Our future as a species ?

only science has the answer

WILL SPIRITUAL ROBOTS REPLACE HUMANITY BY 2100?

A SYMPOSIUM AT STANFORD

Saturday, April 1, from 1 PM till 5:30 PM

Teaching Center, Science and Engineering Quad (TCSEQ), room 200

near the Math Corner, Sequoia Hall, and the Varian Physics Building

Primary speakers:

Ray Kurzweil (inventor of reading machine for the blind, electronic keyboards, etc., and author of "The Age of Spiritual Machines")

Hans Moravec (founder of Carnegie-Mellon University's Robotics Institute, and author of "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind")

Bill Joy (co-founder of, and chief scientist at, SUN Microsystems) John Holland (inventor of genetic algorithms, and artificial-life pioneer; professor of computer science and psychology at the U. of Michigan)

Panel members:

Ralph Merkle (well-known computer scientist and one of today's top figures in the explosive field of nanotechnology)

Kevin Kelly (editor at "Wired" magazine and author of "Out of Control", a study of bio-technological hybrids)

Frank Drake (distinguished radio-astronomer and head of the SETI Institute -- Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)

John Koza (inventor of genetic programming, a rapidly expanding branch of artificial intelligence)

Symposium organizer and panel moderator:

Douglas Hofstadter (professor of cognitive science at Indiana; author of "G=96del, Escher, Bach", "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies", etc.)

In 1999, two distinguished computer scientists, Ray Kurzweil and Hans

Moravec, came out independently with serious books that proclaimed that in

the coming century, our own computational technology, marching to the

exponential drum of Moore's Law and more general laws of bootstrapping,

leapfrogging, positive-feedback progress, will outstrip us intellectually

and spiritually, becoming not only deeply creative but deeply emotive, thus

usurping from us humans our self-appointed position as "the highest product

of evolution".

These two books (and several others that appeared at about the same

time) are not the works of crackpots; they have been reviewed at the

highest levels of the nation's press, and often very favorably. But the

scenarios they paint are surrealistic, science-fiction-like, and often

shocking.

According to Kurzweil and Moravec, today's human researchers, drawing

on emerging research areas such as artificial life, artificial

intelligence, nanotechnology, virtual reality, genetic algorithms, genetic

programming, and optical, DNA, and quantum computing (as well as other

areas that have not yet been dreamt of), are striving, perhaps unwittingly,

to render themselves obsolete -- and in this strange endeavor, they are

being aided and abetted by the very entities that would replace them (and

you and me):superpowerful computers that are relentlessly becoming tinier

and tinier and faster and faster, month after month after month.

Where will it all lead? Will we soon pass the spiritual baton to

software minds that will swim in virtual realities of a thousand sorts that

we cannot even begin to imagine?Will uploading and downloading of full

minds onto the Web become a commonplace?Will thinking take place at

silicon speeds, millions of times greater than carbon speeds? Will our

children -- or perhaps our grandchildren -- be the last generation to

experience "the human condition"?Will immortality take over from

mortality?Will personalities blur and merge and interpenetrate as the

need for biological bodies and brains recedes into the past?What is to

come?

To treat these disorienting themes with the seriousness they deserve

at the dawn of the new millennium, cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter

has drawn together a blue-ribbon panel of experts in all the areas

concerned, including the authors of the two books cited.On Saturday,

April 1 (take the date as you will), three main speakers and five

additional panelists will publicly discuss and debate what the

computational and technological future holds for humanity.The forum will

be held from 1 PM till 5:30 PM, and audience participation will be welcome

in the final third of the program.

Sponsoring agencies at Stanford:

Symbolic Systems Program; Center for the Study of Language andInformation; Department of Computer Science; Department of Philosophy; Center for Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities; Channel 51; GSB Futurist Club

CAPITALISM'S DARKER SIDE

"We are experiencing accelerating social and environmental disintegration in nearly every country of the world, as revealed by a rise in poverty, unemployment, inequality, violent crime, failing families, and environmental deterioration," writes David C. Korten in the revised edition of his 1995 international best-seller, WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD (Berrett-Koehler, 2001), lauded by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu as "a must-read book."

It is the continuing quest for economic growth that is accelerating, Korten believes, and the only solution is to get corporations out of politics. One item on the agenda for change is requiring corporations to serve the public need as a stipulation of their charters; a company that fails to honor its obligations would have its charter of incorporation revoked.

This is not a book solely about economics or politics, however; Korten challenges readers to think more deeply about their values on a spiritual level. Meeting the challenges of the future requires the fully awakened creative awareness of all of humanity.