Civilization V: The Singularity

I have been an adamant player of the Civilization series of games. I borrowed my brother’s computer just to play Civilization IV a few months ago as mine was too old and slow (I’ve been holding out to get a screaming new system, optimized for Vista). I have a great idea for the next version of this game. It would be an excellent way to do four things:
1. A framework for the tech tree (both past and future)
2. A great way to educate the world on the coming technological changes of our time in civilization
3. Increase credibility/realism of the Civilization series
4. Increase credibility/realism of Ray Kurzweil’s vision
5. A great new goal/end of the game and civilization

By incorporating the technological path described in Ray Kurzweil’s latest book, “The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”, it will utilize Kurzweil’s in-depth research of the time and speed of technological advancement (from a historical perspective) as well as how to create great technology “buds” for future technology. The end of the game, as opposed to growing to outer space (among other victory conditions), it would be to create Strong AI and thus reach the Singularity, or the point in the future which we can not see beyond.

Time could change to years and months, though current games go from many years per turn to single years per turn later in the game, utilizing the exponential curves described in his book may add credibility/realism. There may be mathematical paradigms that could be incorporated into the game engine. Turns may be as small as months later in the game.

There would be new disasters and threats later in the game (e.g. grey goo, genetic engineering run amok, etc.) and new units (e.g. nanobots) among other things.

The growing credibility of Ray’s vision among not only futurists, but also credible government bodies, the educational establishment and the general public, will increase sales of the game and his book while educating people. Titling the new game, “Civilization V: The Singularity” would surely be recognized as a landmark game, not just for the great gameplay and sales it would generate, but also for helping to prepare the world for the coming turbulent times we face.

Just a thought as I read my travel book for Costa Rica…

What Comes After Web 2.0?

This is a short update on web technologies. It references the Semantic Web and other visions of the next step on the web. I've never heard of FOAF files, so I think I'll look into those. Sounds like a great idea!

http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17845

Me Translate Pretty One Day

This article discusses a new method of machine translation that seems significantly superior to the two primary methods used today. It is able to cut human translation speeds by one half (to achieve accuracy of a human translator), but it also does very well before it is fine tuned by a human. It requires more processing power than current machine translators, but as processing power improves exponentially, Meaningful Machines assumes this will not be a hurdle within a year. This article gives some good history on machine translation, where it is today and of course how Meaningful Machines fits into the landscape. I can wait for these to be perfect translators. How fun would it be to be able to travel the world and have the language barrier removed (besides all the practical uses in business and government)!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/translate_pr.html

Online world as important to Internet users as real world?

"43 percent of Internet users who are members of online communities say that they “feel as strongly” about their virtual community as they do about their real-world communities." And people don't beleive that many people will choose to spend significant amounts of their waking lives in virtual worlds?! Considering how rudimentary online communities and virtual worlds are today, and yet 43% of them say they feel just as strongly about them as their real-world communities - it is inevitable!

http://physorg.com/news84027254.html

Artificial intelligence applied heavily to picking stocks

Apparently "a third of all stock trades in the United States were driven by automatic algorithms last year." I personally know day traders and this article states there are tools for people to easy create rules. The cool thing this article is talking about, though, is that the rules are now being created, implemented, and altered based on their success, entirely by computers - "neural networks" and "genetic algorithms". Seems like it would be difficult to compete with these systems. Though "complicated stock-picking methods" have been to more or less a degree used for decades, these newer methods have recently "achieved a widespread use unimaginable just five years ago."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/23/business/trading.php