Welcome, Eli writes here.
See also Imagery and his other projects.

Future

98 posts under this tag.

What would change everything? 2
0
0
9
 Jan
18

Edge’s 2009 Question is out!: What would change everything?. The list of answers by some of the most interesting individuals in the third culture individuals out there is as inspiring and thought provoking (and atrociously designed, interface-wise) as ever. Kevin Kelly’s answer my favorite so far:

It is hard to imagine anything that would “change everything” as much as a cheap, powerful, ubiquitous artificial intelligence—the kind of synthetic mind that learns and improves itself. A very small amount of real intelligence embedded into an existing process would boost its effectiveness to another level. We could apply mindfulness wherever we now apply electricity. The ensuing change would be hundreds of times more disruptive to our lives than even the transforming power of electrification. We’d use artificial intelligence the same way we’ve exploited previous powers—by wasting it on seemingly silly things. Of course we’d plan to apply AI to tough research problems like curing cancer, or solving intractable math problems, but the real disruption will come from inserting wily mindfulness into vending machines, our shoes, books, tax returns, automobiles, email, and pulse meters.

This additional intelligence need not be super-human, or even human-like at all. In fact, the greatest benefit of an artificial intelligence would come from a mind that thought differently than humans, since we already have plenty of those around. The game-changer is neither how smart this AI is, nor its variety, but how ubiquitous it is. Alan Kay quips in that humans perspective is worth 80 IQ points. For an artificial intelligence, ubiquity is worth 80 IQ points. A distributed AI, embedded everywhere that electricity goes, becomes ai—a low-level background intelligence that permeates the technium, and trough this saturation morphs it.
Great stuff—it’s people like Kelly that make me miss California ;)

Jeff Bezos had remarkably similar, equally inspiring ideas at a recent TED talk, comparing the web to electricity but Kelly pushes it further, to ”intelligence as electricity”
tagged america, artificial intelligence, future, future shock, inspiration, interesting people, quotes, recommendations, web | 2 Comments

I've seen the future, thru a head-display! 2
0
0
9
 Jan
14

We will all be wearing something like this in no more than 5 years. Seriously, it’s positively awesome, just look how silly happy I look.

Your brain is uncannily good at patching your vision so you can eerily “see thru” the screen—soon enough the feeling of obstruction disappears and it just floats magically along. The tiny screen is good enough for text to read and you can apparently browse the web too. You control it through some controls at the headphones. It’s already for sale at some very reasonable $700 here in Japan (online only). So Mannfred Macx!
Head-mounted displays are SO the future. Look how happy I am!
Oh and I just uploaded a massive 200 photo batch to Flickr, at the end of this set, starting with this picture. If you wonder why this blog has seen so little love lately, it’s because most of my online efforts have been directed to photoblogging—these aren’t just pictures, I title each one with a brief summary of what I was thinking when I shot it or what it makes me think. It’s a strange style but it suits me and I hope you like it (you’ll probably like it, just as for this blog, if you’re more into ideas and stuff than people). There will be much less photoblogging coming though, since I’m focusing all my energies on learning Japanese!
At Odaiba, beautiful, huh? I'll eat natto until I like it! This time, my 3rd, it was almost good! Got a new bike! Rusty but trusty! Electronic price signs! Funny how unimpressive the Tokyo Tower (that red Eiffel tower clone) was when we were standing by it. It is way taller than most buildings (and taller than the Eiffel tower). My lovely family back in Mexico, where the New Year came one day after. Video chatting is so awesome.I mean, isn't this grand? Dozing elders tenderly amuse me. They remind me of mom late at night, trying to carry a conversation but just babbling... :)
tagged future, future shock, geekery, japan, original content, photos, technology, travel | 3 Comments

Cameras as (photographic) memory modules 2
0
0
9
 Jan
14

Ever since I’ve had a digital camera I’ve noticed a strange use of it: I’ll often snap stuff —whiteboards, signs, text, documents, maps, ads, book covers..— for practical, remember-or-consult-it-later purposes (as opposed to “leisure” snapping of people, events or cool stuff). Since I got my awesome new camera this use has only intensified, with two interesting new twists:

First, since the image quality is now unbelievably and consistently good it’s painful to look at other camera’s), pretty much anything is recorded at the same (or higher!) fidelity than the real thing. So I can now confidently snap pictures of intricately detailed maps, computer screen text, faraway signs (with its awesome 10x zoom) or whatever.

Second, since the screen is now unbelievably good and big (3”!), and since browsing has gotten so much faster and responsive (not there yet but close), most of my later reviewing now is done right at my camera. It’s a very different, much more personal and portable experience than being anchored to the desktop. Also, since memory is now so mindboggingly cheap I can just keep these reference photos on the camera (that is, with me) for as long as I need to.

So a typical use of my camera now is getting some directions or reading an interesting review of some place at my laptop and just snapping it for later, in-place reference. It’s so fast and convenient. I don’t have everywhere web in my iPhone now but if I did I think I’d often still do it this way instead of fiddling with it (and of course I’ve long stopped stooping to printing stuff—are you kidding me?).

It’s really starting to feel like a prostethic (photographic) memory module and my guess is that this use will become more and more prominent, to the point that some 5 years from now it could be cameras’ main use (mostly because we’ll be saturated by “leisure” photos of people, events or cool stuff). My camera actually reflects this and one of its 5 main modes is actually the cleverly titled “Clipboard” mode, designed only (!) to keep photos of “maps, timetables and other travel info” (reference photos!) at hand (a special mode shouldn’t be necessary once the interface gets there).

(Another interesting day, not far at all, is when the view through the viewfinder is better—more detailed, more zoomable, wider, better at night—than the one through your cornea.)
tagged future, original content, predictions, technology, technolyricism

Let's (Not) Change the World! 2
0
0
8
 Sep
29

Both for what has happened to me and for what lies ahead this year, I knew I had to read Harry Browne’s How I found freedom in an unfree world (download PDF) sooner rather than later.

I just finished it yesterday and can’t believe how different I am already. How freer (me, always so proud of my freedom!). It really is a handbook for personal liberty. It’s so selfish that at times it even angered me (me, selfish as they come!). But then, well looked, the book’s an extended version of that famous parable, existing in some version in most cultures:
When I was young, I wanted to change the world. I found it was too difficult, so I tried to change my country. When I realized I could not change that either, I began to focus on my town. I could not change even that and being older, I tried to change my family. Now being old, I realize the only thing I can change is myself. Suddenly I realize that if long ago if I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the country and I indeed could have changed the world.
Or as Harry put it
As you view any situation in which you have a goal, there are basically two types of alternatives available to you. I call them direct and indirect.

A direct alternative is one that requires only direct action by yourself to get a desired result.An indirect alternative requires that you act to make someone else do what is necessary to achieve your objective.

Once you’ve seen the positions and attitudes of the other people involved, a direct alternative requires only that you make a decision; an indirect alternative requires that you change the attitude of one or more other persons so that they will do what it is you want.
The recognition of the two types of alternatives is one of the most important keys to freedom. Most people automatically think in terms of indirect alternatives — who must be changed, how people must be educated, what others should be doing. Consequently, they spend most of their lives in futile efforts to achieve what can’t be achieved — the remaking of others.

In any situation, a free individual immediately looks first at the identities of the other people involved and appraises the situation by the simple standard: Is this what I want for myself? If it isn’t, he looks elsewhere. If it is, he relaxes and enjoys the situation to the maximum — without the problems that most people take for granted.

He automatically thinks in terms of direct alternatives. He asks himself, “With things as they are, what can I do by myself to make things better for myself?�
I’m gonna be Switzerland. Mind my business. Be my own man. Neutral. Flexible. Pragmatic. Quiet. Living my own, happy, private life. Free in an unfree world.
tagged definitions, epiphanies, ethics, future, libertarianism, liberty, quotes, recommendations, wisdom | 1 Comment

Pies 2
0
0
8
 Sep
24

Liking David Friedman’s Hidden Order a whole lot. Not trivial reading, but rewarding. Through intuitive graphs and simplification he comes up with some interesting economics theory (with my math background the hand waving and naivete of the presentation’s obvious but I’m still rather unconvinced of a formal, math-based economics).

But perhaps the part I liked most is this inspiring little quote, awfully important in an age when technology allows contracts to make the dreams and nightmares of both sellers and buyers to come true, from DRM to discography torrents.
Suppose you are a businessman or an attorney negotiating a contract. It is tempting to go through the contract term by term, trying in each case to get whatever term is most favorable to you or your client.
    But a more profitable strategy may be to go through looking for the contract terms that maximize the combined gain to both parties. Only when you get to the final term—the price—do you shift back to trying to make it as favorable as possible, thus collecting as much as possible of the gain produced by your well-designed contract. Most of your job is maximizing the size of the pie. The bigger the pie, the bigger you can make the slices for both sides.
tagged david friedman, economics, future, inspiration, quotes

Itinerary 2
0
0
8
 Sep
23

In what is to date the biggest purchase of my life (my obscene former desktop was a gift), I just purchased the bulk of my travel for the next year or so. Check out my itinerary and start planning on visiting or bumping with me!

27 October 2008
    Mexico City MEX to Tokyo NRT (via London) for 4 months, 22 days of Japan!
20 March 2009
    Tokyo NRT to London LHR for 4 months, 29 days of Europe!
17 August 2009
    London LHR to Toronto YYZ for a month of Canada! (ticket back to Mexico to be purchased)

All the flights are with British Airways. All for $1,852, which still amazes me—BA is a great airline, flights are incredibly main-airport and nonstop (can’t stop in the US). It’s all beautifully simple, better than I dared hope. Past week has been a Kayak and travel agency blur but it was worth it.

So, so exciting!
tagged announces, experiments, fun, future, happiness, japan, personal, whimsicist

The Stem-Cell Cancer Hypothesis 2
0
0
8
 Sep
15

The cover article of this week’s Economist brings the stem-cell cancer hypothesis to the mainstream. This is over 3 years after Eva Vertes talked about it at TED in one of my favorite video pieces ever. And is very, very exciting.

..just occasionally, a finding revolutionises the field and cracks open a whole range of diseases. The discovery in the 19th century that many illnesses are caused by bacteria was one such. The unravelling of Mendelian genetics was another. It now seems likely that medical science is on the brink of a finding of equal significance. The underlying biology of that scourge of modern humanity, cancer, looks as though it is about to yield its main secret. If it does, it is possible that the headline-writer’s cliché, “a cure for cancer�, will come true over the years, just as the antibiotics that followed from the discovery of bacteria swept away previously lethal infectious diseases.

The discovery—or, rather, the hypothesis that is now being tested—is that cancers grow from stem cells in the way that healthy organs do.

The Economist, The root of all evil?


tagged announces, biology, future, interesting people, medicine, quotes, science, technology, the economist, videos

The Plan: Have Laptop, Will Travel 2
0
0
8
 Sep
11

The plan is to travel, to go places for a year or so, to live for some 2-3 months each time, in Tokyo, Barcelona/Madrid, London, and Toronto (in that order). Both Spain and Canada beckon with legal, short paths to free agency. The goal shall be to find out which city I like better as my fulcrum for the decade, but mostly to learn, to start projects, and to swallow the world.

I didn’t expect to like working remotely so much, as I’ve been doing this last couple of weeks, but I’ve loved the freedom, the flexibility, and the discipline it imposes. Most important of all, it allows for freedom of place and having been kicked out of the U.S. I might as well look around. So I’m looking for some sort of remote job, failing that savings and odd jobs would have to do, but having an unhinged fixed job would accelerate and catalyze everything.

There is, still, the possibility that there will be no place for me like Silicon Valley. If that’s so, then I’ll try to get a tourist visa again within a year and give de facto (ilegal) free agency another shot. I doubt, though, that they’ll grant me a visa, but there are many other, safe, if somewhat expensive means, to get inside. And once inside de facto free agency is not far fetched at all. I’m heartened by the sanctuary San Francisco itself always was for me (as opposed to the dastard federal gov’t).

But that’s just one possibility. Just having done that scenario planning comforts me and sets me free. The world beckons and Japan has always been, after America, the country I’m hungriest for. I’ve always wanted to try the sink or swim approach to learning a language! It’ll take me a month or two to get there, but just you wait Tokyo!

tagged america, announces, emotions, fun, future, japan, liberty, personal, rants, whimsicist | 2 Comments

the beginning of the beginning 2
0
0
8
 Jul
16


It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening… All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.

H. G. Wells
Es posible creer que todo el pasado es solo el principio del principio, y que todo lo que es y ha sido es solo el crespusculo del amanecer. Es posible creer que todo lo que la mente humana ha logrado jamas es solo el suenho antes del despertar… Todo este mundo esta cargado con la promesa de cosas mas grandes, y el dia llegara, un dia en la interminable sucesion de dias, cuando seres, seres ya latentes en nuestros pensamientos y escondidos en nuestras ingles, habran de erguirse sobre esta tierra como se yergue uno sobre un banquillo, y habran de reirse y estirar sus manos entre las estrellas.
First read it at Alcor’s epilogue. It has kept me in thrall since.

(Alcor’s website, apropos, has a wonderful, content-rich website. See, for instance, their detailed FAQs on cryonics or Mike Darwin’s rousing, impassioned Why we are cryonicists)
tagged emotions, en espanhol, future, inspiration, links, quotes, transhumanism, translations, writing

the purpose of life is life 2
0
0
8
 Jul
12

It’s been a while now since I read this Reason interview to Peter Thiel but I’m still moved by it. The purpose of life is life. How mindblowing a concept, huh?

Thiel: One of the things that’s very misleading about acceleration and exponential growth is that it’s slow at first and then it’s fast, and so the future happens more slowly than people expect and then it happens more quickly.
reason: There’s another popular narrative for the 21st century that says humanity is going to wreck the planet. Are the environmentalist doomsayers right?
Thiel: My sense is that they’re not right. I’m not an expert on it, but what I think is different from climate-change catastrophe vs. the Singularity is that climate seems like such a pedestrian thing to talk about. You talk about it every day. There’s a tendency to overdramatize the climate, and it’s something everybody can have opinions about. So I don’t think there’s a cognitive bias where people are incapable of imagining the world’s climate changing. That seems like a very easy thing for people to imagine, and maybe it’s also an easy thing for people to get hysterical about. On the other hand, computers running the world or this radical progress of technology —that’s something where I think there’s just no imagination at all.
reason: Do you consider yourself a transhumanist?
Thiel: The problem with the label is that it suggests that we should run away from being human. Take the question of aging. If you define that as the essence of being human, then transhumanists are anti-aging and therefore you try to transcend this human limitation. I don’t think that death and life are inextricably interconnected in some sort of Eastern mystical sense in which for everything white there’s something black and there’s always a yin/yang type of thing. Every myth on this planet tells us the purpose of life is death, and I don’t think that’s true. I think the purpose of life is life.
tagged aphorisms, computers, future, philosophy, quote collages, quotes, technology, the singularity, transhumanism