Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks and creator of Twine, has recently written about the notion of a Global Body that compliments the Global Brain.
This morning at the Singularity Summit, he posed the question, “Will the Global Brain have its own mind?”
Here are some of my take-aways from his excellent presentation (memebox interview forthcoming):
“Are we actually space-time machines?”
“Intelligence will spread throughout the universe. ... The cosmos is an intelligence spreading machine.”
“The distinction between actual and virtual will just go away. ... It won’t be Second Life anymore, it will just be First Life.”
“We don’t really know how the body and mind will change.”
Buys Vinge’s assertion of “Superhuman intelligence in 30 years.”
Four scenarios through which super-human intelligence can occur:
- computers themselves become awake
- large computer networks wake up (Skynet)
- interfaces become so connected that effectively each individual awakens
- human intellect is enhanced by biological and other means
So, how to give a group a sense of itself, bring self-consciousness to a group?
To facilitate more efficient interaction with data and services available in the emerging web Cloud, we should build a Web OS or “middle-ware layer developers can write applications to”, says Twine creator Nova Spivack. Ideally, such a layer would be “brand agnostic” and serve as a neutral “marketplace for finding and orchestrating [all] services rather than one company’s services.”
“The middle-ware should be able to handle this without making me subscribe to anyone’s proprietary API,” paints Spivack, “So if I say, ‘I need to store something,’ the middle-ware layer, this Web OS, should say ‘Hmm, where do I get the best deal on storage right now?’ Maybe it’s Amazon, maybe it’s Google, maybe it’s another location.’”
Clearly such middle-ware would save time and generate other efficiencies, especially in the context of exponential information growth, creating “a major commercial opportunity” for the right developer, as Spivack points out.
Here’s the full Web OS scenario as presented by Spivack:
So the question then becomes, which organization will end up building out such a structure?
The usual suspects Google and Microsoft immediately pop into mind. Both have made big browser plays and understand the significance of The Cloud and human attention.
But perhaps it will prove too large or complex an effort or present a fundamental conflict of interest for such companies, in which case open-source efforts facilitated by the likes of the Mozilla Foundation may prove most effective.
Twine creator Nova Spivack believes we are evolving collective consciousness through the web. Here’s a summary of his ruminations on the subject (shot immediately following his thought-provoking presentation at SS08 this morning):
Intel CTOJustin Rattner acknowledges that “the Singularity is a nice organizing principle” and that Intel will be critical to any future scenario in which runaway technology enables massive intelligence. He says Intel is “responsible for the trench warfare that drives these technologies.”
The preceding video was captured atSS08shortly after Justin’s presentation.
Rattner argues that other Moore’s Law enabled advances in other fields such as Silicon Photonics, Digitial Multi-Radio, Silicon Bio-sensors and Programmable Matter will be instrumental in a possible Singularity.
But could exponentially advancing technologies hit a wall?
“We did hit a wall,” says Rattner, “We reached the point where we could not thin the gate material any more. So, in essence, Silicon Gate CMOS ended last year.”
But engineers were able to develop a work-around: metal gate technology, and they’re also planning subsequent generations that will enable computer speeds to continue their astronomical growth.
This prompts the Rattner’s next question, “How do you define Moore’s Law?”
Indeed. Is Moore’s Law still relevant, or is a broader law of accelerating computation in effect.
Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks and creator of Twine, has recently written about the notion of a Global Body that compliments the Global Brain.
