Now available as eBook and paperback
What makes something sentient? What does it take for an entity to be aware of its own existence and to want to interact with the world of its own accord? Is it a gift from God or hard science? Is it something fundamentally human or animal in nature or is it a simple technological principle based on brain size? There are many models, of course. But, if consciousness is simply a natural product of neural complexity then eventually, in theory, we might build something – a computer or a machine – that was actually big enough to wake up!
Oh, wait …!
The widespread ramblings, which have appeared on this blog over the years, now make a partial contribution to a novel. (See http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/vicgrout)
Vic Grout’s Conscious is set a year or three into the future. The ‘Internet of Everything’ is making the world a more connected place than ever before. People’s lives are becoming increasingly automated. But something odd is happening … ‘Things’ are beginning to misbehave and no-one can work out why. What starts as an amusing inconvenience quickly becomes very serious indeed!
A ragged bunch of academics, scientists and philosophers are on the case – and may know the answer. But now they have to convince people that their crazy explanation is true. And that’s only the start. Against a backdrop of a world suddenly beginning to fall apart, they’re in a race against time to get someone to do anything about it. And not everyone is on their side!
Continue reading
Leave a comment | tags: Artificial intelligence, Big Connectivity, Big Data, Brain, Formal proof, Futurology, Internet of Everything, Internet of Things, IoT, Machine intelligence, Real Internet of Things, Science fiction, Singularity, Technological singularity | posted in Academia, Algorithms, Computer Science, Computing, Education, Engineering, General, Hardware, Industry, Mathematics, Philosophy, Politics, Programming, Science, Software
(or “Is ‘Everything’ Going to be OK?”)
A very brief note, this one, along the lines of, “Why do we always over-hype ideas? Even the good ones?”
So is it the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) or the ‘Internet of Everything’ (IoE)? Or are they different things? If so, what’s the difference?
Well, we’ve been talking about the IoT for some time now. And it certainly seems to some that the IoE is just a better-sounding name for it. Cisco though seem to have other ideas. Here, “Cisco Senior Vice President Rob Soderbery explains how technology transitions like the Internet of Things are enabling the Internet of Everything to revolutionize industries and create value.” Any idea what that actually means? Nope, thought not. Continue reading
Leave a comment | tags: Big Connectivity, Big Data, Cisco, Internet of Everything, Internet of Things, IoE, IoT, Real Internet of Things, RIoT, Semantic Web, Web Intelligence | posted in Computer Science, Computing, Hardware, Industry, Politics
(This post is derived from a talk given at the 2012 Wrexham Science Festival.)
There are so many different ways of describing the Internet of Things. On the one hand, maybe it’s what the original Internet was always destined to be; on the other, it’s about as boring as it gets. Tag just about anything and everything we can stick a label on, let them talk to each other, then turn the existing Internet into a massive database of things that can be referenced, interconnected and used any which way we like. Great if you really need your fridge to reorder the milk for you or the plants to water themselves but hardly inspirational. Two features, however, give the proposed (and not yet fully considered) IoT a serious ‘Oooh!’ factor …
Firstly, the ever-increasing intelligence of the Internet will allow us to manipulate this data in new and exciting ways. More and more, the evolving Semantic Web will be able to understand the information it’s working with and make the best use of it for our benefit. Our personal and working lives are about to become completely automated and made easier by web intelligence. Secondly, and potentially on the darker side, other hardware and software developments will extend the IoT’s reach. Face-recognition, image-scanners and numerous other advanced detectors and sensors will soon mean that everything can be read, whether it’s deliberately labelled or not. We, and everything we use or own, may soon become part of the Real Internet of Things (RIoT) and we might have to expect to be identified and traced in everything we do. So what will the future will look like? Are we heading for paradise or Big Brother? Continue reading
7 Comments | tags: 2012 Wrexham Science Festival, EASYLINE, Internet of Things, IoT, Machine to Machine, Personal data, Privacy, Radio-frequency identification, Real Internet of Things, RFID, RIoT, Semantic Web, Smarter Planet | posted in Computer Science, Computing, Engineering, Philosophy, Politics, Science
Turing's Radiator 