The Coming Technological Singularity | Page 5

along the
IA path.
Here are some possible projects that take on special significance, given
the IA point of view:
o Human/computer team automation: Take problems that are normally
considered for purely machine solution (like hill-climbing problems),
and design programs and interfaces that take a advantage of humans'
intuition and available computer hardware. Considering all the
bizarreness of higher dimensional hill-climbing problems (and the neat
algorithms that have been devised for their solution), there could be
some very interesting displays and control tools provided to the human
team member.
o Develop human/computer symbiosis in art: Combine the graphic
generation capability of modern machines and the esthetic sensibility of
humans. Of course, there has been an enormous amount of research in
designing computer aids for artists, as labor saving tools. I'm
suggesting that we explicitly aim for a greater merging of competence,
that we explicitly recognize the cooperative approach that is possible.
Karl Sims [23] has done wonderful work in this direction.
o Allow human/computer teams at chess tournaments. We already have
programs that can play better than almost all humans. But how much
work has been done on how this power could be used by a human, to
get something even better? If such teams were allowed in at least some
chess tournaments, it could have the positive effect on IA research that
allowing computers in tournaments had for the corresponding niche in
AI.
o Develop interfaces that allow computer and network access without
requiring the human to be tied to one spot, sitting in front of a computer.
(This is an aspect of IA that fits so well with known economic
advantages that lots of effort is already being spent on it.)

o Develop more symmetrical decision support systems. A popular
research/product area in recent years has been decision support systems.
This is a form of IA, but may be too focussed on systems that are
oracular. As much as the program giving the user information, there
must be the idea of the user giving the program guidance.
o Use local area nets to make human teams that really work (ie, are
more effective than their component members). This is generally the
area of "groupware", already a very popular commercial pursuit. The
change in viewpoint here would be to regard the group activity as a
combination organism. In one sense, this suggestion might be regarded
as the goal of inventing a "Rules of Order" for such combination
operations. For instance, group focus might be more easily maintained
than in classical meetings. Expertise of individual human members
could be isolated from ego issues such that the contribution of different
members is focussed on the team project. And of course shared data
bases could be used much more conveniently than in conventional
committee operations. (Note that this suggestion is aimed at team
operations rather than political meetings. In a political setting, the
automation described above would simply enforce the power of the
persons making the rules!)
o Exploit the worldwide Internet as a combination human/machine tool.
Of all the items on the list, progress in this is proceeding the fastest and
may run us into the Singularity before anything else. The power and
influence of even the present-day Internet is vastly underestimated. For
instance, I think our contemporary computer systems would break
under the weight of their own complexity if it weren't for the edge that
the USENET "group mind" gives the system administration and
support people! The very anarchy of the worldwide net development is
evidence of its potential. As connectivity and bandwidth and archive
size and computer speed all increase, we are seeing something like
Lynn Margulis' [15] vision of the biosphere as data processor
recapitulated, but at a million times greater speed and with millions of
humanly intelligent agents (ourselves).
The above examples illustrate research that can be done within the

context of contemporary computer science departments. There are other
paradigms. For example, much of the work in Artificial Intelligence
and neural nets would benefit from a closer connection with biological
life. Instead of simply trying to model and understand biological life
with computers, research could be directed toward the creation of
composite systems that rely on biological life for guidance or for the
providing features we don't understand well enough yet to implement in
hardware. A long-time dream of science-fiction has been direct brain to
computer interfaces [2] [29]. In fact, there is concrete work that can be
done (and is being done) in this area:
o Limb prosthetics is a topic of direct commercial applicability. Nerve
to silicon transducers can be made [14]. This is an exciting, near-term
step toward direct communication.
o Direct links into brains seem feasible, if the bit rate is low: given
human learning flexibility, the actual brain neuron targets might not
have to