about 25) participants who contributed to the discussion with very interesting questions and comments. For those who could not attend we have recorded everything (talk, Q/A and discussion) on video. Here is a direct link to a video.

REMINDER - Martine Rothblatt on Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles, Teleplace, September 18, 10am PST

REMINDER - Martine Rothblatt will give an ASIM Expert Series talk in Teleplace on “Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles” on Saturday September 18, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend. You can also join the Facebook page for the event.

Abstract: “I do think, however, there is a (natural) tendency to way overestimate the importance of copying our brain structure to copying our minds. I think our minds will be uploadable in good enough shape to satisfy most everyone by reconstructing them from information stored in software mindfiles such as diaries, videos, personality inventories, saved google voice conversations, chats, and chatbot conversations. The reconstruction process will be iteratively achieved with AI software designed for this purpose, dubbed mindware.“

I met Martine online earlier today to prepare the talk. She told me that, in previous presentations of software mindfiles, many questions and comments have been of a philosophical or metaphysical nature and related to preservation of self (whatever that is). But I told Martine that I believe most of those who will attend the talk tomorrow are already prepared to accept that, depending on the amount of information stored and the accuracy of the reconstruction process, the upload copy may be (and feel like) a valid continuation of the original self. I expect that the audience will prefer leaving philosophy aside and be more interested in actual technologies and technical issues: How to extract enough information? How to prove that the information extracted is enough? How to quantify a critical treshold? How to make sure that nothing really important is left behind? How to reconstruct a thinking and feeling mind from a database? See also ASIM Experts series: Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles on carboncopies.org and the discussion in the article MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco on H+ Magazine. Watch also the short movie Bina48 Robot on YouTube (latest update of the video in the New York Times article).

Martine Rothblatt is an American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur. Rothblatt graduated from UCLA with a combined law and MBA degree in 1981, then began work in Washington, D.C., first in the field of communication satellite law, and eventually in life sciences projects like the Human Genome Project. She is currently the founder and CEO of United Therapeutics. In 2004, Rothblatt launched the Terasem Movement, a transhumanist school of thought focused on promoting joy, diversity, and the prospect of technological immortality via personal cyberconsciousness and geoethical nanotechnology. The purpose of the CyBeRev (cybernetic beingness revival) project of the Terasem Movement is to prevent death by preserving sufficient information about a person so that recovery remains possible by foreseeable technology.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend. You can also join the Facebook page for the event.

Martine Rothblatt on Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles, Teleplace, September 18, 10am PST

Martine Rothblatt will give an ASIM Expert Series talk in Teleplace on “Reconstructing Minds from Software Mindfiles” on Saturday September 18, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend. You can also join the Facebook page for the event.

Abstract: “I do think, however, there is a (natural) tendency to way overestimate the importance of copying our brain structure to copying our minds. I think our minds will be uploadable in good enough shape to satisfy most everyone by reconstructing them from information stored in software mindfiles such as diaries, videos, personality inventories, saved google voice conversations, chats, and chatbot conversations. The reconstruction process will be iteratively achieved with AI software designed for this purpose, dubbed mindware.“

Martine Rothblatt is an American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur. Rothblatt graduated from UCLA with a combined law and MBA degree in 1981, then began work in Washington, D.C., first in the field of communication satellite law, and eventually in life sciences projects like the Human Genome Project. She is currently the founder and CEO of United Therapeutics. In 2004, Rothblatt launched the Terasem Movement, a transhumanist school of thought focused on promoting joy, diversity, and the prospect of technological immortality via personal cyberconsciousness and geoethical nanotechnology. The purpose of the CyBeRev (cybernetic beingness revival) project of the Terasem Movement is to prevent death by preserving sufficient information about a person so that recovery remains possible by foreseeable technology.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend. You can also join the Facebook page for the event.

Ben Goertzel on The Cosmist Manifesto in Teleplace, September 12

Ben Goertzel gave a talk in Teleplace on his recent book “A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age” on Sunday September 12, 2010.

This talk was somewhat different from previous talks, and centered on a high level philosophical vision rather than on specific emerging technologies. But these are two sides of the same coin and, as it is well known, cultural and philosophical trends have a deep influence on technology development and vice versa. Thanks Ben for the great talk and thanks to the (about 25) participants who contributed to the discussion with very interesting questions and comments. For those who could not attend we have recorded everything (talk, Q/A and discussion) on video.

A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age, by Ben Goertzel, has been published by Humanity+ Press and is available on Amazon. See the review “A Cosmist Manifesto, an Advocacy“ on H+ Magazine. See also the online version of the Cosmist Manifesto.

The term Cosmism was introduced by Tsiolokovsky and other Russian Cosmists around 1900. Goertzel’s “Cosmist Manifesto” gives it new life and a new twist for the 21st century. Cosmism, as Goertzel presents it, is a practical philosophy for the posthuman era. Rooted in Western and Eastern philosophy as well as modern technology and science, it is a way of understanding ourselves and our universe that makes sense now, and will keep on making sense as advanced technology exerts its transformative impact as the future unfolds. Among the many topics considered are AI, nanotechnology, uploading, immortality, psychedelics, meditation, future social structures, psi phenomena, alien and cetacean intelligence and the Singularity. The Cosmist perspective is shown to make plain old common sense of even the wildest future possibilities.

Ben Goertzel, Chair of Humanity+, is founder and CEO of two computer science firms Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC, and of the non-profit AGIRI (Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute). He has served as a university faculty in several departments of mathematics, computer science and cognitive science, in the US, Australia and New Zealand. He is author of two books focused on the future of technology and society Creating Internet Intelligence (Plenum, 2001) and The Path to Posthumanity (Academica, 2006). He serves as Director of Research for the Singularity Institute for AI.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning).

REMINDER – Ben Goertzel on The Cosmist Manifesto in Teleplace, September 12, 10am PST

Ben Goertzel will give a talk in Teleplace on his recent book “A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age” on Sunday September 12, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend.

A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age, by Ben Goertzel, has been published by Humanity+ Press and is available on Amazon. See the review “A Cosmist Manifesto, an Advocacy“ on H+ Magazine. See also the online version of the Cosmist Manifesto. In the picture above, Ben Goertzel (first from left) in a Teleplace meeting.

The term Cosmism was introduced by Tsiolokovsky and other Russian Cosmists around 1900. Goertzel’s “Cosmist Manifesto” gives it new life and a new twist for the 21st century. Cosmism, as Goertzel presents it, is a practical philosophy for the posthuman era. Rooted in Western and Eastern philosophy as well as modern technology and science, it is a way of understanding ourselves and our universe that makes sense now, and will keep on making sense as advanced technology exerts its transformative impact as the future unfolds. Among the many topics considered are AI, nanotechnology, uploading, immortality, psychedelics, meditation, future social structures, psi phenomena, alien and cetacean intelligence and the Singularity. The Cosmist perspective is shown to make plain old common sense of even the wildest future possibilities.

Ben Goertzel, Chair of Humanity+, is founder and CEO of two computer science firms Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC, and of the non-profit AGIRI (Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute). He has served as a university faculty in several departments of mathematics, computer science and cognitive science, in the US, Australia and New Zealand. He is author of two books focused on the future of technology and society Creating Internet Intelligence (Plenum, 2001) and The Path to Posthumanity (Academica, 2006). He serves as Director of Research for the Singularity Institute for AI.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend.

Suzanne's talk in Teleplace slashdotted - Separating Hope From Hype In Quantum Computing

Suzanne Gildert's talk on Quantum Computing in Teleplace of September 4 has been covered by Slashdot Hardware Story | Separating Hope From Hype In Quantum Computing.

Of course the "Slashdot effect" (via Next Big Future | Quantum Computing: Separating Hope from Hype) has caused a massive surge of visits to the article on the teleXLR8 website and especially the teleXLR8 video channel on blip.tv (several thousands of video views in a few hours).

As it is usually the case, the comments on Slashdot are often off-topic and sometimes rude (there are some very interesting comments though). But I think a popular site like Slashdot is very useful to bring science closer to the citizens (this is not a "hardware story" but a fascinating and accessible scientific lecture), and I am happy that many people have had the opportunity to watch the talk on video.

Suzanne Gildert on Quantum Computing in Teleplace, September 4

Suzanne Gildert gave a talk in Teleplace on “Building large-scale quantum computers: Fundamentals, technology and applications” on September 4, 2010. See also Suzanne’s own post on “Online seminar on Quantum Computing“, where she has renamed the talk “Quantum Computing: Separating Hope from Hype“, abstract: “The talk will explain why quantum computers are useful, and also dispel some of the myths about what they can and cannot do. It will address some of the practical ways in which we can build quantum computers and give realistic timescales for how far away commercially useful systems might be.“ See this page with the full video of the talk, Q/A and discussion.

This has been a great talk on a very interesting subject area by an excellent speaker who makes things clear and as simple as they can be made. Thanks Suzanne for the great talk and thanks to the (about 30) participants who contributed to the discussion with very interesting questions and comments. For those who could not attend we have recorded everything (talk, Q/A and discussion) on video.

NOTES: We just uploaded all raw video files recorded with the video recording feature built in Teleplace, it takes much less work than video editing. To download the source .mp4 video files from blip.tv, open the “Files and Links” box.

Don’t mind the initial 2-3 minutes of audio noise caused by participants who had started playing recorded video files in Teleplace. Their state vectors have been collapsed to a harmless ground state by using a (patent pending) doomsday quantum processing device developed by the participant known as "Machine Overlord", a virtual version of which has been coded for Teleplace by the participant known as "Chris".

See also the News and discussion forum on KurzweilAI.

REMINDER – Suzanne Gildert on Building large-scale quantum computers, Teleplace, September 4, 10am PST

UPDATED: VIDEO of Suzanne’s talk

Suzanne Gildert will give a talk in Teleplace on “Building large-scale quantum computers: Fundamentals, technology and applications” on September 4, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend.

Suzanne is an excellent speaker and I am sure she will give a great talk. As she says in the abstract below, quantum computing is often over-dramatized by the popular press, and I look forward to hearing Suzanne’s explanations on how quantum computers work, how to build them, what they can do, what they cannot do, what they cannot do yet, and when. Suzanne’s blog “Physics and cake” is one of the best online references on quantum computing (and other imaginative technologies), at times highly technical but more often understandable and even entertaining. Suzanne’s company, D-Wave Systems, Inc. (see also the D-Wave blog), is pioneering the development of a new class of high-performance computing system designed to solve complex search and optimization problems, with an initial emphasis on synthetic intelligence and machine learning applications, by using a computational model known as adiabatic quantum computing (AQC).

In the picture above, Suzanne at the recent ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 16-17th. Suzanne’s has been one of the most active participants in the ASIM 2010 Conference, and she has a nice writeup on “ASIM-2010 – not quite Singularity but close“. The picture, taken in the virtual conference room in Teleplace and with another view of the same virtual conference room in the background, is a nice reality cascade appropriate to the spooky image of quantum computing.

• Suzanne's blog: Online seminar on Quantum Computing
• KurzweilAI News: Building large-scale quantum computers

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.

teleXLR8: ASIM 2010, Suzanne Gildert on Quantum Computing, Ben Goertzel on the Cosmist Manifesto

Next events in teleXLR8, a telepresence community for cultural acceleration:

Ben Goertzel will give a talk in Teleplace on his recent book “A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age” on September 12, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET).

Suzanne Gildert will give a talk in Teleplace on “Building large-scale quantum computers: Fundamentals, technology and applications” on September 4, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET).

We will (probably) be able to provide remote access via Teleplace to the ASIM 2010 Conference, San Francisco, August 16-17.

Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talks. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact me if you wish to attend.

Randal A. Koene on Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds, Teleplace, July 17, 2010

Randal A. Koene gave a talk in Teleplace on “Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds” on July 17, 2010. We recorded the full video of the presentation and Q/A in two versions: one from a fixed point of view, and another from the dynamic point of view of a participant who zooms on all slides to read the text better.

Full video of the presentation and Q/A (fixed point of view)
Full video of the presentation and Q/A (participant’s dynamic point of view)

This presentation has been a very comprehensive introduction to Substrate-Independent Minds and a very interesting discussion of current research, recent advances, and future possibilities. The Q/A session has been very lively, and there has been no time to ask and answer all the questions raised by the presentation. The good friends at KurzweilAI have created a discussion forum on Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds (continuation of Teleplace), where we can continue the discussion. We encourage all those who attended the live presentation in Teleplace and have other questions, as well as those who have watched the video of the presentation and Q/A, to ask questions and discuss on the KurzweilAI forum.

Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds
Randal A. Koene – carboncopies.org

Take as a given that the Church-Turing thesis applies to human thinking, that our minds are complex machines, but machines nonetheless. Let us also assume that we already understand many of the scientific, societal and even evolutionary pressures – as described in several of my previous talks – that underscore the need to augment our minds with the capabilities of machine intelligence and the adaptability to operate in computational substrates other than those of the cerebral neurophysiology. What do we know about the possible target substrates and the procedures that may achieve a transition to such substrates? Which are the primary remaining scientific challenges, and which are the engineering hurdles to be overcome? At carboncopies.org, we are taking steps to identify and formulate rational approaches to these problems. For example, on one end of the spectrum we investigate feasible and careful ways to accomplish subject-specific data acquisition and whole brain emulation, while on the other we lend support to proposals for commercially viable developments in cognitive augmentation. We actively encourage peer review through publications and events such as the workshop on Advancing Substrate Independent Minds (ASIM-2010) in San Francisco, August 16-17, 2010.