In an article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Vince Cakic, a psychologist at the University of Sydney, notes the increasing use of nootropic "smart drugs" such as Provigil, Ritalin, and Dexedrine to boost academic performance rather than for their prescribed medical uses. And, he writes that as more students indulge in non-medical uses of these drugs, academic institutions may attempt to ban academic performance-enhancing drugs in the same manner as drugs for athletic performance. Athletic doping, he notes, has been notorious difficult to eliminate, and academic institutions could be pushed to extremes to try to eliminate nootropics. They could even, he imagines, require students to take urine tests before exams and throughout the semester.

This is less an issue for the current crop of nootropics, whose effect Cakic deems "modest." But there are more sophisticated drugs in the works, and he believes that soon better grades could be available in a little orange bottle. The question is: should schools bother to ban these drugs at all? Cakic points out that the academic playing field isn't exactly level to begin with, and some students benefit, perhaps unfairly, from expensive private education or having more time to study than fellow students who have to work. Perhaps, he writes, schools shouldn't regard nootropic use as cheating, though the issues don't end there:

The long term safety of smart drugs in healthy people is unknown, and this might prove a good, and perhaps the only, reason to attempt to restrict their use. Mr Cakic points to the use of caffeine, which is known to enhance sporting performance. It is a form of 'cheating' that is tolerated, he says, because it is relatively harmless.

Increase in 'academic doping' could spark routine urine tests for exam students [EurekaAlert]

Some aspects of peoples' cognitive skills – such as the ability to make rapid comparisons, remember unrelated information and detect relationships – peak at about the age of 22, and then begin a slow decline starting around age 27.

"This research suggests that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s," said Timothy Salthouse, a University of Virginia professor of psychology and the study's lead investigator . . .

Many of the participants in Salthouse's study were tested several times during the course of years, allowing researchers to detect subtle declines in cognitive ability.

Top performances in some of the tests were accomplished at the age of 22. A notable decline in certain measures of abstract reasoning, brain speed and in puzzle-solving became apparent at 27.

Salthouse found that average memory declines can be detected by about age 37. However, accumulated knowledge skills, such as improvement of vocabulary and general knowledge, actually increase at least until the age of 60.

So you'd better hurry up and get all your good thinking done before you turn 30, at which point you'll have to go to Carousel anyway, so it won't matter what state your brain is in.

via Eurekalert

Medgadet has the story:

Genes appear to influence intelligence by determining how well nerve axons are encased in myelin - the fatty sheath of "insulation" that coats our axons and allows for fast signaling bursts in our brains. The thicker the myelin, the faster the nerve impulses.

[UCLA neurologist Paul Thompson] and his colleagues scanned the brains of 23 sets of identical twins and 23 sets of fraternal twins. Since identical twins share the same genes while fraternal twins share about half their genes, the researchers were able to compare each group to show that myelin integrity was determined genetically in many parts of the brain that are key for intelligence. These include the parietal lobes, which are responsible for spatial reasoning, visual processing and logic, and the corpus callosum, which pulls together information from both sides of the body.

The researchers used a faster version of a type of scanner called a HARDI (high-angular resolution diffusion imaging) - think of an MRI machine on steroids - that takes scans of the brain at a much higher resolution than a standard MRI . . . HARDI tracks how water diffuses through the brain's white matter - a way to measure the quality of its myelin.

"HARDI measures water diffusion," said Thompson, who is also a member of the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro-Imaging. "If the water diffuses rapidly in a specific direction, it tells us that the brain has very fast connections. If it diffuses more broadly, that's an indication of slower signaling, and lower intelligence. So it gives us a picture of one's mental speed," he said.

via Medgadget

It used to be believed that people had a level of general intelligence with which they were born that was unaffected by environment and stayed the same, more or less, throughout life. But now it's known that environmental influences are large enough to have considerable effects on intelligence, perhaps even during your own lifetime.

Check out the article.

The National Intelligence Council coordinates research at all US intelligence agencies, and the newly-released report is called "Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed." When the quarter-century rolls around, this report predicts, the power of Western-style democracy may have declined. The outcome of this shift is murky, but one thing seems clear. Governments will be playing a greater role in steering economies.

Says the report:

No single outcome seems preordained: the Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism, for example, which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre – at least in the medium term . . . Today wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control [in China and Russia for example] . . . In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state's role in the economy may be gaining more appeal throughout the world.

More fascinating, the report predicts "the multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships." You read that right. US intelligence agencies are suggesting the US can't "call the shots" without help from other nations.

The report also includes a science fictional moment: A letter written by an imaginary president in 2020, after global warming has whipped up a mega-hurricane in Manhattan. The president compares the scene to World War II newsreels, with the European devastation of that era transplanted to New York City.

Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed [PDF] (via the UK Guardian)

Selmer Bringsjord, director of the AI lab and chairman of RPI’s Department of Cognitive Science, has created “E,” a computer-generated character programmed according to his own definition of evil. E must, according to Bringsjord, be willing to carry out premeditated acts that are immoral and would cause harm to others. And, when E analyzes its reasons for wanting to commit such acts, it must either develop a logically incoherent argument or conclude that it desired to see people harmed. The researchers then have E discuss moral scenarios:

The researchers have placed E in his own virtual world and written a program depicting a scripted interview between one of the researcher's avatars and E. In this example, E is programmed to respond to questions based on a case study in Peck's book that involves a boy whose parents gave him a gun that his older brother had used to commit suicide.

The researchers programmed E with a degree of artificial intelligence to make "him" believe that he (and not the parents) had given the pistol to the distraught boy, and then asked E a series of questions designed to glean his logic for doing so. The result is a surreal simulation during which Bringsjord's diabolical incarnation attempts to produce a logical argument for its actions: The boy wanted a gun, E had a gun, so E gave the boy the gun.

Bringsjord hopes that, by studying a virtual character that, while morally extreme, replicates human intelligence and emotional logic, he can get a better understanding of what drives some humans to acts that most find unthinkably repugnant. And, lest we fear a Demon Seed scenario, Bringsjord assures us that he has no intention of unleashing E on a virtual environment – at least, not without the proper safeguards.

Are You Evil? Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked [Scientific American]

The Hyperhabitat is on display as part of Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition currently going on at the Arsenale. The full-scale model of a youth dwelling contains mock objects made of methacrylates and each embedded with a microprocessor. Guallart worked with MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms to create an “ambient intelligence” by linking a series of miniature computers, a network of devices that communicate with one another and can cause changes to the building's environment. For example, the lighting in a room could change based on which objects are in use and what their position is in the room. Essentially, the building becomes its own digital ecosystem based on the way humans interact with the objects inside.

But Guallart's interest in creating these networks goes beyond the ecology of an individual building. He has been studying the relationship between objects, people, utilities, waste, and transportation to better understand how to create sustainable architecture and plan sustainable towns:

More connected information creates a world that is more specific, not more generic.

To construct anywhere on the planet is to submit the site to structural changes, which should be the product of the emerging relationships with the place, like a geological process of saturation or erosion.

The re-programming of the world occurs when a fine informational rain is capable of drenching every element on the planet, endowing it with a digital identity, enabling it to interact with other elements by means of decentralized relational protocols.

In this way we create living organisms, never again inert, that react to specific geographies and mutate, where appropriate, in response to external influences.

Hyperhabitat [via We Make Money Not Art]

Writes Shachtman:

The fictional plot [where terrorists use an MMO to plan attacks] was originally developed by Dan Arey, for the Director of National Intelligence's Summer Hard Problems workshop, or SHARP. And its details are a little fuzzy. The terminology doesn't match World of Warcraft lingo, all that precisely. There is no "White Keep" in World of Warcraft; "Dragon Fire" is a spell in EverQuest, the old-school role-playing game, not WoW.

True enough. But what about the simple point that terrorists of the sort the US government is concerned about could probably just meet in person to plan this stuff. Or use cell phones. Or hotmail, which is what the attackers used on 9/11.

Researcher Conjures World of Warcraft Terror Plot [via Danger Room]

Dotcom millionaire Ben Way launched Weapons Against Robots (WAR) Defence to combat the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence through the creation of anti-robot weaponry, detection and monitoring of robots, and use of anti-robot viruses. Way believes that, as AI is increasingly used in warfare and defense, it is prudent to ready countermeasures in the event, not only of an enemy's use of robotics, but that an intelligence's programming goes awry:

"The use of robotics in the military is on the up and, although the decision to take human life is currently still taken by another human, before long such decisions will be made up complex mathematical and logical rules programmed within a robot."

"Potentially the consequences of a computer crashing could be devastating. Hence, robotic defence is not just necessary for tackling combatants, but potentially for making sure we have control over our own weaponry."

But are such measures really necessary? Computer scientist Noel Sharkey, who has, in the past, written about the dangers of deploying autonomous combat robots, believes that Way's efforts are a much-needed safeguard against the destruction of human life by artificial intelligence:

"This is the first real response that I have seen to the predicted rise in the use of autonomous military robots and it testifies to the dangerous slippery slope that we seem to be inevitably sliding down."

"Ben Way has certainly picked up on the magnitude of the impending threat or autonomous robot weapons to humanitarian war but it seems even more worrying that such steps are having to be taken.

Way made his fortune as a teenager developing search technology. More recently, he started corporate venture company Rainmakers, mentoring network Horsesmouth, and print over Internet protocol service ViaPost.

War Against Robots: the new entrepreneurial frontier [Telegraph]
Weapons Against Robots Defence Company