From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Dec 20 2000 - 03:30:18 MST
If I was 20-some instead of 40-some what would I major in and/or do as a
career? There is a very good chance that I would do Computer Science
much as I did decide to do. Although if I had it to do over I would
have hung out in academia longer. But I was in too much of a hurry to
build cool real-world stuff. Even if I was of much the same
disposition and younger now I would steer that desire toward building
AI principally with a strong emphasis on GA and cognitive science.
With nanotech as hot as it is now I would take a lot deeper
concentration in physics, biology, molecular biology, chemistry, of
course all the math I can grok and so on. I would look for a research
position in some lab, commercial, academic or privately funded doing at
least entry level relevant work.
Another strong draw would be to the sociological implications of the
approaching singularity and to design of the type of world we would like
to get to or at least finding ways to sketch/image ideas in that
direction it so people could think about it more thoroughly. A course
in psychology toward understanding practical memetics would be a
definite possibility.
So, in short, I would study a lot of stuff and look for a way to become
a player for money or not as quickly as I could but not so quickly as to
not build a firm grasp of the subject.
If I was of a mind I would start or at least design some business plans
of things coming up next.
I'm starting to think that the hottest next thing (< 2 years before it
explodes) is PDAs on steroids => practical, ubiquitous wearable
computers and massively available personalized computer access and
services. This will enable a level of human computer support and
extension that will be impossible not to have if you want to be
competitive a few slim years hence. It is a very interesting field full
of challenges and wonderful possibilities. It will make a real
difference in raising the effective IQ.
- samantha
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