The Conscious Web: Can Computers Learn, Understand and Feel?

Written 2 years ago

This is my proposal for SXSW 2010. If you like it, you can vote for it online. Let me know if you voted, I’ll be very thankful :)

Description:

As we deal with an ever increasing flow of information in our daily lives, Computers keep gaining more relevance as decission makers in more complex and deeper levels. How can software bring us Meaning in the near future? This talk will cover current attempts of commercial applications that can take ethical decissions, learn unprogrammed topics, understand its users and even program itself. This rise of modern Artificial Intelligence techniques combined with the vast sea of information available, might be the key for a Conscious Web.

Questions Answered:

1. What’s the current stage of Artificial Intelligence and the Semantic Web today?
2. How can the Semantic web lead to a Conscious web?
3. Can software iterate and improve over its own algorithmical skills?
4. How do other fields (art, music, maths) take into consideration Recursive systems?
5. Can we model and shape creativity on software?
6. How can computers learn and use unexpected (unprogrammed) topics?
7. Is software capable of interpreting human acitivity beyond direct inputs?
8. What practical inventions or systems might a computer create or design?
9. How might computers gain consciousness as their AI’s improve?
10. How would a Conscious Web change our daily interactions with computers and other people?

Great Ideas in The Internet Age

Written 2 years ago

The web is still a disruptive force that’s steadily changing the reality of entire industries and shaping the mindset of new generations.

Among the most interesting effects of this movement is the rise of Non-Profit organizations that have a clear understanding of how the web can evolve and elevate societies.

• One Laptop Per Child
  An inspiring project to gap the digital breach in developing nations. As Nicholas Negroponte put it: “it’s not about the laptop, but about education”. The device is just an instrument that will help children around the world get access to the vast oceans of knowledge the web provides. There are some important hurdles to overcome in this mission: corrupt governments, teachers who lack the skills to use the web as an educational resource, and some absurd PR moves from companies that seek to place their brand by competing with this project. Nonetheless, the OLPC has already changed many things in techland (being the netbooks its most noticeable side-effect), and I’m quite positive this is a project that needs strong support from the tech scene in order to achieve its almost utopian goal.

• Creative Commons
  The absurdity of copyright law in an age were all the culture-producing-distributing-devices (that is: computers) copy information in the same way we humans breathe air has reached its climax the day Napster was closed. That’s when an organization like CC emerges seeking to impose a new contractual relation between men and their ideas in order to keep the beauty of culture, remixability and freedom of speech alive. It’s all about flexibility: the authors get to choose what can and can’t be done to their work. In my personal opinion, I regard the writings of CC’s founder Lawrence Lessig as a modern equivalent to those of Voltaire and Rousseau in the times when the word Republic was an uncomfortable one to pronounce.

• TED
  I could define it as the pandora’s box of the web. The mission of TED is sharp and too well executed: “Ideas Worth Spreading”. Anyone who has discovered this organization knows about the joy of learning something new every single week. Something exciting and different that gets shared by the most interesting and brilliant minds in the world. I could easily describe TED as an inspiration engine, and it was thanks to its curator Chris Anderson, who was able to see farther than any other tech conference out there, that opened the access to every single talk and enabled an open conversation with the rest of the world.
  
  I should mention that TEDx Buenos Aires is going to be held in 2010 and I’m quite excited about that!

• Wikipedia
  I seriously think Jimmy Wales deserves a Nobel Prize. Although he isn’t stopping wars (although wikipedia might’ve stopped plenty of heated discussions), his role as an enabler letting the whole world access all the knowledge that’s available out there in any language in a simple and fast way, deserves my admiration. Wikipedia is an amazing tool for progress. Knowledge empowers people like no other thing. And this great encyclopedia is ours to enjoy, build and support.

This is only the beginning. As our generation gets more political control, more organizations like these will emerge, helping us to rethink humanity in new ways.