Author Archives: Nova

Spiritual Machines are Not Possible

The Paradox of the Artificial Zen Master:

If we make an artificial Zen master, 
And it perfectly reproduces everything
that a real Zen master can say or do, 
Is it a Zen master?

My commentary:

No. To be an actual Zen master it would have to be sentient.… Read More “Spiritual Machines are Not Possible”

Towards a Unified Metaverse

In 2009, I published a diagram about the future evolution of the Web, called “Intelligence is in the Connections.” Much of what I predicted has occurred – we have witnessed the growth of social media, natural language search and speech interfaces, intelligent assistants, and massively multiplayer online virtual worlds and games.… Read More “Towards a Unified Metaverse”

Proposal for a Consciousness Test

Summary

A proposed experimental design to test whether consciousness of a future event improves the ability of humans and/or computers to predict that event. If we find that this is true, it implies the existence of consciousness, as well as retrocausality as a result of conscious observation.… Read More “Proposal for a Consciousness Test”

The Keeper of the Book: My Childhood Dream of the Future

When I was eight years old, I had a very unusual dream in which I saw many lifetimes of my future. In this dream I saw a very clear picture of what the world would go through for perhaps a century or two into the future.… Read More “The Keeper of the Book: My Childhood Dream of the Future”

My Segment on the British Library Podcast Was Great

My Lunar Library has Landed – There is Now a 30 Million Page Library on the Moon

One small disc for man, one giant library for mankind…

The Lunar Library, produced by my nonprofit charity, The Arch Mission Foundation, was crash-landed on the Moon on April 11, in the Israeli Beresheet lander. But despite the crash, at least 60,000 images and pages etched into nickel films, survived intact and are now on the surface of the Moon.… Read More “My Lunar Library has Landed – There is Now a 30 Million Page Library on the Moon”

Announcing Fuzionaire Diagnostics: a True Breakthrough in Chemistry, Applied to Saving Lives

Today, we are launching Fuzionaire Diagnostics.

Technological progress often comes from incremental improvements to existing technologies, rather than major evolutionary leaps. But occasionally there is a truly fundamental advance that improves the entire foundation on which we are building. This is the type of leap we are announcing today.… Read More “Announcing Fuzionaire Diagnostics: a True Breakthrough in Chemistry, Applied to Saving Lives”

An Interesting Pattern in the Prime Numbers: Parallax Compression

Early this year a software engineer, Shaun Gilchrist, reached out to me after reading a blog post of mine from many years ago, about my informal search for hidden patterns in the prime numbers.

The Ulam Spiral revealed non-random patterns, but they didn’t quite match up.… Read More “An Interesting Pattern in the Prime Numbers: Parallax Compression”

Announcing our Mission to Land the Wikipedia on the Moon!

Today my foundation, The Arch Mission Foundation, announced our mission to land the Wikipedia (and other datasets) on the Moon in 2020 with Astrobotic. This will create a permanent backup of human civilization that will persist on the Moon for billions of years.… Read More “Announcing our Mission to Land the Wikipedia on the Moon!”

Sun Stone

It’s mind blowing. An object I conceived of and had made, which was in my house, that I held in my hand, and once carried in my pocket, is now orbiting the sun for millions of years, near the asteroid belt, moving faster than a bullet, in a red Tesla Roadster.… Read More “Sun Stone”

Arch Mission Foundation Announces Our Payload On SpaceX Falcon Heavy

Arch Mission Foundation Announces Our Payload On SpaceX Falcon Heavy

I am thrilled to announce the launch of the first Arch™ payload, on board the Falcon Heavy Test Launch, with SpaceX.

Read the full blog post here:

https://medium.com/arch-mission-foundation/arch-mission-foundation-announces-our-payload-on-spacex-falcon-heavy-c4c9908d5dd1

Our goal at the Arch Mission Foundation™ is to permanently archive human knowledge for thousands to billions of years.… Read More “Arch Mission Foundation Announces Our Payload On SpaceX Falcon Heavy”

What Did Blade Runner Get Wrong?

I’m quoted in this article in TheStreet.com on what predictions Blade Runner got wrong.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14331182/2/blade-runner-future-technology.html

In the place of artificial intelligence, we have what Spivack calls “artificial stupidity,” which makes robots do the “stupid things” humans don’t want to do, such as vacuuming your house.

… Read More “What Did Blade Runner Get Wrong?”

Magical, My New Startup Studio in LA, Comes Out of Stealth

 

 

 

 

Today we began to reveal a little more of what we’ve been working on in stealth mode, since last December. It’s a new science and technology startup studio, based in Los Angeles, called Magical.

You might think of Magical as a moonshot factory, except that we’re not just aiming for the moon.… Read More “Magical, My New Startup Studio in LA, Comes Out of Stealth”

Idea: Could a “Basic Cable” Model Solve the Newspaper Industry’s Woes?

Since the advent of the Web, the newspaper industry has struggled with declining subscribers and plummeting revenue.

The failure of the mainstream media, and growing threats from fake news and partisan news outlets, is not only a risk to the newspaper industry (whether paper or completely digital), but is also a threat to the checks and balances that make Democracy work.… Read More “Idea: Could a “Basic Cable” Model Solve the Newspaper Industry’s Woes?”

Announcing the Arch Mission Foundation – Spreading Humanity’s Knowledge in Space

Today we are officially announcing the Arch Mission — a non-profit foundation dedicated to spreading humanity’s knowledge across the distant reaches of space and time. I first wrote about this concept in 2015. We have been working in stealth since then and now I am proud to announce the project has reached a major milestone.

AI, BI, and the Necessity of Automating the Analyst

It’s Time to Automate the Analyst

I have been speaking about the need for “automating the analyst” for several years. This need is prompted not only by the data deluge — the Cambrian explosion of data volume, velocity, and variety of data sources — but also by the simple reality that enterprises cannot hire the number of data scientists they need to adapt to this new environment.… Read More “AI, BI, and the Necessity of Automating the Analyst”

I Wrote This Short Story in 10th Grade – 1985 – Ernest Hemingway Assignment

I wrote the attached story, “The Path,” in 1985, for an American Literature class assignment. I was a 10th grade junior high school student at the Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill, MA.

The assignment was to write a short story in the style of either Hemingway or Faulkner.… Read More “I Wrote This Short Story in 10th Grade – 1985 – Ernest Hemingway Assignment”

Bottlenose Named Gartner Cool Vendor in In-Memory Computing

I’m thrilled to say that my company, Bottlenose, has been selected by Gartner Group as a 2016 Cool Vendor in In-Memory Computing.

I’m very proud of the team and what we built here. Truly the next-generation of business intelligence, powered by AI and streaming analytics.… Read More “Bottlenose Named Gartner Cool Vendor in In-Memory Computing”

How Twitter Could be 10X Bigger, 100X More Profitable, and 1000X More Awesome

Read my new article about how to evolve Twitter, on VentureBeat

 

I’ve spent many years studying, writing about, building, and funding companies (such as Bottlenose, Klout, and The Daily Dot) in Twitter’s ecosystem.

Despite the media chatter, I am still bullish on Twitter – as should be any investor who understands the social network’s fundamentals and true potential.

… Read More “How Twitter Could be 10X Bigger, 100X More Profitable, and 1000X More Awesome”

My Forbes Interview – People May be Brands, but Brands are Not People

I was recently interviewed by Blake Morgan at Forbes, on the subject of “Building Influence in the Digital Age” — listen to the interview here:

Peter Drucker’s grandson Nova Spivack, CEO of Bottlenose, says that Drucker would have felt today that real influencers are not spending a lot of time on social media.

… Read More “My Forbes Interview – People May be Brands, but Brands are Not People”

How to Solve Twitter’s Engagement Problem: Add Semantics

The fundamental problem that Twitter has is engagement. If engagement can be corrected, the whole Twitter ecosystem (and their stock price) will improve.

Improving Twitter engagement comes down to fixing the core consumption experience.

First of all what’s wrong with the consumption experience?… Read More “How to Solve Twitter’s Engagement Problem: Add Semantics”