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[Richard Leis]

I once suggested that following the development of the iPod was a good way to explore exponential progress and the possibility of a Technological Singularity. Someone in these fora argued that the leap from iPod advancement to trans- and post-humanism was silly and a common conceit perpetuated by the likes of Kurzweil. At the time I had no real response. To respond to this argument, one needs to find the mechanism by which an artifact like the iPod can affect and change human culture and society.

My suspicion is that multiple mechanism exist, like habits, peer pressure, societal pressures, cooperation and competition, etc. Most important, though, may be the ability of technology to open up new and unexpected niches within the realms of human influence - the noosphere. It is our introduction into and adaptation to these new niches that changes us, rather than technology directly.

For example, one unexpected advantage to owning an iPod is the rapid reduction in physical space required for physical objects like CDs and DVDs. The new niche is one of few physical objects holding 1000s of digital objects. Humans have adapted quickly to this new niche by demanding even better technology with more storage, higher resolution, and the conversion of other physical media into digital form. We did not know we wanted this so much until the niche became available for our exploration.

These new niches are vacuums that drive progress and continually force us to adapt. In the example above the adaptation is to deal with an environment full of digital objects that have had most of their physicality abstracted away. Old rules about physical storage, accessibility, and ownership have vanished or changed drastically, forcing us to modify our behaviors to deal.

AGI becomes more interesting in this niche perspective because its advent will open up niches not only for humans but also itself and other intelligences, driving progress at an ever increasing rate as we all adapt. Some of these niches will become so attractive that some humans will accelerate their own enhancement simply to conquer new creative lands. In turn, this will drive rapid technological advancement and therefore new niches previously unimagined.

[Richard Leis]

Here are a few of the trends I am following that I expect to open up new niches to drive further progress. You may be surprised that AGI and Life Extension are not on the list, but that is because I feel the following trends are relatively short term in forcing adaptation (around 5 years).

1. WiMax - Intel and Motorola, in a complicated deal, just dropped down nearly US$1 Billion to Clearwire to begin preparing roll out of the technology. WiMax and WiBro (South Korea's version) are wireless technologies that bring broadband speeds over kilometers instead of a few meters. The mobile version (broadband wireless will driving 75 mph) is going to roll out as well. All together this is the Mesh, which along with the Grid will result in an entirely new Internet.

2. Toy Robots - Right now it just seems too cute, but toy robots are the first wave of the eventual WAR WITH THE MACHINES (joking)! Sure, there were toy robots when I was a kid but these new robots are very different. First, almost all of them are multi-sensor enabled (Blue Tooth, cameras, microphones, Internet access, etc.) Second, there are many more of them, and many more companies getting into the business. Third, South Korea and Japan are already preparing to integrate robots into society over the next decade, due in part to their rapidly aging populations. Toy robots are an important normalization that needs to occur first.

3. Population Decline - Books and organizations have long warned of dangerous overpopulation, and they were wrong. Even though a few countries are still experiencing rapid population growth, they are all being countered by incredible population declines that are leaving governments that depend on taxes (all of them) quaking in their stylish but inexpensive boots.

4. New portable media players - The existing iPods are already ancient history, with support coming from many media player manufacturers for television, wireless, cellular, GPS, satellite, song caching, games, PDA-capabilities, VoIP, etc. And this is all without huge flash capacities, flexible color eInk screens, OLED, and better batteries, all of which will start appearing next year.

5. Digital downloads - The experts say it will be at least 10 years before we wean ourselves off of physical media. I am sticking by my own prediction that by 2010 most everyone will be embracing digital downloads for movies, music, images, books, games, newspapers, magazines, and other media.

6. Cyberspace Nations - Are we just a few years away from the first Cyberspace Nations declaring independence from their real world counterparts? Already in place are real cyber-economies that rival small countries, entrepreneurs that make their money off of digital object sales and services, and grassroots, open source society building. Once the gaming grids start combining their platforms, once the U.S. government starts trying to regulate the virtual worlds, once the sensor meshes start pumping the real world into cyberspace in greater detail, and once the first virtual property rights case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal, then the mass exodus into our avatar selves will begin.

7. Automation - My word processing specialist mother is dealing with it, McDonalds is dealing with it, the HiRISE team is dealing with it...automation, the beginning of the end of employment. Just as the U.S. tries to deal with immigration by suggesting that immigrants do the jobs the rest of us will not, soon the immigrants will not have jobs. It has already started in the lower paying jobs (Walmart and Target, fast food, gas stations, agriculture, manufacturing) and it is rapidly spreading through the government, service, and scientific industries.

8. Animal Rights - Forget LGBT, other species are the next big demographic for which equal rights will be demanded. This started in Spain with the rights granted to great apes. As this movement starts spreading around the world, dolphins, whales, birds, and the remaining primates will all enjoy greater rights in human society.

9. Augmented Humans - No one really knows just how far this has spread, but teenages and college students are already taking newer enhancement drugs in droves, with none of the side effects of past drugs. They also do not appear to be getting addicted, except to their continued success. Authorities cannot pick them out because they are the good kids at school. Even if they do pick them out, then they need to explain why it is okay for the military, shift workers, and truck drivers to enhance their way out of the need for sleep and other human limitations, but not everyone else. And then there is the 2008 Olympics, likely to be the first were real transhumans try to pass themselves off as normal humans.

10. Expert Artifical Intelligences - They already exist, but the next generation of AI tailored for specific domains will be unlike anything humans have ever experienced. Even if general AI of human-level intelligence takes longer than expected, or never arise at all, the resulting narrow AI will surround us like legions of idiot savants, only much more genius in their individual abilities. Combined with specialized robots, these AI have already found their way, by 2006, into graduate scientific research, surgery, Mars exploration, arbitration, and commercial airplanes.