Near-term science fiction

I am a science fiction buff. I admit. It is probably time to go into rehabilitation. That aside, what is fascinating for me is often the missing links between what can be and what is. In the void often being huge, some manage to portray a convincing picture of what comes over the top of todays scientific reaches. Then again, what's in it for me? I mean, in what way do I even want to participate or reject? The future becomes such an impersonal proposition. So, let me be impersonal on this subject alone.

We are the first generation of users of internet and the last not to have had it when born. It is still possible to imagine with some conviction how it is to live comfortable without electricity. Even without a single written word. Without memories, no. It is so uncool not to at least being able to act on more than instinct. Try being hungry for five days, that will help you remember that particular frame of mind. It is also quite painful to carry needless traumas around, not being able to edit out something.

So the a start must be a complete logging of ones life with a damned good search interface to it. This is already being done by a Microsoft research project, MyLifeBits. Such a pity they don't know to get it on net, available to public tryout. It is not too soon, even if their software probably is full of faults or not. The public has been ready for it a long time. Witness all blogs, even like this one just raving on. There are amazing possibilities and a whole new set of social models for interaction. It adds new meaning to the feeling of control and choice. The danger is of course of forgetting even your instincts. A good model for total capture must be open to control.

I would like to have wetware with agent nanoware - pattern recognition, semiotic indexing, autonomy help agent, deep grammar bablefish, game-theory engine and so forth. Layer upon layer of reality managed by a complete AI. A genuine von Neumann article of subversive handicraft. Money will have no value, reputation rating will.
This whole package is hard to come by in any affordable or even realistic manner today. Software agents are being developed though, e.g. by the CTU Department of Cybernetics. Nanotechnology is advancing to a new level, so wetware is conceivable. Computational power is in high demand - the estimated need for running a medium density weather system is about 1 petaFLOPS sustained.

IBM have gone hard down on the supercomputer market with their quad-core POWER4 chip, optimized for high throughput multitasking and scalability. A supercomputer running at 7000 megaFLOPS is as affordable today as 1000 was just a couple of years ago and substantially smaller. Blue Gene L was the most powerful supercomputer at the end of 2006 with a staggering 280 teraFLOPS sustained. It consists of 131.072 POWER3-II processors. My computer does around 1500 megaFLOPS. I don't even know if those sizes are comparable. Mine fits under the desk though. Having a petaFLOPS machine attached to your skull is still way off.

What you can do in the meantime is to glue a camera to your glasses, a microfone on your breast, a wrist watch monitoring vital signs and at least record your life from just outside your skull.