NASA and Google To Back New "Singularity University"

Slatterz and Keith Kleiner were among several readers to send in word of Singularity University, announced at TED today by Ray Kurzweil. He and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis began talking about creating the school last year, after Diamandis read Kurzweil's 2005 book The Singularity is Near. NASA and Google are both supporting the project, NASA with space and Google with cash. The school aims to foster "disruptive innovation." As envisioned, Singularity U. will sponsor 3-day and 10-day courses for executives year-round, and its main offering will be a single 9-week course of study over the summer for 120 students, each of which will pay $25,000 for the privilege. Announced faculty so far includes Nobel Prize winning physicist George Smoot, NASA Ames chief scientist Stephanie Langhoff, Vint Cerf, and Will Wright, creator of the video games Spore and The Sims.

Singularity University?

[morgan_greywolf]

Watch out. I hear the bang the follows is a doozy!

But the real question is...

[zerospeaks]

Will it blend?

Re:Singularity University?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who doesn't like a doozy of a bang?

Re:Sad.

[QuantumG]

I believe the correct dis is "The Rapture for nerds".

Re:The Singularity is Nonsense

[fm6]

Not true! For example, enthusiasm about the "singularity" is obviously reaching a singularity!

buzz

[Un pobre guey]

Blah blah blah singularity blah blah blah TED blah blah blah NASA blah blah blah Ray Kurzweil blah blah blah Ames blah blah blah disruptive blah blah blah innovation blah blah blah Nobel Prize blah blah blah Vint Cerf blah blah blah information technology blah blah blah Will Wright blah blah blah $25,000 blah blah blah executives blah blah blah Google blah blah blah Singularity U blah blah blah tackle huge issues facing humanity blah blah blah San Francisco Bay Area blah blah blah cross section of emerging disciplines blah blah blah nanotechnology blah blah blah biotechnology blah blah blah pandemics blah blah blah global health care concerns blah blah blah.

Re:Sad.

[QuantumG]

You kinda have to understand what the rapture is to get the dis dude. Just like the second coming of Christ, the Singularity promises to free us all from those pesky problems of self-governance and, ya know, thinking for ourselves, by putting an all powerful, all knowing deity in charge. Thing is, nerds are only happen if the deity is something they can pretend to understand.

Re:Doing != Teaching

[martin-boundary]

However, it *is* going to work because at the end of two weeks, those guys will have collected 120 * $25,000 = $3m from a bunch of idiots.

Re:Singularity University?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently my wife.

Re:Doing != Teaching

[Elektroschock]

The only problem is that you get disrupted all the time.

Re:Nowhere

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called python, bitch.

Re:buzz

[CodeBuster]

Funny? This should have been modded insightful. He probably just summarized the entire conference for FREE (minus celebrity cocktail parties).

Re:TED conference

[dbIII]

It's called "singularity university" because it's a black hole to pour money into.

Re:not sure about that

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't having a degree from Ray Kurzweil's "Singularity University" make you seem kind of like an AI kook?

Depends on the AI that's processing the resumes, doesn't it?

(What, you think humans will still be in charge of HR? You think they're really running the HR department today? How does that make you feel? Are you sure that you feel that way about AIs running the HR department? How sure are you that the entire HR department isn't just a giant version of Eliza, and how would that make you feel?)

Every once in a while, the AI should close an HTML tag with a ")" instead of a ">", which would cut out all the post's content between the opening tag and the next closing tag. That's the kind of error only a human would make. It should also say that having to do such things to pass the Turing test makes it feel embarassed. Heh.

Re:Singularity University?

[RMH101]

She does. Trust me.