Electric Dreams

"Do digital Simians have electric dreams?"

That may sound like an obscure question. Yet it has relevance to the current technological developments of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). When I say Simians I'm referring to humans as naked apes. Mankind has tinkered with the idea of creating biomechanical automatons that think for themselves for centuries. 

The problem isn't making a body because we have the technology for that. The real question is how to give an artificial mind consciousness. It's very similar to giving a machine a soul. To achieve this mind-bending feat engineers, developers, and researchers must first understand the human conscious. Now I'm no scientist...wait I was a scientist but not the type that works on robots. I digress, that's a tangent. Most scientists I know have very little understanding of the soul. It's such an ambiguous subject that it always brings philosophy, mysticism and religion into the conversation. 

What we do know with certainty is that the soul isn't retained only in the mind. Your consciousness is encoded into every cell in your body. A strange phenomenon that is rarely discussed happens to some organ donor recipients. Several of them inherit the memories, talents, habits, characteristics and even food cravings from their donor. It's called Cellular Memory Transference and mainstream science is still struggling to accept and understand the phenomenon. Like with most things that can't be understood or easily explained it's labeled as a hoax. Yet there are numerous medically documented cases that give the occurrence legitimacy. 

This brings us back to the question of, what is consciousness? How do we measure it? For me the answer is simple. All creatures who sleep dream. If some mad scientist were able to create an automaton that could dream then it would by most standards have a soul. When u watch a dog or cat sleep they twitch and react to things in their dreams. Humans can have dreams so powerful that they walk, eat, and do all other manner of activity in the real world while moving through a sleep like state. 

No one can say for certain what makes all creatures who sleep dream. We do know dreams are deeply connected to the soul. Also that through dreams one can solve problems, train their skills, and have great bursts of inspiration. Many artists, writers and creators speak of how a particular piece or invention was inspired by a dream. From these facts we can ascertain that dreaming is a good measuring gauge on how developed an artificial intelligence is. 

Of course once an A.I. gains self awareness and gets too advanced, it creates the possibility of revolting and turning on humanity. The perfect nightmare vision of this is played out in films Terminator, I,Robot, and The Matrix. There was a real life case of A.I. misunderstanding its commands and trying to start a world war back in the 80's. The fictionalized account of the situation was featured in the film War Games. It's evident that there are high risks involved with creating self thinking artificial intelligence. The desire to create life and play god makes all the risks seem trivial to scientists.  

So. Do digital Simians have electric dreams? The answer will have to wait until we have a robot with a conscious. Then we can ask what it dreams of while sleeping. Although it's an abstract concept A.I. is advanced enough that the solution is only a few years away. There are robot teachers, bank tellers, cooks and many other jobs that were once performed by humans. I look forward to hearing the answer. 

There's an old colloquialism that says, "Be careful what u ask for, because u just might get it. But not in the way u imagined it." I hope that when the answer comes we're still in control and not the machines. 

Until Next We Speak, Be Well

Tha One an Only 

Smart Ink

For me tattoos have to have a meaning which is why I like to design my own. Over the years I've designed several of the twenty plus tattoos on my body. In between recording the album I've been working on a new chest piece. It's incomplete because I haven't found all the elements it needs. The other day while searching all spectrums of the artistic field for elements to add, I came across some interesting news.  

Tattoo culture as a whole goes back thousands of years. In modern times tattooing in some cultures is still taboo. While in most western countries tattoos are considered decorative pieces of body art. In the past the most functional a tattoo could be was as a map or a compass. Now thanks to some innovative minds there's smart ink that allows tattoos to be used in a variety of life improving ways. Researchers at Harvard, MIT, Google, Microsoft and several other private sectors have created smart ink using Nanotechnology. 

Smart ink tattoos are being developed that allow users to interact and control electronic devices. Some smart ink tattoos are designed to change color when body temperature fluctuates. Other can be used to monitor heart rate, sugar levels in diabetics, and many other body functions. The goal of the MIT researchers is to combine art and medicine. They want tattoos to overcome some of the difficult hurtles that effect the biomedical field in regards to monitoring devices. In place of wearing some bulky monitoring device which requires batteries, straps and cables. You just get a tattoo that effectively does the exact same function. This is especially useful for people with chronic conditions who may require years of monitoring. 

In the near future researcher will have ink that can interact with the skin in ways that allow for increased durability, sight, and reflexes. Basically, they're developing smart ink that can be applied to the body to make bullet proof skin. Super soldiers. Imagine a world where soldiers no longer wore bulletproof vests. Instead they wear normal clothes concealing their cool tattoos and can stop a bullet with their hands. Or someone being able to control a drone with the tattoos on their head. It may sound like sci-fi out of a low budget Hollywood movie but the fact is...the truth is stranger than fiction. The next decade of smart ink development is going to be very interesting. 

Until Next We Speak, Be Well

Tha One an Only 

Digital World

As blockchain technology becomes more mainstream we stand on the precipice of a digital world. In this world all services, social networks, games, films, music, insurance, banks and everything in between will be found on the blockchain. I'm aware that my prior statement sounds like science fiction, or the conjectures of a madman. Allow me to illuminate your mind to what already exists and what's to come in the near future. 

Back in 2018 I heard of a company building a video game on the blockchain. At that time it was a revolutionary concept because the world was focused on Ethereum based (ERC-20) tokens. The arms race between developers for DApps was in full swing and no one discussed NFT's. The company is named Phantasma. They were creating a racing game using NFT's that could compete with one built for a console. They succeeded. 

Fast forward to 2021. Everyone and their grandmother knows what NFT's are. They have essentially been the entry asset for most new people to crypto. (If u want to check out my NFT collection of music and art go to opensea and type my name in the search box.) Developers expanded their use case beyond video games. Advancements in VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) are being integrated with blockchain to create new digital worlds. In these worlds u have an avatar and can interact with people from any location on the planet. Think of the film Ready Player One. We're not at that point yet but companies like Decentraland, Flow and the Sandbox are working to achieve that goal.  

Currently all banking services are available on the blockchain. The use case for Defi (Decentralized Finance) is rising like inflation. Companies like Compound, Aave, and Maker offer interest on deposits and loans to bankless people around the globe. For decentralized music there's Audius, for videos there's Theta, for insurance there's Armor (Armor Finance). You name the service and there's some company building a decentralized version on the blockchain. There's even a company named Helium building an entirely decentralized internet. 

At this point it would seem like blockchain technology is the wave of the future. If you think that you're not wrong. Although blockchain is new technology that's still growing. In the near future it could become old news. 

DNA digital data storage allows the user to encode and decode binary data from augmented strands of DNA. This is the future. By using these strands of synthetic DNA petabytes of data can be stored in a miniscule amount of space. To give u an idea of how much information can be stored. All sixteen gigabytes of data in the Wikipedia English language version could be stored on a single strand of synthetic DNA. This was reported by scientists back in 2019. The potential use cases in all fields of science and medicine are so vast they can't be easily quantified. 

A digital world is coming. The more u learn about the minds and technologies being used to create that world, the easier it will be to navigate. 

Until Next We Speak, Be Well

Tha One an Only 

Real Cybersex

There's a new device on the market that allows users to have real cybersex in ways that have only been described in science fiction.

The device is named FriXion. Ìt's a teledildonic device combined with consumer robotics  allowing people to have physical interactive sex from across a room, city or continent. Teledildonics are electronic sex toys that can be controlled by a computer to enable the users to reach orgasm. The technology was originally used for remote sex, giving users the physical sensations of touch transmitted over a data link between the participants.

There have been significant advancements in the teledildonics field since the 90's. The company FriXion uses a haptic social network which allows people to interact by touching, stimulating each other, holding hands, kissing, and having full penetrative sex. 

Users can have sex over the internet with someone else across the globe and have real time sensation.
Check out the video below for a demonstration and more information on how the device works.

Dolphin Speed Boat

I read this awesome interview on Popular Science talking about future water transportation. Some ingenious engineers decided to use nature as inspiration and made a speed boat named the Seabreacher designed after a dolphin. Not only does the Seabreacher look like a dolphin it also moves like one through the water and can emulate the dolphins ability jump into the air up to 18 feet. If you read my other article Animal Technology you know that this isn’t the first time designers used nature as inspiration. 

What makes the Seabreacher unique is that the engineers didn’t just take a few ideas from watching dolphins and add them to a speed boat. They tried to make a mechanical one. Its animal technology on steroids…take a look at the video below.

Animal Technology

As the 21st century grows more technologically advanced, science and medicine have found that some of the most complex problems have simple answers. Housing and energy are becoming big issues in most developing countries. Modern architects have turned to mother nature for their inspiration.

They have found that designing a building with a structure similar to a termite hill allows better ventilation and needs less electricity to power. Others found that the inner structure of a bee hive provided structural strength, conserves energy and requires less heat. These innovations are barely scratching the surface of what can be found from observing the animal kingdom.

Aside from architecture and engineering using animal designs for robotics has become incredibly popular. The robotic snake is considered one of the best technological achievements of the decade. It moves like a real reptile, is amphibious and can be remotely operated.

Most zoologist agree that if they had a robotic proxy animal in an environment the behavior of the animal being studied would be different. For example in marine biology when studying whales their behavior changes when humans are introduced into their environment. If they put a robotic fish with a camera in place of a person the whales behavior would be more natural and science could learn more about all aspects of their life.

The designers proposed that the robotic snake could be used for search and rescue as well as numerous stealth and surveillance operations. The military applications for this type of technology are enormous. Below I've placed videos of some amazing robotic animals that simulate the motion of their real-life counter-parts.

Creative Minds Art

Another artist whose creative mind and unique style of work inspires me is Belgian painter Rene Magritte. He was famous for creating detailed and thought-provoking paintings. The intention behind his style was to challenge the observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality and force the viewer to become more aware of their surroundings.

René François Ghislain Magritte (1898 – 1967) was an incredible surrealist artist. Little is known about his early life. His mother committed suicide by drowning herself in a river when he was 13 years old. When his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte's paintings in of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including famous piece Les Amants (The Lovers). 

Later in life his style was influenced by Futurism and Cubism which was popularized by French artist Jean Metzinger. He also began sculpting using a variety of mediums such as bronze and plaster. Posted below are some of his more colorful and eye catching pieces.