accelerating change 2003

I'm at Stanford right now for the Accelerating Change 2003 Conference, which has gathered 300 future-minded thinkers to examine the phenomenon of the accelerating rate of advance in technological capabilities and its effects on the future of human society. Of course technological problems have abounded so far, ranging from sketchy sound system to the utter failure of the 3D telepresence intended to bring keynote speaker Ray Kurzweil to us from Boston, prompting one wag to call out "technology is decelerating!"

Despite this perrenial reality of Murphy's law, the discussions have been worthwhile. The morning session devoted to a three way slugfest between Kurzweil, Michael Denton and Iikka Tuomi centering around whether or not machines are approaching humanity levels of lifelike qualities and a lot of bickering over power point graphs.

I'm keying all this in on my sidekick right now, so I'll have to expand on it later (also, a session on biologically modelled computing is about to start).

Comments

[mie]

This is kinda neat. Instead of being on opposite sides of the earth, we now live together - but I'm still using your blog to check out what your day or thoughts have been. Wonder how our blogs will rearrange themselves in our relationship.