Singular singularity thoughts

After a very interesting presentation by Dr. José Luis Cordeiro of Singularity University, I was left with a few interesting ideas about the coming accelerating technological and social progress.

  • Genetic testing is becoming faster and cheaper.  In 3 years full sequencing will only cost 100 bucks and take 5 days, with a huge impact in ancestry and medicine (think about genetically-tailored preventive medicine). Imagine 23andme going mass market.
  • We will go back to the moon, especially now that it is found that there’s water.
  • World relationships are changing. For thousands of years the important body of water was the Mediterranean, and until recently the Atlantic.  We are now entering the age of the Pacific.
  • Robot rights are already under discussion in Korea and Europe.
  • Economic, telecommunications and energy source evolution is accelerating.
  • The death of death: The Methuselah Foundation.
  • Nano, bio, info and cognitive sciences are converging. Everything is information.
  • Marvin Minsky (MIT): “Will robots inherit the earth? Yes, but they will be us!”
  • Transhumanism as a possibility, not only a science fiction conjecture.