Terasem Movement Inc.
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Terasem News
(continued)
May 19, 2015
3D Virtual Humans
Photo-realistic 3D Virtual humans capable of having a conversation with you are just around the corner. You will soon be able to create visually indistinguishable animated avatars of loved ones, ancestors, historic figures, etc. according to ReForm, a new franchise from the Creators Project of the Institute For Creative Technologies.
May 5, 2015
Future artificial intelligence: acceptance or fear
Renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil, his daughter and our founder Martine Rothblatt recently exchanged a fascinating series of communications about the reasons behind fear or acceptance of future artificial intelligence. That discussion has now been published in a Kurzweil AI article.
April 27, 2015
Self modifying code a hallmark of real intelligence as well as artificial intelligence
Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that neurons are risk takers: They use minor "DNA surgeries" to toggle their activity levels all day, every day. Since these activity levels are important in learning, memory and brain disorders, the researchers think their finding will shed light on a range of important questions, as reported in this Medical Express article.
April 22, 2015
Chinese scientists genetically modify human embryos
In a world first, Chinese scientists have created genetically modified human embryos using the gene-editing technique CRISPR/Cas9 and sparked a high-profile debate about the ethical implications of such work. Human germline modification is widely considered unethical for both safety and social reasons and is prohibited by more than 40 countries and several international human rights treaties. See this article in Nature for more information.
March 16, 2015
Minduploading Technology: High-speed, high-resolution imaging of live neurons
Researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and Kanazawa University have imaged living neurons with unprecedented spatial resolution and speed by using a modified atomic force microscope, as reported in a Kurzweil AI article.
March 15, 2015
Future world of cyber-consciousness mindclones
In a not-too-far-future, robotic mind-clones will accompany us to the ballot box or grocery store, sit in on business meetings we can't make, argue with us occasionally and keep our essence alive long after we're gone. "There will be continued advances in software that we see throughout our entire life, Eventually, these advances in software will rise to the level of consciousness." Martine Rothblatt told a packed audience at SXSW according to an article in USA Today.
March 2, 2015
Scientists have successfully traced how memories are imprinted on the brain
In a paper published in the science journal Nature, scientists report success in tracing how memories are imprinted on the brain. According to Professor Ellen Carpenter, chair of UCLA's undergraduate Neuroscience program, this "demonstrates that it is possible to find the cellular source of learning. Previously we had thought that learning was much more distributed across the brain." The experiment charted nerve cell changes in rats' brains as they made decisions - a process that could prove life changing if replicated in humans according to a recent article in The Daily Beast.
February 16, 2015
Time is running out for ethicists to tackle very real AI quandaries
Self-driving cars? Buses? Planes? Fully automated restaurants? Police drones? In the very near future, virtually all of us will spend some portion of the day with our lives in the hands of a piece of autonomous software. Clearly AI morality is anything but academic! A recent article in ExtremeTech makes the case that AI ethics is the most important philosophical issue of our time. This also one of the key issues explored in depth by luminaries such as Marvin Minsky Ph.D, William Sims Bainbridge Ph.D, and Martine Rothblatt Ph.D in the Terasem Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness for almost a decade.
March 2, 2015
Scientists have successfully traced how memories are imprinted on the brain
In a paper published in the science journal Nature, scientists report success in tracing how memories are imprinted on the brain. According to Professor Ellen Carpenter, chair of UCLA's undergraduate Neuroscience program, this "demonstrates that it is possible to find the cellular source of learning. Previously we had thought that learning was much more distributed across the brain." The experiment charted nerve cell changes in rats' brains as they made decisions - a process that could prove life changing if replicated in humans according to a recent article in The Daily Beast.
February 16, 2015
Time is running out for ethicists to tackle very real AI quandaries
Self-driving cars? Buses? Planes? Fully automated restaurants? Police drones? In the very near future, virtually all of us will spend some portion of the day with our lives in the hands of a piece of autonomous software. Clearly AI morality is anything but academic! A recent article in ExtremeTech makes the case that AI ethics is the most important philosophical issue of our time. This also one of the key issues explored in depth by luminaries such as Marvin Minsky Ph.D, William Sims Bainbridge Ph.D, and Martine Rothblatt Ph.D in the Terasem Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness for almost a decade.
January 28, 2015
AI Has Arrived and Some Very Smart People Are Worried
Artificial Intelligence problems that seemed nearly unassailable just a few years ago are now being solved according to a recent article in Wired. "Deep learning has boosted Android's speech recognition, and given Skype Star Trek - like instant translation capabilities. Google is building self-driving cars, and computer systems that can teach themselves to identify cat videos. Robot dogs can now walk very much like their living counterparts." Microsoft founder Bill Gates has recently joined renowned physicist Steven Hawkings and SpaceX/Tesla Motors entrepreneur Elon Musk in warning that artifical intelligence could pose a threat to humanity, according to a new article in Forbes.
January 12, 2015
Stanford Study
Computer predictions based on which articles, videos, artists and other items a person had liked on social media were more accurate in judging
the subject's personality than friends and family
in a recent Stanford study.
This is strong support for the first part of the Terasem Hypothesis:
"An adequately detailed and organized set of digital bemes of a person's
mannerisms, personality, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values captures their consciousness in a state of biostasis, and
when coupled with future software that elicits the consciousness immanent in such digital reflections, will enable the person to be revived,
feel alive, and enjoy a sense of conscious continuity with themselves."
November 19, 2014
We've Put a Worm's Mind in a Lego Robot's Body
The OpenWorm project has mapped the connections between the worm's 302 neurons and simulated them in software. (The project's
ultimate goal is to completely simulate C. elegans as a virtual organism.) Recently, they put that software program in a simple Lego robot
in what could be contrued as the
world's first mind upload.
This is strong support for the second part of the Terasem Hypothesis:
"A revived cyber-conscious person, with future technology, may be downloaded into a nanobiotechnological body, based either primarily on
nanotechnology or primarily on a body regenerated from a stem cell with its unique mind suppressed, and may thereafter continue their life
with the same sense of self as when they originally stored digital bemes of themselves for future revival."
October 2, 2014
Dr. Ken Hayworth: Will You Preserve Your Brain?
If the technology existed, would you have your brain preserved? Do you believe your brain is the essence of you? Check out this
article
about Dr. Ken Hayworth of
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, who is developing machines and techniques to map brain tissue at the nanometer scale. He strives for
the ability to trace connections between neurons and to provide a way to preserve a human brain's total synaptic organization.
August 14, 2014
How Your Great-Grandchildren Could Talk to You Decades after Your Death
An article in the Huffington Post
exploring how technology is slowly capturing digital artifacts of your life. Artifacts that someday not too far from now might be reassembled
into your virtual avatar.
July 1, 2014
A major overhaul of the mindfile preservation tools in Cyberev is now in Beta
All of the Cyberev biographical,
personality assessment and media management tools have been updated and are ready for use!
The update includes a new utility for rapid personality capture, as well as utilities supporting upload of photos, videos,
sound files, and miscellaneous files (including zip files). The latter provides a means for uploading social media content
you can archive from your Facebook and Google Plus accounts.
April 19, 2014
Why can't God and science exist concurrently?
An article on Terasem faith appeared in the
Daily Mail
heralding it as "a new-age religion designed to allow God and technology to co-exist"
Julember 28, 2013
Space Frontier Foundation Honors PanAmSat's Rene Anselmo
Rene Anselmo, former CEO and Founder of PanAmSat (an entrepreneurial satellite communications service firm that broke the monopolistic barrier on international satellite communications), was posthumously awarded the Pioneer of NewSpace Award by the Space Frontier Foundation on July 28, 2013 at the NewSpace 2013 conference in San Jose, CA. The Space Frontier Foundation gives annual awards to people, companies and institutions that, in the Foundation's view, have made the greatest contributions to opening the space frontier. This award is given to early leaders of the NewSpace industry who left a lasting legacy either through their own personal investment or the creation of a NewSpace business.
