Nano Future 2030

Just a note concerning Stirling engines. I recently became aware of them and how they are poised to take over the solar conversion field. Or at least they should. Turns out these machines convert heat to electricity at 25% or twice the efficiency of silicon photovoltaic cells. A Stirling engine converts a heat differential into mechanical and then into electrical energy.

Two companies in California are leading the charge ( as far as I can tell ). Infinia has a 3 kw machine that is sealed (maintenance free) and uses a sun tracking 16 foot collector dish to generate the heat needed to run the converter. I don’t know the price but would expect to be able to buy one in the next five years. They supposedly are already selling a 1 kw unit in Europe. And the thing is pretty. Who would have thought?

The other company is Stirling Energy and their main unit is a 25kw machine that is best used in a commercial farm. They have a contract with a utility company to deliver 900 Megawatts to the state of California.

I’m very happy to see these two machines. I want the 3kw for my backyard. Already looking at how to shoehorn it into that restricted space and calculating how much sun it would see.

Nano? Hey, it’s in the immediate future and might wean us off the oil spigot. That gives us a better chance of getting to mature nano before the economic system crashes or degrades into survival mode.
Maybe I just like to see something so positive on the horizon.

Hi,

For forty years I’ve waited for someone to get AI right and create something that actually asks a question instead of simulating the asking of a question. I guess the reason is, we all thought it was more simple than it turns out to be. I suspect the problem is still not well thought out. Sure, very intelligent and deep thinkers are working on logic software, neural net computing, expert systems, and language parsers. But I have not heard anyone talk about the system level structure of the human mind. Maybe that is more my fault - I’ve been busy on other things.

Consciousness is creeping back into legitimate consideration - and that is another issue where I’m not impressed by the effort so far. People don’t even talk like they understand what it is, much less how to create it. Look inside your own mind and figure it out by what you see there. Forget words. Listen and look and then figure out what you see and hear.

I also remember getting comments that were critical of my advocation that we place limits on the ability of AI during the early decades. I think I understand why it bothered him, but it says to me that he did not understand how to design a mind. There is no person in an AI implementation unless you put the person there. And why would you place power into the hands of some person you did not understand or control?

As a culture, we don’t understand children and we don’t, in general, know the first thing about how to raise them. If you want to create a really messed up mind, go have a kid. Hopefully, you and the kid will have a lifetime to work it out. I don’t know anyone who is not damaged in one way or another. Life is about coping with the cards you were dealt. Let’s be careful what cards we deal to an AI that can live forever, modify itself, and develop it’s own goals independent of humans.

Here’s a radical thought: Don’t have kids or design AI minds until you are 50 or more, have forgiven your parents for their screw ups mainly because you see yourself walking the same path, changed your career field at least once, and have spent significant energy on your own emotional growth. The idea is that you probably can’t create an AI mind any better than the average, screwed up 25 year old can raise a kid unless you have been through the ringer a few times and come out the other side trying to understand and heal the situation. And that’s just the personal stuff.

On the technical side, you haven’t got a prayer designing a AI mind unless you understand your own. Oh, sure, you can design one but it will have as many problems as the kid of the 25 year old who only knows how to make babies. Kids can’t raise kids although they’ve been doing it for thousands of years and we have a world around us that proves it.

So, know thyself before inflicting thyself on others.

We are all familiar with the social graces that are in vogue today. Don’t discriminate based on race or physical handicap. Don’t make religion an issue when hiring, don’t care about anyone’s sexual orientation. All good stuff in my opinion.

These things have been acquired by the culture as it matured. They make sense for getting along with people in this crowded world.

I suspect that the next big imperative will kick in about fifteen years from now when significant numbers of people start morphing into really strange body states using technology to carry that to extremes.

The new imperative is “Don’t discriminate based on body mods, no matter how extreme”.

For example, a recent post concerned brain augmentation. Not easily seen, so it is equivalent to sexual orientation in that it’s something we know about, but can not see clearly. Whereas, body art - note the wide acceptance of tattoos today - will flourish and be the most visible body mods at first. Animated tattoos. Enhanced facial signals (the gangs will love this one). An entire subculture will grow up around encrypted face signals.

Skin texture is another canvas for technological paint. Ornamental at first, then functional. Scales for fun, industrial sun screen, implanted weapons, interface ports for that private data dump. But personal art is the real weirdness that will shock. Punk and Goth today are shots in that direction. Absorb distinctive characteristics from a person, book or movie. Build your own society. Differentiate yourself by appearance. Set yourself apart from the world.

To sum up, the world is going to get weirder than it has so far, and it would be nice to remember that we all started off swinging through the same kind of trees. Let’s live and let live as our brothers and sisters try on new hats.