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Presented at the JTET conference this morning:

Arthur M. Harkins, Ph.D. (USA)
John Moravec, Ph.D. (USA)
University of Minnesota

Abstract

This presentation is concerned with complex subjects, but presents them in ways that audiences can understand and professionally contemplate. The core concept of the paper is “sustainable innovation,” which presumes the necessity for continuous innovation to cope with changes wrought by technology, socioeconomic trends, global climate transformations, celestial changes, and by change itself.

Background

Ray Kurzweil has written that machines and software are beginning to challenge the supremacy and hegemony of humans over other species. Kurzweil argues that ever-shortening ‘S-curves’ of electronic hardware and software development are creating pressures to bond humans and machines into various networks and systems. Some of these include self-flyable Airbus aircraft, early implants (such as pacemakers and hearing amplifiers), and the later prospect of artificial eyes and adjunct cybernetic brains.

Kurzweil’s projections include step-by-step ‘dovetailing’ of humans with artificial systems. This process is already creating ‘gray areas’ between humans and such devices as robot arms and artificial kidneys. These and many other aspects of Kurzweil’s thinking appear to justify assertions that Trans-Humanity (TH) is evolving, and very quickly, as a complex ecology of cyborgs. The long-term prospect of uploading human central nervous system contents into non-biological units would complete the transition to a radical new embodiment of intelligence, which may be called Post Humanity (PH).

Foreground

In all of this great change, why must schools stress sustainable innovation? With the help of education, how can young people retain and grow their individuality? How can they continuously reconfigure their collective memberships with others, including those within cyberspace? This paper will explore such questions and related ones by creating and discussing short sustainable innovation scenarios illustrating the roles of formal and informal educational systems. The paper will construct scenarios for two different types of sustainable innovation: those based on anticipating and creating the futures of TH, and those based on PH. The ethics and morality of both sustainable innovation types will be suggested by metrics associated with personal and collective choices.

Contact us to learn more!

The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) has launched a blog covering research and outreach updates, videos, articles, papers, events, goals, and relevant science and technology news.

SIAI is a not-for-profit research institute in Palo Alto, California, with three major goals: furthering the nascent science of safe, beneficial advanced artificial intelligence (self-improving systems) through research and development, research fellowships, research grants, and science education; furthering the understanding of its implications to society through the AI Impact Initiative and annual Singularity Summit; and furthering education among students to foster scientific research.

Posts will be sparse over the next couple weeks as I’ll be busy: revisiting Budapest, spelunking about Moravian wine cellars, investigating the towns and castles of Slovakia… oh, and presenting at next week’s JTET conference in Debrecen, Hungary…!

Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes for Forbes that:

Things, it turns out, are all too often discovered by accident–but we don’t see that when we look at history in our rear-view mirrors. The technologies that run the world today (like the Internet, the computer and the laser) are not used in the way intended by those who invented them. Even academics are starting to realize that a considerable component of medical discovery comes from the fringes, where people find what they are not exactly looking for.

If random tinkering is the pathway to innovation, then we need more of it. He continues:

We need more tinkering: Uninhibited, aggressive, proud tinkering. We need to make our own luck. We can be scared and worried about the future, or we can look at it as a collection of happy surprises that lie outside the path of our imagination.

Tinkering is one approach to Leapfrogging. Creative, edgy Leapfrog organizations that lead in the New Paradigm of globalization, knowledge society and accelerating change in the 21st Century will create vibrant, visionary, hard-charging, front-running and value-creating institutions that everybody will be proud to support, work for, teach at, matriculate to, collaborate with, and donate toward. Shy of risk of failure, most academic and other educational environments are not conducive to tinkering. How might we build educational academic and educational cultures that embrace experimentation and innovation?

Ei, chihuahua…

University of Minnesota-Morris professor PZ Myers writes on the follies of a Christian science fair. The winner? “Creation Wins!!!” The losers? Ignorant parents, teachers and judges…

The folks at the Technology Evangelist blog did a remarkable job in recording Ray Kurzweil’s talk at the Killer App Expo and feeding video to the net. Benjamin J. Higginbotham writes:

Ray Kurzweil is a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition, health, artificial intelligence, transhumanism, technological singularity and futurism. At the Killer App Expo in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Ray gave the evening Keynote speech. We were fortunate enough to have two HD cameras at the conference and grabbed the entire keynote with house audio. Whereas we would normally cut this 80 minute presentation into a 10 to 15 minute chunk, Ray’s material was so good, so inspiring that we have decided to leave it complete. If you’re an Apple TV user, this is a great bit to watch in full 720p. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Speaking on innovations in education, Kurzweil stated: “Telepresence is really on the cutting edge of this sharing of information. It is form of virtual reality and it is really a harventure of what’s to come. I think it is a tremendously powerful thing to be able to have a world renowned medical expert to be really present with you if the patient is may be in Africa or something. Education to really feel like you are with an educator and just the ability to meet with each other, human communication is one of things that makes us unique, but Telepresence is on the cutting edge of our being able to meet without being limited by geographical limitations and as broadband gets higher and higher quality all these other display technologies get higher and higher resolution to the reality of Telepresence in a virtual reality is getting more and more compelling. Ultimately you will all compete very well with real reality, so in the case in the universities that students not necessarily got a class they can watch it using video conferencing on the Internet archived, it is perhaps looks crude compared to real reality today, it is actually quite satisfactory, but ultimately it will be just as realistic as being there and the ability to really meet including all of the senses without the people using Telepresence, I think it is quite revolutionary, things like Second Life as a whole another virtual reality environment, now looks crude today, but think how crude video games were when they started pong with stimulation of tennis, but it is was pretty crude, these games have become quite realistic. Things like Second Life will be a whole virtual reality environment that’s ultimately be as competing with real reality with many advantages.”

Brock Dubbels is looking for more people that belong to (or that can soon join) the American Educational Research Association (AERA) - for a Special Interest Group (SIG) especially for 3D Virtual Worlds, such as Second Life.

http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=ARVEL

The Applied Research for Virtual Environments for Learning (ARVEL) special interest group at AERA, “is a community of educators, scholars, and practitioners dedicated toward research in and on virtual environments. Using a variety of research methods, we support a diverse approach to understanding the optimal use of virtual worlds and environments for educational purposes. We’re interested in developing a comprehensive research agenda, intended to encompass the breadth and scope of learning potentialities, affordances, challenges, and shortcomings of immersive virtual learning environments.”

(Cross posted from FLACSO-UMN Knowledge Seminar blog…)

More on the knowledge seminar…

An oh-so-painful lesson from Eric Faden at Bucknell University on the principles of copyright…

For those of us in Minneapolis/St. Paul, this looks good:

Normandale Community College

Learn what your students already know Games and simulations are powerful tools – changing the way we learn Hands-on Instruction Enables You to Play the Games Yourself Seated at your own computer, with an instructor as your guide, you’ll be taken into virtual worlds and 3-D environments where you become The newly elected President of Chimerica, responsible for stabilizing the country’s troubled economic and social situation, changing public policy and forming a new administration. (Hidden Agenda)   A 21st century student traveling back in time to a town besieged with health problems. Working with others, you track clues, form and test hypotheses, and make recommendations. (River City) A rookie newspaper reporter for the Harperville Gazette whose job is to write an article on the health and environmental implications of a toxic spill. (Behind the Message)   Leader of a pharmaceutical company’s research team. You must determine the product’s features, estimate demand, and set price and production levels. (SimSeries Business) A $100,000 investor in the stock market, using real Internet research and news updates to determine how to build and grow your portfolio. (Stock Market Game)   and more Integrating Games/Simulations into Education Now that you’ve played the games, the afternoon sessions address key issues that will help you take the next steps, topics include: How Games Improve the Learning Process Preparing the New Learner for the New Economy with Games Breathing Virtual Life into the Classroom Integrating a Game/Simulation with eLearning Like a Rock Star: virtual character development