Anissimov's Voice

   Michael Anissimov's blog does not have a voice in the sense that you and I would imagine while reading someone's blog.  Although he never refers to anything in the first person, he frequently speaks to "you" the reader so his blog space lends itself more to presenting a logical argument as opposed to a more personable, typical blog type.  I do not really believe that Anissimov has much of a personality on his blog because of how bland his diction is - that's not to say that he doesn't write well, his arguments are very cohesive - but they generally seem emotionally removed in order to remain academic.  Sometimes Anissimov will use italics to emphasize his confidence in Singularity happening one day as in the quote below:

There is no huge surprise. Biotechnology, nanotechnology, AI, and major advances in supply chain/logistics will predictably deliver massive disruptive changes in the next 25 years or less

In fact there is a pattern in Anissimov's language throughout his blog posts.  He frequently uses strong, definitive words such as "only" "either...or" "certainly" and "of course" at the beginning of paragraphs and sentences where he purports his vision of the technologically enhanced future.  Even his verbiage is composed of "will" "must" and "deliver" and this drives his point home to the reader, as if it were already a reality in Anissimov's mind.

So while Anissimov may not have a true blog personality (and I'll still have to work on finding that!), he comes across as a blogger who remains professional throughout his prose and who also stresses his conviction in his beliefs in regards to Singularity and all that.

Anissimov is also a very orderly blogger who almost always bullet points his arguments like so:

1. The development of computers that are “awake” and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, most controversy in the area of AI relates to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is “yes, we can”, then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)

2. Large computer networks (and their associated users) may “wake up” as a superhumanly intelligent entity.

3. Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.

4. Biological science may find ways to improve upon the natural human intellect.

This is a very useful, straight up layout that allows him to guide the reader during the rest of his post as he frequently will refer back to #1 or #3 for example.  It is very machine-like and well organized, but it tends also to make his future arguments less interesting because he has piled all his goodies for you in the beginning.  Then you're just left sifting through the evidence and it's not that exciting.  However, his blogs topics are very interesting in themselves.  Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that Anissimov doesn't actually blog about technology, he writes about it and it's too scholarly and bland for my taste and what I'm looking for.  So I'm off to find a legit blog! Till then.

Profiling Anissimov's Blog

            The blog I have chosen to profile is called Accelerating Future and the blog focuses on near-future technologies and the implications that they might have upon the world.  Accelerating Future is written by Michael Anissimov, who I found out after further research, is the Media Director for the Singularity Institute and Co-Organizer of the Singularity Summit, which is “an annual conference that focuses on emerging technologies like nanotechnology, biotechnology, robotics, and Artificial Intelligence” (taken from Anissimov’s blog bio section).  Reading the rest of his bio, it seems like Anissimov is more of a writer about these issues than a scientist, but he seems very well versed in the academic discussions and theories.  Many of this articles have been featured in prominent science enthusiast magazines and he reportedly has a very large audience.  Michael does not post to his blog fairly often, but he has kept up his blog for many years now.  His top two posts are this post, in response to someone else’s thoughts on singularity, and this one where he presents what he considers to be a more accurate view of future AI singularity.

            This blog coincides beautifully with my own blog.  It’s almost as if Philip K. Dick wrote Accelerating Future instead of Michael Anissimov in terms of the subject matter.  My understanding is that Michael is a writer and that he is writing the blog professionally for a living, but I could be mistaken. The posts range from very detailed and long articles that explore the complexities and nuances of various scientific discoveries and theories to very short, humorous quips and lists.  The audience is targeted to whoever is equally enthusiastic about singularity and the other scientific realms that Michael writes about.  I feel that this blog would work very well as the source for my writing project, but I am concerned that it may be a little challenging to find articles that relate these scientific ideas directly to philosophy.  I think I’ll just have to do more searching on his blog.  It’s way too easy for me to get distracted while browsing his posts because they all sound very captivating and I end up reading those articles out of sheer interest.  He is definitely a very strong writer.  I’ve noticed that he always manages to capture my interest from the first few lines of any of his blog posts and his thoughts are organized in lists that make it easy to visually detect his points.  I searched for his blog’s audience and rankings and it seems that Michael’s audience is really made up of people that are just like me – male, in their twenties, and nerd junkies! 

My Buddy Assimov

Well I wanted to find someone else out there who shared the same interests as me on this blog, and with the help of several social media tools I have found a really interesting guy.

World, meet Michael Anissimov and his blog about singularity and science!

This is a really fascinating blog in and of itself, but I also really enjoy following Anissimov's Del.ici.ous  shared pages.  They cover all of the topics that I'm interested in.  From transhumanism to nanotechnology, this source of scientific insight is practically a gold mine in terms of its value.  Feel free to check it out if you're interested in the same things as well.  Keep in mind that besides focusing on biology and artificial intelligence and et cetera, Anissimov's tags frequently refer to pscyhological, historical, and even religious topics which are equally fascinating.   He really does a great job of finding detailed and knowledgeable sources on a whole variety of topics and it is quite impressive.

Before checking out Anissimov's site I never really found a good way to read up on scientific breakthroughs and dialogues.  This was one of the coolest articles I found through his site that links to the Smithsonian Magazine website on transhumanism.   Very cool stuff in there.  The article attempts to look at how the next great breakthrough in human evolution, since the discovery of Darwinian evolution, will be "auto-genetic" evolution essentially.  By controlling or modifying the expression of specific genes and/or proteins, human beings will be able to virtually synthesize and create a range of biological modifications to their genome.

We might not truly be that advanced currently, but it's undeniable that at some point in the future this auto-genetic evolution might be considered a natural way of living.  Of course, unless the singularity point has been reached and we've become fully integrated into a machine consciousness.

Eh who knows. Maybe there will be a giant war between the biological splicers (who have retained the physical component of their humanity) versus the evil totalitarian machines!

I think I'm onto the screenplay for Terminator 4!... maybe I should look that up on Anissimov's del.ici.ous site!

The Facebook Invasion 2nd Post Tapered Out...but check out these podcasts!

Ok I figure you pretty much know what I'm going to say in terms of the Facebook dilemma, so I'll address it briefly, but I actually want to talk about some relevant, interesting stories from Radiolab that I just listened to.

So first off, Facebook has become an electric social-life of sorts, and as with all technology it has its advantages and disadvantages in regards to how you use it.  And personally, I think a lot of the people my age have invested too much value in FB (and I admit I'm guilty for doing that as well).  I mean, I know I get way too excited when my comments or photos get a lot of likes.  It can also be very satisfying to have a noticeably active FB profile.  Yeah look how fun and cool I was this past weekend.    Etc. etc.

It's silly to think like this, but this is kind of what FB has turned into and I think that I want to start looking at it differently.  The way Deckard would have treated his electric goat.  I have to understand that as social of a website as FB can be, it will never be able to fulfill my social needs as much one of my friends can, offline of course.

Some people are already aware of this, others have no clue, and there's a range of people that lie in-between this spectrum.  I'd say I wish that more people would understand FB for what it is, but honestly, I believe FB's most active users will always be composed of people that expect more than what's possible from the website.  Should be interesting to see how future generations of FB'ers see the website and whether they're even more invested in it.


~~~~ And now for the Radiolab content! ~~~~

1) (So-Called) Life - the Radiolab audio-team look at electric vs. natural life, in the same vein of my older posts they discuss Turing's CAPTCHA Test, Furbies vs. Barbies, and the most sentient robot in the world.  Very cool stuff! Definitely check it out.

2) Intelligent Design (scroll down a bit) - are living organisms machines with genes??? another fascinating

3) More on the personal life of Turing if you're interested. Unbelievable guy with an incredible mind.  Much respect.