ASIM 2010: Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds
On Monday and Tuesday evening after the Summit, there will be a workshop on advancing substrate-independent minds, organized by the carboncopies project. Here is the description from the site:
ASIM (Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds) is a new series of workshops and activities that will cover the current state of the art in the fields of whole brain emulation, mind transfer, digital personalities, gradual replacement techniques, and brain preservation.
The sessions of the ASIM workshop will run after the Singularity Summit workshop on Monday and Tuesday, as a satellite event to the main Singularity Summit (August 14-15). The Singularity Summit workshop finishes at 5pm on both days, so there will be time to find some dinner before joining us for our evening sessions.
If you are interested in attending and would like more information, please feel free to contact the organisers.
The following topics will be addressed by speakers in the workshop:
Fundamentals of Advancing Substrate-Independent Minds, such as: What are the minimum requirements for the ASIM objective that we can agree upon? What are proper definitions to work with? What are the main technological opinions / approaches? What are the main concrete problems that we face? What is some of the useful knowledge and technology that currently exists?
Introductions to several of the possible technology directions. This includes structural preservation and data acquisition, functional data acquisition, neuroprosthetic devices, brain augmentation and gradual procedures, the usefulness and design of cognitive architectures, the interaction of ASIM topics with artificial general intelligence, and the interaction of ASIM topics with life extension and synthetic biology.
An examination of needs: The networking and public relations needs of ASIM organizations. Needs in terms of basic research. The needs of specific projects. This includes analysis and discussion of relevant cultural and social boundary conditions and possible initiatives which may boost, or on the contrary be detrimental to acceptance of and interest in the ASIM programs.

