LIFT 06: Life, Ideas, Future, Together, February 2-3 2006 Geneva
January 19, 2006 at 5:24 pm 1 comment
I am glad to announce that Benchpoint is the evaluation partner for LIFT 06, a conference about new technologies and people taking place in Geneva from February 2-3 2006.
We will be involved in evaluating the impact of the event. This will be very interesting as we are using traditional methods and experimenting with how we can use wikis, mashups and blogs to contribute to evaluation.
We will post any findings of note on this blog.
Glenn
Entry filed under: Conference / event evaluation, Trainings, Seminars & Conferences.
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intelligent measurement 
1.
bolo | February 23, 2006 at 4:47 pm
this is my opinion:
Over the next 20 to 50 years, it will become harder to tell the difference between the human and the machine. All body parts will be replaceable. A computer will function like the human brain with the ability to recognize feelings and respond in a feeling way. They can then produce fake people.
We will then be able to create a machine duplicate of ourselves so we will appear to be alive long after we are dead. Maybe a few decades later, a way will be found to transfer our spirit to the new body. Then we can choose to live for as long as we want.
It might be expensive. Maybe it will cost you an arm and a leg. [Note: here’s another change. We will have to change the language we use. By then, arms and legs will be a dime a dozen.] [Note: by then, dimes will probably be obsolete, and we won’t have any idea what the word dozen means.]
Of course we cannot know for sure what will happen in the future. However, by projecting present-day knowledge we can make some plausible guesses. In the essays, I try to create a convincing picture of how the century might develop, by writing from the vantage point of a future historian.
The approach I follow is that of science fiction, not fantasy. I am not interested in speculations that do not have a secure basis in science, such as telepathy, or time travel, or religious miracles. Predictions based on our current scientific knowledge are already astonishing enough. Consider these three statements, which have seemed like eternal truths for most of human history:
Everybody has to die.
Humans are the most intelligent beings in the world.
Living things are distinct from manufactured things.
In company with many futurologists, I think all three of these statements will probably be overturned during the present century:
Barring accidents, people will remain eternally young.
(Horrors! What about over-population?)
Unless we reinforce the human brain with faster hardware, computerised agents will surpass human intelligence.
(The machines will take over!)
Manufactured objects will acquire a complexity that rivals or surpasses plants and animals, thus blurring the clear dividing line that we now perceive.
(Things won’t be natural any more!)
What will life be like in such a world? What will our role be? We need to think boldly and realistically about these issues, rather than retreating into pessimistic cliches or nostalgia for the present.