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"Conspiracy theories are big because they're comforting. Any conspiracy is infinitely less multiplex than the real deal, which is multiplex to the point of being unknowable."
- William Gibson
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| Smart Gel | ||
| Intelligent paste made of neurons; spread upon a substrate for computing. |
See the entry for head cheese.
| "It's one of those smart gels," Ray said at last... "Head cheese. Cultured brains on a slab. The same things they've been plugging into the Net to firewall infections." |
| Technovelgy from Starfish,
by Peter Watts. Published by Tor Books in 1999 Additional resources -
|
The term "smart gel" is already in use; it refers to a class of liquids that have unusual properties in response to being compressed. Since smart gels expand or contract in response to external stimuli, they could be useful in applications such as an artificial pancreas that releases insulin inside the body in response to high sugar level. Smart gels might someday be used to make exotic foods, cosmetics, medicines, and sensors. See the article Smart Gels and Shake Gels.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Starfish
More Ideas
and Technology by Peter Watts
Tech news articles related to Starfish
Tech news articles related to works by Peter Watts
Smart Gel-related
news articles:
- Nerve Cells Grown On Microchip
- Neuron Network Cyborg Has Memory
- DARPA Funding AI Fighter Pilots
| Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents |
| Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand! |
| AI Operates An Excavator |
| Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish |
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'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
