KurzweilAI.net points us to this CNET News report that Ray Kurzweil’s concept of an impending “singularity,” in which machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence, has garnered support from Intel’s Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. From “Intel touts progress toward intelligent computers” by Stephen Shankland:

I hope Intel warned the Luddites and pessimists away at the door, because the chipmaker had a lot of bullish statements Thursday [August 21] about its belief that computers will become smarter than humans.

At the Intel Developer Forum here, Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner showed off a number of technologies in computing, robotics, and communication that he cited as evidence that Ray Kurzweil’s concept of “singularity,” when machine intelligence surpasses human intelligence, is impending. Demonstrations spotlighted the wireless transmission of electrical power, dextrous robots with new sensory abilities, a direct interface to the brain, programmable materials that can be used for shape-shifting devices such as resizable cell phones, and silicon photonics that enables chips to communicate with photons rather than electrons.

“We’re making steady progress toward Ray Kurzweil’s singularity,” Rattner said.

—Jim

Whether you are an American Express cardholder or not, you can vote for an innovative effort to inspire undergraduates to strive for fundamental advances in our ability to control the aging process. An Email this morning from David Gobel, Chief Executive Officer of the Methuselah Fund, said the project had 1200 nominations. I just checked and the number is now 1464. Keep the momentum building! From David Gobel:

Hi - We are at 1200 nominations to be in the running for the $1.5 million American Express Challenge Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease researcher scholarships this morning

I believe we’ll need to have another 1,000 nominations over the next 4 days, and that this is absolutely doable. Now that we are solidly in the running, what can we do to dramatically improve our position? It’s totally important to note that of ALL the projects, ours is by far the most commented upon which counts heavily in the final selection.

From Aubrey de Grey

Calling All Who Support Extending Healthy Life….

Methuselah Foundation needs your help now - we are supporting a project named “Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease” which has been submitted as part of the American Express Members Project initiative.

To advance this critical project please go to http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/BVVE2C

We need to get only 1,000 more votes in the next 4 days (by Sept 1, 2008) so please support your cause and vote now. Here are the instructions.

1. Go to: http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/BVVE2C
2. Log in either as an Amex Card Member or as a Guest Member on the top right side (any US resident can vote)
3. Complete the Registration Form, which will give you your login ID
4. Click the Nominate button at:
http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/BVVE2C and post a supportive comment

Cheers,
Aubrey de Grey
Chief Science Officer and Chairman
Methuselah Foundation

Don’t forget to add your own supportive comment. Although the project is not about nanotechnology, it is likely that nanotechnology will play a part in some of the approaches that will be researched. Plus the value of involving bright undergraduates in interdisciplinary efforts to tackle challenging and important problems is immense. For the many challenges that lie ahead, we need all the brilliant, creative researchers we can get.
—Jim

Government-sponsored discussions of the implications for society of advanced nanotechnology and other emerging technologies have taken place and are ongoing in both the US and Europe. A recent Nanowerk Spotlight written by Michael Berger gives an update of deliberations in Europe and compares and contrasts the US and European approaches. From “Europe and the U.S. take different approaches to Converging Technologies“:

The two differing approaches that the European Union and the U.S. take in tackling converging technologies is exemplary for the philosophical difference in how these two geographies approach the development of new technologies. Policies in the U.S., especially during the past eight years, have been, well, shaped is not the right word here, let’s say drifting, towards a purely market-driven approach to technology development: the government’s job was to provide sufficient basic R&D funding, keep a minimum of consumer safety levels, but otherwise not to get into the way of industrial activities. In addition, a major driver and funding agent for emerging technologies has been the military (for instance, over 30% of all federal investment dollars the U.S. spends on nanotechnology come from the U.S. Department of Defense — “Military nanotechnology - how worried should we be?”).

In contrast, the European approach places the emphasis on the agenda-setting process itself. Rather than letting the market call all the shots, the European approach favors a guided development where societal, safety and environmental aspects are incorporated into the decision-making process. It envisions that various European converging technologies research programs will be formulated, each addressing a different problem and each bringing together different technologies and technology-enabling sciences. The European concept of “CTEKS: Converging Technologies for the European Knowledge Society” (pdf download, 876 KB) adopts a demand-driven approach in which converging technologies respond to societal needs and demands. While the U.S.-pushed NBIC (nano, bio, info, cogno) approach focuses strongly on enhancement of the individual human being, the European approach urged to take the precautionary principle into account and made it “a priority to clarify the civil and societal benefits of this research to give them a new legitimacy and to put them firmly in a context of positive social dynamics.”

U.S. proposed agendas for convergence that include “Converging technologies for improving human performance” or “Converging technologies for battlefield domination” were rejected by the European expert group that helped define the European approach as troubling and potentially destabilizing.

The main task of the EU-funded project CONTECS was to develop ideas for a comprehensive and integrated European agenda with regard to converging technologies. The project delivered its final report — An analysis of critical issues and a suggestion for a future research agenda (pdf download, 2 MB) — in May of this year. This Nanowerk Spotlight summarizes the main points of this report and all quotes and most references are taken from it.

—Jim

The protein engineering pathway to advanced nanotech (see “Protein Bioengineering Overview”, paper 10 of the Productive Nanosystems Roadmap Working Group Proceedings—a 14.6 MB PDF) might benefit if proteins could be arrayed on a surface so that they could be quickly and easily scanned for function or interactions with other molecules. Protein ‘chips’ developed by UK scientists for rapid disease detection and drug discovery might be just what is needed. From the University of Manchester, via AAAS EurekAlert “Chips are down as Manchester makes protein scanning breakthrough“:

Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed a new and fast method for making biological ‘chips’ — technology that could lead to quick testing for serious diseases, fast detection of MRSA infections and rapid discovery of new drugs.

Researchers working at the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB) and The School of Chemistry have unveiled a new technique for producing functional ‘protein chips’ in a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society [abstract]…

Protein chips — or ‘protein arrays’ as they are more commonly known — are objects such as slides that have proteins attached to them and allow important scientific data about the behaviour of proteins to be gathered.

Functional protein arrays could give scientists the ability to run tests on tens of thousands of different proteins simultaneously, observing how they interact with cells, other proteins, DNA and drugs.

As proteins can be placed and located precisely on a ‘chip’, it would be possible to scan large numbers of them at the same time but then isolate the data relating to individual proteins.

…Existing techniques for attaching proteins often results in them becoming fixed in random orientations, which can cause them to become damaged and inactive.

Current methods also require proteins to be purified first — and this means that creating large and powerful protein arrays would be hugely costly in terms of time, manpower and money.

Now researchers at The University of Manchester say they have found a reliable new way of attaching active proteins to a chip.

Biological chemists have engineered modified proteins with a special tag, which makes the protein attach to a surface in a highly specified way and ensures it remains functional.

The attachment occurs in a single step in just a few hours — unlike with existing techniques — and requires no prior chemical modification of the protein of interest or additional chemical steps.

—Jim