The URL for the site (with map) is:
http://calendus.stanford.edu/CogSci/read/event_8268_CogSci_read.html
-- Adam.
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Armstrong [mailto:eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 8:43 PM
To: unrev-II@ONELIST.COM
Subject: Re: [unrev-II] Hofstadter's Saturday, April 1st, Special: WILL
SPIRITUAL ROBOTS REPLACE HUMANITY BY 2100?
From: Eric Armstrong <eric.armstrong@eng.sun.com>
Wow. Way, way, way cool.
Is there some URL where I can find that location on a map
of Stanford?
Doug Engelbart - Bootstrap Institute wrote:
> From: Doug Engelbart - Bootstrap Institute <doug@bootstrap.org>
>
>
> Forwarded to some of us Foresight friends by Christine Peterson. This
> bears
> directly upon the "complex, urgent, huge-scale problems" we kept
> bringing out
> in the Colloquium. Are we going to get collectively capable enough,
> soon
> enough?.
>
> *********
>
> Foresight's own Ralph Merkle will participate in an important
> symposium on
> machine intelligence this Saturday at Stanford. Organized by Douglas
> Hofstadter, others involved include Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, Bill
> Joy, John
> Holland, Kevin Kelly, Frank Drake, and John Koza.
>
> Given Bill Joy's recent views on nanotechnology and AI in in Wired,
> and the
> known views of some of the others, things may get a bit heated. Let's
> do our
> part to keep the tone friendly. Expect to see heavy press attendance.
>
> The event is likely to fill up, so to be sure of getting in, you might
> want to
> arrive early.
>
> -- Christine Peterson, Executive Director
>
> WILL SPIRITUAL ROBOTS REPLACE HUMANITY BY 2100? A SYMPOSIUM AT
> STANFORD
>
> -- free and open to the public --
>
> Saturday, April 1, from 1 PM til 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
> "Godel, 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
>
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>
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