David Hanson: Machine Versus Human

I had a chance to talk to David Hanson of Hanson Robotics in-depth at the Singularity Summit in San Francisco on August 14. He holds the view that humans do want robots to look, feel and sound human - after all, asking humans to think otherwise would be asking humans to re-wire the way they think.

The conversation that unfortunately didn't make it into the video was around robot(ic) behavior - robots versus humans, more specifically robots versus actors. We were talking about some of the best actors actually ARE the character, they don't go INTO character. My example specifically are both women: Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. both of them have a way of drawing you into their character and make you believe nothing else exists. They ARE that character and nothing else; the character is in fact their DNA not who they are in their off-stage life.

I could imagine a world where you could actually buy a 'program' that is set to a particular character. In the future, I'd love an 'open source' robot like the PR2s that Willow Garage is building, and I'd like to separately buy a program, just like I buy a DVD movie today. I insert it into the robot and he/she becomes the character he/she has just been programmed until I change the program. Something you can imagine in our lifetime? What about other human aspects? Listen to David thinks about these topics.

Media Post's Social Media Insider Summit

Media Post is holding a Social Media Insider Summit in Lake Tahoe from August 29 to September 1, 2010.

They're calling it a social summer camp. The Social Media Insider Summit will be previewing a combination of stimulating panels, speakers, roundtable discussions, and face-to-face networking activities with marketers, ad agency execs, social media experts, and other interactive industry practitioners all seeking to learn how the social media revolution can impact their businesses.

2010 Singularity Summit - A Meeting of the Minds

The 2010 Singularity Summit, held this past weekend in San Francisco, was, quite literally a meeting of the minds.  Not just because the assembled group consisted of a fair number of the brainiest people on the planet, and not just because the general consensus was that a meshing of silicon hardware with our carbon wetware appears to be a future inevitability, but also because of the discussion about animal intelligence and how it is similar to yet different from our own.

Now that the event is a week in the past there have been a number of very interesting posts written on what happened there and what people think of it.  I've taken the time to pull together a detailed listing of the event itself as well as the press the Summit received and I've organized it into the Pearltree below.

Some of the interesting content you'll find in the links below include:

• Steven Mann on H2Organ at Singularity Summit 2010
• Singularity Summit | Summit 2010 > A Sample of the Singularity Summit -Includes full videos to the 2009 Singularity Summit Talks
• Patrick Takahashi of Huffington Post on The Singularity Summit 2010 - 
• ZDNet's CHris Jablonski on: Singularity Summit 2010: No place for human values in a 'posthuman' future?
• A collection of the links and tweets from the 2010 Singularity Summit: Accelerating Future » Singularity Summit 2010 Tweets and Links
• Additional Collected Press Coverage of the Summit: A Selection of Singularity Summit 2010 Coverage
• Mathilde Berchon covers the more physical aspects: Singularity Summit 2010- Human Health and Body Improvements Innovation Round-Up
• Summit Volunteer, Kevin Fischer provides his thoughts on the event before the fact.
• A comprehensive list of abstracts, bios and deep links on presenters.

Singularity Summit Promises to Stimulate Your Brain

The Singularity Summit, held in San Francisco this past weekend, is not new to me since I helped market the very first one, which was held at Stanford in 2006. The goal of the first Summit was to further the understanding and discussion about the Singularity concept and the future of human technological progress.

The idea over time is to improve people’s thinking about the future and increasing public awareness of radical technologies under development today and of the transformative implications of such technologies understood as part of a larger process.

It was founded as a venue for leading thinkers to explore the subject, whether that be as a scientist, enthusiast, or skeptic.

Speaking of skeptics, the last talk of the event was by James Randi, who some think of as a magician, but he is also known as a debunker.

I first learned of Randi's work at TED where he spoke several years ago. The title defunker equates to his strong and very vocal skepticism, which he writes and speaks about extensively. Fascinating as ever, Randi has the ability to draw you into his logic even if you don't necessarily agree with him.

Gregory Stock is a renown biophysicist who I had the pleasure of meeting at PopTech in Maine more than five years ago. What I love about Stock is his ability to move from academic, physicist and author to entrepreneur and philosopher all within a one hour window. He also has a very engaging curiosity about random things outside his world when you talk to him one-on-one that most experts lack. He wrote the book Redesigning Humans, which is considered a transhumanist classic, now eight years ago.

You can't have a Singularity Conference without a bunch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) geeks running around, which at this event, included Eliezer Yudkowsky (also a profilic writer about human rationality), Ben Goertzel, who is Chief Scientist of AI firm Novamente and Ray Kurzweil, who joined us remotely via video and as always, delivered a rivoting and mind-expanding talk.

My favorite line all day was a Kurzweil one: "My feelings about the brain, the mind and AI - If it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. If it seems conscious it is conscious" -- meaning a conscious being.

Below Ben Goertzel on the Singularity Summit Stage

Psychologists Irene Pepperberg and John Tooby (considered a pioneer of evolutionary psychology) also brought their perspective to the table as did neurobiologists Terrence Sejnowski, Brian Litt, Dennis Bray and Demis Hassabis, who is a research fellow at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at the University College of London.

"Futurists like to predict how genetic engineering and computational implants will allow humans to become a super-species, but few examine the application of similar technologies to nonhumans," says Pepperberg.

David Hanson, who I first met at TED more than six years ago, is a well known roboticist. When I first met him, he was working at Disney Imagineering and while you may not think of a roboticist as an artist, this one is. Formerly a sculptor, he has merged his artistic way of looking at the world with his left brain ability to design and develop a robot with human-like expressive capabilities. He holds a patent on Frubber, a novel material that imitates the look and feel of human skin. I had an opportunity to touch it while I was talking to their very human robot named Zeno. (a video of my experience coming later this month).

Below David Hanson and his very human-like robot Zeno, who has a sexy British accent and has accepted a date with me as soon as he is given 'legs' - I told David I'd fly to Dallas for the occasion.

Also on the agenda was Anita Goel, who works at the intersection of physics, nanotechnology and medicine, Lance Becker, a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Venezuelan born Jose Luis Cordeiro who is the Director of the Venezuela node of the Millenium Project. Jose, who I met at the cocktail party the night before the event, has been working in Asia. Prior to that however, he lived in Ecuador for a year around the time the currency changed over to the dollar.

Engaging and witty on stage, Steve Mann doesn't look like your ordinary professor. A pioneer in the study and practice of virtual reality, he has been dubbed the world's first cyborg. He even published a book with its name in the title: Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer. Together with collaborator Ryan Janzen, a Canadian researcher, scientist and composer, they demoed the very powerful and mesmorizing Hydraulophone, a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically.

Below Toronto-based Steve Mann is engaging, interactive and wows the audience with his examples of virtual reality and demo of the Hydraulophone on stage.

Other impressive talks from other disciplines included Shane Legg, who won the 2008 Canadian Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research Prize, Ellen Heber-Katz whose research focuses on molecular biology and genetics of healing, and Ramez Naam, who is the author of More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement.

Since I'm a right brain, I must admit that my favorite part of the day was playing the Hydraulophone, which I'm doing below with Ryan Janzen's guidance and interacting with Hanson's robot, the very endearing Zeno.

Tech4Africa: Building for a Global Technology Market in Africa

If only Johannesburg were closer. Too many buds and too many interesting discussions were happening at the Tech4Africa Conference. Below is a recap taken from MemeBurn, which focuses on web and innovation technologies for the emerging market sector. 

The panel discussion was called: “Building for the Global Market. Lessons and Learnings From The Coalface.” Leila Janah of Saiasource, Sheraan Amod of Personera and Malcolm Hall of Open Box Software discussed the challenges of building tech companies from Africa. The discussion was facilitated by Toby Shapshak of Stuff magazine. MemeBurn's wrote-up below. 

  ON BREAKING INTO THE AMERICAN MARKET 

Leila Janah: The biggest challenge we face is that Africa has a damaged reputation in the service sector. And being a non-profit doesn’t exactly help us either. There is a perception that people in Africa can’t do this kind of work. Many educated people in the West don’t even know that there are PC’s in Kenya, let alone that there are over 2 million Kenyans on Facebook. 

You need to overcome bias at the start and the best way is to get results. We did many trial jobs for free to build a relationship and people were pleasantly surprised. You can’t compromise on quality when you’re a non-profit, especially when you’re from Africa.

Sheraan Amod: In the US, there is a lot more energy and innovation than there is in Europe or anywhere else, and people are willing to speak to new businesses. To succeed, you need to stand out. I preach 2 major actions if you want to build a product business that can scale to the US.

Firstly, your product needs to be something they have never seen before. If it’s unique, they will see it and they will take it seriously. Secondly, you need to get a solid introduction to the people who matter in Silicon Valley. That introduction is like a stamp of approval. We are lucky to have Vinny Lingham as an investor, and he is very well connected in the San Francisco tech scene so he setup a few crucial introductions. 

Leila Janah: We have to work as hard as a “for profit” company, because leads come in because of who we are, but no one will sign on the dotted line because of a good story. There is a lot of anti-outsourcing sentiment right now because of the crisis in us. We want people to understand we’re not in to screw American workers. 

Malcolm Hall: The key differentiator is the quality of your product. I don’t believe that it matters where you are. If you deliver something good, then people will use it, no matter where its from. 

ON MAINTAINING A PRESENCE IN THE UNITED STATES 

Leila Janah: There’s a benefit to understanding what your customers are doing so it makes sense to have part of your business where your customers are. You need to have a great product/customer fit and living amongst them is so important. Whether it’s from casual conversations or more formally, you have to get feedback from your customers. 

Malcolm Hall: Certainly it’s important to have a sales and marketing presence in the larger markets. That then allows you to have developers back here at home working comfortably in T-shirts and slip slops. And getting paid in rands. 

Sheraan Amod: If you haven’t lived where your customers are, then probably don’t start. It’s critical that you understand how they live. 

 ON FINDING THE RIGHT MARKETS FOR YOUR PRODUCTS 

Leila Janah: Outsourcing requires pretty mature markets. Our market is definitely in the Fortune 500 companies. But if you can monetize many tiny transactions, like M-Pesa has done then perhaps your focus is different. But at Samasource, when we talk about technology companies, we gravitate towards the United States. 

Audience: The BRIC countries are very interesting markets for South Africans. We are in a unique position of being comfortable in transitioning between 1st and 3rd world environments in the same country. We can navigate all of that very easily and should take advantage of it. 

Toby Shapshak: My contention for a while has been that Africa is the next China, the next Russia and Brazil. So it’s very important to grow your market right here in Africa and South Africa is going to be the springboard to all of that. It’s an exciting time. I always say that South Africa’s best export is South Africans.

GoingGreen Silicon Valley

The fourth annual GoingGreen Silicon Valley, is being held on September 13-15, 2010 in San Francisco. The two-and-a-half-day executive event features CEO presentations and high-level debates on the most promising emerging green technologies and new entrepreneurial opportunities. 

Green technology innovators are transforming trillion dollar industries-and the solutions they are delivering not only promise to clean up pollution and restore ecosystems, but also to bring abundance and prosperity to everyone on earth. 

In fundamental areas-water, energy, and land-resource abundance is just around the corner through the power of technology and free markets.  Readers of Down the Avenue and Blog The World are invited to attend for a third of the original cost. 

Speakers include:

Jeff Byron, Commissioner, California Energy Commission 

Ray Rothrock, Partner, Venrock 

Brian Steel, Senior Director, Corporate Development & Strategy, PG&E 

Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious Materials

 Anup Jacob, Partner, Virgin Green Fund 

Kevin Genieser, Head of Clean Energy Investment Banking, Morgan Stanley 

Marc van den Berg, Managing Director, Vantage Point Venture Partners 

Raj Atluru, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson 

Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner, Technology Partners 

Jane Wu, President, Global Operations, Comtec Solar 

Reyad Fezzani, CEO, BP Solar 

Tom Tiller, CEO, Abound Solar 

Laura Shenkar, Director, The Artemis Project 

Andy Seidel, CEO, Presidio Underground Systems 

William Westcott, VP Innovation, Americas, Veolia Environment 

Fatemeh Shirazi, Microvi Biotech Inc., Founder & President 

Nadav Efraty, CEO, Desalitech 

Kevin Skillern, Managing Director, Venture Capital, GE Energy Financial Services 

Joe Laia, CEO, Miasole 

Marc Porat, Chairman, Serious Materials, ZETA Communities and CalStar Products 

Atul Thakrar, President & CEO, Segetis, Inc.

Brent Constantz, CEO & Founder, Calera Corporation 

Rao Mulpuri, CEO, Soladigm, Inc. 

Elise Zoli, Partner, Goodwin Procter 

Matthew Trevithick, Partner, Venrock 

John Grizz Deal, CEO, Hyperion Power Generation Inc. 

Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson 

Craig Lobdell, Partner, KPMG 

Ravi Viswanathan, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates 

Marianne Wu, Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures 

Joe Dews, Managing Director, Think Equity, LLC 

Ashmeet Sidana, General Partner, Foundation Capital 

Mark Fischetti, Board of Editors, Scientific American Magazine 

Vinod Khosla, Managing General Partner, Khosla Ventures 

David Demers, CEO, Founder, Westport Power, Inc. 

John Melo, CEO, Amyris Biotechnologies 

John Gimigliano, Partner, Energy & Sustainability, KPMG 

Colin Stewart, Vice Chairman, Morgan Stanley 

Trae Vassallo, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers 

Jennifer Fonstaad, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson 

Michael Goguen, Partner, Sequoia Capital 

Rich Lechner, VP, Energy & Environment, IBM 

.....and countless others..........

140 Characters Hits the Bay Area

Jeff Pulver's 140 Character's Conference is coming to San Francisco on August 19, 2010 as part of Connected Marketing Week. You can register here); also check out San Francisco's schedule.

BTW, Jeff is touring with this relatively new conference - only a couple years old, he has had and plans to have events in the following cities: LA, Boston, Detroit, London, Tel Aviv, Barcelona, New York and Washington DC. And I thought I never slept. Can we just say impressive and be done with it.

At these events they have explored the effects of Twitter and social media on a wide range of topics including: Celebrity, “The Media”, Advertising, Politics, Fashion, Real Estate, Music, Education, Public Safety and Public Diplomacy.

As Jeff brings #140conf to different cities, the underlying conference is a reflection of the people of the surrounding communities.

The San Francisco event’s programming personifies some of the counter-culture trends which the city created in the late ‘60’s and ‘70s – trends which took hold and shaped the minds and consciousness for an entire generation. If you're in town, be sure to register and attend.

Connected Marketing Week

Connected Marketing Week is behind held next week in San Francisco from August 16-20, 2010 and Jeff Pulver's 140 Characters Conference is smack in the middle of it.

The content and focus? Evolving into a network of people constantly connecting, communicating and sharing, the dynamics by which people interact both with each other and information has fundamentally changed.

Realizing that success in marketing today requires an advanced understanding of how consumers and audiences are connecting, sharing their passions and influencing others.

ClickZ, leveraging its insight and expertise in the digital industry, has launched the first ever Connected Marketing Festival, bringing a community of organizations and events together fostering professional development, and greater technical insight into this developing field.

They'll garner discussions around search, social, and SEO optimization (workshop on this alone). They plan to host more than 8000 attendees and showcase more than 200 sessions, with revered speakers from around the globe.

There is an Email Marketer's Toolkit For Success workshop where you can compare your email marketing goals and campaigns with best of breeds in your category.

You'll get a review of marketplace winners and losers and then dive into expert-led topical training that will help you define the right strategy, implement it, measure results and promote replicable success across your organization.

They'll also have a Search Engine Optimization Training session led by Bruce Clay, an industry recognized expert on SEO.

The workshop offers strategy and tactics necessary in today's fast changing search world. The course, which covers SEO methodology, concepts and strategies, will provide the process needed to achieve significant traffic.

BlogHer10 Kicks Off in New York

BlogHer kicked off today in New York City. Tonight's closing keynote was entitled Being a Social Media Champion. The Focus: integrated social media strategies are slowly becoming the rule, rather than the exception at Fortune 500 companies. The companies that are charging ahead tend to have a couple of things in common: an executive level internal champion, willing to be a social media champion in the C-Suite and the Board Room, and a consultative evangelist who helps them make the case.

Carol Hymowitz, Editor-in-Chief of ForbesWoman, moderated the conversation with Leslie Dance, VP Brand Marketing and Communications at Kodak; Jory Des Jardins, co-founder of BlogHer; Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace; and Lesley Pinckney, General Manager of Essence.com.

Below are a few Pearltrees Beth Blecherman of TechMamas created outlining the conference agenda and speakers:

Day One Agenda:

Day Two Agenda:

San Francisco's Singularity Summit: August 14-15

The Singularity Summit, the premier dialog on the Singularity is coming to San Francisco August 14-15, 2010. Now in its fourth year, it started in 2006 with a mission to further the understanding and discussion about the Singularity concept and the future of human technological progress.

With growing interest, attendees and speakers, the once day long event is now a full weekend with lots of stimulating content for those interested in innovation, humanity, technology and the future.

The first day starts with a discussion of the past theory of human evolution, its relationship to scientific method and the analogy between the thinking process that generated evolution and the one that led to specific expectations of Singularity.

Dr. Gregory Stock will talk about critical considerations regarding mankind’s evolutionary trajectory and destination, followed by Ray Kurzweil sharing his vision of the future of artificial intelligence and of mankind’s fusion with machines. Other speakers include: Dr. Srinivasan, Dr. Litt, Demis Hassabis, Dr. Sejnowski and Dr. Bray, who will discuss how close we are to understanding the brain. Dr. Sejnowski argues that we are very close to doing so while Dr. Bray believes that we are still far from fully understanding biological systems, not to mention the brain.

The second day will focus on how information and biotechnologies can be used to overcome the major health and environmental problems we face today, defeat many kinds of scarcity and generally heal the world. Eliezer Yudkowsky will discuss how the ethical philosophy supports the common sense conclusion that ‘of course we should make life better’ against the unconsidered protests of capricious moralists. Ramez Naam will share a vision for overcoming social and ecological problems with very conservative biotechnological capabilities.

Dr. Becker, Dr. Heber-Katz and Dr. Goel will share their research on fixing medical problems: death, injury and pathology respectively. Evolutionary psychology founder Dr. John Tooby will explore the idea of general intelligence through the lens of understanding narrow evolved intelligences, and a panel will explore how narrow and general intelligences relate. Among many others, they also have James Randi lined up who will address the practical need to rely on your own intelligence and critical thinking abilities in order to make sense of expert consensus and to build a realistic understanding of the world.

If on the west coast or looking for an excuse to jump on a plane for this exciting two day event, here are the details: It's in San Francisco on August 14-15th and you can register here.