Future. Present.

GLOBAL INSPIRATIONAL LEADERS AWARD — Deeply grateful, profoundly humbled. It’s an honor to receive such profound recognition for a relatively modest role. It takes each and every one of our collective efforts to manifest the profound and positive change that's so very much needed in today’s rapidly-changing world.

— In tribute to longtime influence and inspiration, brilliant and practical pioneer of quantum mechanics, Michael Horne, co-inventor of Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state, higher-dimensional multipartite quantum entanglement, together with Danny Greenberger and Anton Zeilinger, himself recognized as 2022 Nobel laureate in physics with Aspect and Clauser for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.

International Akademie Traunkirchen, with Greenberger, Horne, Zeilinger, et al.

Starlab, the Singularity, and Nuclear Armageddon

I began my scientific career at a multidisciplinary research institute, Starlab, located deep in the serene and secluded forests outside Brussels, Belgium. The lab’s principal base of operations was housed in a historic landmark — an imposing 19th century manor, remarkable both in scale and magnificence. In a previous incarnation, the palatial grounds served as official embassy for the First Republic of Czechoslovakia. Its nearest neighbor, the legendary Pastéur Institute, was one of but a handful of highly-secured Biosafety Level 4 labs in the world. 

Cofounded by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte and serial entrepreneur Walter de Brouwer and established in partnership with MIT, Oxford and Ghent University, Starlab was created as a “Noah's Ark” to bring together the world's most brilliant and creative scientists to work on far-ranging multidisciplinary projects that hold the potential to convey a profound and positive impact on future generations. 

Starlab was borne as an incubator for long-term and basic research in the spirit of Bell Labs, MIT Media Lab, Xerox PARC, and Interval Research. Its research mantras were “Deep Future” and “A place where one hundred years means nothing.” Approximately 130 scientists from thirty-seven different nationalities — each established leaders in their respective research fields — lived and worked at the lab. 

DF2 (Deep Future II) Barcelona

A second base of operations, Starlab DF-II (Deep Future II) was established in the Royal Observatory in Spain on a mountaintop perch overlooking the city of Barcelona. With a more tightly-focused mission scope of space-borne and neuroscience research, Starlab DF-II has continued to innovate and grow to present day. 

Discovery Channel Special

Onsite research ranged from artificial intelligence, biophysics, consciousness, emotics, intelligent clothing, materials science, protein folding, neuroscience, new media, nanoelectronics, quantum computation, quantum information, robotics, stem cell research, theoretical physics — e.g., the possibility of time travel — transarchitecture, and wearable computing. 

Our custom-built supercomputer, the CAM-Brain Machine, was supported in part by a 1 Million Euro grant from the European Union. The custom-designed and created supercomputer — as powerful as 10,000 Pentium II PCs — harnessed the power of Xilinx field programmable gate array (FPGA) evolutionary hardware to evolve seventy-five million neurons in a massively-parallel artificial neural network instantiated directly in silico using evolutionary genetic algorithms. With each clock tick, the supercomputer simultaneously updates hundreds of  millions of cellular automata billions of times per second. 

When our laboratory came up short on research grants, I personally went to the President himself when fate brought us together at the same time and place on his first trip overseas after election. The Commander in Chief impressed me with both his immediate familiarity with our work and and his enthusiasm in response to my earnest request for $1M in budget that had been allocated for national security priority scientific research topics through a grant newly created by Clinton with his last act in office, the 2001 National Nanotechnology Initiative.         

For my contributions to the program, I was selected by the US Government as one of three graduate students most likely to impact the future of the field at Salishan, an honor shared with John Carmack and Bill Butera, sponsored to attend conferences and senior administrator briefings at Fort Meade, National Security Agency headquarters outside Washington, DC, attended the World Technology Summit in London, was an invited delegate to the French Sénat to provide testimony on the future of technology and how it will transform our lives over coming decades — and more. 

Following three days of enraptured debate with senior politicians, senators and international diplomats at the French Sénat hearing on artificial intelligence in Paris, the world's first senate hearing on the topic, Starlab's principal investigator and AI program lead predicted I'd one day be elected President myself. Far sooner than that, however, he drew my attention to the threat of assassination from technology Luddites who stand in opposition to the rapid pace of progress in artificial intelligence.

My living arrangements at the lab consisted of an expansive three-bedroom master suite and fully-stocked library, typically reserved for visiting prime ministers and senior diplomats, and was shared with none other than the project's principal investigator, Hugo de Garis. de Garis came up with the idea to obtain a life-size replica of Fat Man — the solid plutonium core, 21 kiloton, 10,300-pound nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki — and to mount it precariously to the vaulted ceilings of my apartment, with the bomb hanging directly over my bed. 

The sheer audacity of the proposal conveyed an unforgettable impression that seemed more than a little bit crazy at the time. Intending to serve as a dramatic and powerful reminder of “the weight of my responsibility to the future of humanity,” he planned to make the message one to remember. de Garis had just finished filming a Discovery Channel documentary on the Future of Artificial Intelligence that featured the potential for future conflict between humanity and artificial intelligence. The Volkswagen beetle-sized replica of the bomb served as a prop for the documentary that he purchased outright from the film studio, making arrangements for expedited shipping and delivery direct to Starlab's headquarters in Brussels.

With the contemporary advent of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) we see all around us today—and with artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) seemingly just around the corner — one could say that de Garis, though radical and exceedingly unconventional in his approach, was just a few decades ahead of his time. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, xAI founder Elon Musk, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have each claimed that AI poses an extinction risk on par with nuclear war. The work and life experiences and the lessons learned from living at Starlab in such a unique and remarkable environment are priceless, growing ever more timely and relevant with each passing day. 

A recent Financial Times (FT) spinoff magazine, Sifted article highlights my background going back to Starlab, AI and time travel research, travels across East Asia to create national quantum roadmaps for US national research funding and IC agency directors — on through foundational research fellowships in quantum mechanics with Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger’s group in Austria and across Europe — from manned spaceflight training at NASA on to field expeditions employing state-of-the-art sensors, leading multidisciplinary teams of scientists, researchers, special forces domain experts and engineers to field-test next-generation technologies in austere environments  — all under the shared overarching objective of contributing to large-scale global initiatives that hold the potential to convey a profound and positive impact on the future of humanity — our children, our children’s children, and the generations yet to come. 

⦿ Starlab: The Noah's Ark of Scientific Research that Launched 1000 Startup Ideas

“ Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light — not our darkness — that most frightens us. We oft ask ourselves: ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small here doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that lies within us. It’s not just in some of us. It’s in everyone—and as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ”

— Marianne Williamson

Two hundred years ago, if you suggested people would comfortably travel in flying machines—reaching any destination in the world in a few hours time—instantly access the world's cumulative knowledge by speaking to something the size of a deck of cards, or travel to the Moon, or Mars, you'd be labeled a madman. The future is bound only by our imagination. 

Someday very soon we may look back on the world today in much the same way as we did those who lived in the time of Galileo, when everyone lived with such great certainty and self-assuredness that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe. The time is now. A profound shift in consciousness is long overdue. The universe is teeming with life. We're all part of the same human family. 

This is potentially the single most momentous moment in our known history—not just for us as a nation, or us as humanity, but as a planet. The technological leaps that could come from developing open contact with nonhuman intelligence are almost beyond our comprehension. That is why this is such a monumental moment for us as a collective whole. It could literally change every single one of the eight billion human lives on this planet. 

We stand on the shores of a vast cosmic ocean, with untold continents of possibility to explore. As we continue forwards in our collective journey, scaling the cosmic ladder of evolution, progressing onwards, expanding our reach outwards in the transition to a multiplanetary species—Earth will soon be a destination, not just a point of origin. 

 

Time Magazine, June 2023

How Artificial Intelligence Could Save the Day: The threat of extinction and how AI can help protect biodiversity in Nature

Allianz Global Investors 

The Conversation If we’re going to label AI an ‘extinction risk’, we need to clarify how it could happen As a professor of AI, I am also in favor of reducing any risk, and prepared to work on it personally. But any statement worded in such a way is bound to create alarm, so its authors should probably be more specific and clarify their concerns. 

CNN AI industry and researchers sign statement warning of ‘extinction’ risk Dozens of AI industry leaders, academics and even some celebrities called for reducing the risk of global annihilation due to artificial intelligence, arguing that the threat of an AI extinction event should be a top global priority.

NYT AI Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Industry Leaders Warn Leaders from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and other A.I. labs warn that future systems could be as deadly as pandemics and nuclear weapons. 

BBC Experts warn of artificial intelligence risk of extinction Artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity, experts — including the heads of OpenAI and Google Deepmind — have warned.

PBS Artificial intelligence raises risk of extinction, experts warn Scientists and tech industry leaders, including high-level executives at Microsoft and Google, issued a new warning Tuesday about the perils that artificial intelligence poses to humankind. 

NPR Leading experts warn of a risk of extinction from AI Experts issued a dire warning on Tuesday: Artificial intelligence models could soon be smarter and more powerful than us and it is time to impose limits to ensure they don't take control over humans or destroy the world. 

CBC Artificial intelligence poses 'risk of extinction,' tech execs and experts warn More than 350 industry leaders sign a letter equating potential AI risks with pandemics and nuclear war. 

CBS AI could pose "risk of extinction" akin to nuclear war and pandemics, experts say Artificial intelligence could pose a "risk of extinction" to humanity on the scale of nuclear war or pandemics, and mitigating that risk should be a "global priority," according to an open letter signed by AI leaders such as Sam Altman of OpenAI as well as Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "godfather" of AI. 

USA Today AI poses risk of extinction, 350 tech leaders warn in open letter CAIS said it released the statement as a way of encouraging AI experts, journalists, policymakers and the public to talk more about urgent risks relating to artificial intelligence.

CNBC AI poses human extinction risk on par with nuclear war, Sam Altman and other tech leaders warn Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, as well as executives from Google’s AI arm DeepMind and Microsoft were among those who supported and signed the short statement. 

Wired Runaway AI Is an Extinction Risk, Experts Warn A new statement from industry leaders cautions that artificial intelligence poses a threat to humanity on par with nuclear war or a pandemic. 

Forbes Geoff Hinton, AI’s Most Famous Researcher, Warns Of ‘Existential Threat’ From AI The alarm bell I’m ringing has to do with the existential threat of them taking control,” Hinton said Wednesday, referring to powerful AI systems. “I used to think it was a long way off, but I now think it's serious and fairly close.

The Guardian Risk of extinction by AI should be global priority, say experts Hundreds of tech leaders call for world to treat AI as danger on par with pandemics and nuclear war.

The Associated Press Artificial intelligence raises risk of extinction, experts say in new warning Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.

Al Jazeera Does artificial intelligence pose the risk of human extinction? Tech industry leaders issue a warning as governments consider how to regulate AI without stifling innovation.

The Atlantic We're Underestimating the Risk of Human Extinction An Oxford philosopher argues that we are not adequately accounting for technology's risks—but his solution to the problem is not for Luddites.

Sky News AI is similar extinction risk as nuclear war and pandemics, say industry experts The warning comes after the likes of Elon Musk and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also sounded significant notes of caution about AI in recent months.

80,000 hours The Case for Reducing Existential Risk Concerns of human extinction have started a new movement working to safeguard civilisation, which has been joined by Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, and new institutes founded by researchers at Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, and elsewhere.

The Washington Post AI poses ‘risk of extinction’ on par with nukes, tech leaders say Dozens of tech executives and researchers signed a new statement on AI risks, but their companies are still pushing the technology 

TechCrunch OpenAI’s Altman and other AI giants back warning of advanced AI as ‘extinction’ risk In a Twitter thread accompanying the launch of the statement, CAIS director Dan Hendrycks expands on the aforementioned statement, naming “systemic bias, misinformation, malicious use, cyberattacks, and weaponization” as examples of “important and urgent risks from AI — not simply risk of extinction.”

International School of Science, Tokyo

STEAM Summer School 2022 

Mission: Mars

Tokyo, Japan

August 2022

We are all part of an unfolding evolutionary process over 100 billion galaxies wide, each sharing the light of a trillion shining stars.

Overview

“For those who have seen the Earth from space—and for the thousands more who soon will—the experience profoundly transforms your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.”    

           – Don Williams 

We dream. It's what makes us who we are. Down to our bones, to the core of our cellular memories, passed down through eons of survival, expansion, exploration and growth. The instinct to build, the drive to seek beyond what we know. It's in our DNA. 

We cross the oceans, we conquer the skies, unyielding, relentless in our pursuit of the farthest frontiers, venturing forth to launch ourselves outwards and find a new home for our descendants among the stars. 

Yesterday's impossible becomes today's greatest achievement—and tomorrow's routine. The heavens beckon, parting open. A new generation of innovators and explorers heeds the call, the invitation to take our species further: not just to visit, but to stay. 

Keynote on the Future of Space Exploration, broadcast live to 108 cities around the world

Carpe futurum.

– Christopher Altman

Artificial Quantum Life on the IBM Q Cloud Quantum Computer

Physicists in the QUTIS Quantum Biomimetics and Quantum Artificial Life research group at the Department of Physical Chemistry, University of the Basque Country in Spain have harnessed the unprecedented power of the IBM Q Cloud Quantum Computer—recently made available for public use (IBM makes 20 qubit quantum computing machine available as a cloud service)—to reproduce the hallmark features of Darwinian life and evolution in microscopic quantum systems, proving they can efficiently encode quantum features and biological behaviors that are usually associated with living systems and natural selection.

The fundamental features of evolution captured in the system include interaction between individuals, self-replication, generational adaptation, and heritable mutations conveyed through the transfer of entangled quantum information. The self-replication mechanism employed by the researchers is based on two partial quantum cloning events—an operation that entangles either the genotype or the phenotype with a blank state, and copies a certain expectation value of the original qubit in both of the outcome qubits.

The final ingredient is the interaction between individuals, which conditionally exchange the phenotypes depending on the genotypes. This behavior is achieved via a four-qubit unitary operation, where genotypes and phenotypes play the role of control and target qubits, respectively. The conjunction of these components leads to a minimal but consistent Darwinian quantum scenario.

From the report:

Quantum Artificial Life in an IBM Quantum Computer

We present the first experimental realization of a quantum artificial life algorithm in a quantum computer. The quantum biomimetic protocol encodes tailored quantum behaviors belonging to living systems, namely, self-replication, mutation, interaction between individuals, and death, into the IBM cloud quantum computer. 

In this experiment, entanglement spreads throughout generations of individuals, where genuine quantum information features are inherited through genealogical networks. As a pioneering proof-of-principle, experimental data fits the ideal theoretical model with accuracy.

Thereafter, these and other models of quantum artificial life—for which no classical device may predict its quantum supremacy evolution—can be further explored in novel generations of quantum computers. Quantum biomimetics, quantum machine learning, and quantum artificial intelligence will move forward hand-in-hand through more elaborate levels of quantum complexity.

The researchers foresee a rich field of investigation arising from the confluence of quantum and natural life:

The creation of these quantum living units and their possible applications are expected to have deep implications in the community of quantum simulation and quantum computing in a variety of quantum platforms. All in all, the experiments presented here entail the validation of quantum artificial life in the lab and, in particular, in cloud quantum computers, as that of IBM. 

Still another interesting step would be the development of autonomous quantum devices following the theoretical and experimental results in quantum cellular automata. Our quantum individuals are driven by an adaptation effort along the lines of a quantum Darwinian evolution, which effectively transfer quantum information through generations of larger multiqubit entangled states. We believe that the presented results and vision, both in theory and experiments, should hoist this innovative research line as one of the leading banners in the future of quantum technologies.

The same research group published the report Artificial Life in Quantum Technologies last year:

We develop a quantum information protocol that models the biological behaviors of individuals living in a natural selection scenario. The artificially engineered evolution of the quantum living units shows the fundamental features of life in a common environment, such as self-replication, mutation, interaction of individuals, and death. We propose how to mimic these bio-inspired features in a quantum-mechanical formalism, which allows for an experimental implementation achievable with current quantum platforms. This result paves the way for the realization of artificial life and embodied evolution with quantum technologies.

Links

• QUTIS Group, Department of Physical Chemistry, University of the Basque Country, Spain
• Quantum Biomimetics and Quantum Artificial Life – QUTIS
• arXiv [1711.09442] Quantum Artificial Life in an IBM Quantum Computer
• The future is quantum – IBM Research
• Quantum Computing
• The IBM Q experience
• IBM’s Newest Quantum Computers Are the Most Powerful of Their Kind
• IBM announces a trailblazing quantum machine

SolarCoin renewable energy currency was recently featured in Forbes:

Forbes | Inside a 5,000 Gigawatt Quest To Save The Planet

“Our mission in founding SolarCoin—to accelerate our societal transition from petroleum-dependent, war-scourged, scarcity economics to a renewable-energy based, peaceful, post-scarcity economy—is now shared with Elon Musk.   

SolarCoin is a global reward for renewable solar energy. Instead of being digitally mined, proof of work happens in the physical world. SolarCoin is earned for generating solar electricity: 1 § (SLR) per MWh, or 97,500 terawatt-hours of generation over the next forty years. 

Active in 32 countries, the initiative launched in a worldwide press conference at MIT Media Lab in February 2016. We're working in close partnership with scientists and researchers at NASA, MIT, Xerox PARC, Google, the US national laboratories and other leading labs, expanding rapidly worldwide, to low-Earth orbit―and beyond. 

As the “SETI of solar,” with more than seven million real-time solar monitoring stations around the globe, set to grow to more than 200M over the next decade, SolarCoin is the world’s lowest carbon currency—the largest environmental monitoring experiment—and the largest private renewable energy project in the world.

SolarCoin launched in a worldwide press conference at MIT in February 2016, since working in partnership with scientists and researchers from NASA, MIT, Xerox PARC, Google, the US national laboratories and other leading labs, expanding rapidly worldwide, to low-Earth orbit―and beyond.” 

      – Christopher Altman, Cofounder and Chief Scientist

State of the Future –  Live Two-Hour Radio Interview

Listen now (MP3) 

“We’re off to a fine start with our guests for our two-hour live radio interview this week: NASA-trained quantum astronaut Christopher Altman (vitae) and his muse, Kate Kie Russell—a serendipity spark, technology catalyst, long-term strategic planning, conference and events coordinator, professional model, DJ, host and emcee. Kate is fluent in Japanese, and a talented icebreaker into the vast, unexplored terrain of “Deep Future” thinking.”

“On this show we explore such erudite topics as breakthroughs in quantum entanglement and teleportation, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, artificial intelligence and Elon Musk's Open AI initiative, magnetic thorium nuclear plasma drives, warp drives and wormholes for deep space exploration, the Tau Zero Foundation and pioneering interstellar flight, multidisciplinary research institute Starlab | Deep Future, time travel and retrocausality, Pentagon field operations for the next generation of government leadership in the post-scarcity economy, outer space and inner space—and a myriad of other future trends. Christopher is working in each of these areas to transition them from deep future to present-day. – Enjoy!”

Listen now (MP3)
Live Two-Hour Radio Interview

As  we expand our reach outwards to other worlds—and other stars—Earth comes into view as a destination, no longer limited as a point of origin. 


Inspirational highlights from my closing speech and subsequent interview with the press on our collective responsibility to the future—as our technologies converge and we take our next steps outward to the stars—delivered to the full assembly of distinguished international delegates at the recent Global Leadership Forum, taken up and published by nationally-acclaimed Souls of San Francisco, reaching out to inspire hundreds of thousands around the world.

" We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on."  

           – Richard Feynman

As we continue forwards in our collective journey, scaling the cosmic ladder of evolution, progressing onwards, expanding our reach outwards to other worlds, and other stars, in the transition to become a multiplanetary species—Earth comes into view as a destination, no longer limited as a point of origin. We stand on the shores of a vast cosmic ocean, with untold continents of possibility yet to explore. From early childhood, I set out to convey a profound and positive impact on the long-term future of humanity, to make the world a better place for the generations yet to come. I committed my life purpose to the singular objective of ensuring that integrity, balance, and ethical responsibility hold paramount importance as priorities in scientific research and principal government leadership as we're collectively propelled forwards as a species. With unprecedented leaps and bounds of progress in our scientific understanding—enabled by the development of converging and expanding exponential technologies—newfound, unexpected discoveries await, just over the horizon. Rapid advances in fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, molecular nanotechnology, neuroscience, renewable energy, spaceflight, supercomputing and quantum technologies—each enabled by the rapid technological progress of Moore’s Law doublings in computer processing power, speed and complexity—will converge to confer radical changes to our society over coming decades, as we move forward in the collective transition towards the dawn of a post-scarcity economy. The future is unbounded. The responsibility falls upon us to ensure that its limitless potential is filled with dreams of hope, happiness, freedom and fulfillment. I began my scientific career at a Deep Future, multidisciplinary research institute—Starlab—located in the serene and secluded forests outside Brussels, Belgium. Our research institute, co-founded by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte and established in partnership with MIT, Oxford and Ghent University, was created as a "Noah's Ark" to bring together the world's most brilliant and creative scientists to work on far-ranging projects that hold the potential to convey a profound and positive impact on future generations. My research group and artificial intelligence project at the lab was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2001 as the “World's Most Complex Artificial Brain.” I lived and worked at the institute, soon taking up research collaborations with the principal scientists of our NASA and USAF-sponsored time travel division—profiled in a prominent Discovery Channel Special—in work that was widely published, featured in a Discover Magazine cover story, and continues to this day: we just completed a chapter contribution to a Springer academic volume on Spacetime from Quantum Topology. When our laboratory came up short on research grants, I personally went to the President himself to request $1M in additional budget from funds allocated through Clinton's 2001 National Nanotechnology Initiative. For my contributions to the program, I was selected by the US Government as one of three graduate students most likely to impact the future of the field at Salishan, sponsored to attend conferences and senior administrator briefings at national agency headquarters outside Washington, DC, attended the World Technology Summit in London, was an invited delegate to the French Sénat to provide testimony on the future of technology and how it will transform our lives over coming decades—and more. That was my first job out of college. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, I volunteered and was subsequently elected to serve as Chairman for a UN Disarmament and International Security Committee, leading more than 500 diplomats to address and combat the threats of international terrorism, global and regional nuclear security, and information warfare.

My Chair Report to the General Assembly on the promise and perils posed by the rapid acceleration of unpredictable advances in converging technologies was read by the UN Secretary General, at the Executive Office of the President, by National Security Advisors, at Presidential and Prime Minister's offices around the world—was instrumental in building political momentum and influencing Congressional policy to establish the foundations for US Cyber Command—and was subsequently recognized with the 2004 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Policy.

That's when things started to get exciting ...

           – Christopher Altman

* Special thanks to USAF General Pete Worden for insight and inspiration. Photos from Starlab and spaceflight training at NASA Ames, Johnson Space Center and commercial providers around the country, 2009 - present.

See also: Astronaut scientists for hire open new research frontier in space