(Nov. 3 Update: Videos of presentations are now available at : http://www.vimeo.com/7320820)
The Singularity Summit (http://www.singularitysummit.com/) happened last weekend in NY. You can check out what this conference was all about by watching the promo video. During the two days of the conference there were over 30 speeches and panels. Around 800 people attended.
I could not attend (no travel budget), but I really did not need to. As it turns out Blogging and Twittering is alive and well. There’s a flood of information available for consumption. You just have to search for it. So I did do the searches…and having done so, I thought I’d share with you what I found.
There were a few key bloggers who were liveblogging the event, including Ari Schulman (covered for The New Atlantis), Stuart Fox (covered for PopSci), David Wood (covered for dw2), Benjamin Peterson(covered for Sentient Developments), and Lisa Rein (covered for h+ magazine). Ari Schulman did the best job.
Below you will find the agenda of the event as sourced from the Singularity site peppered with URL links to blog posts and other content that can provide you with opinions and key summaries from the individual speakers. From what I can read, there will be videos posted at some point in the future of most if not all of the talks. If and when that happens, I will post those links here as well.
Saturday, October 3
9:00 am - Introduction - Michael Vassar, Singularity Institute
9:05 am - Shaping the Intelligence Explosion - Anna Salamon, Singularity Institute
- Blog Post by Stuart Fox: Singularity Summit 2009: Open The Pod Bay Door, HAL
- Blog Post by David Wood: Shaping the intelligence explosion
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Anna Salamon On Shaping the Intelligence Explosion
9:35 am - Technical Roadmap for Whole Brain Emulation - Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute
- Blog Post by Benjamin Peterson: SS09: Anders Sandberg "Whole Brain Emulation"
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Anders Sandberg and Randal Keone On Whole Brain Emulation
10:00 am - The time is now: As a species and as individuals we need whole brain emulation - Randal Koene, Fatronik-Tecnalia Foundation
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: "We need whole brain emulation"
- Blog Post by Benjamin Peterson: SS09: Randal Koene "The Time is Now We Need Whole Brain Emulation"
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Anders Sandberg and Randal Keone On Whole Brain Emulation
10:25 am - Technological Convergence Leading to Artificial General Intelligence - Itamar Arel, University of Tennessee
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: "Technological Convergence Leading to Artificial General Intelligence"
- Blog Post by Benjamin Peterson: SS09: Itamar Arel "Technological Convergence Leading to AGI"
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein: Singularity Summit - Itamar Arel on Artificial General Intelligence
11:10 am - Pathways to Beneficial Artificial General Intelligence: Virtual Pets, Robot Children, Artificial Bioscientists, and Beyond - Ben Goertzel, Novamente
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: "Pathways to Beneficial Artificial General Intelligence"
- Blog Post by Benjamin Peterson: SS09: Goertzel, Hameroff
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Ben Goertzel on AGI, AI in Virtual Worlds, and AI in Bioinformatics
11:35 am - Neural Substrates of Consciousness and the 'Conscious Pilot' Model - Stuart Hameroff, University of Arizona
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: "Conscious Pilot" talk doesn't take flight
- Blog Post by Benjamin Peterson: SS09: Goertzel, Hameroff
11:55 am - Quantum Computing: What It Is, What It Is Not, What We Have Yet to Learn - Michael Nielsen
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: On quantum computing (and consciousness)
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Michael Nielsen's Quantum Computing 101
12:35 pm - DNA: Not Merely the Secret of Life - Ned Seeman, New York University
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Could not find anyone who blogged this session. Check out the Twitter section at end of this post for the Twitter feed.
Lunch Break as blogged by Ari N. Schulman: Liveblogging the Singularity Summit
2:20 pm - Compression Progress: The Algorithmic Principle Behind Curiosity, Creativity, Art, Science, Music, Humor - Juergen Schmidhuber, IDSIA
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Asking too much of "compression"
3:00 pm - Conversation on the Singularity - Stephen Wolfram and Gregory Benford
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Stephen Wolfram's alternate dimensions
- Blog Post by Stuart Fox: Singularity Summit 2009: Supreme Mathematics of Gods and Earths
3:30 pm - Simulation and the Singularity - David Chalmers, Australian National University
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Simulation and the Singularity
- Blog Post by Stuart Fox: Singularity Summit 2009: Just How's This Thing Gonna Work, Anyways?
- Blog Post by David Wood: The Leakproof Singularity and Simulation
4:15 pm - Choice Machines, Causality, and Cooperation - Gary Drescher
-
Could not find anyone who blogged this session
5:05 pm - Synthetic Neurobiology: Optically Engineering the Brain to Augment Its Function - Ed Boyden, MIT Media Lab
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Boyden bunts
- Blog Post by Benjamin Peterson: SS09: Ed Boyden
5:30 pm - Foundations of Intelligent Agents - Marcus Hutter, Australian National University
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: "Foundations of Intelligent Agents"
5:55 pm - Cognitive Ability: Past and Future Enhancements and Implications - William Dickens, Northeastern University
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Enhancing cognitive abilities
6:30 pm - The Ubiquity and Predictability of the Exponential Growth of Information Technology - Ray Kurzweil, Kurzweil Technologies
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: He walks among us
- Blog Post by Stuart Fox: Singularity Summit 2009: Thus Spake Kurzweil
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Ray Kurzweil On Quantum Computing In The Brain and Consciousness
Content providing a summary of Day 1
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: One day closer to the Singularity
- Blog Post by Suzanne Gildert Singularity Summit 2009 Day 1
- Blog Post by Marshal Sponder Singularity Summit Recap – Day 1 October 3rd 2009 NYC
Sunday, October 4th
8:00 am - More than Moore: Comparing Forecasts of Technological Progress - Bela Nagy, Santa Fe Institute
- Could not find anyone who blogged this session, but here are a few comments from Twitterland.
- sandysantra: #SS09 Bela Nagy, Santa Fe Institute, comparing prediction methodologies of Moore, Goddard, Wright, Wright, Sinclair, Nordhaus.
- vangeest: Sinclair better forecasting model than Moore's Law #ss09
- sandysantra: #SS09 Day 2 attendees are getting the most hardcore statistical analysis (by Bela Nagy) that they've seen yet. 3-D "error mountain" graph!
- Sarah_Hines: Nagy argued convincingly we should switch to a different functional form--wish he had talked a bit on the implications of switching. #ss09
- danothebeach: Nagy has very interesting comparison between various predictors of growth #ss09
- fboosman: couldnt get excited about Nagy's #ss09 talk. Any straight line on an exponential graph is still exponential growth.
8:20 am - The "Petaflop Macroscope" - Gary Wolf, Wired Magazine
- Could not find anyone who blogged this session, but here are a few comments from Twitterland.
- scottburck: Gary Wolf on the Macroscope and crowdsourcing health & science @#ss09
- sandysantra: #SS09 Does anyone know where we can get a list of all these sites Gary Wolf is telling us about?
- Sarah_Hines: @sandysantra http://www.quantifiedself.com/ will have a lot of them, but not aggregated. #ss09
- vangeest: amazing, real time conversational emotional analysis #ss09
- sandysantra: #SS09 Gary Wolf is the first person to get close to discussing Singularity overlap with Semantic developments.
- Sarah_Hines: Wolf's presentation made me happy. I want to see him speak again in more depth. Anyone know if he has presentations available online? #ss09
8:40 am - Collaborative Networks In Scientific Discovery - Michael Nielsen
- Could not find anyone who blogged this session, but here are a few comments from Twitterland.
- troed: M Nielsen on collaborative science. This is how we'll create new exponentials. #ss09
- sandysantra: #SS09 Michael Nielsen on crowdsourcing, with some amazing insights on development of Linux, Wikipedia, and crowdsourcing math problems.
- dw2: Michael Nielsen reviews Fields medallist Tim Gowers experiment in collaborative mathematics & open source methods to advance science #ss09
- ENextMag: Michael Nielsen, quantum maestro, concludes with the all-important question for evolutionaries: "How can cultural change be achieved?" #ss09
- Sarah_Hines: Most excellent overview of open source/crowd-sourced scientific collaborations by Neilson. Would like to rewatch when published #ss09.
9:00 am - How Does Society Identify Experts and When Does It Work? - Robin Hanson, George Mason University
- Could not find anyone who blogged this session, but here are a few comments from Twitterland.
- sandysantra: #SS09 Robin Hanson opens his talk with a drive-by attempt to define the Singularity--first speaker to get even close.
- positiveneuro: "Don't expect academics to study your 'silly' question if it makes them look less impressive to their colleagues." -Robin Hanson #ss09
- j2d3: #ss09 hansom skewers academia: knowledge production merely a side effect; academia primarily concerned with narcissistic affiliations
- sandysantra: #SS09 Robin Hanson takes the biggest risk of the summit yet: taking to task academia head-on.
- Sarah_Hines: This morning's lineup has been good. Hanson added something new to the conversation. #ss09 (will want to rewatch this presentation on video)
9:20 am - Future of Scientific Method Panel - Gary Wolf, Michael Nielsen, Robin Hanson. Moderator: James Jorasch
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Make scientists cooperate to usher in the Singularity?
10:15 am - Artificial Biological Selection for Longevity - Gregory Benford, University of California- Irvine
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Gregory Benford on living longer
10:40 am - Critics of the Singularity - Ray Kurzweil, Kurzweil Technologies
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Kurzweil and his critics
11:10 am - The Finger of AI: Automated Electrical Vehicles and Oil Independence - Brad Templeton, Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Robo-cars and energy independence
1:15 pm - The Fallibility and Improvability of the Human Mind - Gary Marcus, New York University
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Remembering, forgetting, and improving our minds
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Gary Marcus On The Fallibility and Improvability of the Human Mind
1:40 pm - Macroeconomics and Singularity - Peter Thiel, Clarium Capital Management
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Notes from Peter Thiel’s Singularity Summit Talk
- Blog Post by Lisa Rein Singularity Summit - Peter Thiel On His Single Greatest Fear
- Blog Post by Peter Vander Auwera: Peter Thiel and the Singularity
2:20 pm - Venture Capitalist Panel: Peter Thiel, David Rose, Mark Gorenberg. Moderator: Robert Pisani
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Investing in the Singularity?
3:15 pm - The Singularity and the Methuselarity: Similarities and Differences Aubrey De Grey, SENS Foundation
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Methuselah speaks
3:40 pm - Cognitive Biases and Giant Risks - Eliezer Yudkowsky, Singularity Institute
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: Rationalism, risk, and the purpose of politics
4:10 pm - Discussion: Eliezer Yudkowsky, Aubrey De Grey, Peter Thiel. Moderator: Michael Vassar
- Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: On persuasion and saving the world
4:40 pm - How much it matters to know what matters: A back of the envelope calculation - Anna Salamon, Singularity Institute
Blog Post by Ari N. Schulman: "How much it matters to know what matters"
Day 2 Summaries
- Blog Post by Kris Notaro: Singularity Summit Coverage - Day 2
- Blog Post by Suzanne Gildert Singularity Summit 2009 day 2 – some thoughts
Conference Recaps
Content that provides a review of the whole conference
- Blog Post by Tim Huston Live from New York: The Singularity Summit
- Blog Post by Stuart Fox: The Faces of Singularity: Are You Ready For The Human-Robot Merge?
- Blog Post by Julien Hamonic Most Valuable Memes of The Singularity Summit '09
- Blog Post by David Orban Guest Post: David Orban Reviews Singularity Summit 2009
- Blog Post by Ulrike Reinhard Singularity Summit 2009
- Blog Post by Courtney Boyd Myers Man vs. Machine: The Singularity Summit 2009
- Blog Post by Ronald Bailey Will Our Robot Overlords Be Friendly?
- News Article at Popular Mechanics What Does a Beer Taste Like After the Singularity
Videos
- This link provides some short interview/ clips http://singularitysummit.magnify.net/playlist/Singularity-Summit-2009-Videos
- From what I can read, there will be videos posted at some point in the future of most if not all of the talks. If and when that happens, I will post those links here as well. (Nov. 3 Update: Videos of presentations are now available at: http://www.vimeo.com/7320820)
- See microblogging captured by Dave Urban at Live blogging the Singularity Summit 09 and Singularity Summit Day 2
In Closing
The conference organizers made a feeble attempt to launch a Facebook page for the event. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103667444558&ref=mf. It looks like it never took off.
If I hear of anything else, I will update this post (Nov. 3 Update: Videos of presentations are now available at : http://www.vimeo.com/7320820)
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