Future Vision

I was so excited to attend the intellectual feast served up at the Foresight Vision Weekend on November 3-4 at Yahoo headquarters in Mountain View. From online worlds to life extension to artificial intelligence to nanofactories, the discussions were spirited and tinged with great responsibility as we embark on revolutions in biotech, nanotech, and artificial intelligence that will dramatically change our lives.

The key insights I got from this hyper-participatory unconference fall into three categories:

1. Life Extension - I think my favorite sessions were Jeff Hall's talk about the latest SENS research being coordinated by Aubrey de Grey's Methuselah Foundation and Chris Heward's keynote about his work at Kronos Optimal Health Company. The prospect of curing aging in our lifetime is so compelling and so important a problem that I feel guided to contribute my talents and energy to it. Hence the added mention of life extension in the title of this blog. There are decades of work to do, and what a challenging puzzle to solve!

2. Online Worlds - Being somewhat of a late adopter of gaming/virtual reality technologies, it was amazing to me to learn about the latest advances in artificial intelligence from Steve Omohundro of Self-Aware Systems and Ben Goertzel of Novamente. Second Life was proposed as a sandbox for experimenting with the release of AIs and the testing of various theories regarding control of and reaction to this coming brave new world. Now to create an avatar for myself...

3. Open Source Physical Security - Christine Peterson of Foresight talked about her idea of applying the concept of decentralized, collaborative, transparent open source to physical security (think the 4th 9-11 flight). I found this mapping fascinating and will definitely need to think more about this.

As often happens when brilliant minds collide, new questions emerge, new energy is created, and everyone scatters back to their own corner with fresh insight and ready to tackle some of the biggest and most exciting challenges in the world today. Many thanks to Foresight for opening up their Vision Weekend to all who were interested in joining the feast.