Anthromimesis at the Crossroads

It's all coming together, anthropogenic planets, anthromimetic algorithms and of course extraterrestrials. 

Image credit: Mandelbox in the Box, Krzysztof Marczak

The science-fiction scenario of an artificial planet is already here

Feb 2021, phys.org

https://sciencex.com/news/2021-02-science-fiction-scenario-artificial-planet.html

"The global mass produced by man exceeds all living biomass. We find that Earth is exactly at the crossover point; in the year 2020 (±6), the anthropogenic mass, which has recently doubled roughly every 20 years, will surpass all global living biomass."

via the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel: Emily Elhacham et al. Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5

Teaching AI agents to communicate and act in fantasy worlds

Nov 2020, phys.org

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-ai-agents-fantasy-worlds.html

They're called Agents. And they live in simulated realities. One day they'll invite us over for dinner.

"Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Facebook AI Research have recently explored the possibility of equipping goal-driven agents with NLP [natural language processing] capabilities so that they can speak with other characters and complete desirable actions within fantasy game environments."

Ammanabrolu et al., How to motivate your dragon: teaching goal-driven agents to speak and act in fantasy worlds. arXiv:2010.00685 [cs.CL]. arxiv.org/abs/2010.00685

Using game-theory to look for extraterrestrial intelligence

Oct 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-game-theory-extraterrestrial-intelligence.html

The SETI paradox says that we haven't discovered signals from aliens because they're afraid it might draw the attention of adversaries. But game theory says that the one who has the least to lose signals first. Or in other words, the one who has more access to information signals first. 

Unbelievably, this narrows the search down to just one exoplanet: K2-155d. It's suggested that because it's more visible to us than the other way around, that we be the first to send a signal.

Eamonn Kerins. Mutual detectability: a targeted SETI strategy that avoids the SETI Paradox, arXiv:2010.04089 [astro-ph.EP] , arxiv.org/abs/2010.04089

Partially related, my theory for world peace is to unite the world against the probability of an alien race attacking Earth. I take this idea from the book Three Body Problem where they spend hundreds of years preparing for the arrival of an alien race that may or may not destroy them. All the resources of the entire population of Earth are brought together to solve this problem.

There can't be world peace without a world enemy. So we should create one. Or rather, the probability of one. Which shouldn't be too hard. What's the chances, and how far away are they, and so how long would it take for them to get to us. Now we work backwards, and set a long term plan to solve the problem, together. 

On Quantum Updates and the Photon Revolution

Quantum things are a big deal these days, but you know what's even more of a big deal? Photons. Just wait, you'll be getting upgraded from the Verizon Quantum plan to the Verizon Photon plan in like 2 years tops. Photons, i.e., light, is the electricity of the 21st century. 

^That image btw: "Stimulated Photon Emission" -- Illustration of a gold-covered probe tip injecting electrons into a carefully located imperfection in an atomically thin material. The energy from each electron causes the highly localized emission of a single photon, which may then be guided to a detector. Credit: Ignacio Gaubert, 2020.

Time-reversal of an unknown quantum state

Aug 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-08-time-reversal-unknown-quantum-state.html 

Stochastic baths, who can say no?

Abstract - In the present work, the scientists propose using a thermodynamic reservoir at finite temperatures to form a high-entropy stochastic bath to thermalize a given quantum system and experimentally increase thermal disorder or entropy in the system. 

-A. V. Lebedev et al. Time-reversal of an unknown quantum state, Communications Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s42005-020-00396-0

-Seth Lloyd et al. Quantum principal component analysis, Nature Physics (2014). DOI: 10.1038/nphys3029

-Gonzalo Manzano et al. Quantum Fluctuation Theorems for Arbitrary Environments: Adiabatic and Nonadiabatic Entropy Production, Physical Review X (2018). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.031037

An electrical trigger fires single, identical photons

Oct 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-electrical-trigger-identical-photons.html 

First time we're seeing "memory" used as an analogy for quantum coherence.

Also, "photons on demand"; wait for it.

via: Bruno Schuler et al, Electrically driven photon emission from individual atomic defects in monolayer WS2, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb5988

Quantum entanglement demonstrated aboard orbiting CubeSat

Jun 2020, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-quantum-entanglement-aboard-orbiting-cubesat.html

Quantum computing in outer space.

In a critical step toward creating a global quantum communications network, researchers have generated and detected quantum entanglement onboard a CubeSat nanosatellite weighing less than 2.6 kilograms and orbiting the Earth.

The coldest computers in the world

Aug 2020, BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53413931 

Also in outer space.

The world's first integrated quantum communication network

Jan 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-world-quantum-network.html 

Yes they have; via the University of Science and Technology of China.

Using drones to create local quantum networks

Jan 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-drones-local-quantum-networks.html 

This is what it will be like:

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China has used drones to create a prototype of a small airborne quantum network. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe sending entangled particles from one drone to another and from a drone to the ground.

Robots learn faster with quantum technology

Mar 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-robots-faster-quantum-technology.html 

"We are just at the beginning of understanding the possibilities of quantum artificial intelligence" says Philip Walther, head of an international collaboration of experimental physicists, "and thus every new experimental result contributes to the development of this field, which is currently seen as one of the most fertile areas for quantum computing."

Fertile, indeed.

Photon Avalanche, Mikołaj Łukaszewicz at Polish Academy of Sciences, 2021

'Multiplying' light could be key to ultra-powerful optical computers

Feb 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-key-ultra-powerful-optical.html 

Using polaritons - which are half-light and half-matter

Heat-free optical switch would enable optical quantum computing chips

Mar 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-heat-free-optical-enable-quantum-chips.html 

Molybdenum disulfide ushers in era of post-silicon photonics

Mar 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-molybdenum-disulfide-ushers-era-post-silicon.html 

Study suggests that silicon could be a photonics game-changer

Apr 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-silicon-photonics-game-changer.html

In addition to being good for controlling electronic information, silicon is also good for controlling light, which will be integral to quantum computing. 

Discovered by mistake of course:

"Our finding was lucky because we weren't looking for it. We were trying to understand how a very small number of phosphorus atoms in a silicon crystal could be used for making a quantum computer and how to use light beams to control quantum information stored in the phosphorus atoms.

"We were astonished to find that the phosphorus atoms were re-emitting light beams that were almost as bright as the very intense laser we were shining on them. We shelved the data for a couple of years while we thought about proving where the beams were coming from. It's a great example of the way science proceeds by accident, and also how pan-European teams can still work together very effectively."

-Ben Murdin, Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey

via University of Surrey: Nils Dessmann et al, Highly efficient THz four-wave mixing in doped silicon, Light: Science & Applications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41377-021-00509-6

Wafer-scale production of graphene-based photonic devices

Feb 2021, phys.org

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-wafer-scale-production-graphene-based-photonic-devices.html

It's here, graphene chips to the rescue.

via Graphene Flagship: Marco A. Giambra et al, Wafer-Scale Integration of Graphene-Based Photonic Devices, ACS Nano (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c09758

Low Earth Orbit Package Deals

Outer Space is Open for Business

NASA to open International Space Station to tourists from 2020
June 2019, phys.org

The International Space Station will open to tourists by 2020. I don't need to say much else beyond the headline here, except that in the article, they refer to tourists as astronauts. In other words, soon we can all be astronauts.

Stranded in Space

It occurred to me today that we already live in outer space.

I live for moments like this. You read me the news, like any other day, when you come across a headline that might be interesting, you go ahead and read it through.

Somewhere along the way it occurs to you, that we already live in the future.

Here, a short news article about outer space. It's not hype, in fact it is an article of lamentation. Some computer servers are stuck on the International Space Station that orbits the Earth. They can't catch a ride on any of the transport vessels returning back to the surface.

It's one of those things that really shows you the nature of the world that you're already in. It's not a big deal, it's just a run of the mill article that in 30 years will be totally insignificant.

But if you just stop for one second, and roll it back 10 years even, it really gives you pause. It was 50 years ago now that we first sent people out to that forever distant, impossible destination. Now, we have people living there.

There's someone living there all the time. They're growing vegetables. They exercise. They communicate with their families everyday. There is a bit of a lag I'm sure, but they get to see their families everyday, not much different I imagine, from an international entrepreneur that is away from home often, or the military service member on duty.

It's right in between the mundane and the exceptional, the everyday and the out of this world. It puts you right in that spot where you can see the eyeballs themselves.

image source: The 2013 movie Gravity

Computer servers 'stranded' in space
Feb 2019, BBC

Patrol the Skies

Today it will 'feel like' 107 degrees in the armpit of New Jersey. You don't know what you've got until it's gone. The backyard swimming pool my parents thoughtfully incorporated into our bucolic suburban domicile is a distant memory.

But Microsoft knows what's up, they put one of its servers underwater in an effort to cool the thing better. No you're not normally supposed to put your computers underwater. Thing is, one of the primary limits to the power of what a computer can do is heat. Computers don't sweat like we do, so we don't notice it, but they work really hard to do all that binary computation. [Today is Leibniz bday, thanks Google Doodle, he refined the binary number system, among many other things integral to our modern world.]

So if we could only figure out a way to keep computers cool. Air conditioning is very expensive, and lemonade doesn't really work (does that really work?). In fact, Microsoft is trying this as a part of their sustainability effort. I know you've recently heard how much energy is used to mine cryptocurrencies - it's more than the energy expenditure of some nations. So if we can figure out a way to cool these things down, that would help a lot.

Now to the main point: We will not stop by putting computers underwater, because there is a place much colder than that, and we've been going there a lot more than usual as of late. Yes, outerspace is the next frontier for high-efficiency computing.

SpaceX, seen above, is well on its way to giving us a cozy place in low earth orbit that we can call home to our global digital infrastructure. Seems to make more sense than dunking your mainframe in a bathtub. And now, if you will for a moment imagine our human future, as we leave the meat behind, to exist entirely in the digitally-mediated reality of a constellation of hundreds of thousands of computer satellites blinking in low earth orbit. 

Notes:
image source: Space Jellyfish from SpaceX launch

Microsoft sinks data centre off Orkne
Jun 2018, BBC

Patrol the Skies Music