TransVision 2010, October 22-24, 2010

TransVision 2010 (Milan, October 22-24, 2010) is over. The conference has been a full 2-way “mixed-reality” event, with speakers and participants in both Milan and Teleplace. Please see the first conference report on Giulio Prisco’s blog and the more detailed article on KurzweilAI.

Video coverage – The HD videos taken in Milan will be available on the conference’s DVD and online on blip.tv, see the index on the TransVision 2010 website. Some participants have also recorded videos from Teleplace. The videos are available on telexlr8.blip.tv. Thanks to Phillip Galinsky, Next Dila Dreamhacker, G. Stephens and others.

VIDEO 1A: Day 1, Part A – 360×240 resolution, 1 hour 35 min. Francesco Verso (last part of his talk), Riccardo Campa on Italian Futurism, Antonio Saccoccio, Roberto Guerra (also with contributions from Graziano Cecchini and Vitaliano Teti).
VIDEO 2A: Day 2, Part A – 600×400 resolution, 1 hour 10 min. Aubrey de Grey (last part of his talk), Max More.
VIDEO 2B: Day 2, Part B – 600×400 resolution, 1 hour 44 min. Martine Rothblatt, Giuseppe Vatinno, David Orban.
VIDEO 2C: Day 2, Part C – 360×240 resolution, 1 hour 45 min. Mike Treder, Giulio Prisco, Emanuele Ratti.
VIDEO 2D: Day 2, Part D – 360×240 resolution, 2 hours 10 min. From Teleplace: Eugen Leitl, Robert Geraci, Natasha Vita-More.
VIDEO 2E: Day 2, Part E – 360×240 resolution, 23 min. From Teleplace: David Styles.
VIDEO 3A: Day 3, Part A – 360×240 resolution, 3 hours 29 min. Miriam Ji Sun, Dan Massey, Roberto Marchesini, Remi Sussan, David Pearce.
VIDEO 3B: Day 3, Part B – 360×240 resolution, 2 hours 59 min. Polytopia project, Anders Sandberg, Marta Rossi and Jacopo Tagliabue, Randal A. Koene, Fiorella Terenzi (by proxy).
VIDEO 3C: Day 3, Part C – 600×400 resolution, 2 hours 59 min. Polytopia project, Anders Sandberg, Marta Rossi and Jacopo Tagliabue, Randal A. Koene, Fiorella Terenzi (by proxy). Same as Day 3 part b with higher resolution.

NOTES: To download the source .mp4 video files from blip.tv, open the “Files and Links” box.

We had about 30 remote participants in the TVirtual online extension of TransVision 2010, hosted by the teleXLR8 project based on the Teleplace online telepresence platform. Remote participants have been able to watch all talks in realtime, and interact with speakers and other participants. We used two Teleplace workstations, one to stream the video and voice of the speaker and to interact with remote participants, and one to stream the speaker’s slides. For those speakers without presentations in .ppt or .pdf, we used the second Teleplace workstation to show the audience in Milan to the audience in Teleplace. In the afternoon of the second day we have reversed the procedure outlined above and shown remote talks from speakers in Teleplace to the audience in Milan.

Administrative note

We are moving toward the operational phase of the teleXLR8 project as explained in “teleXLR8 Project News“. We will soon run teleXLR8 in fully operational mode on our own dedicated servers, network and support infrastructure, and open it to everyone for a very reasonable membership fee. The current beta will continue until the start of the next phase, and those who were members of the beta group at the end of September will receive one year free membership.

To those who are requesting accounts to participate in the talks, we are now offering one month trial accounts. Please contact us to convert a trial account into a full account.

TransVision 2010 Conference to be streamed live interactively in Teleplace

UPDATE – Please see the first conference report on Giulio Prisco’s blog and our (almost) full video coverage from Teleplace.

Those who wish to attend the TransVision 2010 conference and community convention (October 22, 23 and 24 in Milan, Italy) but cannot come to Milan will have the option to participate remotely in the TVirtual online extension, watch all talks in realtime, and interact with speakers and other participants. TVirtual, hosted by the teleXLR8 project based on the Teleplace online telepresence platform, will be a mixed-reality event similar to the recent ASIM 2010 Conference.

TVirtual tickets are available at a very reduced price. Those who register for the full 3-days TVirtual before or on Sunday, October 10, including of course those who have registered already, will receive a free yearly membership in teleXLR8. Those who register for the full 3-days TVirtual after this date will be offered a 50% discount for yearly membership in teleXLR8. Current teleXLR8 beta account holders will be welcome to participate in TVirtual.

If you choose to attend TVirtual, you will be able to watch all talks, see and talk to speakers and other participants, and attend special telepresence sessions during, before and after the conference. In the pictures above, a TV10 planning session and several TransVision 2010 speakers giving talks in Teleplace at recent events. Please see the teleXLR8 website for full video coverage of recent transhumanist talks.

For a more detailed description of the objectives of our online events program, see our mini-manifesto Telepresence Education for a Smarter World on the IEET site and the interview MIND and MAN: Getting Mental with Giulio Prisco, by Natasha Vita-More, on H+ Magazine. See also teleXLR8 Project News – a telepresence community for cultural acceleration.

REMINDER – Ben Goertzel on The Cosmist Manifesto in Teleplace, September 12, 10am PST

UPDATED – See the report and videos of the talk: Ben Goertzel on The Cosmist Manifesto in Teleplace, September 12

Ben Goertzel will give a talk in Teleplace on his recent book “A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age” on Sunday September 12, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET). Those who already have Teleplace accounts for teleXLR8 can just ahow up at the talk. There are a limited number of seats available for others, please contact Giulio Prisco if you wish to attend.

Full video coverage, ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds

About 30 persons attended the ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 16-17th. Besides the participants in San Francisco, about 25 remote participants attended online in Teleplace.

The videos of ASIM 2010 talks and discussions have been posted to blip.tv, see:

• ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, Day 1
• ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, Day 2

Note: the videos are also on Vimeo. This is a full video coverage of the 2-day conference, more than 6 hours in total. Some talks appear on more than one video, and videos recorded by different participants have different quality settings. Thanks to Jonas Bluth, Phillip Galinsky and Antoine Van de Ven for recording the videos.

ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, Day 2

About 20 persons attended the second day of the ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 17th. About 20 attended online in Teleplace. The first day featured 3 talks followed by lively discussions:

• Fundamental Issues – Resolution & Scale, “Me” Programs, by Randal A. Koene
• Actionable Approaches – ASIM Now, by Peter Passaro (talk given via Teleplace)
• ASIM in Context – Ongoing Advances in neuroprosthetics, AGI, Cyber-augmentation, embodiment, VR, etc., by Monica Anderson

Remote participants in Teleplace were able to follow the talks via interactive video streaming, ask questions to the speakers, and contribute to the discussion. Two speakers (Peter Passaro on Day 2 and Ken Hayworth on Day 1) gave their talks via Teleplace. After attending both days of the conference remotely in Teleplace, I am very happy with the performance of the Teleplace system as a means to open up conferences to a global remote audience in “mixed reality”, with crisp video and audio (after properly setting up the microphones) and deep interactivity for all participants. I have participated in ASIM 2010 from the middle of nowhere in Central Europe, with a 3G phone link to the Internet and a very weak signal (in other words, my current Internet connection is VERY slow). Even with this poor connection, I have been able to participate in ASIM 2010 without any problem. There are, of course, special problems to deal with in mixed reality events. For example, in the first half of Day 2 remote participants could not hear well the on-site participants far from the microphone. In future events, we will use cordless microphones to give to on-site participants when they want to say something. In this case, the problem was solved by asking on-site participants to go to the microphone to comment and ask questions. Mixed reality via the professional and social collaboration platform Teleplace permits merging on-site and remote participants in one virtual group, and it is the best way to open up a conference to remote participants that I have seen. The 2-way video and audio link enables each participant, on-site or remote, to be seen and heard by all other participants, on-site or remote.

Full videos of the first day’s talks and discussions, on blip.tv:

• VIDEO – Day 2, Part 1 (360 x 240 resolution) – Don’t mind the initial audio noise problems, they are solved after a few minutes.
• VIDEO – Day 2, Part 2 (360 x 240 resolution)
• VIDEO – Day 2, Part 3 (360 x 240 resolution)
• VIDEO – Day 2, Part 4 (360 x 240 resolution)
• VIDEO – Day 2, Peter Passaro (600 x 400 resolution)
• VIDEO – Day 2, first hour (600 x 400 resolution)
• VIDEO – Day 2, final 2 hours (600 x 400 resolution)

Thanks to Jonas Bluth, Phillip Galinsky and Antoine Van de Ven for recording the videos. The videos are also on Vimeo.

See Carboncopies–Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds on KurzweilAI: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds 2010 (ASIM-2010) to be held after Singularity Summit. In addition to the virtual events, carboncopies is holding an official launching conference in real life: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds (ASIM-2010) will take place at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco on August 16 & 17, 2010, immediately after the Singularity Summit. A virtual link will also be provided for those who wish to attend remotely. Please join us in person, or through virtual presence in Teleplace on August 16 and 17, 2010, for an action-oriented event aimed at advancing substrate-independent minds. Contact us to find out more about each option. Regarding the ASIM-2010 conference, all are welcome and there is no registration fee — although donations to offset our expenses are greatly appreciated. Please RSVP the organizers to secure your seat.

See Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds conference to be streamed live on KurzweilAI (TOP STORY of today’s edition): The second day of the Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds conference (ASIM 2010), Tuesday, August 17, at 7pm PST, in San Francisco, will be streamed live at teleXLR8 on Teleplace. The event will feature talks on Fundamental Issues – Resolution & Scale, “Me” Programs, Etc. by Randal A. Koene; Actionable Approaches – ASIM Now (Multi-neuron functional analysis in-vivo by Peter Passaro, Preservation & large-scale high-resolution structural analysis by Ken Hayworth); and ASIM in Context – Ongoing Advances in neuroprosthetics, AGI, Cyber-augmentation, embodiment, VR, etc., by Demis Hassabis and Monica Anderson.

ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, Day 1

About 30 persons attended the first day of the ASIM 2010 Conference, Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, satellite to the Singularity Summit 2010, San Francisco, August 16th. About 15 attended online in Teleplace. The two main organizers Randal A. Koene and Suzanne Gildert appear in the image above (right screen). The first day featured 4 talks followed by lively discussions:

• Introduction to Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, by Randal A. Koene
• Computational complexity, by Suzanne Gildert
• Advanced Tools – Synthetic biology, Nanotechnology, etc., by Mark Hamalainen
• Preservation & large-scale high-resolution structural analysis, by Ken Hayworth (talk given via Teleplace)

Remote participants in Teleplace were able to follow the talks via interactive video streaming, ask questions to the speakers, and contribute to the discussion. One of the speakers gave his talk via Teleplace.

The second day will start tomorrow Tuesday, August 17, at 7pm PST (10pm EST, 3am UK, 4am Continental Europe). Note to European participants: yes, it is in the middle of the night, but it is definitely worth waking up.

If you wish to attend tomorrow’s session online in Teleplace and you don’t have a Teleplace account yet, please:

• 1) Contact the organizers for an account.
• 2) READ THE HELP PAGE. The help page has simple instructions and a simple video to show what to do.

Full videos of the first day’s talks and discussions, on blip.tv:

• VIDEO – Day 1, Part 1 – Introduction to Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, by Randal A. Koene (600 x 400 resolution)
• VIDEO – Day 1, Part 2 – Talks by Suzanne Gildert, Mark Hamalainen and Ken Hayworth (360 x 240 resolution)

The videos are also on Vimeo. Note: I (Giulio Prisco) have attended ASIM 2010 via Teleplace from the middle of nowhere in Central Europe, with a 3G phone link to the Internet and a very weak signal (in other words, my current Internet connection is VERY slow). Even with this poor connection, I am able to participate in Teleplace sessions without any problem, but I am not able to record high quality video. I managed to produce the first video with some tricks, and I wish to thank Phillip Galinsky for recording the second video. If you will participate in the Day 2 sessions, please consider recording a video. The built-in video recording feature of Teleplace is very easy to use.

See Carboncopies–Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds on KurzweilAI: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds 2010 (ASIM-2010) to be held after Singularity Summit. In addition to the virtual events, carboncopies is holding an official launching conference in real life: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds (ASIM-2010) will take place at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco on August 16 & 17, 2010, immediately after the Singularity Summit. A virtual link will also be provided for those who wish to attend remotely. Please join us in person, or through virtual presence in Teleplace on August 16 and 17, 2010, for an action-oriented event aimed at advancing substrate-independent minds. Contact us to find out more about each option. Regarding the ASIM-2010 conference, all are welcome and there is no registration fee — although donations to offset our expenses are greatly appreciated. Please RSVP the organizers to secure your seat.

See Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds conference to be streamed live on KurzweilAI: The second day of the Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds conference (ASIM 2010), Tuesday, August 17, at 7pm PST, in San Francisco, will be streamed live at teleXLR8 on Teleplace. The event will feature talks on Fundamental Issues – Resolution & Scale, “Me” Programs, Etc. by Randal A. Koene; Actionable Approaches – ASIM Now (Multi-neuron functional analysis in-vivo by Peter Passaro, Preservation & large-scale high-resolution structural analysis by Ken Hayworth); and ASIM in Context – Ongoing Advances in neuroprosthetics, AGI, Cyber-augmentation, embodiment, VR, etc., by Demis Hassabis and Monica Anderson. To attend the session online in Teleplace and you don’t have a Teleplace account, contact the organizers for an account and read the help page. About 30 persons attended the first session, with about 15 attending online. The first day featured four talks, followed by lively discussions, on Introduction to Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, by Randal A. Koene; Computational Complexity, by Suzanne Gildert; Advanced Tools: synthetic biology, nanotechnology, etc., by Mark Hamalainen; and Preservation and Large-scale, High-resolution Structural Analysis, by Ken Hayworth (talk given via Teleplace).

Changes: Ken Hayworth has already talked on Day 1, so he will not talk on Day 2.

Practical Teleplace help page for new users

It is a pleasure to see many new members signing up for the next events in Teleplace, the remote access via Teleplace to the ASIM 2010 Conference, San Francisco, August 16-17 and the talks of Suzanne Gildert (Quantum Computing) and Ben Goertzel (Cosmist Manifesto) in September.  To make things easier for new member I have prepared a practical Teleplace help page for new users.

These instructions cover (only) the very basic things that you need to know to participate in a Teleplace session, and address some actual problems that other users have had in the past. I recommend all new members to read the help page and watch the help video. Yes, I know, you are very smart and can figure everything out without reading the instructions… but perhaps reading can save you a few minutes.

Practical Teleplace help page for new users

Video and discussion – Randal A. Koene on Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds, Teleplace, July 17, 2010

Randal A. Koene gave a talk in Teleplace on “Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds” on July 17, 2010. We recorded the full video of the presentation and Q/A in two versions: one from a fixed point of view, and another from the dynamic point of view of a participant who zooms on all slides to read the text better.

• Full video of the presentation and Q/A (fixed point of view)
• Full video of the presentation and Q/A (participant’s dynamic point of view)

This presentation has been a very comprehensive introduction to Substrate-Independent Minds and a very interesting discussion of current research, recent advances, and future possibilities. The Q/A session has been very lively, and there has been no time to ask and answer all the questions raised by the presentation. The good friends at KurzweilAI have created a discussion forum on Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds (continuation of Teleplace), where we can continue the discussion. We encourage all those who attended the live presentation in Teleplace and have other questions, as well as those who have watched the video of the presentation and Q/A, to ask questions and discuss on the KurzweilAI forum.

Randal A. Koene on Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds, Teleplace, July 17, 10am PST

UPDATED on July 18, 2010 – Randal A. Koene gave a talk in Teleplace on “Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds” on July 17, 2010, at 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm CET).

We recorded the full video of the presentation and Q/A in two versions: one from a fixed point of view, and another from the dynamic point of view of a participant who zooms on all slides to read the text better.

• Full video of the presentation and Q/A (fixed point of view)
• Full video of the presentation and Q/A (participant’s dynamic point of view)

This presentation has been a very comprehensive introduction to Substrate-Independent Minds and a very interesting discussion of current research, recent advances, and future possibilities. The Q/A session has been very lively, and there has been no time to ask and answer all the questions raised by the presentation. The good friends at KurzweilAI have created a discussion forum on Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds (continuation of Teleplace), where we can continue the discussion. We encourage all those who attended the live presentation in Teleplace and have other questions, as well as those who have watched the video of the presentation and Q/A, to ask questions and discuss on the KurzweilAI forum.

Realistic Routes to Substrate-Independent Minds
Randal A. Koene – carboncopies.org

Take as a given that the Church-Turing thesis applies to human thinking, that our minds are complex machines, but machines nonetheless. Let us also assume that we already understand many of the scientific, societal and even evolutionary pressures – as described in several of my previous talks – that underscore the need to augment our minds with the capabilities of machine intelligence and the adaptability to operate in computational substrates other than those of the cerebral neurophysiology. What do we know about the possible target substrates and the procedures that may achieve a transition to such substrates? Which are the primary remaining scientific challenges, and which are the engineering hurdles to be overcome? At carboncopies.org, we are taking steps to identify and formulate rational approaches to these problems. For example, on one end of the spectrum we investigate feasible and careful ways to accomplish subject-specific data acquisition and whole brain emulation, while on the other we lend support to proposals for commercially viable developments in cognitive augmentation. We actively encourage peer review through publications and events such as the workshop on Advancing Substrate Independent Minds (ASIM-2010) in San Francisco, August 16-17, 2010.