Those that know me will know I have a thing for trans-humanism (or post humanism etc).
The basic concept is that the human body is scanned at the deepest level possible and the remains are simulated on a computer, in theory this recreates the human. Currently it is predicted that by 2020 computers will exist that have computing complexity to match the human brain (ie comparable numbers of connections). Quite when AI will be reached (if we do ever reach it) is a moot question but highly likely (unless something like the soul does in fact exist).
This article interestingly looks at what the economic, environmental and sustainability aspects of humans being uploaded to computers will be. The conclusion: its probably a good thing as the entire current population would probably be fitted into a 100x100km grid coated with solar panels.
Very interesting read, for more information Charlie Stross' 'Accelerando' is a very good fictional investigation of the singularity (what will happen if true AI is achieved) as well as post-biological humanity.
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
How small is the modern world?
Found this linked to on New Scientist. It's a map of how far every point on the surface of the world is from a city (defined as population > 50k). Its pretty cool, firstly as a point of interest, secondly because its been keyed to magma colours so it looks like the earth is on fire.
More generally it is a wonderful description of how the world has accelerated technologically in the recent years, this sort of map 30 years ago would be very different and 100 years ago would be utterly different.
On a related topic this is a wonderful time sink and an amazing way of finding things out/settling disputes. It is a fairly simple but VERY powerful graphing device. Linked to world statistics it allows you to plot along several axis: x & y, point size, colour as well as time.
VERY interesting - although truly depressing in some ways (try watching a time lapse graph of the population of Rwanda).
Both well worth a look and gap minder is an amazing tool.
More generally it is a wonderful description of how the world has accelerated technologically in the recent years, this sort of map 30 years ago would be very different and 100 years ago would be utterly different.
On a related topic this is a wonderful time sink and an amazing way of finding things out/settling disputes. It is a fairly simple but VERY powerful graphing device. Linked to world statistics it allows you to plot along several axis: x & y, point size, colour as well as time.
VERY interesting - although truly depressing in some ways (try watching a time lapse graph of the population of Rwanda).
Both well worth a look and gap minder is an amazing tool.
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