Future Salon

Strong AI Future Salon

Update: Eliezer reminded me that the focus of his talk will be the following as stated in the original post Hard AI:

"Recursive Self-Improvement and the World's Most Important Math Problem." In 1965, I. J. Good suggested that smarter minds can make themselves even smarter, leading to a runaway positive feedback that I. J. Good termed the "intelligence explosion". But how do you build an Artificial Intelligence such that it remains stable and friendly through the ascent to superintelligence? Eliezer Yudkowsky talks about the implications of recursive self-improvement, and how it poses the most important math problem of this generation.

One of my observations of the IA-AI Accelerating Change Conference last year was, that most people lean towards the side of intelligence augmentation versus machine intelligence surpassing our capability.

Is that because we feel more comfortable with us being a center part of the next stage of the evolution or is it really fact based?

Eliezer Yudkowsky tomorrow Friday 24th of February at the Future Salon will make the case for the machines. I am curious what the always interesting and stimulating Future Salon audience will lean towards. Come and join us.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is one of the foremost thinkers on the Singularity. He is a cofounder and current Research Fellow of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Alongside Artificial Intelligence, Yudkowsky's interests include Bayesian probability theory, Bayesian decision theory, human rationality, and evolutionary psychology.
Yudkowsky is author of the papers: Levels of Organization in General Intelligence and Creating Friendly AI. Eliezer Yudkowsky's professional site, personal site.

A Future Salon has the following structure: 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [map] As always free and open to the public. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for opportunities. Free and open to the public.

If you can't be there in person join the webcast and chat:
Webcast link: http://mfile.akamai.com/14947/sdp/finnern.com/salon_02_2006.mov
IRC chat as always:
Server: irc.freenode.net
Channel: #futuresalon

Hard AI Future Salon 24th Feb

Update: Link to RSVP. We will webcast the event. Check the Wiki for the details. IRC chat as always: Server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #futuresalon

Next Future Salon Friday February 24th Hard AI with Eliezer Yudkowsky: 

"Recursive Self-Improvement and the World's Most Important Math
Problem." In 1965, I. J. Good suggested that smarter minds can make
themselves even smarter, leading to a runaway positive feedback that I. J. Good termed the "intelligence explosion". But how do you build an
Artificial Intelligence such that it remains stable and friendly through
the ascent to superintelligence? Eliezer Yudkowsky talks about the
implications of recursive self-improvement, and how it poses the most important math problem of this generation.

This one is going to be really interesting, because Eliezer has thought deeply about Artificial Intelligence and what will happen when machine intelligence is surpassing our own in the not so distant future for a very long time and it scares the hell out of a lot of people, one more reason for us to take a closer look. Please add your link to the companion Wiki page.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is one of the foremost thinkers on the Singularity. He is a cofounder and current Research Fellow of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Alongside Artificial Intelligence, Yudkowsky's interests include Bayesian probability theory, Bayesian decision theory, human rationality, and evolutionary psychology.
Yudkowsky is author of the papers: Levels of Organization in General Intelligence and Creating Friendly AI. Eliezer Yudkowsky's professional site, personal site.

A Future Salon has the following structure: 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [map] As always free and open to the public. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for opportunities. Free and open to the public. Please RSVP, so we can get enough food and drinks.

Berkeley Cybersalon: The Future of Radio

Remember not too long ago we had a Radio Future Salon. That was more about the open source technology that enables open radio. This Future of Radio Cybersalon organized by our Berkeley friends is focusing on the trends of the medium Radio which is changing in two radically divergent ways: big broadcasters like Clear Channel that rely on advertising are buying up little stations, while subscriber-based satellite channels, public radio channels, and podcasts are proliferating. What’s a listener to do?

Come hear from experts in public radio, commercial radio, and the mechanics of radio what you can expect from radio in the future and how you can make intelligent choices about your future and radio as well.

Berkeley Cybersalon: The Future of Radio 5-7 p.m., Sunday, February 19, 2006 The Hillside Club 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley

Carol Pierson, President and CEO  carol@nfcb.org 
Carol Pierson represents community radio at the national and regional level with Congress, the FCC, funders, and networks, as well as other national and regional organizations. To further NFCB's role as a supporting umbrella for its various constituencies, she worked with the Native American stations following up on the Inter-Tribal Native Radio Summit and with the Latino controlled stations to organize the Latino Station Summit. In addition to providing organizational and fiscal leadership, Carol works to develop resources that will help NFCB members in revising The Public Radio Legal Handbook; writing Digital Audiocraft; direct consulting with stations on management, operations, planning and board development. 

Prior to NFCB Carol served as Program Director and Director of Radio Productions at KQED-FM in San Francisco for ten years. Previously, she was Assistant Station Manager, Director of Operations and National Programming Director at WGBH-FM in Boston. Her radio career started at WYSO in Yellow Springs, OH, where she was Public Affairs Director and Assistant Manager for three years. In her spare time, Carol sings soprano with the La Peña Community Chorus in Berkeley.

Gregg McVicar -- Independent Producer -- http://www.radiocamp.com/
Gregg McVicar grew up in Walnut Creek, listening daily to KPFA, underground KMPX and progressive KSAN.  Starting in college radio, he has worked at numerous commercial and non-commercial stations and created programming for all manner of radio outlets, including early experiments in "pay radio" and Internet distribution.  One of his innovative documentary series was the second radio program ever distributed on the Net (the first was a Net-only show, "Geek of the Week").  He holds a master’s degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at USC and was instrumental in creation of The California Channel, the cable TV channel featuring live gavel-to-gavel coverage of the state legislature.

Since establishing Pacific Multimedia/RadioCamp in 1990, Gregg has produced national documentaries such as "The Privacy Project" (1991), "Hell's Bells: A Radio History of the Telephone (1993) and "Computers, Freedom & Privacy" (1994-95).  For the past seven years, he has hosted and produced the national Native music program Earthsongs, heard nationally on some 65 stations and on the Web. He is also host and producer of a new national eclectic music program, UnderCurrents, heard on 19 stations.Gregg is also a member of the volunteer staff at KPFA and an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts where he teaches radio classes.

Tim Pozar
Tim Pozar is a communications consulting engineer specializing in microwave engineering for government and commercial applications. He was an early entrepreneur and developer in the Internet startup area, by co-founding a number of companies such as TLGnet (San Francisco's first ISP), Brightmail (first commercial anti-spam company) and Omniva (digital rights management). Previous to this, for 25 years Pozar was a radio broadcast engineer for commercial and non-commercial radio stations.

Pozar is active in community wireless networking. As such he is a co-founder of the Bay Area Wireless User Group. Pozar is also leading an effort, called Bay Area Research Wireless Network (BARWN), to study the issues (such as scaling, sustainability, etc) of deploying wireless high speed Internet access for urban and rural settings to address digital divide issues. The BARWN network is currently being built out through the San Francisco Bay area. The infrastructure is based on very low-cost unlicensed equipment. Pozar has also published a number of papers covering the regulatory issues in the United States and engineering of high speed wireless networks.

Doors open at 5:00 and a $10 donation is requested for wine and cheese. Everyone is welcome, and the Hillside Club is wheelchair accessible.

Directions:

By car: From Oakland or the Bay Bridge, take Hwy 80 and exit at University, make a quick RIGHT under the freeway and onto the frontage road, and turn RIGHT at the 4RENT sign onto Cedar St. Continue straight two miles past Shattuck and park. From the Richmond Bridge, take Hwy 80 and exit LEFT at Gilman, turn RIGHT on San Pablo for a few blocks, and LEFT on Cedar St. 1.5 miles past Shattuck, and park.

By foot/bicycle: From downtown Berkeley BART, go north on Shattuck, and east on Cedar St. This is an easy and safe 15-minute walk.