Technology Initiatives for Peace - TIP

The Buffett Donation

2006-06-30T02:57:00.000-07:00

Good news for philanthropy - Sri

On June 26, Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man, signed a letter of commitment that will eventually turn over most of his fortune--some $31 billion--to the foundation run by the world's richest man and his wife. With the stroke of a pen, Buffett doubled in size the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, already the largest organization of its sort in the world. The gesture not only emphasized Buffett's philosophical opposition to dynastic wealth but was also a strong endorsement of the Gates' entrepreneurial approach to philanthropy.

Heaven or Hell: Kurzweil & Garreau

2006-06-22T22:48:00.000-07:00

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Humanity is on the verge of an incredible future. Technologies that seem like science fiction are already becoming science fact as researchers develop innovations that will transform the very essence of what it is to be human.

Kurzweil argues that the growth of computing power, miniaturization and increased technical prowess will turn the world into an incredible place -- free from the conflicts over resources and wealth that have plagued it and in the last century and almost led to our obliteration in the fires of global thermonuclear war.

These three scenarios -- which author Joel Garreau named Heaven, Hell and Prevail in his book, Radical Evolution - dominate debate about our future. Over the next three weeks CNN Future Summit will hear the arguments from all sides, speak to the key thinkers involved, and ultimately invite you to draw your own conclusions about what lies ahead for us all.

Computing without keyboard, mouse, voice or anything

2006-06-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

'Mind over matter' no longer science fiction from PhysOrg.com

Sitting stone still under a skull cap fitted with a couple dozen electrodes, American scientist Peter Brunner stares at a laptop computer. Without so much as moving a nostril hair, he suddenly begins to compose a message -- letter by letter -- on a giant screen overhead.
[...]

Seeing whole and peace

2006-06-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

I have never seen a conflict in which everyone could see the whole. On the contrary, I have only experienced conflicts in which some, and usually all, of the “part-ies” were identified with the “part.” They were, literally, “partisan.”
writes Mark Gerzon

Not much more needs to be understood about Peace.

If the one sees a part belongs to a party,
what does one sees whole belong to?
[Scroll down]

The Universe

Were you thinking "holy"?

Injecting RFID into the Immigration Mess, Literally

2006-06-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it is obvious to everyone, I mean including media reporters, when "moral compass" appears to be broken. Here is a stark example of Scott Silverman making ridiculous statements, self-promoting, unashamed, willing to bring imposition on others, and worse to label it all as "voluntary" as in "an election" - yeah, "by the government" or "by others".
Measure your body temperature before and after you read this item. - Sri

Injecting RFID into the Immigration Mess, Literally
May 19, 2006

By Evan Schuman

Applied Digital CEO Scott Silverman was a guest the week of May 15 on a Fox News show called Fox & Friends First, and he was there to give the immigration debate a shot in the arm. Or to implant his company in the middle of the controversy.

No matter which wordplay is used, he was there to argue that the U.S. government should buy tons of his implantable RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips and literally inject them into the arms of immigrants who are guest workers in the United States.

The chips would come from Applied Digital subsidiary VeriChip and are the same ones that a handful of people have already had injected into their arms, including the CIO of the Harvard Medical School.

On the show—Applied Digital offered a copy of the transcript—Silverman said the injection would be entirely voluntary. "It's an election on the part of the immigrant or an election on the part of the government, when we ultimately define what that technology is that no one has defined yet," he said. (The second half of that quote says nothing, but I kept it in for any philosophy and logic majors who want to try and puzzle it out.)

Click here to read about one airport's interest in using RFID to track luggage—and passengers.

Let's take a closer look. First, the "election on the part of the government" would certainly impact how optional it was. More to the point, though, how optional would it be as a practical matter?

You're a Mexican worker and you're trying to get a job, surrounded by others who will gladly take any gig you decline. Would you dare to refuse, knowing that your rivals may instead comply? Also knowing that American security agents are on the lookout for terrorists, would you really want to attract the kind of attention that comes from refusing an identification technique?

Lest we forget how volatile it is out there, U.S. border patrol agents shot and killed a man on May 18 as he was trying to drive his sports utility vehicle from San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico.

The reality is that this is not at all going to be seen as truly voluntary. OK, but is there a legitimate reason for workers to resist? Absolutely. This technology has been implanted in relatively small numbers of people for a relatively short period of time. No long-term, large-scale testing has done, and there is no way to know what kind of health risks are posed by inserting this little glass tube into a person's upper arm.

What about privacy? Silverman was asked to respond to the statement, "A lot of people would say that it's dangerous, that it's invasive, it could be used to infringe on our civil liberties by tracking us." His reply avoided the first two-thirds of the question—I'd do the same if I were trying to hawk what he's hawking—and narrowly addressed the tracking issue.

Should the federal government support RFID tagging of human remains? Click here to read more.

"This is not a locating device. This has no GPS capabilities in it whatsoever," he said. "It is purely an identification device that reads a unique 16-digit identifier with a proprietary scanner within a very short range. It's a passive device with no power source under the skin that ties to a database where the relevant information is stored."

As far as I can tell, this is absolutely true, but it's also misleading. Yes, it's true in the sense that satellites won't—at this time—be able to track legal aliens as they move around town. But if a government or business decided to place enough of those readers in strategic locations—outside bars, gun shops, libraries, political offices and even tollbooths—people theoretically could be tracked.

Silverman also said that the U.S. government was considering this. "We have talked to many people in Washington about using it as an application for a guest worker program. But we cannot say today that they have actually bought it for immigration purposes," he said.

But let's get away from these trivial life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness issues. What does this mean for the RFID and EPC (Electronic Product Code) industries? This effort—even if it fails—is a gift-wrapped, bow-topped special keepsake for every RFID opponent in the world.

It combines overreaching and intrusiveness with a healthy dose of racism (Quick show of hands: How many people think this was designed with Canadians in mind?) That's just what the industry needs now.

Ironically, the RFID movement is starting to get some serious traction, with Proctor & Gamble and others starting to truly prove return on investment beyond the supply chain. Now is not the time to give ammunition to those who want to derail RFID.

But if someone indeed wants to do that, they have found an ideal spokesperson in Scott Silverman.

Evan Schuman is retail editor for Ziff Davis Internet's Enterprise Edit group. He has tracked high-tech issues since 1987, has been opinionated long before that and doesn't plan to stop anytime soon. He can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies:

2006-05-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies:
"Human Enhancement Technologies
and Human Rights

May 26-28, 2006

Stanford University Law School, Stanford, California"

So, here is an organization that is akin to TIP mission - only partially. I will explore more and position it better. TIP wants to steer emerging technologies to serve needs of humanity. To put restraints is half the story. Steering to good is another half.

Beatles on teamwork

2006-05-14T01:45:00.000-07:00

Magical history tour: The Beatles as the ultimate team: "Magical history tour: The Beatles as the ultimate team

By Steve Bates

Andrew Sobel, consultant, author and guitarist, like many in the baby boom generation, holds fond memories of Beatlemania, the rage that swept the United States in 1964 after four plucky lads from Liverpool hit this nation’s airwaves and played on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” But what he recalls most is not the hair-shaking and the mediocre lyrics like “I want to hold your hand” and “yeah, yeah, yeah.” It’s not even the screaming teenage girls.

It’s the teamwork."

Songs this article uses in making its point about teamwork:

Come together
We can work it out
Let it be
With a little help from my friends

Mount Madonna: Government in Action

2006-05-14T00:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a nice instance of current technology being put to good use. My friend Ward Maillard from Mount Madonna School is taking a group of students to the US Capitol. The kids will have a chance to meet with Representatives and Senators and staffers. But more significantly, they are sharing their experience with others in their school and with us all using a Blog. Since they got the local newspaper to provide the blog column, all of their readers are drawn into the adventure. Just wonderful - Sri

Government in Action
Web Site
Please join us over the next ten days as our twenty-three Juniors and Seniors upload daily commentary and photos of their extraordinary journey to interview a broad array of leaders across our nation's capital. Read what they learn from people such as Senator Diane Feinstein, Congressman Sam Farr, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, Leher News Hour Senior Correspondent Ray Suarez, Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius, former Presidential Candidate Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Former Speaker of the House Tom Foley and many more.

That is Ward standing up in the picture.

Bainbridge Graduate Institute

2006-05-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) offers both an MBA in Sustainable Business and a Certificate in Sustainable Business. In both programs, students work with distinguished faculty from top business schools to master proven sustainability practices.

Our Mission
To prepare diverse leaders to build enterprises that are economically successful, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable.

We mean this mission in the broader sense – not only preparing our own students, but also helping other business schools integrate sustainability (i.e., environmental and social responsibility) into the heart of their programs.
Our Vision
To infuse environmentally and socially responsible business innovation into general business practice by transforming business education.

BGI is pioneering a graduate curriculum for sustainable business education that infuses social and environmental responsibility into every course – not just electives but all required courses as well. We train students with the leading sustainability case studies, best practices, models, and business management tools. With this knowledge graduates will be well equipped to successfully lead a large corporation, small business or non-profit organization toward sustainability as a core strategy, or launch their own sustainable entrepreneurial ventures.

At BGI we demonstrate that sustainability drives competitive success and profitability. Find out if our MBA in Sustainable Business or our Certificate in Sustainable Business is right for you.

Explore More

* History
* Supporters
* Faculty and Administration
* Employment"

GE: on the "green path"

2006-04-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

VALUE ::: Tomorrow's Markets, Enterprise & investment :::: "May 2005 may have marked an important turning point for General Electric, the venerable 127-year-old corporate titan. It was then that chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt publicly announced that the $150 billion company was betting its future on green technology. Immelt unveiled a company-wide growth plan—dubbed “Ecomagination”— aimed at solving some of the world’s most pressing environmental problems through the aggressive commercialization of new technologies such as wind power, solar energy, fuel cells, high-efficiency gas turbines, hybrid locomotives, lower-emission aircraft engines, lighter and stronger materials, energy-efficient lighting, and water purification technologies.

As part of the Ecomagination initiative, GE has committed to 1_ doubling its annual research investment in cleaner technologies, from $700 million in 2004 to $1.5 billion in 2010; 2_ doubling its current $10 billion in annual revenues from clean tech products and services to at least $20 billion by 2010; 3_ reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 1 percent by 2012 from a 2004 baseline (it is estimated that greenhouse gas emissions would have increased by 40 percent without such action); and 4_ reporting publicly on its progress toward meeting these goals."

OECD Ministerial Declaration on International Science and Technology Co-operation for Sustainable Development

2006-04-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

OECD Ministerial Declaration on International Science and Technology Co-operation for Sustainable Development: "DECLARE THAT:

They reaffirm their commitment expressed at the WSSD to the promotion of sustainable development through the application of science and technology by strengthening national innovation policies and programmes, and by enhancing existing global collaborative networks."

Water Cycle - State of the Knowledge

2006-04-10T01:04:00.000-07:00

Chapter 5. Water Cycle. From Strategic Plan of the US Climate Change Science Program (Final Report, July 2003):
Recent renewed attention to Global Climate Change, Effect of global warming, possible sources of this such as Greenhouse gases, impact of the global climate change on glaciers, ocean currents, salinity, thawing of permafrost raise a spectacular doomsday type scenario. The impact cited include food production, energy use, change of habitable areas around the globe, national instabilities, ethnic/tribal/state warfare, increase in disease causing and disease-bearing insects, worms and microbes. Well, Well, Well. Go take a look at the cover of TIME Magazine to see the words "BE WORRIED, BE VERY WORRIED". Not so, says Sri.

One of the key attributes needed from scientists is HUMILITY. They need to be firstly aware of how seriously deficient their models are and how much uncertainty is built in. Prediction errors are compounded because of the various feedback cycles in nature. Furthermore, in addition to EXPLICIT assumptions of the models, there are IMPLICIT assumptions. Explicit ones show how aware of uncertainties the modelers are. The Implicit ones show how unaware they might be of those assumptions. One type of implicit assumption is "gradualism"; another is "linearity". To quickly grasp the impact of those on climate model, ask yourself, while a three parameter feedback system tends to exhibit fractal nature and chaotic behavior including butterfly effects, how come our climate scientists are talking about rise in temperatures of 0.5 degrees per decade. Do they grok anything? Humility is one part; greater reflective self-awareness is the other.

Let us examine the following report from Climate Science initiative. It puts forward a research agenda to study Global Climate Change. I only excerpt a very small section of it for illustrative purposes. The full report has to be read. What we don't know far outweighs what we do know. Science is woefully inadequate in modeling or predicting global trends.

"Question 5.1: What are the mechanisms and processes responsible for the maintenance and variability of the water cycle; are the characteristics of the cycle changing and, if so, to what extent are human activities responsible for those changes?

Question 5.2: How do feedback processes control the interactions between the global water cycle and other parts of the climate system (e.g., carbon cycle, energy), and how are these feedbacks changing over time?

Question 5.3: What are the key uncertainties in seasonal to interannual predictions and long-term projections of water cycle variables, and what improvements are needed in global and regional models to reduce these uncertainties?

Question 5.4: What are the consequences over a range of space and time scales of water cycle variability and change for human societies and ecosystems, and how do they interact with the Earth system to affect sediment transport and nutrient and biogeochemical cycles?

Question 5.5: How can global water cycle information be used to inform decision processes in the context of changing water resource conditions and policies?"

Children's education AND Rechargeable lantern

2006-04-08T06:04:00.000-07:00

Prof Vijay Modi at Columbia has come up with a rechargeable lantern.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mechanical/modi/ColumbiaUniversityLanternBrochure.pdf

The idea he has is that a child will carry this like a lunch box to school.
At school it will get plugged into a charging unit. For 8 hours.
When the pack is taken back home, it can power a lantern for up to 7 hours.
Cost 25-30$
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mechanical/modi/ColumbiaUniversityLanternBrochure.pdf
Modi says it would encourage children to come to school and encourage parents to send them to school.

Modi is connected with Sachs' Earthwatch Institute at Columbia.

I wondered if we could come up with something better, one that would not have the weight of a lead-acid battery; and one that is more benign at the end of its useful life.

Tailor-made skin from 'ink' printer

2006-04-07T01:56:00.000-07:00

by Rebecca Camber

BREAKTHROUGH: Prof Derby holds a tissue scaffold used in development of new skin
SCIENTISTS at Manchester University have developed a printer able to produce human skin to help wounds heal.

It could be used on patients who have suffered burns and disfigurements. With more research it could even replace broken bones.

Using the same principle as an ink-jet printer, experts are able to take skin cells from a patient's body, multiply them, then print out a tailor-made strip of skin, ready to sew on to the body. The wound's dimensions are entered into the printer to ensure a perfect fit.

The printer, which takes up an area equivalent to three filing cabinets, could see the end of traditional skin and bone grafts.

Scientists at the university's School of Materials have already successfully created skin and believe they will soon be able to create bone and cartilage.

TechWatch: OLED and InkJet printing

2006-04-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

I will attempt to post a series of new blog entries to keep an eye out on emerging technologies that hold some special kind of promise. The intent is that with a better understanding of what is emerging, us peace workers, those of us interested in social uplift, can become eager to adopt these new technologies. The intent is the we can thereby create a "pull" so these technologies chart an early course to socially beneficial causes - instead of the usual pattern of peace waiting for "hand me downs" and "trickle downs" after the military, after big business have had their fill and are ready to throw "crumbs". So read on and imagine how some of the emerging technologies featured here can help us.

And, oh, more importantly share your thoughts by posting or leaving a comment.

To start the series, we begin by asking what does Inkjet technology have to do with large flat panel display. The link above is to EPSON company which is a leader in inkjet technology that is now going into flat panel displays. How come?

The advances in inkjet printing have made it possible to (a) reduce the droplets they emit to "picoliters" i.e. very very small; (b) use liquid forms of Polysilicon polymers that are useful in constructing electronic parts; (c) working with great precision and rapidity, these inkjet printing methods (think, liquid deposition method), using polysilicon on silicon or glass substrates (in place of conventional printing ink over paper) - they can do "nano manufacturing". Inkjet printing can now do imprinting at 100 nanometers, 50 nm at at its very best 35 nm patters.

So EPSON is using its advanced inkjet technology in manufacturing flat panel displays. These flat panel go beyond the usual LCD and Plasma display methods. LCD involves crystals that can be rotated by passing current through them and they change color. They need back lighting to make the color come through. LCD displays are power hungry. To use LCD in daylight (outdoor uses) needs greater amount of backlighting. Plasma uses plasma-phase (very much like gas) that glows. Now comes in a new method called OLED which stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode. OLED is a polysilicon based sheet. When current passes through it emits light. OLED does not require backlighting. OLED is itself a light source. EPSON is interested in this because it can manufacture OLED flat panel displays by inkjet printing method.

OLED has great implications for home lighting in developing areas. They are cheaper to make and cheaper to use than LCD or other display techniques. Can this be used in the $100 Laptop? (Read about it)

Does polysilicon printing and OLED have implications for healthcare, education?

First Online Payment System To Be Open-Source And Bank-Independent Now In Beta: Ripple - Robin Good's Latest News

2006-04-05T01:02:00.000-07:00

Conceived by Ryan Fugger and quite formally defined by Sylvain Poirier, Ripple is a P2P monetary payment system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks.

By cutting out the institutional middlemen, Ripple is both more community-oriented and more efficient as a means of exchange

The idea is simple but it has world-changing potential.

Here is how it works, as explained on the Ripple.com site:
First Online Payment System To Be Open-Source And Bank-Independent Now In Beta: Ripple - Robin Good's Latest News: "Ripple is a monetary system that makes simple obligations between friends as useful for making payments as regular money.

Normally, if your friend Alice owed you $10, she would have to pay you back before you could make any use of that debt.

If you were creative, however, you might be able to pass the debt on to someone else who knew and trusted Alice, in exchange for something you wanted. For example, you might be able to get a book you want from Bob, who also knows Alice, in exchange for letting Alice know that she now owes Bob $10. Instead of money, you used Alice's IOU to pay Bob. Alice acts as an intermediary between you and Bob.

Ripple does the same thing, only it takes the idea one step further.

What happens if you want to get a haircut from Carol, who doesn't know Alice at all?

Your $10 IOU from Alice isn't useful because Carol being owed money by Alice doesn't mean anything to Carol. But suppose you had a way to find out that Bob, who knows Alice, also knows Carol. You could talk to Bob and arrange for him to take Alice's IOU in exchange for giving his own IOU for $10 to Carol. Since Alice owes him exactly what he owes Carol, Bob is even on the deal. Both Alice and Bob act as intermediaries between you and Carol.

And that's how Ripple works. You create a profile on the system and indicate who you know and how much you trust them by connecting to people by email address and giving them credit limits. Then whenever you want to make a payment to another Ripple user using only friendly obligations, the system finds a chain of intermediaries connecting you to the person you want to pay, and records the payment in each intermediary's account all the way down the chain. You end up owing one of your 'neighbours' on the system, and the payment recipient ends up being owed by one of her neighbours."

Will they fund TIP?

2006-04-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

In several of our TIP discussions, I have been of the view that once we are clear about what we want to accomplsh, the venture and other capital sources will line up with TIP - so we can look forward to a "peace industrial complex" emerging - and thus to Make Peace Profitable. The following story illustrates what happens when a successful entrepreneur and who in turn became a venture capitalist gets a moral compass in his hand (heart, head).

PS: Vinod is a fellow IIT graduate and is accessible via the IIT Alumni club.

Valley man bankrolls clean-energy initiative:
OIL FIRMS TO PAY TAX TO FUND FUELS, CARS
By Matthai Chakko Kuruvila
Mercury News

Vinod Khosla is bankrolling a ballot initiative that would tax oil producers and subsidize alternative energy -- technologies he invests in as one of the valley's most prominent venture capitalists.

If California voters embrace the November initiative, the tax on oil companies could generate $4 billion for projects intended to reduce the state's dependence on oil by 25 percent within a decade.

Such political moves are still new territory for the well-heeled venture capital community more accustomed to funding start-up companies than ballot campaigns. That changed in 2004, when the industry put its money behind another technology-building initiative: stem-cell research.

This marriage of personal and political passions makes some consumer advocates uneasy, while outraging the oil industry.

Initiative backers are currently gathering signatures, which they say they'll submit by the end of the month. Khosla says the measure, which he's already spent more than $1 million to back, is not about him. He says it's about 'doing the right thing.'"

Foreign Aid has failed

2006-04-04T00:48:00.000-07:00

The link above is to Business Week's review of Easterly's book, The White Man's Burden.
Recently I was sharing with friends Shikwati (Kenyan Economist) who had been interviewed at SpiegelOnline - he was cited as saying, 'For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!- it is hurting us'. Now Mr. Easterly, an economist with World Bank says aid has not worked. He is advocating only small focused tracked projects. This is consistent with how Richard Otto and Sri talked about Moral Compass for TIP.

[Excerpt from the book review]
The international development community is still reeling from William Easterly's 2001 book, The Elusive Quest for Growth. In it, the former top World Bank economist demonstrated how the panaceas concocted by the West to save the Third World, such as huge injections of aid, conditional loans, population control, infrastructure spending, and debt forgiveness, have all failed to stimulate sustainable growth and cut poverty.

Easterly is at it again. In The White Man's Burden, he marshals a wealth of fresh studies, original statistical analyses, his own anecdotal reporting, and historical precedents to buttress his argument that today's foreign-aid system doesn't work. He shreds practically every new strategy by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, U.N. agencies, and other donors aimed at lifting the world's poor out of misery. This book is disappointingly skimpy on solutions, but it is brilliant at diagnosing the failings of Western intervention in the Third World.

Mecca Cola World

2006-04-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

Mecca Cola World: "Mecca-Cola specificity, a new business culture

Following the example of business activities started by charitable associations - the charity-business - we considered the idea of launching a new concept, amely that of putting the economy to work in the interest of ideology. Muslim and Arab Capital � being mainly in the form imposed by the most fierce materialistic apitalism, and often illegal and born of corruption, refuses, for fear of bringing ruin upon itself, to support the actions engaged. Because of this, militant people who are experiencing financial difficulties have no other alternative than to create profit-making activities to enable them to achieve their objectives, even though they did not start out as either traders or capitalists. One of the perversions of capitalism lies in the generation within oneself of the most brutal and the most inhumane part of oneself.

The spirit which governed the creation of Mecca-Cola was to create a profit- making business which would help to relieve human suffering where action is still possible. The most intolerable and the most immediate suffering is that of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian people are experiencing indifference and general complicity, these being the most wretched and the most contemptible acts of apartheid and Zionist fascism. But, as we are profoundly Moslem in spirit and in training, we can only adhere to our precepts, namely, give back the good that we have received in greater measure, but also spread good around oneself. It is for this reason that we have opted for the distribution of a share of the dividends in countries which have so generously welcomed us, and in the populations amongst whom we live."

Center for Nanoscience in Society - Arizona State U

2006-04-02T23:39:00.000-07:00

Well, Well. Right in my own backyard - and so welcome to it. Arizona State has now a center for nanoscience in society. They are in Tempe and I live in Phoenix. Time to make a connection - and see how TIP and CNS might interface. Onward HO!!

Designed as a boundary organization at the interface of science and society, CNS-ASU provides an operational model for a new way to organize research through improved reflexiveness and social learning which can signal emerging problems, enable anticipatory governance, and, through improved contextual awareness, guide trajectories of NSE knowledge and innovation toward socially desirable outcomes, and away from undesirable ones. In pursuit of this broadest impact, CNS-ASU trains a cadre of interdisciplinary researchers to engage the complex societal implications of NSE; catalyzes more diverse, comprehensive, and adventurous interactions among a wide variety of publics potentially interested in and affected by NSE; and creates new levels of awareness about NSE-in-society among decision makers ranging from consumers to scientists to high level policy makers.

CNS-ASU is one of two centers funded by the National Science Foundation to study nanotechnology in society; the other is at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, NSF funds other team- and project-level research in the area. See the NSF Nanotechnology in Society Network page on this site or the NNI’s Societal Implications home page for more details.

Buddha Machine

2006-03-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes, technologies for peace.

Peace in the world, peace inside too.

Yep, all it takes is a little Buddha inside, the Buddha nature!!

The Impact of Emerging Technologies: Pennies for Web Jobs - Technology Review

2006-03-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

The Impact of Emerging Technologies: Pennies for Web Jobs - Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16519,300,p2.html

Do read this article and then come back to catch up on my violin playing below.
As you read it, ask yourself what this article is "really" about.
Is it about innovation, outsourcing, or about flattening of the earth, or about singularity that will first swallow up the bottom of the economic pyramid in to a mecho-bio-connected being?

So here is where the violin starts and sri starts just speaking his mind.

On the one hand this article is straightforwardly about just Amazon find a spiffy new way of doing something that would make it some more moola. The economic motive is what moves it. Quite inventive and gets its job done one way or the other. In the process it impacts possibly millions of "humans" working cheap that "assist" the machines do their job. On the other hand it does increase the interdependence of people across nations, oceans and places.

I had actually hatched a plan somewhat similar when I spoke to Michael Chertok ( not to be confused with Chertoff). Michael works with a nonprofit called Digital Divide Data (featured in Friedman's book The World is Flat). DDD works in Cambodia and Laos and employs about 30 people who are typing Harvard Crimson magazine archives into the computer. The old Crimson archives from a century ago are now in microfiche form and they want to put them on the www. Too expensive to have some americans type them in. Not enough volunteers I suppose. In any case, Michael was able to get the contract and took it to Pnomh Penh. There he found the very poor that do not know English. But they did not learn English to the work. They just learned the keyboard. Using visual recognition, they see a letter and type a letter. Crimson is now getting online. Harvard is getting its work done cheap and Cambodians are making a modest living, but better than what they might have had otherwise.

When I spoke to Michael, he was interested in expanding it to Bihar India and to bring this work to Dwarkoji.
As I investigated his business model, growth plans it was clear that finding new clients was a tough job for him. So our conversation turned to diversification. That meant thinking about new tasks to be done. I suggested that we do a photo classification and tagging website. We, Americans and Europeans, who take nearly 1000 or more digital pictures a day could get some help in organizing their collections and get it done cheaply. I picked this work because it would need very little English knowledge. People are good at looking at a picture (the one that needs to be classified) and say it looks like this-and-that-other from a palette that would have portraits, landscapes, close-ups etc. The classification could delve down another level, mountains, rivers, lakes, sunsets, flowers, beachballs, machinery, houses etc. We have not gone further as Michael is quite preoccupied keeping DDD in Cambodia going full tilt. When the time is right, we can move. The scary view below applies as critique for my idea also. So read on.

But here comes Amazon inventing something that is bigger, faster and more lucrative. That is ok. It only validates we had a good idea and a good model.

There is another side to the story we just read. If Amazon succeeds and then eBay and Yahoo and Google follow suit it could become a big industry. The picture that emerges from the scaling up is that of millions in Asia, Africa and Mongolia or Siberia who are looking, pointing and clicking at pictures that are dished up to them at 60 frames per minute. They are doing things that have no connection to their lives, looking at pictures that mean nothing to them. I suddenly see another version of the industrial revolution coming up. Millions involved in doing menial, repetitive, routine work at faster and faster pace. The work they do has no redemptive value to their lives except for the bucks they earn. They benefit not from the results of their own labor. They merely get compensated for their time.

Then there is the Venor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil (and the Matrix) vision of the networked cosmic machine that learns and communicates faster than humans and they have their work to do and humans are assigned tasks that benefit the computers. Sure there are other humans in the Amazon concept that benefit from all that and pay for the benefits they get. Butit all points to a vast segment of humanity that is dehumanized and becomes subservient to machines. In my vision, there were still "individuals" that needed the work to get done. In Amazon, Ebay, Google, Yahoo vision, the machines will make their own demands.

Just a slew of perspectives and no conclusion. However unsatisfying that is, that is where I want to leave this note. I can interpret and provide some context. But eventually the moral compass has to be constructed by all of us participating.

I have another essay that has been cooking for nearly 4 years. It has to do with trust in a world filled with machines and humans. That thinking was prompted after I spoke at NASA on trust and one member of the audience told me about she needed some advice on trust issues to be dealt with in a space colony they were designing. In that essay, I do set up the dichotomy of humans using computers as "tools" and networked-machines-in-charge of life and wellbeing doling out tasks to humans. Then I tried to find a third way based on principles of nonviolence and cooperation. This news article prompts me to pick up that old essay and work it through and release it. That meme needs to start floating.

Think a new thought

2006-02-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

Ethics_Politics_and_Plentidue.pdf (application/pdf Object)
We all know that we do not live in an ideal world, far from it. However, the art of living consists in living in a less-than-ideal world without being of it by living from an ideal world. Living in a less-than-ideal world without being of it means that you do not abide by the prevailing but moribund paradigm of living, but by the new model of living that you create for yourself that may in the future become a new paradigm of living for humanity. Living from an ideal world means that you start living your life in accordance with a possible paradigm of the ideal world that you envisage. The source of power is in thinking. It is your thinking that moves and transforms your life. It is our thinking that moves and transforms our world. The art of living is indeed the art of thinking. What you think will determine your future. What we think will determine our collective future. Therefore, a new world will only come if we think a new thought. - Yasuhiko Genku Kimura

Sri on Video+Audio: Interview

2006-02-18T15:38:00.000-08:00

Last Fall I attended the conference at Stanford on Accelerating Change, AC2005.
Elon University and Pew Internet conducted a series of video/audio interviews of several prominent attendees, myself as the lesser luminary (so I say).
http://www.elon.edu/predictions/audio/sridharan.mp3
is myself in audio only.
The interviewer's prompts have been edited out - so you have to infer where questions were asked and what the question would have been.

The container page is http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/visionaries.xhtml and has edited videos. The 1 minute video is a teaser/trailer. The 13 minute has a small excerpt of Sri (video), immediately following one of Victor Vinge's comments.

As you can see (hear) from these, I am an optimist - but much depends on what we actually do.

"I want to know who has their hands on the steering wheel. We need a values compass to steer the progress of technology". That is what Technology Initiatives for Peace is all about. Visit http://www.infinisri.com/TIP for more on TIP.

Spin Doctors Create Quantum Chip

2006-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Wired News: Spin Doctors Create Quantum Chip: "University of Michigan scientists have created the first quantum microchip, which could be a giant stride in the race to produce a new generation of brawny, super-fast computers."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70001-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_12#

Working with individual ions is key to building powerful computing machines that will exploit quantum physics -- instead of transistors -- and trump the power of today's most powerful supercomputers.

So, on a semiconductor chip roughly the size of a postage stamp, the Michigan scientists designed and built a device known as an ion trap, which allowed them to isolate individual charged atoms and manipulate their quantum states.

The spin of the electron dictates the value of the quantum bit, or "qubit." For example, an up-spin can represent a one, or a down-spin can represent a zero -- or the qubit can occupy both states simultaneously.

This enigmatic feature of quantum mechanics is what gives the qubit a powerful advantage over the binary digit of classical computing. Known as quantum superposition, the ability of the qubit to occupy two quantum states at once means that it can execute computations at an exponentially faster rate. Each time a qubit is added to a quantum system, its computing power doubles.

A valuable feature of the quantum chip is that its size can be scaled to accommodate the objectives of a particular project. "Our target is to eventually develop a chip that can entrap 10 ions at a time," said Monroe. "But the primary goal is to prove that it works."

Hello Fellow Tipsters: Probe this news release. See if you can tell how close or far off this technology from realization? Will you see it coming in your lifetime? What leap of imagination or leap of faith is involved? - Sri