Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is hosting a new show, Into The Universe, containing three episodes. In a few hours Hawking gives us the ultimate short guide to the universe, based on real science, from the possibilities of alien life and time travel to the nature of the universe itself.

What really makes "Into the Universe" work, though, is Hawking himself, who attacks these ideas with the enthusiasm of a science-fiction aficionado, while laying out the theoretical case and science in clear yet authoritative terms. This documentary is filled with lots of information and high production value.

In it's Image

To be honest, I'm not really certain what to think of this. It is actually a promotional video about the advancements in AI and discovering how exactly human consciousness works, the exact model of consciousness is discussed and it definitely is an interesting and believable model. Problems arise when I hear completely unverifiable claims...claiming that this model of AI has already made giant practical advancements in human knowledge, but for some reason they are not allowed to reveal them. Towards the end of the movie it gets worse by trying to push the whole universe into those consciousness models. I'm generally skeptical of such things, however the ideas from this film are quite interesting so in the end I decided to post it anyway. If someone knows a bit more about these concepts please feel free to comment.

Visions of the Future

Visions of the Future is a three part miniseries on the BBC hosted by Michio Kaku. In this new three-part series, leading theoretical physicist and futurist Dr Michio Kaku explores the cutting edge science of today, tomorrow, and beyond. He argues that humankind is at a turning point in history. In this century, we are going to make the historic transition from the 'Age of Discovery' to the 'Age of Mastery', a period in which we will move from being passive observers of nature to its active choreographers. This will give us not only unparalleled possibilities but also great responsibilities.

Documentary is in three parts, with the first part discussing the advancements in computing and artificial intelligence. Constructing new fascinating virtual worlds, automated intelligent cars and star trek like holograms are just a part of it.

That's Impossible - Eternal Life

So once again, we have a documentary about longevity. It is produced by History Channel and one of the commentators is the editor of Scientific American so I guess it gives it a bit more credibility which it certainly needs because of many SF-like topics in it. Some of the things they talk about are really eye opening, especially the nano-technology which is already being used in the laboratory experiments. All in all, very informative and recommended.

Living Forever: The Longevity Revolution

Immortality. Life Extension. The Fountain of Youth. Real science or simply wishful thinking? Is it hope or is it hype? Scientists from around the world are racing to answer one of humanity's chief questions: can we turn back the human clock?

A decent documentary about the current researches in prolonging life expectancy. Several very interesting and promising methods are introduced along with the already popular caloric-restriction diet of which I am really no fan.
Enjoy.

Do You Want To Live Forever?

Question as old as sentient life is. Stopping aging was always one of the central motives explored in all medias. From Biblical stories and religion to modern day film-making as shown in the Fountain. Average human life span has already doubled or perhaps even tripled so the question is how far can it go? Dr. Aubrey de Grey is a central figure of this story. Computer scientist turned biologist now Cambridge biomedical gerontologist, he gathered as many experts in all fields of science in an attempt to break the puzzle of aging. His opinion is that we could extend life indefinitely by addressing seven major factors in the aging process. He describes his work as Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS).

Technocalyps

Part 1: Transhuman


Part 2: Preparing for Singularity


Part 3: The digital Messiah



A three part documentary, provocatively titled "Technocalyps", describes the various ideas and prediction about the future technologies and how it would affect us. Divided into three parts, it begins with exploring the ideas how would technology change the human race physically thus evolving us into "Transhumans" which is the name of the first part. In the second part, "Preparing for Singularity" it explores the idea of Rai Kurzweil's singularity, a fascinating prediction of the near-future where the amount of new information created in a unit of time approaches infinity...which brings us to "The digital Messiah", the last part of this series describing the appearance of a godlike artificial intelligence.

Building Gods

Is it possible to construct an artificial intelligence? If it is, how far away is it? A truly thought-provoking documentary about the advancements in robotics, cybernetics and AI presented by four people, each having a different viewpoint. In the movie itself they are presented as a philosopher, a brain builder, a "cyborg" and a theologian. All of those viewpoints are very interesting but what really surprised me was a theologian's point that Abrahamic religions should not be in conflict with the hypothetical artificial life.