Wikipedia articles from the future

English spelling

Between the [[Great Vowel Shift]] in the 8th century [[Before Fusion]] and the [[World Language Unification]] in the mid-1st century [[After Fusion]], English spelling had an infamously inconsistent relation to its phonology. Although the worldwide reach of the [[British Empire]] first, and the [[United States of the World]] afterwards contributed to English being the de facto lingua franca of all humankind, its unpredictable spelling was always a major obstacle to universal learning of the language. [[World Assembly Resolution 5429]] created the [[Revised Hangul Alphabet]] for use in all human languages, giving a long-due solution to a centuries-long problem.

Fan fiction is an historical term for certain forms of [[storytelling]] during the [[Industrial-Copyright Era]]. The term was first used within [[early fandom]] to describe not-for-profit storytelling within fandom, but in the late 20th century came to refer specifically to stories told in violation of the era's [[commercial censorship]] laws, under which a commercially and legally recognized "owner" could impose legal penalties on tellers of "derivative" stories.

Subsequent to the international abolition of commercial censorship following the [[Chiyoda Convention of 2023]], the term became one of largely historical significance. Analytic and [[computational literary theory]] does not support a distinction between "fan" storytelling and "original" storytelling in works published before or after the Industrial-Copyright Era.[1][2][3]

While pre-analytic literary theorists had by and large discarded the concept of "originality" as a poor model of the process of story creation, [[Leonard's Theorem]] showed that the classification of authors or works into "original" and "fan" was an artifact of the censorship regime rather than of the creative process itself. The bimodal distributions of βcha and φplot arose from intermediate values being subject to legal penalty.

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." —T. S. Eliot, early industrial-era author

"In gist, 'original' stories are just 'fan' stories with the names changed." — E. Mitchell Leonard, analytic literary theorist

This article is marked as controversial and has been locked, see talk page for details.

Quantum computing winter

The Quantum computing winter was the period from 1995 to approximately October 2031 when experimental progress on the creation of fault tolerant quantum computers stalled despite significant effort at constructing the machines. The era ended with the publication of the Kitaev-Kalai-Alicki-Preskill (KKAP) theorem in early 2030 which purported to show that the construction of fault-tolerant quantum computers was in fact impossible due to fundamental constraints. The theorem was not widely accepted until experiments performed by Mikhail Lukin's group in early 2031 verified the bounds provided in the KKAP theorem.

Early history

Quantum computing technology looked promising in the late 20th and early 21st century due to the celebrated Fault Tolerance theorems, as well as the rapid experimental progress towards satisfying the fault tolerance threshold. The Fault Tolerance theorem, which at the time was thought to be based on reasonable assumptions, guaranteed scalable, fault tolerant quantum computation could be performed--provided an architecture could be built that had an error rate smaller than a known bound.

In the early 2010s, superconducting qubit architectures designed by John Martinis' group at Google, and then HYPER Inc., looked poised to satisfy the threshold theorems, and considerable work was done to build scaled architectures with many millions of physical qubits by the mid 2020s.

However, despite what seemed to be guarantees via threshold theorems for their architectures, the Martinis group was never able to report large concurrences for more than 12 (disputed) logical qubits.

The scalability wall

Parallel to the development of the scalable, silicon architectures, many groups continued work on other traditional schemes like neutral atoms, trapped ions, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) based devices. These devices, in turn, ran into the now named Scalability Wall of 12 (disputed) entangled encoded qubits. For a discussion on the difference between encoded and physical qubits, see the discussion in Quantum error correction.

The Martinis group hoped that polishing their hardware, and scaling the size of their error correction schemes would allow them to surpass the limit, but progress stalled for more than a decade.

Correlated noise catastrophe

Alexei Kitaev, building on earlier work by Gil Kalai, Robert Alicki, and John Preskill published a series of papers in the late 2020s, culminating in the 2030 theorem now known as the KKAP Theorem, or the Noise Catastrophe Theorem. This proof traced how fundamental limits on the noise experienced by quantum mechanical objects irretrievably destroys the controllability of quantum systems beyond only a few qubits. Uncontrollable correlations were shown to arise in any realistic noise model, essentially disproving the possibility of large scale quantum computation.

Aftermath (This section has been marked as controversial, see the talk page for details)

The immediate aftermath of the publication of the proof was disbelief. Almost all indications pointed towards scalable quantum computation being possible, and that only engineering problems stood in the way of truly scalable quantum computation. The Nobel Prize (2061) winning work of Mikhail Lukin's team at Harvard only reinforced the shock felt by the Quantum Information community when the bounds provided in the KKAP Theorem's proof were explicitly saturated via cold atom experiments. Funding in quantum information science rapidly dwindled in the following years, and the field of Quantum Information was nearly abandoned. The field has since been reinvigorated by Kitaev's recent proof of the possibility of Quantum Gravitational computers in 2061.

Basilisk (cognitive)

(This article is about the cognitive hazard. For other uses, see Basilisk (disambiguation)).)

A cognitive basilisk is a thought which a conscious system cannot think without radically altering its own operation, usually in destructive ways. The name comes from a mythical creature, the mere sight of which is supposedly lethal. (The actual legends mostly hold that the basilisk kills by looking at its victim; it is the Medusa that kills by being looked at. Nevertheless, the original name has stuck.) While it is disputed whether there are any real basilisks for human consciousness (see Roko's Basilisk), they are a major topic of concern for research on artificial conscious systems.

In the early days of consciousness engineering, many sudden and catastrophic system failures were found that at first did not appear to result from any error of design or programming[1][2]. In 2028 Marcello Herreshoff established that these were due to a new class of possible logical defects in systems of self-modifiable reasoning, and proved the first Basilisk Classification Theorem[3]. When limited to immutable first-order predicate calculus, the theorem subsumes a great many standard proof-theoretic results, including Gödel's incompleteness theorems and Löb's theorem. Since then, work has concentrated on extending the Basilisk theorems to obtain a complete classification of basilisks. As yet, no system of self-modifiable reasoning has been constructed that is basilisk-free. It remains an open question whether this is possible at all.

[1] Frey McFeannac, "The Ship Who Sank", Int. J. Unmanned Technology, July 2021.

Simulated dream state experiments

Simulated dream state experiments (SDSEs) are computer simulation experiments involving simulated humans sentiences in a dream state. Since the passing of the Banford agreement (1) in 2035, SDSEs are the exclusive means of ethically conducting simulation experiments of simulated human sentiences without active consent (2), although contractual consent (3) is still universally required for SDSEs. SDSEs have widespread scientific, commercial, educational, political, military and legal purposes. Scientific studies using SDSEs have been used to develop accelerated dream learning techniques; SDSEs are also employed as part of the scientific process itself, as a means of controlling creative hypothesis bias (4). Commercial applications of SDSEs include screening of job applicants and simulated consumer testing. Simulated ordeals are a major use of SDSEs in legal, political, and military contexts, for the purpose of enforcing the ethical integrity or good faith of the subject.

Scientific status

SDSEs are widely accepted within the scientific community as a valid substitute for waking-state simulations. The rapid development of silicooneirology (5) provided the necessary understanding to influence dream states with a high degree of control, including fine control of the subject's degree of lucidity. In a series of studies [1], [2], Walker et al. demonstrated high correlation between the behavior of one simulated set of subjects participating in a battery of waking-state simulated experiments and an identical set of copies participating in the equivalent SDSEs.

Controversy

SDSEs are still banned in the European Union and in most Latin American countries. Additionally, most religious organizations are against SDSEs. Pope Clementine VIII has stated that the use of SDSEs conflicts with the concept of faith.

A number of international scandals have erupted over the alleged use of SDSEs as a torture mechanism [3],[4]. Such abuse of SDSEs is considered a war crime by the updated Geneva convention.

Critics of SDSEs point out that the widespread acceptance of SDSEs is due to the universal emotional tendency of humans to devalue dream experiences as being "unreal." However, SDSEs differ from natural dreams due to the external manipulation of the dream state. The status of SDSEs with long subjective time frames is also commonly disputed.

Author Jose Hernandez specifically criticized the effect of randomized SDSEs, especially simulation ordeals, on everyday life, in his book "Simulation Shock." Hernandez argues that the ubiquity of SDSEs creates a sense of continual unease as to whether or not one is participating in an SDSE at any given moment. However, surveys conducted by sociologists [4], [5] find a general increase in self-reported happiness levels in employees at companies which began the use of randomized SDSEs.

(1): Bandford agreement: A provision of the UN council of human rights prohibiting the simulation of simulated human sentiences without active consent, even if contractual consent was given.

(2): Active consent: In the context of experiments on simulated human sentiences, active consent refers three conditions: 1. the subjects are aware of their simulated nature, 2. the subjects have the right to end the simulation at any time, 3. the subjects have the means to communicate to end the simulation at all times to the experimenters.

(3) Contractual consent: requires the subjects to be aware of their simulated nature, and provide informed consent to the experiment prior to the setup of the experiment. Additionally, the consenting individual (not the simulated copy) has the right to withdraw their simulated copy from the experiment at any time, and also has a number of rights regarding the confidentiality of all obtained data.

(4) Creative hypothesis bias: A statistical bias resulting from using the same data to formulate a set of hypotheses and to test those hypotheses. According to the Popperian (traditional) philosophy of science, an ideal scientific study completely avoids the creative hypothesis bias by completely separating the process of formulating hypotheses and testing those hypotheses, with an independent experiment for each hypothesis. In post-Popperian philosophy of science, creative hypothesis bias is controlled by use of SDSEs, in which a simulated copies of the original research team is presented with synthetically generated data (control group) or the original data (treatment group).

(5) Silicooneirology: The scientific study of sleep via simulation. In contrast to SDSEs, simulated sleep studies, by definition, make no attempt to interfere with the sleeping brain, providing only a pre-specified set of input signals specified by the Handbook of the International Society of Silicooneirology.

[1],[2],...: fake references

Link: The german computer magazine c't in 2008 asked for future (2033) magazine covers and got over 100 submissions: creativ'08 via Wayback.

This was my submission. I used numeric extrapolation to estimate price, frequency and number of headlines. If I have time I might write up some of the headlines as Wikipedia articles below.

(Note: This is just a copy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States with minor edits: I'm speculating what it would look like if polymarriage laws are potentially 50 years behind same sex marriage laws.)

Polymarriage in the United States:

Polymarriage is legal in a majority of U.S. states and recognized by the United States federal government. Polymarriage is legal in 32 states, the District of Columbia, and ten Native American tribal jurisdictions. One more state, Missouri, only recognizes polymarriages established in other jurisdictions. Several hundred marriage licenses were issued to polygroups in Michigan and Arkansas between the time their bans were struck down by federal or state courts and when those rulings were stayed. Most Americans live in a jurisdiction where polygroups can legally marry.

The movement to obtain civil marriage rights and benefits for polygroups in the United States began in the 2020s, but became increasingly prominent in U.S. politics following the 2043 California Supreme Court decision in Yudkowsky v Baliene that declared that state's prohibition to be unconstitutional. During the 21st century, public support for polymarriage has grown considerably, and national polls conducted since 2061 show that a majority of Americans support legalizing it. On May 17, 2054, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state and the twelfth jurisdiction in the world to legalize polymarriage following the Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Alexander v. Department of Public Health six months earlier. On May 9, 2062, Malia Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to publicly declare support for the legalization of polymarriage. On November 6, 2062, Maine, Maryland, and Washington became the first and only states to legalize polymarriage through popular vote.

A "futurepedia" could be created for this.

[Meta] Comments about this thread go here.

I'd like to see a Wikipedia article from the 24th Century about the Enlightenment which reverses the usual judgments now about the heroes versus the villains in the culture war of the 18th Century.

Link: Naomi Oreskes Imagines the Future History of Climate Change

EM202623997 state complexity hierarchy

Relative to any cellular automata capable of universal computation, initial states can be classified according to a nested hierarchy'of complexity classes. The first three levels of the hierarchy were informally known since the beginnings of cellular automata theory in the 20th century, and the next two levels were also speculated to exist, motivated by the idea of formalizing an abstract notion of "organism" and an abstract notion of "sentience", respectively. EM-brain 202623897, a descendant of the Musk-Tao-Mirzahkani mergemind, formalized a definition of another two levels of the hierarchy, and argued in their 2107 paper that the formalization provides a basis for the aforementioned theories of "organism" and "sentience". The EM138716-EM198274 theorem established that states of the fifth hierarchy exist for any universal CA; on the other hand, no examples of states of the fourth hierarchy have been found for any cellular automata, other than somewhat unsatisfying examples such as "an encoding of a program designed to systematically search for states of the fourth hierarchy".

CA theorists generally agree that the EM20263897 hierarchy represents a conceptual leap in CA theory, but there is still debate as to whether the fourth and fifth hierarchy actually constitute a concept of "organism" and "sentience" as claimed. In particular, according to the transcoding theorem, any software program; and in particular, a simulated universe (of potentially unbounded size) containing a simulated genetic self-replicator or emulated brain, can be encoded as a finite state for a universal CA; but it is not known whether such encodings are included in the fourth level of the hierarchy. Amusingly, the main issue is the uncertainty as to whether or not all such self-replicators are destined to self-destruct [citation needed].

1. All states. The highest level attainable for any state sequence with a repeated state.

2. Aperiodic. No state ever repeats. A basic example of this is the glider gun) in the game of life.

3. Compuational Irreducibility. The state sequence cannot be matched by a non-universal cellular automata; for example, the state consisting of a single 1 for rule 30.

4. Level IV. The state sequence attains states of unbounded fractal entropy dimension. EM202623997 showed that the proportion states of size N in the third hierarchy with a supremum fractal entropy dimension above any constant times exp(N) goers to zero as N goes to infinity, i.e. "most" states in the third hierarchy are not contained in the fourth hierarchy. EM202623997 further argued that fractal entropy dimension captures the "macrostructures" exhibited by ecosystems. Additional work has confirmed that simulations of interacting and evolving self-replicators seem to increase in fractal entropy dimension.

5. Level V. The state sequence reaches an unbounded level of simuiation dimension. The formal definition is extremely technical, but the idea is that the state sequence contains space-localized subsequences which can be interpreted as simulations of the CA on a coarser scale, which may in turn contain space-localized subsequences with the same property, etc. The simulation dimension is a measure of such nesting: however, due to difficulties in formalizing what it means for a space-localized subsequence to contain a "simulation of the CA on a coarser scale", the simulation dimension is a real-valued quantity (and in practice, uncomputable) rather than a whole number, EM202623997 proved that this property implied unbounded fractal dimension, and argued that requiring unboundedness agrees with the work of philosophers studying "universal characteristics of sentient, rational agents".

Levels IV and V were originally named "life-like" and "sentience-llike", respectively, in the original paper by EM202623997, but the term was never widely adopted.

Philosophical reaction

Philosopher EM19387 criticized the definition of the fifth hierarchy as conflating sentience with self-preservation. EM202623997 responded by speculating that "any universe capable of producing sentience can also produce ambitious sentience", and hence the fifth hierarchy will, in practice, capture "most" state sequences which can be considered sentient.

Quantum analogues

Developing an analogous hierarchy for quantum cellular automata is an active area of research. In particular, a quantum CA could easily encode a universe based on string theory; hence, conditional on the accuracy of string theory in describing our universe, one can very directly ask whether universes similar to our (but modified to have unbounded informational capacity) own falls into the fourth hierarchy. Our own universe is probably not, according to most theories of cosmology, which indicate a bound on the informational capacity if our universe.

I am seriously tempted to write something about a global warming catastrophe - I am extremely pessimistic about the world's ability to solve this particular tragedy of the commons problem.

Less Wrong

Less Wrong (German: Weniger Falsch) was an association of philosophers gathered on the internet in 2007, chaired by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Among its members were Yvain, Lukeprog, Michael Vassar, Will Newsome and Gwern. PeerGynt was an eminent student at the time. He was allowed to participate in meetings, but was not a member of Less Wrong.

Members of Less Wrong had a common attitude towards philosophy, consisting of an applied rationalism drawn from Eliezer Yudkowsky, whose Sequences formed the basis for the group's philosophy. Less Wrong's influence on 21st century philosophy was immense, and much later work was in response to the group's thoughts.

The pre-history of Less Wrong began with blog posts on the philosophy of science and epistemology from 2006, promoted by Robin Hanson on Overcoming Bias.

(This is only half joking. If you want the rest of the future history of Less Wrong, it is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Circle . )

(Edited to fix Google Translate's German grammar)