The Singularity is HERE (talk by Todd Marks, 11/03 @ 5PM)
Conversations with a colleague back home first introduced me to the concept of ‘The Singularity’ via an essay by scifi hero Vernor Vinge. This promised to be a geekfest even by SXSW standards and I was fairly excited to hear about mankind’s impending doom at the merciless hands of steely cyborgs. For those not of the nerd persuasion, the singularity is essentially the ‘technological tipping point’ where humans are replaced by machines - or merge with them.
Sadly my expectations were quickly dashed when the speaker, Todd Marks of Mindgrub, opened his hour-long presentation with a ten minute resume of his career to date. This included several moments where he verbally strutted around, showing off his foresight for predicting the mobile web, and even an entire slide plugging his company, which had nothing to do with robots or the singularity. The guy sitting next to me got up and walked out at this point, but in the interests of journalism, I decided to stick it out.
Marks began by introducing the concept of cyborgs as illustrated in movies. 2005’s “Minority Report” featured Tom Cruise playing with a gorgeous multitouch screen, dragging and dropping. In 2011 we carry that technology in our pockets on our smartphones. In Star Trek they had the holodeck for simulation and projection - we now have augmented reality apps.
Marks’ point was that the ‘impending’ singularity is already here. He raised some interesting questions about the nature of humanity - “Are you human because you have a brain ONLY?” he asked, referring to the ‘traditional’ image of the cyborg face, with headsets, goggles and more. Does an athlete with a prosthetic limb cease to be human? They can’t compete against ‘normal’ athletes - do we need a new definition of what it is to be a person?
Of course, this talk occupying a fairly nerdy end of the spectrum, there was time for some rather outlandish theorising. Marks suggested it was pointless for his daughter to be taught the periodic table at school when she could download an app for it. While learning by rote is essentially pointless, I do fear for a world where all of our knowledge is bound up in electronic devices - devices potentially controlled by don’t-be-evil overlords. The last day in Austin has already taught me of the fear of stepping outside of the wifi zone and being unable to rely on Google Maps any more to locate stuff. Imagine cutting that digital umbilical cord altogether?
Marks ended by highlighting current tech which seems to offer cyborg integration - a company called Zephyr make a device called the ‘Bio Harness’, apparently in use by sports teams and firefighters, where each person wears a device to measure their bio levels (heat, energy, fatigue, hydration, etc) and a central device can see all of the statuses at once.
Reflecting on the talk after it finished, I wondered what I’d wanted from it. Ideally I’d have liked to be told exactly when the impending robot apocalypse would occur, and the best weapons to store up in case of insurrection. While we didn’t quite get to find out if scenes likes Asimov’s “I, Robot” would play out, the notion that we’re already some way down the road to being cyborgs was quite an interesting one.
- Matt Andrews
-
richmond9va liked this
-
paulmacinnes posted this
