Google Glass Will Bring Superhuman Vision

ExtremeTech - 10.24.13 by David Cardinal

Cloud-powered facial recognition is good enough to identify friends and foes alike in near-real-time. Coupled with the massive amount of information available on each of us in the cloud, it is only a small step to the otherworldly experience of never forgetting someone’s name, or knowing when to be on high alert about a person walking towards you.

Stanford professor Marc Levoy, fresh off a two-year leave to work on Google Glass, recently spoke to a packed house at Stanford’s Center for Image Engineering (SCIEN) about the new era of photography that Glass, and other increasingly powerful wearable cameras, have begun to usher in. While many of the new applications have been talked about — like first-person videos and the ability to take pictures without losing eye contact — Levoy explained that those are only the tip of the iceberg. He sees a combination of computational imaging and new-form-factor, camera-equipped devices will allow for a set of what he described as “superhero vision” capabilities.

Rapidly increasing processor power will help fuel this new world of powerful new photographic tools. Levoy, a pioneer in both computer graphics and computational imaging, noted that GPU power is growing by roughly 80% per year, while megapixels are only growing by about 20%. That means more horsepower to process each pixel — with the available cycles increasing each year. Coupled with near-real-time multi-frame image capture, the bounds of traditional photography can even be stretched beyond the borders of a single image.

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A Zoom Lens in your Contacts

ExtremeTech - 7.1.13 by Sebastian Anthony

While these telescopic lenses are obviously intended for people who suffer from AMD, there’s nothing to prevent a healthy person from wearing them and achieving better-than-human (superhuman?) vision.

An international team of researchers have created the first telescopic contact lens; a contact lens that, when it’s equipped, gives you the power to zoom your vision almost three times. Yes, this is the first ever example of a bionic eye that effectively gives you Superman-like eagle-eye vision.

As you can see in the photo above, the telescopic contact lens has two very distinct regions. The center of the lens allows light to pass straight through, providing normal vision. The outside edge, however, acts as a telescope capable of magnifying your sight by 2.8x. This is about the same as looking through a 100mm lens on a DSLR. For comparison, a pair of bird-watching binoculars might have a magnification of 15x. The examples shown in the image below give you a good idea of what a 2.8x optical zoom would look like in real life.

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What's Your Problem with Human Enhancement?

IEET - 6.27.13 by George Deane

There is another reason we might want to meddle with the work evolution has done so far; a discordance between human values and the values of evolution.

An ardent objection common to human enhancement and transhumanism is that it is both perilous and foolhardy to try to ‘play God’, or to question the wisdom of Mother Nature. As with most mental shortcuts, there is some truth in the ‘nature knows best’ argument. Cognitive enhancement, perhaps the most challenging and promising of all, is no mean feat. Naïve intervention into the mechanisms of the most complex system in the known universe could disrupt the delicately poised equilibrium struck by evolution over millions of years with unknown consequences.

"What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow-man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born." - Henry Miller

Undoubtedly caution should be deployed, but isn’t outright disregard for the ‘unnatural’ both hasty and hypocritical? Tool making and technology is one of the things that sets human beings apart.

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Kurzweil on the Ethics of Human Enhancement

I'm often bemused at the resistance some seem to have with the promise of human enhancement via technology. We are already enhancing our abilities, overcoming our frailties and extending our healthspans. What's a pair of glasses but a technological means of enhancing ourselves? So what are people so bent out of shape about?

Part of the resistance to the idea comes from religion, to be sure. Religious leaders are afraid that enhanced human beings won't need them so much anymore and that their coffers will run dry. They're right.

Anyway, in my travels around the datawebs I came across this thoughtful treatment of the issue at Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. Check it out here.

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Understand - A short story exploring greater-than-human intelligence

Editor's Note: This is a reposting, for those who missed it the first go-round, of one of my favorite short stories. It explores the workings of the human mind by imagining the creation of a greater-than-human intelligence. It's definitely worth reading.

Understand - a novelette by Ted Chiang

A layer of ice; it feels rough against my face, but not cold. I've got nothing to hold on to; my gloves just keep sliding off it. I can see people on top, running around, but they can't do anything. I'm trying to pound the ice with my fists, but my arms move in slow motion, and my lungs must have burst, and my head's going fuzzy, and I feel like I'm dissolving--

I wake up, screaming. My heart's going like a jackhammer. Christ. I pull off my blankets and sit on the edge of the bed.

I couldn't remember that before. Before I only remembered falling through the ice; the doctor said my mind had suppressed the rest. Now I remember it, and it's the worst nightmare I've ever had.

I'm grabbing the down comforter with my fists, and I can feel myself trembling. I try to calm down, to breathe slowly, but sobs keep forcing their way out. It was so real I could feel it: feel what it was like to die.

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Enhanced Humanity - Good or bad?

Program on Ethics of the New Biosciences - 10.1.09

Human Enhancement: Bioliberation or Biothreat? - Professor Julian Savulescu

Visit to watch the video.

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Human Enhancement is our future - A Q & A with Nick Bostrom

Time - 9/9/09 (by Eben Harrell)

Modern science already offers ways to enhance your mood, sex drive, athletic performance, concentration levels and overall health. But is such medically driven self-improvement always a good idea? Nick Bostrom, the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, believes it's time to open the ethical debate surrounding human enhancement — a term that is growing to include genetic, pharmaceutical and technological ways to improve our physical and mental abilities and even dramatically extend human life. He recently edited a collection of essays on the subject, Human Enhancement, and in an e-mail exchange explained why our future holds great promise — and grave danger.

You believe it's time to have this ethics conversation. Why?

For the most part, the ethical discussion is running ahead of reality, which is as should be. However, we already have alertness enhancers (caffeine, modafinil), athletic enhancers (steroids, EPO), sexual-performance enhancers (Viagra), immune enhancers (vaccinations) and concentration enhancers (Ritalin). One can expect improved versions of these to become available in the short term. In addition, memory enhancers are currently in clinical trials. Perhaps there will be compounds that facilitate trust — such as Oxytocin — and encourage pair bonding, or improved diet pills, or treatments that slow the rate of aging and increase sustainable mental energy. Each intervention has to be judged on its merits, the benefits weighed against the costs and risks.

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