Analysis

Keynote & Debate

Ray Kurzweil, Founder and CEO, Kurzweil Technologies

Accelerating Technology in the 21st Century: An Intimate Merger with Our Bodies and Brains

Abstract: Three-dimensional molecular computing and other advances will provide the computing power to emulate human intelligence within a couple of decades, but will we have the software? I believe we will, guided by the results of a grand project to reverse-engineer the human brain and understand its methods, an endeavor now in its early stages. But the exponential growth of the power of information-based technologies is not limited to computational price-performance. Communication bandwidth and price-performance, the shrinking size of technology, genetic sequencing, our knowledge of the human brain, and human knowledge in general are all accelerating. Within the next couple of decades, microscopic-size computers will be deeply integrated in the environment, our bodies and our brains, providing vastly extended longevity, full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses, experience “beaming,” and vastly enhanced human intelligence.

Debate

Michael Denton, Senior Research Fellow in Human Genetics, Biochemistry Department, University of Otago, New Zealand

Why Organisms Are Not Machines: The Unique Characteristics of Living Things Depend on the Unique Properties of Special Types of Matter

Abstract: Mechanists from Descartes to Kurzweil have argued that there is no fundamental difference between organisms and machines – that organisms are merely advanced machines, and that eventually all the unique properties of organisms including self replication and self awareness will be instantiated in "man made" machines constructed out of non biological materials.

Here I offer a critique of this position, held by Kurzweil and other mechanists. I argue that advances in molecular biology in the past half century have revealed that many of the unique properties of cells and particularly their previously mysterious self replicative ability depend primarily on the unique properties of the special biomaterials used in their construction. The most important of these materials are the DNA double helix and the 1000 protein folds. The double helix lends itself naturally to self replication and the 1000 protein folds that it encodes possess an unparalleled suite of chemical and physical properties as well as the unique capacity to self assemble or crystallize into their native 3D structures.

From this I argue that when the material basis for other vital phenomena such as awareness and intelligence is finally elucidated, these will also prove (like self replication and other vital phenomena now well understood) to be substrate dependent and arise from the natural emergent properties of very special categories of matter. Therefore, I speculate that computing systems as we know them today, and as we may know them in the near future built out of non biological materials (e.g., carbon nanotube computing, optical computing, etc.), no matter how complex or intricate, will never produce biological phenomena such as "awareness" and "human intelligence."

Debate

Ilkka Tuomi, Visiting Scientist, European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Seville, Spain

Moore's Law and Kurzweil's Hypothesis: Accelerating Technical Change, Infinite Innovative Demand, or Bad Data?

Abstract: Moore's Law has often been used to illustrate the phenomenal speed of technical change. Ray Kurzweil has proposed that progress in computing reveals that Moore's Law gives a conservative estimate of technical change. According to Kurzweil, technology progresses at a double exponential speed. This leads to a rapidly growing pace of technical change, and creates in the next few decades a "Singularity" where human and technical evolution will be qualitatively transformed. According to Kurzweil, computers will soon become more intelligent than humans.

This paper is a critical study of Kurzweil's hypothesis. It presents data on long-term economic growth and developments in computing technology and discusses the conceptual foundations of Kurzweil's proposal. Empirical evidence does not seem to support Kurzweil's hypothesis. A conceptual analysis of Kurzweil's proposal highlights challenges for all generic claims about accelerating technical change. The presented analysis, however, leads to the conclusion that the growth rates of specific indicators, such as total world GDP, might approach growth rates that characterize information and communication technologies. Although we are probably not moving toward a Kurzweilian "singularity," it is possible that the current approximate 15 year doubling time of key elements of our global economy will shrink by an order of magnitude in the not-too-distant future.

Breakouts

K. Eric Drexler, Co-Founder and Chair, Foresight Institute

Nanotechnology: Toward the Feynman Vision

Abstract: Accelerating advances in nanotechnologies will provide a basis for developing nanofactories able to control the structure of matter with digital precision at the atomic level, fulfilling a vision first articulated by Richard Feynman. Developing nanofactories will, however, require a broad, long-term systems engineering effort in a field now organized and funded as a collection of small, short-term science projects. Confusion regarding long-term goals has inhibited the emergence of a focused effort; clarity regarding long-term goals can enable swifter progress.

John R. Koza, President, Genetic Programming Inc.

Biologically Inspired Computing for Automating Innovations

Abstract: Genetic programming (GP) is an automated invention machine and now delivers routine human-competitive machine intelligence. GP starts from a high-level statement of what needs to be done and uses the Darwinian principle of natural selection to breed a population of improving programs over many generations.

There are now 15 instances where GP has created an entity that either infringes or duplicates the functionality of a previously patented 20th-century invention, 6 instances where it has done the same with respect to post-2000 patented inventions, 2 instances where GP has created a patentable new invention, and 13 other human-competitive results produced by GP.

Up to now, GP has delivered qualitatively more substantial results in synchrony with the relentless iteration of Moore's Law. We can therefore confidently predict a future acceleration of the automation of the invention process. The inventions produced by GP exhibit the same kind of creativity characteristic of human-produced inventions.

Keith Devlin, Executive Director, CSLI, Stanford University

Interface, Information, Communication

Abstract: Within the next twenty years, information will disappear, killed by the very technologies that were developed to handle it. Knowledge resides in people's heads; data resides in libraries, in newspapers, and stored in various kinds of magnetic and optical media; information lies somewhere in between. Knowledge is what we use to act wisely. It cannot be bought or sold except by buying or selling the heads that contain it. Data can be, and is, traded, but it is worthless without the appropriate knowledge, from which its value derives. In the days of print communication and the early days of information technology, it made sense to talk about information as a commodity. Print information could be weighed, and as Shannon showed, electronically communicated information could also be measured, provided there was not too much of the stuff.

Today's storage and communication technologies are of such a speed and capacity that it no longer makes sense to think and talk about information. When you are in a small boat in the middle of the ocean, talk about water is irrelevant; the waves and the currents are what matter. Likewise, as we make our way in today's "ocean of information," the key concepts are media and interaction.

My talk outlines the research carried out at Stanford's own CSLI that supports the above claims, and describes a new Stanford program, Media X, designed to meet the challenges of a new world where information is as valueless as water in the ocean, and media and interaction are everything.

Ben Goertzel, Founder and CEO, Biomind

Artificial General Intelligence

Abstract: Today, AI is an important subfield of computer and cognitive science, playing a supporting role in a number of areas of applied computing. However, the vast majority of work being done involves “narrow AI” rather than true autonomous, creative Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Over the next few decades – powered by the ongoing advances in computing hardware – AI is likely to assume more of a leadership role, integrating and ultimately driving all the diverse aspects of 21st century technology.

There is a new generation of AI systems on the horizon, incorporating a complex-evolving-systems attitude and a host of technical software and hardware innovations not previously accessible. This includes neural net oriented systems like Peter Voss’s a2i2 system and Hugo de Garis’s CAM-Brain, innovative logic-oriented systems like Pei Wang’s NARS and Stuart Shapiro’s Sneps, and the Novamente AI Engine under development by the speaker’s R&D team.

In this talk, after reviewing the current state of AGI theory and technology, I will turn to the role that AGI is likely to play in the technology of the early 21st century. In one case after another, it would seem, cutting-edge technologies display complexities that AGI systems will be able to manage much more easily than humans. A particularly large role may be played by hybrid AI systems, which fuse a general-intelligence component with a specialized-AI component. Emphasis will be placed on the power of AGI to enhance work in biotech, nanotech, fundamental physics, and distributed cognition.

Futurologically speaking, we propose that the infusion of AGI through various areas of advanced technology may serve as the transition phase prior to a Vingean Singularity that is driven and dominated by sophisticated AGI systems.

Speculation

Keynote & Debate

James N. Gardner, Complexity Theorist

The Selfish Biocosm Hypothesis

Abstract: The Selfish Biocosm hypothesis asserts that the anthropic qualities exhibited by our universe can be explained as incidental consequences of a cosmological replication cycle in which a cosmologically extended biosphere supplies two of the essential elements of self-replication originally identified by John von Neumann.

Further, the hypothesis asserts that the emergence of life and intelligence are key epigenetic thresholds in the cosmological replication cycle, strongly favored by the physical laws and constants of inanimate nature. Under the hypothesis, those laws and constants function as the cosmic counterpart of DNA: they furnish the "recipe" by which the evolving cosmos acquires the capacity to generate life and ever more capable intelligence. The hypothesis reconceptualizes the process of earthly evolution as a minor subroutine in the process of cosmic ontogenesis. A falsifiable implication of the hypothesis is that the emergence of increasingly intelligent life is a robust phenomenon, strongly favored by the natural processes of biological evolution and emergence.

Debate

William A. Dembski, Associate Professor at the Institute for Faith and Learning, Baylor University, Texas

Infinite Universe or Intelligent Design?

Abstract: To reach the conclusion that the universe is infinite, physicists (a) make some observations; (b) fit those observations to some mathematical model; (c) find that the neatest model that accommodates the data extrapolates to an infinite universe; (d) conclude that the universe is infinite. In my presentation, I will examine the logic by which physicists reach this conclusion. I will show that there is no way to empirically justify the move from (b) to (c). I will also show how the history of science encourages scientists to be skeptical of grand extrapolations like the one in (c). Far from being viewed as a compelling truth that no rational human being can deny once exposed to the evidence, an infinite universe should therefore properly be viewed as a metaphysical hypothesis consistent with certain physical theories but hardly mandated by them. By contrast, I will argue that the hypothesis of intelligent design – that a designing intelligence has left clear marks of intelligence in the biophysical universe – is not a metaphysical hypothesis at all but a fully scientific one. In particular, I will argue that whereas an infinite universe does not (and indeed cannot) admit independent evidence, intelligent design can. Finally, I will indicate why an infinite universe, though sometimes introduced to get around fine-tuning problems and other phenomena that seem to call for design, in fact cannot get around the problem of design.

Debate

Nick Bostrom, Research Fellow, Oxford University

Observation Selection Theory: Why We Need it When Thinking about the Big Picture

Abstract: How improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on Earth? Is there other intelligent life in the galaxy? What are our chances of colonizing the universe? When considering such questions about the “big picture” about the distribution of observers and about our place in the world, it is crucial to take into account observation selection effects (OSEs). An OSE can be thought of as a kind of filter through which our evidence has passed. Our evidence is restricted not only by limitations in our measurement apparatuses but also by the fact that all the evidence we have is preconditioned on the existence of a suitably positioned observer to “have” the evidence (and to build the measurement instruments). Ignoring OSEs leads to anthropic biases. The theory of how to correct for such biases is a recent development. This paper reviews the basics of observation selection theory and discusses some of its applications.

Breakouts

Greg Papadopoulos, Executive Vice-President and CTO, Sun Microsystems

Network Entropy: A Driver of Change

Abstract: Computer networks are just the latest example of the fundamental characteristics of all networks - they accelerate the entropy of a system. Modern computer networks all erode the structure of monolithic systems into connected components. This happens via three outcomes: decomposition of the system, distribution of components, and the increasing specialization and scaling of the components. This force accelerates the change in a system, can turn consumer technology into fashion, and shifts the emphasis to creating value, which now must be derived by the logical re-integration of these components.

William H. Calvin, Theoretical Neurobiologist, University of Washington in Seattle

Faster than What? The Nimble and the Ponderous

Abstract: Fast is always relative to something. Faster than earlier is accelerating change. Generally, when you see accelerating growth, you immediately think of cancer – unless, of course, you play the stock market, when you think of selling short to make money on the downside.

But most problems associated with rapid change are due to being faster than some interacting process. For example, faster in the center of the stream than the edges leads to turbulence. The difference between an expansion and an explosion is whether other objects have time to get out of the way. Always ask, “Faster than what?” and remember that old joke about the two guys being chased by the bear. You don’t have to run faster than the bear, only faster than the other guy.

Orderly growth also operates on the difference in two independent growth rates. Two sheets of cells, where the layers are sticky, create a curved surface when one layer grows faster; so faster-slower can be creative as well as destructive. In prenatal development, the various sets of relative growth rates have to be carefully controlled. Otherwise, birth defects result.

In society, some things are nimble and others are ponderous. The speed of technological change means that major societal changes can be induced in less than a decade without planning or consent. It took less than a decade to go from the knowledge of energy available from the atomic nucleus to a bomb. The web took only a few years to achieve a billion web pages, indexed by free search engines. But the speed of reaction (new policies) tends to be much slower; the Euro common currency took fifty years, two generations of politicians. Achieving consensus can take decades for complex issues. What happens in the meantime?

Plenary

Howard Bloom, Visiting Scholar, New York University

"An Infinity of Singularities": From the Big Bang to the 23rd Century

Abstract: A singularity is a dramatic break, a phase change, a transition to some fundamentally new domain. Today we're looking at a moment in the near the future when our technological tool kit will rachet us beyond the limits of biology and make us something more than human. This won't be the first time. Evolution makes singularities a habit. Quantum leaps in the very nature of being pepper the history of this cosmos, the history of life, and the history of human beings. Atoms were a shock when they first came together roughly 300,000 years after the Big Bang. Nearly four billion years ago megateams of smart molecules perfected a trick the cosmos had never seen – self-replication…life. Over 200 million years ago, social insects – bees, termites, and ants – created a swarm intelligence that solitary insects fundamentally cannot comprehend. Eight thousand years ago, a simple invention – the baked-mud brick – created a cultural singularity that carried Stone Age humans far past anything dreamed by Pleistocene man.

In this special 45/60 minute video presentation, paleopsychologist, post-Darwinist, and internationally-acclaimed author Howard Bloom (The Lucifer Principle, The Global Brain, Reinventing Capitalism), will paint the grand sweep of such events, and consider their potential implications for the coming years. We're in for a special treat: there are few minds on the planet as deeply multidisciplinary, few who are as broadly concerned with the interpretation and integration of all the modes and senses of Earth's intelligences. Aaron Hicklin has said "Howard Bloom…may just be the new Stephen Hawking, only he's not interested in science alone; he's interested in the soul."

John Smart, Founder and President, Acceleration Studies Foundation

Development and the Singularity: Understanding Accelerating Change

Abstract: There is an emerging group of individuals who study our universal and technological records of accelerating computational change. This topic is also called "the singularity," among many who discuss it on the internet, after an article by science fiction author Vernor Vinge, "The Coming Technological Singularity," 1993. Will the 'meta-trend' of accelerating technological change ever slow down? Are there cosmological, computational, or systems theory interpretations for our universal history of continuously accelerating change? What classes of technological development now seem the most likely candidates for producing socially and economically transformative near-future events? We'll discuss these and related topics in light of the latest literature on accelerating change.

In the paradigm of "evolutionary development" in modern developmental biology, we are learning that while the vast majority of molecular pathways of biological systems are evolutionary, chaotic, contingent, and fundamentally unpredictable, a special subset of predictable developmental convergences are statistically very likely to emerge in all unfolding organisms over time. This process of "self-organization" and predictable emergence happens in any cycling complex adaptive system whose development is guided by a special, simple set of initial parameters, constraints, and coupling constants, such as the 22,000 genes (a very small amount of information by comparison to the developed organism) which guide the unfolding of human beings. Over many cycles, these simple parameters become carefully tuned to use local chaos to produce predictable form and function in some "far future" time. There is mounting indirect evidence that our universe is itself a cycling complex adaptive system in the multiverse, a primarily evolutionary and unpredictable system that is nevertheless also based on self-tuned "anthropic" developmental parameters. Curiously, our universal parameters appear to encode developmental processes involving accelerating increases in intelligence, interdependence, immunity, miniaturization, and resource efficiency in special physical systems over time.

One recent insight from this "developmental systems theory" is that technological computation, in general, is a local developmental process that is following an accelerating and increasingly biology-independent (autonomous) trajectory. Another is that "top-down" engineering paradigms like biotechnology, as a general process, will be far less important in coming years than the "bottom-up" evolutionary development of information technology in affecting our rates of personal, social and technological change. Yet another is that humanity's descendants will apparently not be colonizing outer space, but are instead rapidly transitioning to an increasingly complex and adaptive "inner space," one that may even involve some form of constrained universal transcension (a "developmental singularity") relatively soon in cosmologic time. We will briefly consider the arguments, evidence, and testability of these hypotheses, and their present broad implications in science, technology, business, political, and social domains.

Action

Keynote

Steve Jurvetson, Managing Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Venture Capital in a World of Accelerating Change

Abstract: I will provide a venture capitalist's perspective on technology change with a particular focus on nanotechnology. How do technology futures inspire the investment decisions of today and motivate the search for a pragmatic business path to the frontiers of the unknown? As the nexus of the sciences, how will nanotech affect the pace of progress in the increasingly interrelated fields of biotech, materials design and information technology? As the lab sciences become information sciences driven by simulation and modeling, how should we expect the pace of progress to change?

Plenary

Robert Wright, Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania

Technology and Interdependence: Nonzero Sumness as the Arc of History

Abstract: Human history is approaching what might be called a “moral singularity.” Ever since the stone age, technological evolution has been expanding the scope of social organization and with it the web of interdependence; people have found their fortunes interlocked with the fortunes of people farther and farther away. By the late 19th century, this long-distance correlation of fortunes was already so great that, as the saying in financial circles went, “When England sneezes, Argentina catches pneumonia.” But this interdependence is now making a quantum leap, and moving well beyond the realm of economics. Because of progress in fields ranging from biotechnology to infotechnology to nanotechnology, the well-being of, for example, affluent Americans will increasingly depend on the well-being of people in less developed countries half a planet away. The result will be a series of long-distance non-zero-games – games whose outcome is either win-win or lose-lose. Successfully playing these games will mean radically enhancing our ability to see things from the perspective of people in situations radically different from ours – to appreciate their grievances and goals as never before. If we don’t thus enhance our moral imaginations, some very bad outcomes, possibly including catastrophe, could ensue.

Breakouts

James M. Crawford, Autonomy and Robotics Area Lead, NASA Ames Research Center

Autonomy, Robotics & World-Modeling

Abstract: Over the next decade NASA will launch a series of increasingly complex exploration missions to some of the harshest and least understood environments in the solar system. These missions will search for signs of life, investigate the nature and history of other planets, and increase our understanding of ourselves, our planet, and our place in the universe. Some of these remote craft could be out of earth contact for as much as a week at a time working in environments that humans have never experienced or, in some cases, never seen. These requirements are forcing NASA to confront issues in autonomy and robotics that have been largely sidestepped in terrestrial applications.

In this talk I will argue that creating this level of autonomous robustness requires a fundamental change in how we conceptualize software. In particular, the procedural notion of software as a set of boxes each of which computes a mathematical function must give way to a model-centric view in which our primary focus is on creating a declarative use-independent model of the world. Autonomous agents built around such models will have the ability to introspect about how their actions affect themselves and their world, to learn from experience, and to respond robustly to circumstances and failures not anticipated by their designers. These capabilities will be essential both for NASA's increasingly complex exploration missions and for terrestrial applications ranging from search and rescue robotics to intelligent agents exploring the "world" of the internet.

Matt Lennig, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Nuance

The Linguistic User Interface

Abstract: Human language is the richest and most natural way for people to communicate with each other. As computers take on some of the characteristics that we attribute to human intelligence, it is natural for people to want to communicate with computers using human language. This is the linguistic interface.

Human language exists in both its primary spoken form and its derivative written form. We define a linguistic interface as technology for communication between humans and machines based on either spoken or written human language. Primitive linguistic interfaces have existed since the early days of computing. Advances in speech recognition, speech synthesis, and computational linguistics have provided the core technology for the evolution of such interfaces so that today some impressive examples of natural language interfaces to machines are being deployed in real applications.

This presentation will review the history of linguistic interfaces, discuss the progress that has been made to date, present a vision for the future, and then discuss the challenges that lie between the present state of technology and our vision of the future conversational user interface.

Tim O'Reilly, Founder and President, O'Reilly & Associates

Diffusion of New Memes in the Media

Abstract: Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" to describe ideas that propagate themselves from mind to mind, reproducing in a way that is analogous to gene transmission. Those seeking to promote change need to understand what makes one idea "catch on" and quickly become part of popular culture, while another remains an academic footnote. There's no science to this (yet), but there are lessons to be learned. Technology publisher and activist Tim O'Reilly will talk about what he's learned from helping foster the early commercialization of the Internet, the open source software movement, and web services, and from fighting software patents. He shares his ideas for "meme engineering" and offers suggestions for working with the press as well as new media outlets in order to spread your ideas.

Christine Peterson, President, Foresight Institute

Shaping the Next Technological Revolution: Getting Advanced Nanotech Sooner and Safer

Abstract: We can use the laws of physics, of economics, and of human nature to project what's coming: total control of the structure of matter, down to the level of individual atoms. This is molecular manufacturing. The basis of this technology will be molecular machine systems, already found in nature. We are now learning to design and build new molecular machine systems. This will bring powerful abilities: benefits for medicine, the environment, space development, and alleviating poverty, as well as downsides such as offensive military use, terrorism, and domination of populations.

Our task is to maximize and spread the benefits and minimize the problems coming from this very powerful technology. We need calm, clear thinking about abstract, complex, scary topics. We need improved tools for such debates, and we need to educate the public about what's coming and what strategies are likely to work. To spread the benefits, development should be speeded and intellectual property issues need close attention. To minimize accidents, we can improve and implement the Foresight Guidelines, already drafted. The major challenge is preventing deliberate abuse. We examine various scenarios and suggest the one that currently looks most likely to head off problems: open, cooperative international development, including of defensive technologies, combined with stable, trustworthy institutions.

Vigorous debate, policy formulation, and public education on this controversial topic has been in progress since the late 1970s, and organized since 1986. Major progress has been achieved, but challenges remain. We'll examine next steps, and how individuals can participate.

Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext

Social Software Solutions

Abstract: Enterprise software traditionally yields efficiencies by automating business processes within hierarchies to achieve economies scale and speed. However, in a services economy, an increasing share of knowledge work is business practice supported by social networks. Environmental conditions are increasingly turbulent, requiring greater lateral information flow, depreciating process and rewarding economies of span and scope.

To date, the majority of informal collaboration takes place with email and attachments. Email is no longer a productivity tool thanks to commercial and occupational spam. The latent value of communication is lost – there is no institutional memory. Now, software is returning to the collaborative roots of the Internet and the Democratic nature of the PC revolution.

Social Software adapts to its environment rather than requiring the environment to adapt to it. Entrusting users to make their own connections, share resources and design their own spaces while guided only by social convention surprisingly works. Relatively simple tools and rules reveal social networks and yield complex emergent behavior from the bottom-up. Perhaps there is greater value in augmenting our capabilities than automating them – for organizations, emergent democracy and fostering social capital.

Scott A. Hunt, Peace Scholar and Activist, Author of The Future of Peace

Accelerating Change and World Peace

Abstract: Advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, information technology, and a host of other fields offer incredible sea-change opportunities. Jacob Bronowski remarked that “in every age there is a turning point, a new way of seeing and asserting the coherence of the world.” As we discuss the prospects for a new turning point, we must not lose sight of the bigger picture for humanity. The conscious endeavor to promote change often has unintended consequences. Sometimes these consequences are a windfall, and sometimes they pose new dilemmas. Any concerted effort to promote change, therefore, must involve selectivity. We must be selective in our efforts to hasten change, trying to understand how the change is likely to play out in the future. Even when we are selective, however, we encounter competing visions of what our society should look like. What kind of society do we wish to live in? What is our responsibility to other people in other societies? What kind world do we wish to create? Do we march along in creating new technology while the vast majority of humanity has no access to our achievements? If we are to avoid future calamities – including wars, sub-national violence, and massive privations -- we must *compassionately* accelerate change. Compassionately accelerating change means a sustained reordering of our priorities to tackle the root causes of human misery in all regions of the world. This is an ethical responsibility, and a universal responsibility, that we cannot escape. And it is the standard by which our technological achievements will ultimately be assessed.

Corporate

Mark Finnern, Collaboration Manager, SAP Developer Network

SAP Enables Accelerating Change

Abstract: Thomas H. Davenport (Director, Accenture Institute for Strategic Change) wrote, "Enterprise systems: The second most important technology of the last decade. Only the Internet had greater impact on business." These enterprise systems are the ones that enable companies to accelerate the pace of change and be more proactive about it. SAP, the third largest independent software company with 12 million users and 28,900 employees in 120 countries is by far the biggest player in the area of enterprise systems. SAP is less a technology company and more a business process improvement company. In this presentation, we will look at the trends in enterprise systems and business process improvement, as well as the effects that AutoID(RFID), Sensor Networks, and other technologies have on the acceleration of these processes.

Marcos Guillen , President, Artificial Development, Inc.

CCortex: Building a 20 billion neuron emulation of the human cortex.

Abstract: CCortex is a system build to mimic the inner workings of the human brain. Marcos Guillen will explain how CCortex works, what portions of the human brain it emulates, and how the system interacts with the outside world. Guillen will also outline CCortex applications and Artificial Development's (http://ad.com) Roadmap for CCortex-based products.