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Acceleration-Relevant
Conferences
Below are a sample of conferences in eight broad categories which provide
important background and context for models of locally accelerating change,
many of which may be expected to develop some level of discussion of accelerating
change and phase transition processes in coming years. If you discover
other likely candidates, please let us know:
1.
Astrophysics
2. Biology
and Medicine
3. Business
4. Complexity
Studies
5. Computer
Science—Hardware
6. Computer
Science—Software
7. Foresight
and Futures Studies
8. Technology
and Society
Scientific conference search: EventOnline.org
1.
Astrophysics
Cosmology, and Astrobiology Conferences
A number of cosmic evolutionary models now incorporate exponential local
change in various metrics, such as Eric Chaisson's free
energy rate density (Cosmic Evolution, 2001). The multiple universes
cosmologists, such as Lee Smolin and Martin Rees,
are also beginning to formulate developmental acceleration models. Astrobiologists
have also published a few papers on life as a multi-locally accelerating
process, and the trajectory of that intelligence has major implications
for SETI. With its tremendous annual influx of new astronomical data,
strong theoretical complement, deep interest in the origins, structure,
and future of life, and multidisciplinary approach, astrobiology (and
a subfield, computational astrobiology) is quickly becoming the most important
new academic community uncovering and confronting evidence of universal
multi-local accelerating change (physical singularities within black holes
are, of course, also in this category. Examples:
AAAS
DoSER Conference: Cosmic Questions (Last:
April 1999, Washington, DC)
American Physical Society (APS)
(March 18-22, 2002 Indianapolis,
IN; April 20-23, Albuquerque,
NM)
Astronomical Society
of the Pacific (July 13-18, St. Paul, MN)
Bioastronomy (July
8-12, 2002, Great Barrier Reef, Australia)
Black
Holes III (May 19-23, 2001 Kananaskis, Alberta, CANADA)
Contact:
Cultures of the Imagination (March 2-4, Santa Clara, CA)
ESA:
First European Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology (May 21-23, Frascati,
Italy)
Michigan Center for
Theoretical Physics (Spacetime Structure) (May 21-25, Ann Arbor,
MI)
NASA
Annual Astrobiology Science Conference (April 7-11, Moffett
Field, CA)
Pacific
Coast Gravity Meeting, 16th (PCGM) (March 9-10, 2001 Santa Barbara,
CA)
UW
Astrobiology (August 5-8, Crystal Mountain, WA)
2.
Biology and Medicine
Evolutionary, Developmental, Comparative, Theoretical, and Systems
Biology Conferences
Evolutionary development, or "evo-devo," is the paradigm where
evolution at all scales is understood to occur within, and be substantially
constrained by a framework of statistically predetermined development
(self-organization). Biological systems provide our best evidence and
most detailed models for how to apply the lessons of developmentalism
to universal change and the observed continuous local accleration of that
change. Unfortunately, there is currently a significant conceptual gap
between most evolutionary biologists, who frequently view change as a
"random" or "accidental" process (with the exception
of a minority who now combine insights in neutral theory and self-organization),
and developmental biologists, with the latter generally having a much
better understanding of universal change, able to discriminate the evolutionary
(random) and developmental (causal, in a probabilistic sense) components
of change in the systems they study. Assuming that the universe itself
is such an evolutionary developmental system, much will be learned in
coming years from uncovering the secrets of developmental biology. Indeed,
two of the greatest remaining mysteries of scientific understanding, galactic
development and embryonic development, may be more than superficially
linked at a systems level. In general, developmental models are still
only superficially applied to substrates above or below that of the biological
organism, with a few notable exceptions, such as the emerging field of
developmental genetic programming. Examples:
Ecological
Society of America (ESA) (August 5-9, 2002, Tucson, AZ)
Internt'l Conference on
Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ICMTB) (July 16-19, Hilo,
HI)
Internat'l Conference
on Systematic and Evolutionary Biology (ICSEB) (September 9-16,
2002, Patras, Greece)
Internat'l Conference on Systems
Biology (ICSB) (November 4-7, Pasadena, CA)
Medicine
Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR) (January 26-29, Long Beach,
CA)
Society
for Developmental Biology (July 18-22,
Seattle, CA)
Society for
Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) (January 2-6, 2002,
Anaheim, CA)
Society for Study of Evolution/ASN/SSB
(June 26-30, Knoxville, TN)
West Coast Developmental Biology Conference (May 11-13, Lake
Arrowhead, CA)
3.
Business
Investment, Economics, Management, and Organizational Behavior
Conferences
Like the semiconductor engineers since the 1960's, the general business
community is now acutely discovering the impact of accelerating change
since 1995, due to the explosive growth of the internet. As Andy
Groves has said, "internet time" is real and here to
stay. Yet the U.S. has also recently suffered a major financial bubble
because we collectively misinterpreted signs of accelerating technologic
change to develop an unrealistic expectation (mass delusion?) of parallel
accelerating increase in market capitalization. As any careful investment
analyst will tell you, these two emergent properties (business technology
and market cap) are only rarely tightly coupled, and understanding their
complex relationship within each investment environment is paramount.
A few business consultants and theorists, such as Ichak
Adizes, have been analyzing accelerating change as a fundamental
constant of business transformation since the 1970's. It remains true
that we will see explosive growth in this area in coming decades, as cheaper
and higher bandwidth, storage, wireless access, pervasive computation,
and other emergences shift our entire productive environment into technologic
(not social) hyperdrive. One principle remains true: Shrinking
the time necessary and relevant information available for all complex
transactions is the most immediate path to improving business productivity.
Examples:
Accelerating
Change in the Information Economy (Feb
7-8, 2001 Los Angeles, CA)
Adizes Graduate
School's Business Analysis Conferences (July and August 2001,
Santa Barbara, CA)
Dynamic Visions
(Reason Magazine) (February 19-21, 2000 Santa Clara, CA)
Probing the Future:
Organizational Foresight in the Knowledge Economy (July 11-13,
2002, Glasgow, United Kingdom)
International InfoMesa Summit:
Complexity and Business (August 27-30, 2001, Santa Fe, NM)
Nanotechnology
Briefing (Red Herring) (Sept 24, 2001, Boston, MA)
Society
of Quantitative Analysts, Annual Fuzzy Day Seminar (June 14,
New York, NY)
Telecosm
(Gilder/Forbes) (Nov 4-6, 2001, San Francisco, CA)
4.
Complexity Studies
Complexity, Systems Theory, Information Science, and Nonlinear
Science Conferences
There is a growing understanding of accelerating change within this community—but
no specific conferences as yet. It appears that the broad area of complexity
studies, while independent in initial stages of investigation, is eventually
be subsumed into whatever discipline (cosmology, biology, computer science,
physics, chemistry, linguistics, business, manufacturing, economics, ecology,
sociology, urban planning, etc.) it chooses to study. That is both heartening
and to be expected. Examples:
Complexity
and Fractals in the Sciences (FRACTAL)
(March 17-20, 2002, Grenada, Spain)
Discrete
Chaotic Dynamics in Nature and Society (DCDNS)
(Last: May 2000, Odense, Denmark)
Global Brain Workshop
(July 3-5, Brussels, Belgium, VUB)
Foundations
of Information Science (FIS)1996 and 1994
(June 11-15, Vienna, Austria)
Hawaii International Conference
on the Systems Sciences (HICSS) (January 7-10, 2002, Waikoloa
Village, HI)
IEEE Systems,
Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) (October 7-10, Tuscon, AZ)
Internat'l
Conf. on Scientometrics and Informetrics (ICSI/ISSI) (July 16-20,
Syndey, Australia)
Internat'l Conf.
on Perception and Action (ICPA) (June 25-29, Storrs, CT)
International Society
for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) (July 8-13, Pacific Grove, CA)
Self-Organization
and Evolution of Social Behavior (September 8-13, 2002, Ascona,
Switzerland)
Singularity
Theory (July-Dec, 2000, Cambridge, UK)
Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics
(SCI) (July 22-25, Orlando, FL)
5.
Computer Science — Hardware
Solid State Physics, Microtechnology, Nanotechnology, Robotics/Embodied
A.I., Automation, and Autonomous Technology Conferences
Continuing dramatic miniaturization and autonomy in technological systems
has led some of these conferences to begin considering the long range
trajectories, leading to speculation in nanotechnology futures. But the
most far reaching implications, exploring the meaning of autonomous non-biological
nanocomputation for local intelligence, are still in a rudimentary stage
of discussion. The nanotechnology, embodied A.I.(robotics), and autonomous
technology development communities may all be the most important public
arenas for recognition and discussion of accelerating technological change
in coming years. Examples:
ALA
SmallTalk 2001: Microfluidics, Microarrays, BioMEMS
(August 27-31, San Diego, CA)
BioMEMS and BioNanotechnology
World (September 22-25, Columbus, OH)
DesignCon (Electronic
Design Automation (EDA) semiconductor systems simulation & design)
(Jan 28-31, 2002 Santa Clara, CA)
IEEE Internat'l Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
(October 29-November 3, Maui, HI)
IEEE Internat'l Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
(May 21-26, Seoul, Korea)
IEEE Nanotechnolgy
(Nano) (October 28-30, Maui, HI)
IFAC World Congress on Automatic
Control (IFAC) (July 21-26, 2002, Barcelona, Spain)
Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation
(ISA) (September 10-13, Houston, TX)
Internat'l Conference
on Computational Nanoscience (ICCN) (April 22-25, San Juan,
PR)
Internat'l
Conference on Evolvable Systems (ICES) (October 3-5, Tokyo,
Japan)
Internat'l Conference on Intelligent
Autonomous Systems (IAS) (March 25-27, 2002, Marina Del Rey,
CA)
Internat'l Symposium on
Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) (June 25-27, 2002,
Fukuoka, Japan)
NASA/DoD Workshop
on Evolvable Hardware (EH) (July 12-14, Long Beach, CA)
Robo Cup Competitions
and Conferences (June 16-23, 2002, Fukuoka, Japan)
SmallTech 2001: MEMS/Nano
(September 18-21, Washington, DC)
Workshop
on Neuromorphic Engineering (NE) (July 1-21, Telluride, CO)
6.
Computer Science — Software
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Life,
Agents, Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Computation, Fuzzy Systems,
Classical AI)
A small number of sessions at these conferences discuss the future implications
of emergent computation, and some are beginning to systematically measure
and consider the wider implications of continuously accelerating computational
change. To my knowledge, none are yet measuring the increasingly autonomous
(human-independent) nature of this change. However, due to direct experience
with and implicit understanding of the wider implications of Moore's Law
and substrate shift in the technological domain, the computer science
and information techology communities have become by far the most acceleration-aware
of all the professions. Examples:
ACM1: Beyond
Cyberspace (March 10-14, San Jose, CA)
Artificial
Intelligence and Statistics (SAIS/AISTATS) (January 4-7, Key
West, FL)
Artificial
Life (December 9-13, 2002, Sydney, Australia)
Artificial Neural
Networks in Engineering (ANNIE) (November 4-7, St. Louis, MO)
Autonomous Agents
(May 28-June 1, Montreal, Canada)
Association
for Computational Linguistics (ACL-EACL) (July 6-11, Tolouse,
France)
Genetic
and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) (July 7-11,
San Francisco, CA)
Earthware: A Good World
in 2050 (Last: Oct 2000, Pittsburg, PA, Carnegie Mellon U)
Emergent Computing
Conference Series (Last: July 2000, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom)
Evolution of Language
(EvoLang) (March 27-30, 2002, Cambridge, MA)
Internat'l Conference
on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN) (August 21-25, Vienna,
Austria)
Internat'l
Conf. on Intelligent Agents, Web Tech, and Internet Commerce
(July 9-11, Las Vegas, UT)
Internat'l Conf. on
Knowledge-Based Intelligent Electronic Systems (KES) (September
6-8, Osaka, Japan)
Internat'l Conference
on Machine Learning (ICML) (June 28-July 1, Williamstown, MA)
Internat'l Conf.
on Parallel Problem Solving From Nature (PPSN) (September 7-11,
2002, Grenada, Spain)
Internat'l Joint Conferences on Artificial
Intelligence (IJCAI) (Aug 4-10, Seattle, WA)
Language Technologies
(NA-ACL) (June 2-7, Pittsburgh, PA)
Neural Information
Processing Systems (NIPS) (December 3-8, Vancouver, Canada)
Scandinavian Conference
on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) (February 19-21, Odense, Denmark)
IEEE International Conference
on Information Fusion (July 8-11, 2002, Annapolis, MD)
IEEE Mobile Agents
(December 2-4, Atlanta, GA)
IEEE World Congress on Comp. Intell.(IJCNN/CEC/Fuzzy
Systems) (May 12-17, 2002, Honolulu, HI)
Uncertainty in Artificial
Intelligence (UAI) (August 2-5, Seattle, WA)
7.
Foresight and Futures Studies
Foresight, Forecasting, and Speculative Futures Conferences
Futures studies includes a broad range of perspectives, including trend
extrapolation, systems theory, and utopian, dystopian, and millenial scenarios.
Is the technological singularity hypothesis just a millenialist fantasy?
Certainly there is some millenialist component to the mythos, as Greg
Benford and others have noted. Yet technological
acceleration was extrapolated to an asymptotic "singularity"
as early as 1902, by technology scholar Henry Adams.
Accelerating change in our knowledge and technology has become increasingly
obvious to human observers over at least the last two millenia.
It is probably this broad social intelligence, at least as much as any
other factor that has fueled the proliferation and increasing sophistication
of our cultural eschatology (end of the world, millenialist) myths. The
modern difference is that now everyone is starting to recognize accelerating
change, no longer just the visionaries and philosophers. A few of these
annual conferences, such as Foresight and TransVision, regularly discuss
the technological singularity hypothesis. Examples:
BostonU,
Center for Millennial Studies, Conference on Millenialism
(Last: Oct, 2000, Boston, MA)
Conferences of the Center for the Study of the Long Range Future
(Oct 2001, Boston, MA)
Extro (Extropy)
(June 15-17, San Jose, CA)
Foresight (April 20-22,
Palo Alto, CA)
FutureScope(WFS)
(July 29-31, Minneapolis, MN)
Ideas
at the Powerhouse (August 16-19, Brisbane, Australia)
PopTech! (October 19-22, Camden,
ME)
PUSH (June 12-14, Minneapolis,
MN)
TransVision(WTA)
(June 22-24, Berlin, Germany)
World Science Fiction Society Convention
(Worldcon) (Aug 29th-Sept 2nd, San Jose, CA)
8.
Technology and Society
Technology Assessment, Technology and Public Policy, Science and Technology
Studies, History/Philosophy/Sociology of Science/Technology Conferences
As Ray Kurzweil and others have long observed, the fields
of technology assessment and public policy have long ignored the cultural,
sociopolitical and economic implications of our record of hyperexponential
computational growth. Historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science
are becoming more amenable to studying the exponential and double-exponential
growth in various domains of science and technology, but few yet see this
process as leading to some essential or effective singularity (phase change,
emergence), as viewed from the human perspective. Most likely, this is
due to the lack of recognition of accelerating technological autonomy
(encoded adaptive/algorithmic intelligence). This may change in the coming
decades, as the rate of technological (but not human social) change continues
to accelerate and become more human-independent. Examples:
AAAS
Colloquium on Science and Technology Policy
(May 3-4, Washington, DC)
American
Sociologial Association (Aug 18-21, Anaheim, CA)
Camden Technology Conference
(Oct 19-21, Camden, ME)
Hawaii International Conference
on Social Sciences (June 11-15, 2002, Honolulu, HI)
History
of Science Society (Nov 8-11, Denver, CO)
IEEE Internat'l
Symposium on Technology and Society (July 6-7, Stamford, CT)
Philosophy of Science Association
(Nov 7-11, Milwaukee, WI)
National Association
of Science Writers (February 13-14, 2002 Cambridge, MA)
Society for Philosophy
and Technology, Biennial Conference (July 9-11, Aberdeen, Scotland)
Supernova
(June 20-22, San Francisco, CA)
Technology, Entertainment, and Design
(TED) (Feb 20-23, 2002, Monterey, CA)
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