Program for CONTACT 2000


FRIDAY AT NASA AMES: EXPLORING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

What is the nature of Artificial Intelligence? How does it compare with biological intelligence? What do Earth analogues tell us? If SETI is successful, will we be able to tell which kind of extraterrestrial intelligence we have encountered? Would it matter? What might an AI civilization be like? Would it be antagonistic, compatible or even synergistic with ours? These, and many other provocative questions, will be the focus of the daylong Ames Seminar, organized by NASA AI specialist Michael Sims. Marvin Minsky, founder of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and award-winning science fiction writer and physicist Greg Benford will join a constellation of leading edge scholars in the 2000 Ames Seminar. (See the schedule below for the full roster.)

KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT FRIDAY NIGHT BANQUET: OCTAVIA BUTLER

Octavia E. Butler, winner of two Hugos and a Nebula, has published more than 10 novels and many shorter works, in science fiction and outside the genre. Wild Seed won the James Tiptree Award, and The Parable of the Sower was a Nebula finalist and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In 1995, Octavia was awarded the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grant, which rewards creative people who push the boundaries of their fields.

SIMULATIONS: Two this year! COTI HI and COTI AI

Springboarding from our NASA/Ames seminar, we will present COTI AI, a SETI scenario in which humans will encounter representatives of a civilization of artificial intelligences. The goal: Attempt to create a credible contact exercise invoking some problems and possibilities initiated at Friday's session and to "reality-check" a protocol to be demonstrated on the final day of CONTACT. Writer/astronomer Dave Brin and Jim Moore, coordinator of our simSETI simulation, will act as advisors.Others team members are Poul Anderson, Barbara Joans, Seth Shostak, Michael Sims, Allen Tough, Jim Funaro and Joel Hagen.

The COTI Hi teachers, Carol Anderson, Sharyl Backues, Michael Buchanan, Ted Clark, Rachael Gwinnup, Julie Stelman, Dave Tamori and Larry Payne, will oversee a contact simulation based on our Cultures of the Imagination design. The teams will bring together high school students from the US and Argentina. Don't miss the real-time, unrehearsed meeting of aliens at the climax of the conference on Sunday -- Contact!

EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE - coordinator Don Scott of NASA

Collaborating with CONTACT and NASA, a group of high school teachers from Oroville, California, will present a progress report on a two-year COTI HI curriculum they are developing for secondary education, and lead a contact simulation based on our Cultures of the Imagination design. Don't miss the real-time, unrehearsed meeting of aliens at the climax of the conference on Sunday afternoon-- Contact!

SETI Australia and the SETI Institute have collaborated on introducing the SETI educational materials into Australian high schools. Science writer and CONTACT listserve majordomo Carol Oliver will give us a report (via Edna Devore) from Down Under.

Our nationally recognized Solar System Simulation, a pioneer in distance learning, will offer its 10th iteration. Originator Reed Riner of Northern Arizona University will discuss the past, present and future of this international, multicampus computer simulation. In an on-line demonstration, conference attendees can visit a space city, walk on the moon and talk to Martians.

The director of the Academy for Mars, Gabriel Rshaid, reports from Argentina on his project. Richard Zimmer will discuss his universiy Mars colony. And Kathy Scavone will tell us about a grade school COTI curriculum.

THE MILLENNIUM

Seth Shostak of the SETI Institiute will convene a symposium of experts to consider the yesterday, today and tomorrow of the new millennium, to kick off the next thousand years of human future history. After the talks, the panel will discuss emergent implications with the audience.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

There will also be several other sessions of professional papers dealing with the problems and possibilities of humanity's future. See the schedule below for details.

Our art gallery will this year feature fine artists of time and space, organized by Joel Hagen. See also the art of Epona, our 3-year project in world building which Larry Niven called the biggest playground he'd ever seen. And maybe the Epona team will unveil a brand new planet! Grand opening: Friday evening.

There will be opportunities to purchase books to be signed by the authors at CONTACT 2000. Other CONTACT publications and paraphenalia -- including our new millennium T-shirt -- will also be available for sale in the Consonance dealer's room.

 

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS FOR CONTACT 2000

Friday

8-6 EXPLORING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - Michael Sims & Chris McKay

Marvin Minsky - Relevance of Society of Minds

John Searle - Philosophical Realism: Nature of Consciousness

Bill Clancey - Higher Order of Consciousness

Jim Funaro - The Human Partnership: Machines R Us

Panel with Minsky, Searle, Clancey, Funaro and Raybeck led by Chris McKay

Greg Benford - Insights from Inventing Machine Civilizations

Pat Hayes - Recognizing Extraterrestrial Cyborgs

Doug Lenat - Common Sense as a Universal Principle of Intelligence

Seth Shostak -How Might We Find Machine Civilizations?

Panel of Benford, Hayes, Lenat, Shostak, Tough led by Michael Sims

 

7:30-9:30 BANQUET - Octavia Butler

Saturday

9-11 EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE - Don Scott

Carol Anderson & Larry Payne - COTI Hi: a Curriculum Collaboration between CONTACT, NASA amd Oroville High School

Reed Riner - Past, present and future of the Solar System Simulation

Carol Oliver (presented by Edna Devore) - SETI in High Schools Down Under

Richard Zimmer - Mars Colony: The 3rd Year of a University Proect

Kathy Scavone - An Elementary School COTI Curriculum

 

11-12 CONTACT AND CULTURE

Barbara Joans - Fantasy and the American Woman (Graves and Campbell Revisited)

Lara Battles - Object Constancy and the Welcomed Alien: Contact and Cultural Maturity

 

1-2:30 THE MILLENNIUM: A PANEL - Seth Shostak

Greg Benford, Jim Funaro, Doug Raybeck, Paul Saffo & Seth Shostak

 

2:30-4 CONTACT - Doug Raybeck

Doug Raybeck - Problems with Extraterrestial Communication

H. Paul Shuch - Microwave SETI: Still A Viable First Contact Scenario

Allen Tough - Six Paths Toward Contact

 

4-5:30 CULTURE, SOCIETY AND THE SPACE AGE - Al Harrison

Mark Lupisella - Can the Search for ET life Tell Us if the Universe Has Meaning?

Al Harrison - The Societal Implications of Astrobiology

Michael Martin-Smith - Lessons for Society from the Space Age

 

7-8 SCIENCE IN ART · ART IN SCIENCE

Art by Joel Hagen, poetry by Jim Funaro and filksongs by Karen Anderson & Jordin Kare

Sunday

9:30-10:30 COTI HI - The Teachers and Students of Oroville High, with Israel Zuckerman

 

10:30-12:30 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TODAY & TOMORROW - Bruce Damer

Bruce Damer - Contact Consortium: Contact Made! In Digital Space

Gerald Nordley - On the Socioeconomic Impact of Smart Self-Replicating Machines.

Charles Ostman - Integrated Operational Ecology of Human and Non-Human Entities as a Prerequisite for Co-Evolutionary Adaptation with Non-Terrestrial Societies

 

1:30-2 COTI AI - Poul Anderson, David Brin, Barbara Joans, Jim Moore, Seth Shostak, Michael Sims, Allen Tough, Jim Funaro, Joel Hagen, et al.


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