IP: Symposium at Stanford: Kurzweil, Joy, Moravec, Hofstadter, ...

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> X-Sender: tesler () espresso stagecast com
> Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 12:29:28 -0800
> To: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
> From: Larry Tesler <tesler () stagecast com>
> Subject: Symposium at Stanford: Kurzweil, Joy, Moravec, Hofstadter, ...
>
> =============================================================================
>
>                WILL SPIRITUAL ROBOTS REPLACE HUMANITY BY 2100?
>                            A SYMPOSIUM AT STANFORD
>                       -- free and open to the public --
>
>                   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
>       "Gödel, 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 and Information;
>    Department of Computer Science; Department of Philosophy; Center for
>    Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities; Channel 51; GSB Futurist Club