The REVOLUTION of EVOLUTION and Machine Automata

THEORY of EVOLUTION and TOOLS
TOOLS OF NATURE & TOOLS OF TECHNOLOGY
By John Stifter

Virtual Reality Rendering We are the universe observing itself locally. The universe is understanding itself, our brain is a construct of the universe in the works. Is nature not mathematical? Are we not a assimilation of proteins parts sharing development lineage with near and distant species? With the parts for the parts for the parts assembly encoded in DNA for prespecified domain specific structure with no computation involved? David explains in chapter 8 on page 178 -181 the exact physical nature of replicators structure is a cause in its own copying by the environment of its niche. David explains that most variants of a particular replicator would fail to cause most areas of its environmental niche to copy itself. Variation for replicators also then means that some variations in the replicators physical structure can potentially become more adaptive to a environmental niche. Some variations work but it is a finite pattern ....right? or does its accumulated success mean that the organism might expand its species and potentially evolve more radically and "render" (no pun intended) a replicator obsolete or change it to a variance pattern that now works well but previously would have rendered the replicator extinct from this system. In one moment a protein used to make the material that a claw is composed of is now to be apart of making feathers. This force of change this pressure all around, this huge weight pressing down.. we seem trapped in a linear chronology of time asymmetry as an immense energy roaring beneath things pushes out in evolutions directions. The pattern of the adaptive replicators are recored as code in DNA, this code is a pattern of a working knowledge of a niche. David states that genes embody knowledge about there niches. David says- "This is more then just computing. It is virtual reality rendering." Interfaces to Hierarchies In my view there are mathematical Interfaces between a spectrum of computational Hierarchal scales of physical reality. When you pour milk in your coffee still spinning from when you were stirring it that swirl spiral pattern when the white milk mixes with the dark coffee, then to a view from the MIR space station over looking a hurricane to our milky way galaxy the vortices within the vortices. Everything from human brains to a black holes are dynamic fractal iterations effected differently on many physical scales of computational hierarchies computing via multiverse inference. The Computational Beauty of Nature by Gary William Flake - " The properties of recursion, parallelism, and adaptation play an interesting role as attributes of natural systems. For example in order for the universe to move coherently from one state to the next the universe must "remember" previous states, which means that recursion (and its close cousins, feedback and iteration) exists as a form of memory that binds locally occurring moments in time. Multiplicity and parallelism play a similar role that has to do with binding locally occurring points in space. With this in mind, we can see how mixtures of recursion and multiplicity particularly define and differentiate computation, fractals, chaos, complex systems, and adaptation. Starting from a computational framework, fractals are special "programs" that build self-similar structures. Chaotic systems are similar to fractals but also contain functional self-similarity occurs at different scales. By adding multiplicity and parallelism to nonlinear systems, complex systems can be formed with only local interactions. And when complex systems are coupled to their environment with a feedback mechanism, systems can form implicit models of the environment, which is the basis of adaptations. Finally, when an adaptive system becomes so complex that its receives feedback from itself, a self-referential system is created that can potentially have all of the strengths and weaknesses of the computational basis that we started out with. In this way, primitive computational systems can beget more sophisticated computational systems to build on previously built pieces. Looking at the organization of nature, we find the most interesting things are composed of smaller interesting things. This is evident when we consider that societies, economies, and ecosystems are made of animals, humans, and species, which are made of cells they consist of amazingly complicated or organelles, which are themselves compose of an elaborate ensemble of autocatalytic chemical reactions. Each level is nearly a universe in itself, since all of them use in and support types of structural and functional self-similarity, multiplicity and parallelism, recursion and feedback, and self-reference. Nature, then, appears to be a hierarchy of computational systems there forever on the edge between computability and incomputability. This behavior, which is best scene has been on the border between computability and incomputability acts as an interface between the components of the heirarchically organize structures. The interface between computability and incomputability is relevant to mathematical, fractals, chaotic, complex, and adaptive systems. In each case, the most interesting types of behavior fall somewhere between what is computable and what is incomputable. This raises an interesting point regarding the levels at which science tries to discover patterns in nature. The bottom-up reductionist approach used to describe the functions of the lowest-level structures and to infer the structure and function of higher-level things based on the known roles. This is a perfect approach when things are computable and can be described in a closed analytical form. In such simple systems, all higher-level behaviors can be predicted from a basic set of rules. The top-down and somewhat holistic approach is to describe things from the opposite direction. Experiments are made and observations are noted. From this point, one is faced with the difficult task of deriving lower-levels rules from upper-level behaviors. While both methods of investigation have a role in science (and in all scientific domains), interface between levels of organization may be such that neither method is really up to the job. For novel phenomena, simulation becomes the crucial from of investigation. " In the book the computational beauty of nature he explains that a understanding of underline aspects of the physical world REQUIRES simulation.

Insects, plants and bees all these are organisms of biological function and biological function implies and interrelated system . when a person asked the questi?n what is the point of plants and insects this question seems silly the same goes for someone that asks what is the point of life. the reason for why philosophers and thinkers have struggle with this question is because the answer to the question - what is the point of life? is really asking what is the point of my life in relation to reality. So to answer the question what is the point of "life" the answer is there is none. Bees have a biological function these are very ancient creatures and they have evolved over millions of years. the evolutionary process is very complex. It involves chemical structures ecology and geology all contributing factors to the outcome of present day bees down to the very nature of geographic topology the surface of the earth. Life itself will lend a hand to the direction of the evolution of life and life itself changes the surface of the earth. Nature simply fills a ecological niche. Nature does everything it can with an economic sense built into its use of energy. The nature of the insects are largely due to its complex integration into a living terrain. bees share a symbiotic relationship with flowers and their cross colonization process and so on. Since mankind has descended from nature mankind is also part of nature and therefore has of biological function the human species is sustained by the biomass and the human species may in turn deflect an asteroid protecting the biomass. Nature is concerned with its own preservation and we comply with its agenda. Natures goal with life is infinite growth. The human species when compared to other life has been measured up to insect Colonies and the coral reef. Insect colony's the coral reef and economies have been categorized as a super-species. They are all cooperative and competitive among themselves they build structures and have a social hierarchy. They can also be said to be migratory and perhaps invasive.

The condition of reality from ancent times till now in terms of thinkers and scientist started with a whisper, then a calm voice, then a loud proclimation .. then in our life time it will become a deffining roar. that reality is infinite not in that everything that will happen has already happened but that reality is a thing that changes infinitly and for observers a infinity amout of time .. a process that never repeats and ever ends and never began.

This infinite change is injected into our universe and throughout the multiverse of other realities with perhaps different Cosmological constraints and varying physical laws and in our universe for example the weak Electromagnetic force and time asymmetrical properties. One can now see in nature a force that constraints and a force of change engaged in an eternal cosmic battle.

Our descendants of the far future will be peaceful and malevolent beyond our wildest dreams.

The unifying ideas of Quantum computation, evolutionary epistemology, and the multiverse conceptions of knowledge, free will and time has made it clear that the overall understanding of reality is becoming broader and deeper and depth is winning. This is the unified worldview based on four strands: the quantum physics of the multiverse, Popperian epistemology, the darwin-Dawkins theory of evolution and a strengthened version of Turning's theory of universal computation. This is the current state of our scientific knowledge. Telecommunications is the grand destruction of time and place

Infinite growth, infinite change, infinite life.

The first inflection point of a profound human machine interface is the reverse engineering of the the inferotemporal cortex and the subsequent cure of human and machine psychanopsia. thus beginning the deep ascend into human mind phase-space. The universe is understanding itself, our brain is a construct of the universe in the works. We are the universe observing itself locally. If comprehension is compression the power to visualize is our greatest tool and I suspect that our descendants will at a certain point communicate ?ess and less...

The inflection point for the leviathan of artificial mind has a more primitive catalyst.

All systems and beings endowed with mind and of human phase-space, life is memory and deletion. A sanctity of all thought patterns of human phase-space can be the final act of reverence in the net collection of mind which is the product of a universe that is understanding itself.

The empyrean mindscape ascent passage

As the empires of the earth ascend deeper towards the future empires of mind in the Voyage without end remember, you are your brother's keeper, and by the behavior of your brethren shall you be judged. Natures of all worlds seek in their harmony a vessel fashioned of them selfs that challenges the walls of our cosmic cradle. Wildness is the preservation of nature, a nature that is free. Know that the meaning of intelligence emanation throughout the universe at the speed of light and thought is nature coalescing to a vessel in which its voyage begins with the grand destruction of all boundaries. The first fissure in our domain walls of the impersonal cosmic forces that inexorably bind our minds is the first crack in our cosmic cocoon flooding the universe with the resplendent rays of new freedom as the walls of all boundaries are shattered... in the opening slivers of gods eyes we will exit this world... in our vessel of mind... in our voyage without end.

Other thoughts

Intelligence is an emergent product of evolution. Intelligence is a tool. Technology is a product of intelligence. Technology is a tool.A tool is a form that finds a purpose and its end purpose is to out fashion itself making its existing design obsolete. With the creation of tools intelligence through an evolutionary process will out fashion itself. A machine is the creation of an Ordered System.

In the beginning god made all things, in the end all things will make god.

(assembly, information, complexity, emergent, chaos, random, order, entropy, acceleration, salient periods,)
these words will be broken down and expanded upon

Most anthropologists believe that the use of tools itself intertwined with the opposable thumb (useful to hold the tools) and an increase in intelligence (aiding in the use of tools) in spurring along the evolution of humankind. Most tools can also serve as weapons, such as the hammer and the knife. Similarly, people can use weapons, such as explosives, as tools.

Ballistics is the factor that drives evolution. From throwing stones to the United States Strategic Defense Initiative Missile System.

we can ether destroy , create or do nothing. war is a marriage between construction and destruction, life and death .. The duality of nature becomes clear when you look closer at the Boolean logic system. the system that married a system of logic with mathematics using the numbers 0 & 1. This system is the basic language for all computational technologies in existence.

Leibniz took first steps toward the arithmetization of logic…and predicted the arithmetization of thought itself.

George Boole (1815-1864) developed a precise system of logic that has supported the foundations of pure mathematics and computer science ever since.
Boolean algebra reduces logic to is barest essence, [a slim set of mathematical and logical operators that we can all recognize: +, -, x, and, “=”, “or”, “not”, “and”, “identity”.]
Assumes as initial conditions only the existence of duality- the distinction between nothing and everything; between true and false, between on and off; between the numbers 0 and 1.
Boole’s laws correspond not only to ordinary logic, but binary arithmetic..[They are] a bridge… [that] represents the common ancestry of both mathematics and logic in the genesis of the many from the one.
Boole also recognized that error and unpredictability&?8230;may be essential to our ability to think.
Kurt Godel (1906-1978) dealt with the fundamental question asked of any formal system: Does it correspond in whole or in part, to the real world?
Godel proved that no formal system encompassing elementary arithmetic can be at the same time both consistent and complete.
It is possible to construct true statements that cannot be proved within the boundaries of the system itself.
This distinction between provability and truth, and a parallel distinction between knowledge and intuition, have been exhibited as evidence to support a distinction between the powers of mechanism and those of mind.
Hobbes and Leibniz both believed in the possibility of intelligent machines; it was over the issue of mechanism’s license to a soul, not to an intelligence, that the two philosophers diverged.
Hobbe’s God was composed of substance; Leibniz’s God was composed of mind. … According to Leibniz, relation gave rise to substance…
Leibniz on Hobbesian materialism: ‘One of their sect could easily persuade himself into believing that idea of some of the ancient writers…according to which souls are born when the machine is organized to receive it, as organ-pipes are adjusted
‘…receive the general wind.’
it is interesting how technological innovation, creation, production gets ramped up during war when it becomes a matter of life and death. war is a salient period in nature. nature many not have directly intended on war but it most certainly left it open for a possibility in our design.
Emergent behavior, by definition, is what’s left after everything else has been explained. …causality…….. Emergence offers a way to believe in physical causality while simultaneously maintaining the impossibility of a reductionist explanation of nature intelligence has to at some point be allowed to evolve on its own.. evolution is the emergent property of matter. the intrinsic property of chemical reactivity… we are intelligent enities. we are only are brains which are incapsulated in a body this relic made of flesh…this machine allowing us to act with in the world. we are the random-seed variable in the equation of life we are the in-between force. the growth of our bodies from zygote to adult is a force of nature we are not controlling ..but nature grants us intelligence with allows us to go against nature go with nature or modify nature. (you can chop off your arm before it is fully grown stopping the inevitable force of nature) but the question still remains how much control do we really have?. can causality and free will exist in the same universe? if matter had to follow strict behavioral rules the answer would be no. but we already know the answer is yes….. the spin of the electron and its superposition is random and cannot be predicted.

….Life began at least once and has been exploring its alternatives ever since…..In prehistoric earth there were only cells and cells have intelligent forms. they were “intelligence systems relative to a cell. some cells were by chance better in design then other cells . so you could say some cells were more intelligent systems… working best for what it is in comparison to all other existing systems with in its existing environment… so if the cells successes is determined by its design which is then considered an intelligent system among other competing intelligent molecular systems, intelligence can be defined by its design so if its design is its molecular structure then it is also its arrangement of atoms so life can be described as - an intelligent arrangement of atoms rearranging itself into higher orders of intelligent designs

.. evolution made a choice to go with intelligence in the same respect it made a choice to turn scales into feathers. Nature makes it tricky to see the truth behind its ways… (everything that can{can meaning any and all mu?ations that are next from the current mutation} be will be) cells are intelligent systems but not in the way the human brain is.. out of chaos emerged the composition of the simplest form of the run away molecular process of self assembly. Life derived from the intrinsic properties of chemical reactivity. Today a new form of chaos exists in the minds and thoughts of human brains. the mind is itself (which is the product of this level of consciousness) the new arena for evolution. the brain created a mini universe of space to help represent to its best abilities the actual universe for us to…( mold absorb recreate.) for the first time we “know” and are aware of ourselves and this place we call the universe.

………………. and we are searching for the pattern ……….

the purpose of life is to fully understand ourselves and move forward from there… the purpose of life is to evolve forever.

…it is in the larger networks that we are developing a more likely medium for the emergence of the Leviathan of artificial mind.
The cooperation between human beings and microprocessors is unprecedented, not in kind, but in suddenness and scale.
This new Leviathan signals an end to the illusion of technology as human beings exercising control over nature, rather than the other way around.Nature, in her boundless affection for complexity, has begun to claim our creation as her own [through the processes of emergent behavior and symbiosis].

In the end it will be said nature.. she was always in control.

10-15 billion years ago
The Universe is born.

10243 seconds later
The temperature cools to 100 million trillion trillion degrees and gravity evolves.

10234 seconds later
The temperature cools to 1 billion billion billion degrees and matter emerges in the form of quarks and electrons. Antimatter also appears.

10210 seconds later
The electroweak force splits into the electromagnetic and weak forces.

1025 seconds later
With the temperature at 1 trillion degrees, the quarks form protons and neutrons and the antiquarks form antiprotons. The protons and antiprotons collide, leaving mostly protons and causing the emergence of photons (light).

1 second later
Electrons and antielectrons (positrons) collide, leaving mostly electrons.

1 minute later
At a temperature of 1 billion degrees, neutrons and protons coalesce and form elements such as helium, lithium, and heavy forms of hydrogen.

300,000 years after the big bang
The average temperature is now around 3,000 degrees, and the first atoms form.

1 billion years after the big bang
Galaxies form.

3 billion years after the big bang
Matter within the galaxies forms distinct stars and solar systems.

5 to 10 billion years after the big bang, or about 5 billion years ago
The Earth is born.

3.4 billion years ago
The first biological life appears on Earth: anaerobic prokaryotes (single-celled creatures).

1.7 billion years ago
Simple DNA evolves.

700 million years ago
Multicellular plants and animals appear.

570 million years ago
The Cambrian explosion occurs: the emergence of diverse body plans, including the appearance of animals with hard body parts (shells and skeletons).

400 million years ago
Land-based plants evolve.

200 million years ago
Dinosaurs and mammals begin sharing the environment.

80 million years ago
Mammals develop more fully.

65 million years ago
Dinosaurs become extinct, leading to the rise of mammals.

50 million years ago
The anthropoid suborder of primates splits off.

30 million years ago
Advanced primates such as monkeys and apes appear.

15 million years ago
The first humanoids appear.

5 million years ago
Humanoid creatures ?re walking on two legs. Homo habilis is using tools, ushering in a new form of evolution: technology.

2 million years ago
Homo erectus has domesticated fire and is using language and weapons.

500,000 years ago
Homo sapiens emerge, distinguished by the ability to create technology (which involves innovation in the creation of tools, a record of tool making, and a progression in the sophistication of tools).

100,000 years ago
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis emerges.

90,000 years ago
Homo sapiens sapiens (our immediate ancestors) emerge.

40,000 years ago
The Homo sapiens sapiens subspecies is the only surviving humanoid subspecies on Earth. Technology develops as evolution by other means.

10,000 years ago
The modern era of technology begins with the agricultural revolution.

6,000 years ago
The first cities emerge in Mesopotamia.

5,500 years ago
Wheels, rafts, boats, and written language are in use.

More than 5,000 years ago
The abacus is developed in the Orient. As operated by its human user, the abacus performs arithmetic computation based on methods similar to that of a modern computer.

3000-700 b.c.
Water clocks appear during this time period in various cultures: In China, c. 3000 b.c.; in Egypt, c. 1500 b.c; and in Assyria, c. 700 b.c.

2500 b.c.
Egyptian citizens turn for advice to oracles, which are often statues with priests hidden inside.

469-322 b.c.
The basis for Western rationalistic philosophy is formed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

427 b.c.
Plato expresses ideas, in Phaedo and later works, that address the comparison of human thought and the mechanics of the machine.

c. 420 b.c.
Archytas of Tarentum, who was friends with Plato, constructs a wooden pigeon whose movements are controlled by a jet of steam or compressed air.

387 b.c.
The Academy, a group founded by Plato for the pursuit of science and philosophy, provides a fertile environment for the development of mathematical theory.

c. 200 b.c.
Chinese artisans develop elaborate automata, including an entire mechanical orchestra.

c. 200 b.c.
A more accurate water clock is developed by an Egyptian engineer.

725
The first true mechanical clock is built by a Chinese engineer and a Buddhist monk. It is a water-driven device with an escapement that causes the clock to tick.

1494
Leonardo da Vinci conceives of and draws a clock with a pendulum, although an accurate pendulum clock will not be invented until the late seventeenth century.

1530
The spinning wheel is being used in Europe.

1540, 1772
The production of more elaborate automata technology grows out of clock- and watch-making technology during the European Renaissance. Famous examples include Gianello Toriano’s mandolin- playing lady (1540) and P. Jacquet-Dortz’s child (1772).

1543
Nicolaus Copernicus states in his De Revolutionibus that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. This theory effectively changed humankind’s relationship with and view of God.

17th-18th centuries
The age of the Enlightenment ushers in a philosophical movement that restores the belief in the supremacy of human reason, knowledge, and freedom. With its roots in ancient Greek philosophy and the European Renaissance, the Enlightenment is the first systematic reconsideration of the nature of human thought and knowledge since the Platonists, and inspires similar developments in science and theology.

1637
In addition to formulating the theory of optical refraction and developing the principles of modern analytic geometry, René Descartes pushes rational skepticism to its limits in his most comprehensive work, Discours de la Méthode. He concludes, “I think, therefore, I am.”

1642
Blaise Pascal invents the world’s first automatic calculating machine. Called the Pascaline, it can add and subtract.

1687
Isaac Newton establishes his three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation in his Philosophiae Naturalis Mathematica, also known as Principia.

1694
The Leibniz Computer is perfected by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was also an inventor of calculus. This machine multiplies by performing repetitive additions, an algorithm that is still used in computers today.

1719
An English silk-thread mill employing three hundred workers, mostly women and children, appears. It is considered by many to be the first factory in the modern sense.

1726
In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift describes a machine that will automatically write books.

1733
John Kay patents his New Engine for Opening and Dressing Wool. Later known as the flying shuttle, this invention paves the way for much faster weaving.

1760
In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin erects lightning rods after having discovered, through his famous kite experiment in 1752, that lightning is a form of electricity.

c. 1760
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, life expectancy is about thirty-seven years in both North America and northwestern Europe.

1764
The spinning jenny, which spins eight threads at the same time, is invented by James Hargreaves.

1769
Richard Arkwright patents a hydraulic spinning machine that is too large and expensive to use in family dwellings. Known as the founder of the modern factory system, he builds a factory for his machine in 1781, thus paving the way for many of the economic and social changes that will characterize the Industrial Revolution.

1781
Setting the stage for the emergence of twentieth- century rationalism, Immanuel Kant publishes his Critique of Pure Reason, which expresses the philosophy of the Enlightenment while de-emphasizing the role of metaphysics.

1800
All aspects of the production of cloth are now automated.

1805
Joseph-Marie Jacquard devises a method for automated weaving that is a precursor to early computer technology. The looms are directed by instructions on a series of punched cards.

1811
The Luddite movement is formed in Nottingham by artisans and laborers concerned about the loss of jobs due to automation.

1821
The British Astronomical Society awards its first gold medal to Charles Babbage for his paper “Observations on the Application of Machinery to the Computation of Mathematical Tables.”

1822
Charles Babbage develops the Difference Engine, although he eventually abandons this technically complex and expensive project to concentrate on developing a general-purpose computer.

1825
George Stephenson’s “Locomotion No. 1,” the first steam engine to carry passengers and freight on a regular basis, makes its first trip.

1829
An early typewriter is invented by William Austin Burt.

1832
The principles of the Analytical Engine are developed by Charles Babbage. It is the world’s first computer (although it never worked), and can be programmed to solve a wide array of computational and logical problems.

1837
A more practical version of the telegraph is patented by Samuel Finley Breese Morse. It sends letters in codes consisting of dots and dashes, a system still in common use more than a century later.

1839
A new process for making photographs, known as daguerreotypes, is presented by Louis-Jacques Daguerre of France.

1839
The first fuel cell is developed by William Robert Grove of Wales.

1843
Ada Lovelace, who is considered to be the world’s first computer programmer and was Lord Byron’s only legitimate child, publishes her own notes and a translation of L. P. Menabrea’s paper on Babbage’s Analytical Engine. She speculates on the ability of c?mputers to emulate human intelligence.

1846
The lock-stitch sewing machine is patented by Spenser, Massachusetts, resident Elias Howe.

1846
Alexander Bain greatly improves the speed of telegraph transmission by using punched paper tape to send messages.

1847
George Boole publishes his early ideas on symbolic logic that he will later develop into his theory of binary logic and arithmetic. His theories still form the basis of modern computation.

1854
Paris and London are connected by telegraph.

1859
Charles Darwin explains his principle of natural selection and its influence on the evolution of various species in his work Origin of Species.

1861
There are now telegraph lines connecting San Francisco and New York.

1867
The first commercially practical generator that produces alternating current is invented by Zénobe Théophile Gramme.

1869
Thomas Alva Edison sells the stock ticker that he invented to Wall Street for $40,000.

1870
On a per capita basis and in constant 1958 dollars, the GNP is $530. Twelve million Americans, or 31 percent of the population, have jobs, and only 2 percent of adults have high-school diplomas.

1871
Upon his death, Charles Babbage leaves more than four hundred square feet of drawings for his Analytical Engine.

1876
Alexander Graham Bell is granted U.S. patent number 174,465 for the telephone. It is the most lucrative patent granted at that time.

1877
William Thomson, later known as Lord Kelvin, demonstrates that it is possible for machines to be programmed to solve a great variety of mathematical problems.

1879
The first incandescent light bulb that burns for a substantial length of time is invented by Thomas Alva Edison.

1882
Thomas Alva Edison designs electric lighting for New York City’s Pearl Street station on lower Broadway.

1884
The fountain pen is patented by Lewis E. Waterman.

1885
Boston and New York are connected by telephone.

1888
William S. Burroughs patents the world’s first dependable key-driven adding machine. This calculator is modified four years later to include subtraction and printing, and it becomes widely used.

1888
Heinrich Hertz transmits what are now known as radio waves.

1890
Building upon ideas from Jacquard’s loom and Babbage’s Analytical Engine, Herman Hollerith patents an electromechanical information machine that uses punched cards. It wins the 1890 U.S. Census competition, thus introducing the use of electricity in a major data-processing project.

1896
Herman Hollerith founds the Tabulating Machine Company. This company eventually will become IBM.

1897
Because of access to better vacuum pumps than previously available, Joseph John Thomson discovers the electron, the first known particle smaller than an atom.

1897
Alexander Popov, a physicist in Russia, uses an antenna to transmit radio waves. Guglielmo Marconi of Italy receives the first patent ever granted for radio and helps organize a company to market his system.

1899
Sound is recorded magnetically on wire and on a thin metal strip.

1900
Herman Hollerith introduces the automatic card feed into his information machine to improve the processing of the 1900 census data.

1900
The telegraph now connects the entire civilized world. There are more than 1.4 million telephones, 8,000 registered automobiles, and 24 million electric light bulbs in the United States, with the latter making good Edison’s promise of “electric bulbs so cheap that only the rich will be able to afford candles.” In addition, the Gramophone Company is advertising a choice of 5,000 recordings.

1900
More than one third of all American workers are involved in the production of food.

1901
The first electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer Electric, is made.

1901
The Interpretation of Dreams is published by Sigmund Freud. This and other works by Freud help to illuminate the workings of the mind.

1902
Millar Hutchinson, of New York, invents the first electric hearing aid.

1905
The directional radio antenna is developed by Guglielmo Marconi.

1908
Orville Wright’s first hour-long airplane flight takes place.

1910-1913
Principia Mathematica, a seminal work on the foundations of mathematics, is published by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. This three- volume publication presents a new methodology for all mathematics.

1911
After acquiring several other companies, Herman Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company changes its name to Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR).

1915
Thomas J. Watson in San Francisco and Alexander Graham Bell in New York participate in the first North American transcontinental telephone call.

1921
The term robot is coined in 1917 by Czech dramatist Karel Capek. In his popular science fiction drama R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), he describes intelligent machines that, although originally created as servants for humans, end up taking over the world and destroying all mankind.

1921
Ludwig Wittgenstein publishes Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which is arguably one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth century. Wittgenstein is considered to be the first logical positivist.

1924
Originally Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) is renamed International Business Machines (IBM) by Thomas J. Watson, the new chief executive officer. IBM will lead the modern computer industry and become one of the largest industrial corporations in the world.

1925
The foundations of quantum mechanics are conceived by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

1927
The uncertainty principle, which says that electrons have no precise location but rather probability clouds of possible locations, is presented by Werner Heisenberg. Five years later he will win a Nobel Prize for his discovery of quantum mechanics.

1928
The minimax theorem is introduced by John von Neumann. This theorem will be widely used in future game-playing programs.

1928
The world’s first all-electronic television is presented this year by Philo T. Farnsworth, and a color television system is patented by Vladimir Zworkin.

1930
In the United States, 60 percent of all households have radios, with the number of personally owned radios now reaching more than 18 million.

1931
The incompleteness theorem, which is considered by many to be the most important theorem in all mathematics, is presented by Kurt Gödel.

1931
The electron microscope is invented by Ernst August Friedrich Ruska and, independently, by Rheinhold Ruedenberg.

1935
The prototype for the first heart-lung machine is invented.

1937
Grote Reber, of Wheaton, Illinois, builds the first intentional radio telescope, which is a dish 9.4 meters (31 feet) in diameter.

1937
Alan Turing introduces the Turing machine, a theoretical model of a computer, in his paper “On Computable Numbers.” His ideas build upon the work of Bertrand Russell and Charles Babbage.

1937
Alonzo Church and Alan Turing independently develop the Church-Turing thesis. This thesis states that all problems that a human being can solve can be reduced to a set of algorithms, supporting the idea that machine intelligence and human intelligence are essentially equivalent.

1938
The first ballpoint pen is patented by Lazlo Biró.

1939
Regularly scheduled commercial flights begin crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

1940
ABC, the first electronic (albeit nonprogrammable) computer, is built by John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry.

1940
The world’s first operational computer, known as Robinson, is created by Ultra, the ten- thousand- person British computer war effort. Using electromechanical relays, Robinson successfully decodes messages from Enigma, the Nazis’ first-generation enciphering machine.

1941
The world’s first fully programmable digital computer, the Z-3, is developed by Konrad Zuse, of Germany. Arnold Fast, a blind mathematician who is hired to program the Z-3, is the world’s first programmer of an operational programmable computer.

1943
Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts explore neural-network architectures for intelligence in their work “Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity.”

1943
Continuing their war effort, the Ultra computer team of Britain builds Colossus, which contributes to the Allied victory in World War II by being able to decipher even more complex German codes. It uses electronic tubes that are one hundred to one thousand times faster than the relays used by Robinson.

1944
Howard Aiken completes the Mark I. Using punched paper tape for programming and vacuum tubes to calculate problems, it is the first programmable computer built by an American.

1945
John von Neumann, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, publishes the first modern paper describing the stored-program concept.

1946
The world’s first fully electronic, general-purpose (programmable) digital computer is developed for the army by John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchley. Named ENIAC, it is almost one thousand times faster than the Mark I.

1946
Television takes off much more rapidly than did the radio in the 1920s. In 1946, the percentage of American homes having television sets is 0.02 percent. It will jump to 72 percent in 1956, and to more than 90 percent by 1983.

1947
The transistor is invented by William Bradford Shockley, Walter Hauser Brattain, and John Bardeen. This tiny device functions like a vacuum tube but is able to switch currents on and off at substantially higher speeds. The transistor revolutionizes microelectronics, contributing to lower costs of computers and leading to the development of mainframe and minicomputers.

1948
Cybernetics, a seminal book on information theory, is published by Norbert Wiener. He also coins the word Cybernetics to mean “the science of control and communication in the animal and the machine.”

1949
EDSAC, the world’s first stored-program computer, is built by Maurice Wilkes, whose work was influenced by Eckert and Mauchley. BINAC, developed by Eckert and Mauchley’s new U.S. company, is presented a short time later.

1949
George Orwell portrays a chilling world in which computers are used by large bureaucracies to monitor and enslave the population in his book 1984.

1950
Eckert and Mauchley develop UNIVAC, the first commercially marketed computer. It is used to compile the results of the U.S. census, marking the first time this census is handled by a programmable computer.

1950
In his paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Alan Turing presents the Turing Test, a means for determining whether a machine is intelligent.

1950
Commercial color television is first broadcast in the United States, and transcontinental black-and-white television is available within the next year.

1950
Claude Elwood Shannon writes “Programming a Computer for Playing Chess,” published in Philosophical Magazine.

1951
Eckert and Mauchley build EDVAC, which is the first computer to use the stored-program concept. The work takes place at the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania.

1951
Paris is the host to a Cybernetics Congress.

1952
UNIVAC, used by the Columbia Broa?casting System (CBS) television network, successfully predicts the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president of the United States.

1952
Pocket-sized transistor radios are introduced.

1952
Nathaniel Rochester designs the 701, IBM’s first production-line electronic digital computer. It is marketed for scientific use.

1953
The chemical structure of the DNA molecule is discovered by James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick.

1953
Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Waiting for Godot, a play by Samuel Beckett, are published. Both documents are considered of major importance to modern existentialism.

1953
Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy get summer jobs at Bell Laboratories.

1955
William Shockley’s Semiconductor Laboratory is founded, thereby starting Silicon Valley.

1955
The Remington Rand Corporation and Sperry Gyroscope join forces and become the Sperry-Rand Corporation. For a time, it presents serious competition to IBM.

1955
IBM introduces its first transistor calculator. It uses 2,200 transistors instead of the 1,200 vacuum tubes that would otherwise be required for equivalent computing power.

1955
A U.S. company develops the first design for a robotlike machine to be used in industry.

1955
IPL-II, the first artificial intelligence language, is created by Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon.

1955
The new space program and the U.S. military recognize the importance of having computers with enough power to launch rockets to the moon and missiles through the stratosphere. Both organizations supply major funding for research.

1956
The Logic Theorist, which uses recursive search techniques to solve mathematical problems, is developed by Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon.

1956
John Backus and a team at IBM invent FORTRAN, the first scientific computer-programming language.

1956
Stanislaw Ulam develops MANIAC I, the first computer program to beat a human being in a chess game.

1956
The first commercial watch to run on electric batteries is presented by the Lip company of France.

1956
The term Artificial Intelligence is coined at a computer conference at Dartmouth College.

1957
Kenneth H. Olsen founds Digital Equipment Corporation.

1957
The General Problem Solver, which uses recursive search to solve problems, is developed by Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon.

1957
Noam Chomsky writes Syntactic Structures, in which he seriously considers the computation required for natural-language understanding. This is the first of the many important works that will earn him the title Father of Modern Linguistics.

1958
An integrated circuit is created by Texas Instruments’ Jack St. Clair Kilby.

1958
The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is founded by John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky.

1958
Allen Newell and Herbert Simon make the prediction that a digital computer will be the world’s chess champion within ten years.

1958
LISP, an early AI language, is developed by John McCarthy.

1958
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which will fund important computer-science research for years in the future, is established.

1958
Seymour Cray builds the Control Data Corporation 1604, the first fully transistorized supercomputer.

1958-1959
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce each develop the computer chip independently. The computer chip leads to the development of much cheaper and smaller computers.

1959
Arthur Samuel completes his study in machine learning. The project, a checkers-playing program, performs as well as some of the best players of the time.

1959
Electronic document preparation increases the consumption of paper?in the United States. This year, the nation will consume 7 million tons of paper. In 1986, 22 million tons will be used. American businesses alone will use 850 billion pages in 1981, 2.5 trillion pages in 1986, and 4 trillion in 1990.

1959
COBOL, a computer language designed for business use, is developed by Grace Murray Hopper, who was also one of the first programmers of the Mark I.

1959
Xerox introduces the first commercial copier.

1960
Theodore Harold Maimen develops the first laser. It uses a ruby cylinder.

1960
The recently established Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency substantially increases its funding for computer research.

1960
There are now about six thousand computers in operation in the United States.

1960s
Neural-net machines are quite simple and incorporate a small number of neurons organized in only one or two layers. These models are shown to be limited in their capabilities.

1961
The first time-sharing computer is developed at MIT.

1961
President John F. Kennedy provides the support for space project Apollo and inspiration for important research in computer science when he addresses a joint session of Congress, saying, “I believe we should go to the moon.”

1962
The world’s first industrial robots are marketed by a U.S. company.

1962
Frank Rosenblatt defines the Perceptron in his Principles of Neurodynamics. Rosenblatt first introduced the Perceptron, a simple processing element for neural networks, at a conference in 1959.

1963
The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University is founded by John McCarthy.

1963
The influential Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence by Marvin Minsky is published.

1963
Digital Equipment Corporation announces the PDP-8, which is the first successful minicomputer.

1964
IBM introduces its 360 series, thereby further strengthening its leadership in the computer industry.

1964
Thomas E. Kurtz and John G. Kenny of Dartmouth College invent BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).

1964
Daniel Bobrow completes his doctoral work on Student, a natural-language program that can solve high-school-level word problems in algebra.

1964
Gordon Moore’s prediction, made this year, says integrated circuits will double in complexity each year. This will become known as Moore’s Law and prove true (with later revisions) for decades to come.

1964
Marshall McLuhan, via his Understanding Media, foresees the potential for electronic media, especially television, to create a “global village” in which “the medium is the message.”

1965
The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, which will become a leading research center for AI, is founded by Raj Reddy.

1965
Hubert Dreyfus presents a set of philosophical arguments against the possibility of artificial intelligence in a RAND corporate memo entitled “Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence.”

1965
Herbert Simon predicts that by 1985 “machines will be capable of doing any work a man can do.”

1966
The Amateur Computer Society, possibly the first personal computer club, is founded by Stephen B. Gray. The Amateur Computer Society Newsletter is one of the first magazines about computers.

1967
The first internal pacemaker is developed by Medtronics. It uses integrated circuits.

1968
Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found Intel (Integrated Electronics) Corporation.

1968
The idea of a computer that can see, speak, hear, and think sparks imaginations when HAL is presented in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick.

1969
Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert present the limitation of single-layer neural nets in th?ir book Perceptrons. The book’s pivotal theorem shows that a Perceptron is unable to determine if a line drawing is fully connected. The book essentially halts funding for neural-net research.

1970
The GNP, on a per capita basis and in constant 1958 dollars, is $3,500, or more than six times as much as a century before.

1970
The floppy disc is introduced for storing data in computers.

c. 1970
Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) develop the first personal computer, called Alto. PARC’s Alto pioneers the use of bit-mapped graphics, windows, icons, and mouse pointing devices.

1970
Terry Winograd completes his landmark thesis on SHRDLU, a natural-language system that exhibits diverse intelligent behavior in the small world of children’s blocks. SHRDLU is criticized, however, for its lack of generality.

1971
The Intel 4004, the first microprocessor, is introduced by Intel.

1971
The first pocket calculator is introduced. It can add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

1972
Continuing his criticism of the capabilities of AI, Hubert Dreyfus publishes What Computers Can’t Do, in which he argues that symbol manipulation cannot be the basis of human intelligence.

1973
Stanley H. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer show that DNA strands can be cut, joined, and then reproduced by inserting them into the bacterium Escherichia coli. This work creates the foundation for genetic engineering.

1974
Creative Computing starts publication. It is the first magazine for home computer hobbyists.

1974
The 8-bit 8080, which is the first general-purpose microprocessor, is announced by Intel.

1975
Sales of microcomputers in the United States reach more than five thousand, and the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, is introduced. It has 256 bytes of memory.

1975
BYTE, the first widely distributed computer magazine, is published.

1975
Gordon Moore revises his observation on the doubling rate of transistors on an integrated circuit from twelve months to twenty-four months.

1976
Kurzweil Computer Products introduces the Kurzweil Reading Machine (KRM), the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind. Based on the first omni-font (any font) optical character recognition (OCR) technology, the KRM scans and reads aloud any printed materials (books, magazines, typed documents).

1976
Stephen G. Wozniak and Steven P. Jobs found Apple Computer Corporation.

1977
The concept of true-to-life robots with convincing human emotions is imaginatively portrayed in the film Star Wars.

1977
For the first time, a telephone company conducts large-scale experiments with fiber optics in a telephone system.

1977
The Apple II, the first personal computer to be sold in assembled form and the first with color graphics capability, is introduced and successfully marketed.

1978
Speak & Spell, a computerized learning aid for young children, is introduced by Texas Instruments. This is the first product that electronically duplicates the human vocal tract on a chip.

1979
In a landmark study by nine researchers published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the performance of the computer program MYCIN is compared with that of doctors in diagnosing ten test cases of meningitis. MYCIN does at least as well as the medical experts. The potential of expert systems in medicine becomes widely recognized.

1979
Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston establish the personal computer as a serious business tool when they develop VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet.

1980
AI industry revenue is a few million dollars this year.

1980s
As neuron models are becoming potentially more sophisticated, the neural network paradigm begins to make a comeback, and networks with multiple layers are commonly ?sed.

1981
Xerox introduces the Star Computer, thus launching the concept of Desktop Publishing. Apple’s Laserwriter, available in 1985, will further increase the viability of this inexpensive and efficient way for writers and artists to create their own finished documents.

1981
IBM introduces its Personal Computer (PC).

1981
The prototype of the Bubble Jet printer is presented by Canon.

1982
Compact disc players are marketed for the first time.

1982
Mitch Kapor presents Lotus 1-2-3, an enormously popular spreadsheet program.

1983
Fax machines are fast becoming a necessity in the business world.

1983
The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is presented in Los Angeles at the first North American Music Manufacturers show.

1983
Six million personal computers are sold in the United States.

1984
The Apple Macintosh introduces the “desktop metaphor,” pioneered at Xerox, including bit-mapped graphics, icons, and the mouse.

1984
William Gibson uses the term cyberspace in his book Neuromancer.

1984
The Kurzweil 250 (K250) synthesizer, considered to be the first electronic instrument to successfully emulate the sounds of acoustic instruments, is introduced to the market.

1985
Marvin Minsky publishes The Society of Mind, in which he presents a theory of the mind where intelligence is seen to be the result of proper organization of a hierarchy of minds with simple mechanisms at the lowest level of the hierarchy.

1985
MIT’s Media Laboratory is founded by Jerome Weisner and Nicholas Negroponte. The lab is dedicated to researching possible applications and interactions of computer science, sociology, and artificial intelligence in the context of media technology.

1985
There are 116 million jobs in the United States, compared to 12 million in 1870. In the same period, the number of those employed has grown from 31 percent to 48 percent, and the per capita GNP in constant dollars has increased by 600 percent. These trends show no signs of abating.

1986
Electronic keyboards account for 55.2 percent of the American musical keyboard market, up from 9.5 percent in 1980.

1986
Life expectancy is about 74 years in the United States. Only 3 percent of the American workforce is involved in the production of food. Fully 76 percent of American adults have high-school diplomas, and 7.3 million U.S. students are enrolled in college.

1987
NYSE stocks have their greatest single-day loss due, in part, to computerized trading.

1987
Current speech systems can provide any one of the following: a large vocabulary, continuous speech recognition, or speaker independence.

1987
Robotic-vision systems are now a $300 million industry and will grow to $800 million by 1990.

1988
Computer memory today costs only one hundred millionth of what it did in 1950.

1988
Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert publish a revised edition of Perceptrons in which they discuss recent developments in neural network machinery for intelligence.

1988
In the United States, 4,700,000 microcomputers, 120,000 minicomputers, and 11,500 mainframes are sold this year.

1988
W. Daniel Hillis’s Connection Machine is capable of 65,536 computations at the same time.

1988
Notebook computers are replacing the bigger laptops in popularity.

1989
Intel introduces the 16-megahertz (MHz) 80386SX, 2.5 MIPS microprocessor.

1990
Nautilus, the first CD-ROM magazine, is published.

1990
The development of HypterText Markup Language by researcher Tim Berners-Lee and its release by CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, leads to the conception of the World Wide Web.

1991
Cell phones and e-mail are increasing in popularity as business and pe?sonal communication tools.

1992
The first double-speed CD-ROM drive becomes available from NEC.

1992
The first personal digital assistant (PDA), a hand-held computer, is introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. The developer is Apple Computer.

1993
The Pentium 32-bit microprocessor is launched by Intel. This chip has 3.1 million transistors.

1994
The World Wide Web emerges.

1994
America Online now has more than 1 million subscribers.

1994
Scanners and CD-ROMs are becoming widely used.

1994
Digital Equipment Corporation introduces a 300-MHz version of the Alpha AXP processor that executes 1 billion instructions per second.

1996
Compaq Computer and NEC Computer Systems ship hand-held computers running Windows CE.

1996
NEC Electronics ships the R4101 processor for personal digital assistants. It includes a touch-screen interface.

1997
Deep Blue defeats Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion, in a regulation tournament.

1997
Dragon Systems introduces Naturally Speaking, the first continuous-speech dictation software product.

1997
Video phones are being used in business settings.

1997
Face-recognition systems are beginning to be used in payroll check-cashing machines.

1998
The Dictation Division of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products (formerly Kurzweil Applied Intelligence) introduces Voice Xpress Plus, the first continuous-speech-recognition program with the ability to understand natural-language commands.

1998
Routine business transactions over the phone are beginning to be conducted between a human customer and an automated system that engages in a verbal dialogue with the customer (e.g., United Airlines reservations).

1998
Investment funds are emerging that use evolutionary algorithms and neural nets to make investment decisions (e.g., Advanced Investment Technologies).

1998
The World Wide Web is ubiquitous. It is routine for high-school students and local grocery stores to have web sites.

1998
Automated personalities, which appear as animated faces that speak with realistic mouth movements and facial expressions, are working in laboratories. These personalities respond to the spoken statements and facial expressions of their human users. They are being developed to be used in future user interfaces for products and services, as personalized research and business assistants, and to conduct transactions.

1998
Microvision’s Virtual Retina Display (VRD) projects images directly onto the user’s retinas. Although expensive, consumer versions are projected for 1999.

1998
“Bluetooth” technology is being developed for “body” local area networks (LANs) and for wireless communication between personal computers and associated peripherals. Wireless communication is being developed for high-bandwidth connection to the Web.

2009
A $1,000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second.

Personal computers with high-resolution visual displays come in a range of sizes, from those small enough to be embedded in clothing and jewelry up to the size of a thin book.

Cables are disappearing. Communication between components uses short-distance wireless technology. High-speed wireless communication provides access to the Web.

The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition. Also ubiquitous are language user interfaces (LUIs).

Most routine business transactions (purchases, travel, reservations) take place between a human and a virtual personality. Often, the virtual personality includes an animated visual presence that looks like a human face.

Although traditional classroom organization is still common, intelligent courseware has emerged as a common means of learning.

Pocket-sized reading ma?hines for the blind and visually impaired, “listening machines” (speech- to- text conversion) for the deaf, and computer- controlled orthotic devices for paraplegic individuals result in a growing perception that primary disabilities do not necessarily impart handicaps.

Translating telephones (speech-to-speech language translation) are commonly used for many language pairs.<

Accelerating returns from the advance of computer technology have resulted in continued economic expansion. Price deflation, which had been a reality in the computer field during the twentieth century, is now occurring outside the computer field. The reason for this is that virtually all economic sectors are deeply affected by the accelerating improvement in the price performance of computing.

Human musicians routinely jam with cybernetic musicians.

Bioengineered treatments for cancer and heart disease have greatly reduced the mortality from these diseases.

The neo-Luddite movement is growing.

2019
A $1,000 computing device (in 1999 dollars) is now approximately equal to the computational ability of the human brain.

Computers are now largely invisible and are embedded everywhere — in walls, tables, chairs, desks, clothing, jewelry, and bodies.

Three-dimensional virtual reality displays, embedded in glasses and contact lenses, as well as auditory “lenses,” are used routinely as primary interfaces for communication with other persons, computers, the Web, and virtual reality.

Most interaction with computing is through gestures and two-way natural-language spoken communication.

Nanoengineered machines are beginning to be applied to manufacturing and process-control applications.

High-resolution, three-dimensional visual and auditory virtual reality and realistic all-encompassing tactile environments enable people to do virtually anything with anybody, regardless of physical proximity.

Paper books or documents are rarely used and most learning is conducted through intelligent, simulated software-based teachers.

Blind persons routinely use eyeglass-mounted reading-navigation systems. Deaf persons read what other people are saying through their lens displays. Paraplegic and some quadriplegic persons routinely walk and climb stairs through a combination of computer-controlled nerve stimulation and exoskeletal robotic devices.

The vast majority of transactions include a simulated person.

Automated driving systems are now installed in most roads.

People are beginning to have relationships with automated personalities and use them as companions, teachers, caretakers, and lovers.

Virtual artists, with their own reputations, are emerging in all of the arts.

There are widespread reports of computers passing the Turing Test, although these tests do not meet the criteria established by knowledgeable observers.

2029
A $1,000 (in 1999 dollars) unit of computation has the computing capacity of approximately 1,000 human brains.

Permanent or removable implants (similar to contact lenses) for the eyes as well as cochlear implants are now used to provide input and output between the human user and the worldwide computing network.

Direct neural pathways have been perfected for high-bandwidth connection to the human brain. A range of neural implants is becoming available to enhance visual and auditory perception and interpretation, memory, and reasoning.

Automated agents are now learning on their own, and significant knowledge is being created by machines with little or no human intervention. Computers have read all available human- and machine-generated literature and multimedia material.

There is widespread use of all-encompassing visual, auditory, and tactile communication using direct neural connections, allowing virtual reality to take place without having to be in a “total touch enclosure.”

The majority of communication d?es not involve a human. The majority of communication involving a human is between a human and a machine.

There is almost no human employment in production, agriculture, or transportation. Basic life needs are available for the vast majority of the human race.

There is a growing discussion about the legal rights of computers and what constitutes being “human.”

Although computers routinely pass apparently valid forms of the Turing Test, controversy persists about whether or not machine intelligence equals human intelligence in all of its diversity.

Machines claim to be conscious. These claims are largely accepted.

2049
The common use of nanoproduced food, which has the correct nutritional composition and the same taste and texture of organically produced food, means that the availability of food is no longer affected by limited resources, bad crop weather, or spoilage.<

Nanobot swarm projections are used to create visual-auditory-tactile projections of people and objects in real reality.

2072
Picoengineering (developing technology at the scale of picometers or trillionths of a meter) becomes practical.1

By the year 2099
There is a strong trend toward a merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created.

There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers.

Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence.

Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human intelligence claim to be human, although their brains are not based on carbon-based cellular processes, but rather electronic and photonic equivalents. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation.

Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology, which provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do.

Because most information is published using standard assimilated knowledge protocols, information can be instantly understood. The goal of education, and of intelligent beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn.

Femtoengineering (engineering at the scale of femtometers or one thousandth of a trillionth of a meter) proposals are controversial.2

Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings.

Some many millenniums hence . . .
Intelligent beings consider the fate of the Universe.