Singularity University Campus
As Boing Boing reported earlier this morning, Singularity University is to be unveiled today.
The singularity, if you’re unfamiliar, is a term coined by Vernor Vinge that refers to the rapid acceleration of technological change*. For an example, think of how quickly computers have evolved. Here’s a graph of the exponential growth in mass use of inventions, courtesy of Ray Kurzweil:
As the singularity approaches, mass use of inventions increases exponentially
Funded by Google and NASA, the college will start out with 9-week programs on the following topics (and even shorter ‘executive seminars,’ presumably for the b-school kids who want to monetize the singularity rather than get into the nuts and bolts of it):
1. Future Studies & Forecasting
2. Networks & Computing Systems
3. Biotechnology & Bioinformatics
4. Nanotechnology
5. Medicine, Neuroscience & Human Enhancement
6. AI, Robotics, & Cognitive Computing
7. Energy & Ecological Systems
8. Space & Physical Sciences
9. Policy, Law & Ethics
10. Finance & Entrepreneurship
I checked my calendar before typing this all up, as this sounds like the sort of thing Google would try to pull as an April Fools’ Day joke. (Remember paper Gmail?)
The thing is, it’s not. If you actually get into the program, you can go and study nanobots or cognitive computing for a couple months with some of the brightest folk around.
Just don’t be surprised if the place renames itself Robot State (or Tech Tech, as #1 quipped) after the machines take over the campus.
* – In science fiction, some use the term to refer to the point at which machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence. This may sound a bit outlandish, but with quantum computing nearly a reality thanks to the development of teleportation (yes, teleportation’s real; no, you can’t teleport yourself to Hawaii), this is entirely possible, as quantum particles work a lot more like neurons. They have multiple states, as opposed to the zeros and ones of the binary code that drives virtually all present-day computers.Filed under: Adventures, Creativity, Uncategorized | Tagged: awesomeicity, futurism, Google, nanobots, NASA, NASA Ames Campus, technological singularity, The singularity
What,, no joke about the renaming itself “Tech Tech?”
I like that so much it’s going to be the new title of the post.
Also, what would the team be called? The T-Squares?
Probably the Wildcats.