The Singularity University

It's easy to mock this group, not least because of the wealth and power of some of the attendees ...

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: This post will self-destruct in five minutes

... On Saturday, September 20, 2008, a carefully selected group of the tech world's best and brightest assembled in a windowless conference room at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley - barely a mile from the Googleplex as the rocket flies - to discuss preparations for our impending post-human future. This was the founding meeting of Singularity University, an academic institution whose mission, as founder Dr. Peter Diamandis told the elite audience, would be 'to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies (bio, nano, info, etc); and to apply, focus and guide these to the best benefit of humanity and its environment.'...

The group is keeping a low profile, for obvious reasons. Neither Vernor Vinge nor Bill Joy attended.

When it comes to the "rapture of the nerds" I hold the middle ground. I fear the era of transcendent non-biological minds, but I think it's beyond 2060. Unlike Nicholas Carr, I'll avoid the easy sarcasm. I'm glad they're thinking about the problem. Maybe they'll figure out how we could create an artificial mind that wouldn't be, for example, insane or murderous.