cyborg

Eric Boyd on Singularity 1 on 1: DIY Transhumanism

by Socrates
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Last week I went to visit Eric Boyd at HackLab.TO. While visiting I took the opportunity to interview Eric for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. Eric is the president of HackLab.TO, one of the co-founders of StumbleUpon and a regular public speaker on topics such as cyborg, transhumanism, electronic jewelry and hacking. In the past, I have lacked the proper equipment to do an on-site audio or video recording without having to borrow it from my friends or my very generous brother-in-law. Fortunately, though, last week I got the biggest anonymous donation ever received at Singularity Weblog. (Thank you anonymous donor.) The money allowed me to purchase a brand new Canon VIXIA HF G10 (aff) camcorder as well as a Fujifilm X10 (aff) photo camera, and thus equipped I headed to HackLab.TO. During our conversation we discuss issues such as: Eric’s early interest in technology; his [...]

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Kevin Warwick on Singularity 1 on 1: Be/Come the Cy/Borg

by Socrates
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This is my second interview with Prof. Kevin Warwick. Last time I had him on Singularity 1 on 1 – You Have to Take Risks to be Part of the Future, he shared his views on a wide variety of topics such as human and artificial intelligence, robotics, the technological singularity, God, the beginning of the universe and so on. This time around Kevin discusses issues such as: the difference between genius and madness; the magnetic implants and sensory-substitution-devices developed by his students (see picture gallery below); the recent problems surrounding his rat-brain-cell-robot project; the historical contribution, under-appreciated genius and tragic life of Alan Turing; the Turing Test; Watson – IBM’s amazing Jeopardy champion; and, finally, be/coming cy/borg. As always, you can listen to or download the audio above or watch the full video of the interview below. Most importantly [...]

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I Am Eyeborg: Rob Spence on Singularity 1 on 1

by Socrates
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Today I am very happy to have the Eyeborg Rob Spence as my guest on Singularity 1 on 1. (As usually, you can listen to or download the audio above, or scroll down to see the video recording of the interview in full.) Rob Spence is a Canadian director and producer who lives in Toronto. His work has appeared on Discovery, Vision, Space TV and the CBC for which he made the controversial documentary Let’s All Hate Toronto. Currently Rob is working on a documentary about how video and humanity intersect especially with regards to issues of surveillance and personal privacy. Who is Rob Spence? What is project Eyeborg? Take a one eyed film maker, an unemployed engineer, and a vision for something that’s never been done before and you have yourself the EyeBorg Project. Rob Spence, Kosta Grammatis and [...]

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Kevin Warwick on Singularity Podcast: You Have To Take Risks To Be Part Of The Future

by Socrates
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In today’s edition of Singularity Podcast I had the privilege of doing an hour long interview with the first cyborg — Prof. Kevin Warwick. I enjoyed talking to Prof. Warwick immensely and got him to share his views on a wide variety of topics such as human and artificial intelligence, robotics, the technological singularity, God, the beginning of the universe and so on. Also, during the interview Kevin Warwick threw a friendly challenge towards Ray Kurzweil by asking: “Why is it that Ray hasn’t experimented with implant technology yet?” Enjoy! Who is Kevin Warwick? Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and cyborgs. As well as publishing over 500 research papers, Kevin’s experiments into implant technology led to him being featured as the cover story [...]

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Kevin Warwick: The First Cyborg

by Socrates
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This is another cool video of Kevin Warwick (aka the first cyborg). In 2002, under the heading Project Cyborg, a British scientist and university professor, Kevin Warwick, had an array of 100 electrodes fired into his nervous system in order to link it to the internet. Then he successfully carried out a series of experiments including extending his nervous system over the internet to control a robotic hand, a loudspeaker, amplifier and to communicate with his wife. That neural connection is a form of extended sensory input and the first direct electronic communication between the nervous systems of two humans. (For more watch the documentary Building Gods) Related articles by Zemanta Kevin Warwick’s Cyborg Experiments (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com)

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Kevin Warwick’s Cyborg Experiments

by Socrates
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Kevin Warwick is an internationally renowned Professor and researcher in the field of Cybernetics from the University of Reading, England. His work in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, human control functions, robotics and cybernetic organisms presented here shows how implant and electrode technology can be used to create biological brains for robots, to enable human enhancement and possible therapeutic effects for neurological illness. In any case, the end goal is human enhancement, or transhumanism, which inevitably stirs up many social, ethical and philosophical questions. From: http://bit.ly/bD48Uv Related articles by Zemanta Captain Cyborg Has A Virus-Infected Sidekick… But Nothing Can Stop A PR Campaign (techdirt.com) The Art of Transhumanism (singularityhub.com)

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Best of Singularity Blog

by Socrates

Even though it has been only a bit more than a month since the beginning of this blog I am happy to note that there is already a tight group of people who have subscribed to my feed and continue to come back and read my posts on a regular basis. I want to take this opportunity to do 2 things: First and foremost I want to thank you all for the generous gift of your interest, your time and your moral support. I cherish those dearly and promise to do my best to provide you with more interesting, more relevant and better written singularity content during the new 2010. In the end, without you — my readers, both the Singularity Weblog and the Singularity Symposium website will be not only pointless but will cease to exist. It is your [...]

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Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 5)

by Socrates

Part 5: The Future of (Military) AI — Singularity While being certainly dangerous for humans, especially the ones that are specifically targeted by the kill-bots, arming machines is not on its own a process that can threaten the reign of homo sapiens in general. What can though is the fact that it is occurring within the larger confluent revolutions in Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics (GNR). Combined with exponential growth trends such as Moore’s law we arguably get the right conditions for what is referred to as the Technological Singularity. In 1945 Alan Turing famously predicted that computers would one day play better chess than people. Fifty years later, a computer called Deep Blue defeated the reigning world champion Gary Kasparov. Today, whether it is a mouse with a blue-tooth brain implant that directs the movements of the mouse via laptop, [...]

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