Category Archives: Singularity

I rarely use the words transformative or breakthrough for neuroscience findings. The brain is complex, noisy, chaotic, and often unpredictable. One intriguing result under one condition may soon fail for a majority of others. Whats more, paradigm-shifting research trends often require revolutionary tools. When were lucky, those come once a decade.

But I can unabashedly say that the 2010s saw a boom in neuroscience breakthroughs that transformed the field and will resonate long into the upcoming decade.

In 2010, the idea that wed be able to read minds, help paralyzed people walk again, incept memories, or have multi-layered brain atlases was near incomprehensible. Few predicted that deep learning, an AI model loosely inspired by neural processing in the brain, would gain prominence and feed back into decoding the brain. Around 2011, I asked a now-prominent AI researcher if we could automatically detect dying neurons in a microscope image using deep neural nets; we couldnt get it to work. Today, AI is readily helping read, write, and map the brain.

As we cross into the next decade, it pays to reflect on the paradigm shifts that made the 2010s the decade of the brain. Even as a boo humbug skeptic Im optimistic about the next decade for solving the brains mysteries: from genetics and epigenetics to chemical and electrical communications, networks, and cognition, well only get better at understanding and tactfully controlling the supercomputer inside our heads.

Weve covered brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) so many times even my eyes start glazing over. Yet I still remember my jaw dropping as I watched a paralyzed man kick off the 2014 World Cup in a bulky mind-controlled exosuit straight out of Edge of Tomorrow.

Flash forward a few years, and scientists have already ditched the exosuit for an implanted neural prosthesis that replaces severed nerves to re-establish communication between the brains motor centers and lower limbs.

The rise in BCIs owes much to the BrainGate project, which worked tirelessly to decode movement from electrical signals in the motor cortex, allowing paralyzed patients to use a tablet with their minds or operate robotic limbs. Today, prosthetic limbs coated with sensors can feed back into the brain, giving patients mind-controlled movement, sense of touch, and an awareness of where the limb is in space. Similarly, by decoding electrical signals in the auditory or visual cortex, neural implants can synthesize a persons speech by reconstructing what theyre hearing or re-create images of what theyre seeingor even of what theyre dreaming.

For now, most BCIsespecially those that require surgical implantsare mainly used to give speech or movement back to those with disabilities or decode visual signals. The brain regions that support all these functions are on the surface, making them relatively more accessible and easier to decode.

But theres plenty of interest in using the same technology to target less tangible brain issues, such as depression, OCD, addiction, and other psychiatric disorders that stem from circuits deep within the brain. Several trials using implanted electrodes, for example, have shown dramatic improvement in people suffering from depression that dont respond to pharmaceutical drugs, but the results vary significantly between individuals.

The next decade may see non-invasive ways to manipulate brain activity, such as focused ultrasound, transcranial magnetic or direct current stimulation (TMS/tDCS), and variants of optogenetics. Along with increased understanding of brain networks and dynamics, we may be able to play select neural networks like a piano and realize the dream of treating psychiatric disorders at their root.

Rarely does one biological research field get such tremendous support from multiple governments. Yet the 2010s saw an explosion in government-backed neuroscience initiatives from the US, EU, and Japan, with China, South Korea, Canada, and Australia in the process of finalizing their plans. These multi-year, multi-million-dollar projects focus on developing new tools to suss out the brains inner workings, such as how it learns, how it controls behavior, and how it goes wrong. For some, the final goal is to simulate a working human brain inside a supercomputer, forming an invaluable model for researchers to test out their hypothesesand maybe act as a blueprint for one day reconstructing all of a persons neural connections, called the connectome.

Even as initial announcements were met with skepticismwhat exactly is the project trying to achieve?the projects allowed something previously unthinkable. The infusion of funding provided a safety blanket to develop new microscopy tools to ever-more-rapidly map the brain, resulting in a toolkit of new fluorescent indicators that track neural activation and map neural circuits. Even rudimentary simulations have generated virtual epilepsy patients to help more precisely pinpoint sources of seizures. A visual prosthesis to restore sight, a memory prosthesis to help those with faltering recall, and a push for non-invasive ways to manipulate human brains all stemmed from these megaprojects.

Non-profit institutions such as the Allen Institute for Brain Science have also joined the effort, producing map after map at different resolutions of various animal brains. The upcoming years will see individual brain maps pieced together into comprehensive atlases that cover everything from genetics to cognition, transforming our understanding of brain function from paper-based 2D maps into multi-layered Google Maps.

In a way, these national programs ushered in the golden age of brain science, bringing talent from other disciplinesengineers, statisticians, physicists, computer scientistsinto neuroscience. Early successes will likely drive even more investment in the next decade, especially as findings begin translating into actual therapies for people who dont respond to traditional mind-targeting drugs. The next decade will likely see innovative new tools that manipulate neural activity more precisely and less-invasively than optogenetics. The rapid rise in the amount of data will also mean that neuroscientists will quickly embrace cloud-storage options for collaborative research and GPUs and more powerful computing cores to process the data.

First, brain to AI. The physical structure and information flow in the cortex inspired deep learning, the most prominent AI model today. Ideas such as hippocampal replaythe brains memory center replays critical events in fast forward during sleep to help consolidate memoryalso benefit AI models.

In addition, the activation patterns of individual neurons merged with materials science to build neuromorphic chips, or processors that function more like the brain, rather than todays silicon-based chips. Although neuromorphic chips remain mainly an academic curiosity, they have the potential to perform complicated, parallel computations at a fraction of the energy used by processors today. As deep neural nets get ever-more power hungry, neuromorphic chips may present a welcome alternative.

In return, AI algorithms that closely model the brain are helping solve long-time mysteries of the brain, such as how the visual cortex processes input. In a way, the complexity and unpredictability of neurobiology is shriveling thanks to these computational advancements.

Although crossovers between biomedical research and digital software have long existedthink programs that help with drug designthe match between neuroscience and AI is far stronger and more intimate. As AI becomes more powerful and neuroscientists collaborate outside their field, computational tools will only unveil more intricacies of neural processing, including more intangible aspects such as memory, decision-making, or emotions.

I talk a bunch about the brains electrical activity, but supporting that activity are genes and proteins. Neurons also arent a uniform bunch; multiple research groups are piecing together a whos who of the brains neural parts and their individual characteristics.

Although invented in the late 2000s, technologies such as optogenetics and single-cell RNA sequencing were widely adopted by the neuroscience community in the 2010s. Optogenetics allows researchers to control neurons with light, even in freely moving animals going about their lives. Add to that a whole list of rainbow-colored proteins to tag active cells, and its possible to implant memories. Single-cell RNA sequencing is the queen bee of deciphering a cells identity, allowing scientists to understand the genetic expression profile of any given neuron. This tech is instrumental in figuring out the neuron populations that make up a brain at any point in timeinfancy, youth, aging.

But perhaps the crown in new tools goes to brain organoids, or mini-brains, that remarkably resemble those of preterm babies, making them excellent models of the developing brain. Organoids may be our best chance of figuring out the neurobiology of autism, schizophrenia, and other developmental brain issues that are difficult to model with mice. This decade is when scientists established a cookbook for organoids of different types; the next will see far more studies that tap into their potential for modeling a growing brain. With hard work and luck, we may finally be able to tease out the root causes of these developmental issues.

Image Credit: NIH

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These Breakthroughs Made the 2010s the Decade of the Brain - Singularity Hub

Summary: Amidst the gloom that blankets America, there is evidence that a discontinuity in history approaches a technological singularity. It could blow away many of todays problems. Let this help dispel our fears and give us cause to celebrate. In the New Year, we can begin to prepare for what is coming.

Everything that can be invented has been invented. Attributed to Charles H. Duell, Director of US Patent Office 1898-1901. The quote is as false as the idea it expresses.

Wonders might await us that we cannot even imagine, just as the people of 1850 could not imagine the world of 1950. The rate of economic growth will accelerate, bringing more security and prosperity to the world. Pollution as we know it will be almost gone by 2100. The world will become a garden again as the population crashes. In the 22nd century we can repair the damage done in the 21st as the worlds population grew to 10 or 12 billion. Our next big challenge will be managing the political and social disruptions created by the coming new technologies.

History, from the Serengeti Plains to the Apollo moon landings, is a series of singularities. Fire gave us power over the environment. Agriculture gave us control over our food supply. Writing allowed better accumulation of knowledge across generations. The industrial revolutionn broke us free from the Malthusian limits on our population and wealth.

Each singularity took us into an unknowable future. For a fun illustration of this see Early Holocene Sci-fi by Pat Mathews.

Shaman: I have foreseen a time when everybody can have all the meat, fat, and sweet stuff they can eat, and they all get fat.

Chief: You have had a vision of the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Shaman: It is considered a great and horrible problem! People go out of their way to eat leaves and grass and grains, and work very hard to look lean and brown.

Chief: Youve been eating too many of those strange mushrooms, and are seeing everything backward.

The Singularity has happened. We call it the industrial revolution or the long nineteenth century. It was over by the close of 1918. Exponential yet basically unpredictable growth of technology, rendering long-term extrapolation impossible (even when attempted by geniuses). Check. Massive, profoundly dis-orienting transformation in the life of humanity, extending to our ecology, mentality and social organization? Check. Annihilation of the age-old constraints of space and time? Check.

The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone byCosma Shalizi (Assoc. Prof of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon).

Industrial revolutions do not just solve problems. They make them irrelevant to be replaced by the problems of a more stable and prosperous world. Each is a leap forward followed by a period of consolidation.

An industrial revolution began in 1700 (to pick an arbitrary date) and ended with WWII. Here is a brief description of how it changed the world on a scale we no longer remember. Its momentum boosted per capita GDP in the developed nations through the 1960s. Few noticed it ending. Even in the 1960s people expected a future of rapid technological progress. But all we got was the manned space program (an expensive trip to nowhere) and the supersonic transport (a premature technology), and radical but narrow changes in communication and computers.

Few predicted this slowdown. One who did was the great physicist Albert Abraham MichelsoninLights waves and their uses

The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. Many instances might be cited, but these will suffice to justify the statement that our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.

Now the slowing is obvious. The productivity of research the engine of progress is slowing as ever more resources are devoted to it (see this NBER paper). See this dismal graph from Are ideas getting harder to find?, a 2017 NBER paper by Nicholas Bloom et al. More evidence: growth in total factor productivity peaked in the 1940s, despite the skyrocketing number of researchers. We press the gas pedal ever harder, but the car does not accelerate. Click to enlarge the graph.

Looking at the bottom line,US economic growth has been slowing since the 1970s, as has that of the other developed nations. Many books describe this, such as these.

Each year gives more evidence that a singularity lies in our near future, a discontinuity in history that ends our current tech stagnation. We can only guess at what it might bring.

Space travel can bring a vast increase in resources. In the distant future, planetary engineering might make us independent of Earths vicissitudes.

Genetic engineering can liberate humanity from random evolution, bringing the freedom to shape ourselves.

New energy sources, such as fusion can provide ample clean power for a growing world. It has reached a new milestone, as private capital moves in.

New industrial methods are coming. Such as learning the mysteries of catalytic chemistry. Our bodies do near-miraculous chemical processes at room temperature. This will also transform agriculture into a more eco-friendly cornucopia.

Semi-intelligent computers (aka artificial Intelligence) can supplement our minds, just as machines supplemented brawn boosting productivity and hence economic growth. In the more distant future, perhaps they will end our solitude and free us from limitations of biological intelligence.

A longer vital lifespan can change humanity in ways we cannot imagine. In George Bernard Shaws Back to Methuselah

These are only plausible innovations. Who knows what we might achieve in the future?

There are many different concepts of a singularity, some contradictory. A key aspect is that we cannot see through a singularity in the physical universe (e.g., a black hole). Its first mention was by the great John von Neumann (1903-57), paraphrased by Stanislaw Ulam (BAMS, 1958).

One conversation centered on the ever-accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

The public learned about it from Vernor Vinges 1986 book Marooned in Realtime

There are several kinds of technological singularity, described in this excerpt from Three Major Singularity Schools by AI researcher Eliezer S. Yudkowsky.

Singularity discussions seem to be splitting up into three major schools of thought: Accelerating Change, the Event Horizon, and the Intelligence Explosion. The thing about these three logically distinct schools of Singularity thought is that while all three core claims support each other, all three strong claims tend to contradict each other.

Core claim: Our intuitions about change are linear; we expect roughly as much change as has occurred in the past over our own lifetimes. But technological change feeds on itself, and therefore accelerates. Change today is faster than it was 500 years ago, which in turn is faster than it was 5000 years ago. Our recent past is not a reliable guide to how much change we should expect in the future.

Strong claim: Technological change follows smooth curves, typically exponential. Therefore we can predict with fair precision when new technologies will arrive, and when they will cross key thresholds, like the creation of Artificial Intelligence.

Advocates: Ray Kurzweil, Alvin Toffler(?), John Smart.

Core claim: For the last hundred thousand years, humans have been the smartest intelligences on the planet. All our social and technological progress was produced by human brains. Shortly, technology will advance to the point of improving on human intelligence (brain-computer interfaces, Artificial Intelligence). This will create a future that is weirder by far than most science fiction, a difference-in-kind that goes beyond amazing shiny gadgets.

Strong claim: To know what a superhuman intelligence would do, you would have to be at least that smart yourself. To know where Deep Blue would play in a chess game, you must play at Deep Blues level. Thus the future after the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence is absolutely unpredictable.

Advocates: Vernor Vinge.

Core claim: Intelligence has always been the source of technology. If technology can significantly improve on human intelligence create minds smarter than the smartest existing humans then this closes the loop and creates a positive feedback cycle. What would humans with brain-computer interfaces do with their augmented intelligence? One good bet is that theyd design the next generation of brain-computer interfaces. Intelligence enhancement is a classic tipping point; the smarter you get, the more intelligence you can apply to making yourself even smarter.

Strong claim: This positive feedback cycle goes FOOM, like a chain of nuclear fissions gone critical each intelligence improvement triggering an average of>1.000 further improvements of similar magnitude though not necessarily on a smooth exponential pathway. Technological progress drops into the characteristic timescale of transistors (or super-transistors) rather than human neurons. The ascent rapidly surges upward and creates superintelligence (minds orders of magnitude more powerful than human) before it hits physical limits.

Advocates: I. J. Good, Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Why are so many so gloomy about our future? We have survived ice ages, pandemics, natural disasters (e.g., the eruption of Toba, which exterminated most of humanity), and our own mistakes. Our history gives us good reason to look to the future with anticipation, not fear. Remember that as our elites attempt to lead us by arousing fears. Do not fear the future. Have faith in America.

Ideas!For ideas how to spend your holiday cash, see my recommended books and filmsat Amazon. Also, see a story about our future:Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.

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Our future might see accelerating growth leading to the unimaginable. These two books sketch out what might lie ahead.

Marooned in Realtime

The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

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Celebrate our bright future on New Years eve! - Fabius Maximus website

If your New Year's resolutions include "leadership--get better at it," publishers in 2020 have some refreshingly non-theoretical offerings: one about word choice and one that's a kind of lead-as-you-go field manual. Big names tackle big subjects (see Michael Porter on politics and Sylvia Ann Hewlett on #MeToo). And in a couple of juicy insider accounts, scrappy entrepreneurs take down enemies (Square beats Amazon) or are taken down by friends (Instagram's founders exit Facebook, stage left).

JANUARY

#MeToo in the Corporate World: Power, Privilege, and the Path Forward, by Sylvia Ann HewlettFor decades Hewlett, an economist, has illuminated the practices and power structures obstructing women in the workplace. In#MeToo in the Corporate Worldshe tackles the limitations and unintended consequences of the #MeToo movement, including male skittishness about mentoring or sponsoring junior women. That over-cautiousness, in turn, narrows the pipeline to the C-suite, where we need diversity to end this crap once and for all.

Sizing People Up: A Veteran FBI Agent's User Manual for Behavior Prediction, by Robin Dreeke and Cameron StauthThe same tactics used to detect spies and criminals can be applied to the business world. Whom should I trust? Is this guy going to deliver? What did that comment in the meeting really mean? Is she seriously going to buy or is she stringing me along? Hiring and sales should benefit. Sizing People Upco-author Dreeke is a former head of the FBI's counterintelligence behavioral analysis program.

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven KotlerA gazillion books ponder the social and economic effects of disruptors like AI, virtual reality, 3-D printing, blockchain, robotics, and digital biology. What's intriguing about The Future Is Faster Than You Think is the speculation fromDiamondis (executive chairman of Singularity University) and Kotler (a science journalist)about what happens when all that stuff starts coming together. The implication for extending lifetimes is especially intriguing.

Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual, by Jocko WillinkA field manual is perfect for new leaders, who have less time than anyone to wade through great big books on leadership. The military uses field manuals to provide simple, step-by-step instructions for coping with myriad unfamiliar situations. Willink, a onetime Navy Seal commander, takes that approach in Leadership Strategy and Tacticswith subjects like dealing with imposter syndrome, doling out punishment, and giving feedback.

Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World, by Marco Iansiti and Karim LakhaniJust as the internet required a fundamental reinvention of business models, artificial intelligence challenges leaders to rethink everything about their organizations. AI processes are more scalable than human-powered ones; the technology creates more scope because it easily connects to other digital businesses; and it greatly amplifies learning and improvement. In Competing in the Age of AI,two Harvard Business School professors explain how to take advantage.

FEBRUARY

Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don't, by L. David MarquetLanguage is, arguably, the biggest leadership subject of all. Readers can apply lessons from Marquet, a nuclear-submarine-commander-turned-consultant, simply, immediately and every day. As Leadership Is Language demonstrates, Understanding distinctions between good and bad word choice and phrasing can improve the relationship between you and your team. For example: try delivering information ("I'll start again at 11 a.m.") instead of instruction ("Be back by 11 a.m.). See? Simple.

Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments, by Stefan ThomkeThirty years ago Peter Senge encouraged companies to become learning organizations. Now in Experimentation Works, a Harvard Business School professor gets more concrete, lauding the power of "experimentation organizations" in which everyone--not just R&D--constantly tests everything from new processes to new business models with scientific rigor. Thomke lays out best practices forcreating a strong hypothesis,setting up control groups, andinterpreting results. Can you tell a true positive or negative from a false one? Do you ever compare current practices to themselves? If not, you may be blowing it.

MARCH

Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us from Citizen Kings to Market Servants, by Maurice Stucke and Ariel EzrachiConventional wisdom says competition is good. Fair enough. But more isn't always better. In fact, the proliferation of rivals sometimes hurts consumers, who pay less but also get less--unhealthy food, toxic drinking water, hidden fees, failing schools, and an internet stalked by advertisers. The authors, both professors of business law, explain in Competition Overdosehow lobbyists, lawmakers, and business leaders conspire to push noxious competition and advocate for something nobler.

The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, by Jim McKelveyAs co-founder of the small-merchant payment company Square, McKelvey spent the early days of his venture not getting killed by Amazon. Square was so good at not getting killed that it actually took out Amazon's rival service less than a year after its introduction. The company pulled that off using a strategy McKelvey calls the "innovation stack." Other successful startups have used it too, and the author explains how it works.

The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World, by Dexter RobertsChina's manufacturing prowess is either threat or opportunity, depending where you live on the supply chain. But will it ultimately hoist that country to world domination? Maybe not, suggests business journalist Roberts. The Myth of Chinese Capitalism is a tale of two cities--impoverished Binghuacun, from which hordes of migrants depart; and industrial Guangdong, where hordes of migrants arrive. The struggles of families there predict rising social tension that endanger the giant's future.

APRIL

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram, by Sarah FrierJournalist Frier landed interviews with Instagram's founders, executives, and competitors to chronicle the company's meteoric growth as it hooked the world on visual storytelling, followed by its sale to and rocky relationship with Facebook. No Filter'spublisher promises previously unreported dramatic details of Kevin Systrom's and Mike Krieger's departures from the company they spawned. Also: Marquee users like Anna Wintour and Kris Jenner discuss how they craft their personal brands.

Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley--Making AI Serve Us All, by Kevin Scott with Greg ShawBooks on AI are proliferating so fast you'd think computers were churning them out. But Reprogramming the American Dream authorScott should have an interesting perspective. First, because he is CTO of Microsoft. Second, because he grew up in rural Virginia and understands how white-collar disruptions affect back-roads populations. Scott advocates international policy collaboration similar to that focused on climate change, space exploration, and public health.

MAY

Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever, by Alex KantrowitzThe title, of course, refers to Jeff Bezos's dictum that Amazon employees approach each day like the first day of a startup. Kantrowitz, a BuzzFeed journalist, sat down with Bezos,Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg,Google's Sundar Pichai,and other leaders of the colossi that--for good and ill--dominate our lives and economy. In Always Day One he explains how such companies maintain a constant state of urgency and reinvention to avoid stasis and irrelevancy. And he suggests how startups might try to change that.

The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy, by Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. PorterRemember when it was fashionable to argue that government should be run like a business? Even if government isn't a company, politics is an industry, and a singularly destructive one with its own skewed forms of competition. In The Politics Industry,HBS professor Porter--creator of the seminal "Five Forces" strategy--joins activist Gehl to explain what happens when competing parties control the rules of competition and how citizens can help fix the system.

JUNE

Billion Dollar Burger: Inside Big Tech's Race for the Future of Food, by Chase PurdyAs meatless meat colonizes even the shores of fast food, Purdy, a writer for Quartz, reports on the potentially planet-changing disruption that may stave off hunger, endanger farm economies, and make some folks very rich. Billion Dollar Burger's center is Josh Tetrick, CEO of a Silicon Valley company developing meat from cell cultures. Tetrick, who is beset by hungry competitors, is a fascinating guy who previously took on Big Condiments with vegan mayonnaise.

Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, by Gary Hamel and Michele ZaniniHooray that business authors now talk less about managing workforces and more about managing individuals. In Humanocracy,London Business School professor Hamel and McKinsey alum Zanini lay out the costs of dehumanizing workers in the interest of control and explain how to achieve the benefits of coordination and consistency while letting employees be themselves.

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16 New Business Books You Need to Read in 2020 - Inc.

Gears shift jarringly as the audiences polite, hushed reverence made way for Neon Pattern Drum, its relentless beat and all-encompassing bass instantaneously transforming the space into a euphoric, hands-in-the-air dance party where patrons risked looking foolish by remaining in their seats.

Hopkins has said his most recent album Singularity is designed to replicate the build, peak and release pattern of a psychedelic experience. Trippy, hypnotic visuals crafted to melt minds are projected onto a large screen while two performers with flashing light-wands that could have been designed to direct UFOs in to land, show off some dazzling routines.

Hopkins largely skips the quieter moments from his discography in favour of keeping the momentum high, reaching fever pitch during an intense, acid-techno strafing delivered via 2013 single Open Eye Signal.

As an exercise in both blasting away Sunday night cobwebs and giving an accurate depiction of what a dance party would look and sound like within the Blade Runner universe, the performance was a winner. Hopkins made the iconic venue serve his particular artistic vision, rather than the other way around.

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Techno fans have a blast - The Age

(Photo : upload.wikimedia.org)How sure are we that dark matter is real? Or is the genie going back to the bottle that will change everything?

The universe is a sea of black that surrounds everything in the universe as it is. Right now, galaxies are moving apart at fantastical rates of speed as they drift apart. What fuel this universal expansion? Since the big bang, there have been pockets of dark matter, this forms the unseen framework of the universe. It is till now, one counter-theory about is suggesting it does exist which is like sending the genie back to the bottle. What happens to the ever-expanding universe model without dark matter to fill up the spaces, in between the physical universe as every sentient life form understands it?

One of the first assumptions is with the genie in the bottle postulate is that implosion on a universal scale without the dark matter. Researchers with the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (IKBFU), located in Russia are boldly suggesting there are more forces at work with universal expansion. Like all theories from relativity to Isaac Newton's law of gravity they are grounded on the concept of gravity. But, this force operates independent of space-time and is an essentially a free agent from the four universal forces. In short, gravity has an effect upon it, and the proposed is one controversial concept too.

It will be a big break from most reasoning because it can operate free from universal gravitation. Mind numbing when gravitation is the force that keeps matter intact or destroys it. The presence of dark matter is vital to keep the galaxies apart, but without it to hold expansion and keep moving away. Acceleration slows down and the inevitable countdown to the singularity where the galaxy began. Call it point zero or "god". Without the mechanics of dark matter, the view of the expanding universe does not apply.

Details of the theory will be like no other concept that has been suggested, because it operates similar to dark energy but is not. Introducing the Casimir effect, which was first introduced as forces that are created as a result of quantum reactions in a quantized field. Predicted by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir in 1948.

What alternative theory to universal expansion caused by it, not dark matter that exists in pockets as described. The Casimir effect can fuel universal expansion because it creates spaces in the "space", that expands as the quantum effect multiples similar to repulsion on a grand universal level. Next question is for everyone, how far will the walls created by the effect expand? Will it be an infinite expansion or finite, and where does everything end. Does the universe begin or does it go out with the singularity?

One possible answer is the universe exists as a three-dimension construct that allows the Casimir effect to expand the spaces in the 3-d model. The earth lies on a two-dimension plane in the universe, while the universe overlays everything is the third dimension. With dark matter out of the equation, the genies is back in the bottle which leaves the Casimir effect filling the spaces and repulsing at the same

Related Article: New dark energy theory claims it may not even exist

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Does Dark Matter Really Exist or Is the Genie Going Back in the Bottle - Science Times

Futurism is a mugs game: if youre right, it seems banal; if youre wrong, you look like the founder of IBM, Thomas Watson, when he declared in 1943 that there is room in the world for maybe five computers.

David Adams knew these risks when he wrote about the future of technology in the Guardian in 2004 even citing the very same prediction as an example of how they can go awry. And from our vantage point in 2020, Adams certainly did a better job than Watson. When he looked ahead to today, he avoided many of the pitfalls of technology prediction: no promises about flying cars nor sci-fi tech such as teleportation or faster-than-light travel.

But in some ways, the predictions were overly pessimistic. Technology really has made great leaps and bounds in the past 16 years, nowhere more clearly than AI. Artificial intelligence brains simply cannot cope with change and unpredictable events, wrote Adams, explaining why robots would be unlikely to interact with humans any time soon.

Fundamentally, its just very difficult to get a robot to tell the difference between a picture of a tree and a real tree, Paul Newman, then and now a robotics expert at Oxford University, told Adams. Happily, Newman proved his own pessimism to be unwarranted: in 2014, he co-founded Oxbotica, which has hopefully solved the problem he mentioned, because it makes and sells driverless car technology to vehicle manufacturers around the world.

If we move on from worrying over details, there are two key points at which the 2020 predictions fall apart: one about tech, the other about society.

Gadget lovers could use a single keypad to operate their phone, PDA [tablet] and MP3 music player, Adams wrote, or combine the output of their watch, pager and radio into a single speaker. The idea of greater convergence and connectivity between personal electronics was correct. But there was a very specific hole in this prediction: the smartphone. After half a century of single-purpose consumer electronics, it was difficult to perceive how all-encompassing a single device could become, but just three years after Adams pubished his piece, the iPhone launched and changed everything. Forget carrying around a separate MP3 player; in the real 2020, people arent even carrying separate cameras, wallets or car keys.

Failing to foresee the smartphone is an oversight about the progress of technology. But the other missing point is about how society would respond to the changing forces. The 2004 predictions are, fundamentally, optimistic. Adams writes about biometric healthcare data being beamed to your doctors computer; about washing machines that automatically arrange their own servicing based on availability in your electronic organiser; and about radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips on your clothes that trigger customised adverts or programme your phone based on where you are. And through it all is a sense of trust: these changes will be good, and the companies making them well-intentioned.

There is a loss of privacy that is going to be very difficult for people and we havent figured out how to deal with that, one of Adamss interviewees admitted, when describing technology in 2020. But if you explain what it does, how much information it provides and where it goes and that the trade-off is that you dont have to wait as long in line at the supermarket then people will take the trade-off. In fact, over the past decade and a half, the vast majority of people were simply never given the choice to accept the trade-off, and it is increasingly clear that many of them never would have if they had understood what was at risk.

If the Guardian missed the advent of the smartphone, despite writing just three years before the launch of the iPhone, how can we possibly do better today, looking 10 times further ahead? The world of 2050 will be unimaginably different in many ways, even if we can safely assume people will still generally have two arms, two legs and an unpleasant smell if they dont wash for long periods of time.

But there are forces working in our favour. The internet is far more entrenched now than it was in 2004, and while its chaotic effect on our lives shows no sign of abating, it is at least predictably unpredictable. Similarly, smartphone penetration in the west is now as high as it looks likely to go. However the world changes over the next 30 years, it wont be as a result of more Britons or Americans getting phones.

Other predictions can be as simple as following trendlines to their logical conclusion. By 2050, the switchover to electric cars will have mostly finished, at least in developed nations as well as in those developing nations, such as China, that are starting to prioritise air quality over cheap mechanisation.

The next billion will be online, mostly through low-cost smartphones receiving increasingly ubiquitous cellular connections. But what they do on the internet is harder to guess. In 2020, there are two countervailing trends at work: on the one hand, providers, principally Facebook, have been trying to use subsidised deals to push newly connected nations on to stripped-down versions of the internet. If they succeed at scale, then many of the benefits of the web will be stolen from whole nations, reduced instead to being passive participants in Facebook and a few local media and payment companies.

But pushback, from national regulators in places such as India and from competing carriers, could bring the new nations to the real internet instead. Unless, that is, national regulators push in a different direction, copying China, Iran and Russia to keep Facebook out by building a purely nationalistic internet. How better to ensure that the benefits of the web accrue domestically, they reason, than by requiring your citizens to use home-grown services? And if it makes it easier to impose censorship, well, thats just another benefit.

James Bridle, the author of the unsettling book New Dark Age, points out that the discussion cant lose sight of who the next billion actually are. I keep thinking about the way the tech industry talks about the next billion users without acknowledging that those people are going to be hot, wet and pissed off, he says, and were only talking about hardening borders, rather than preparing politically, socially, technologically for this reality.

Because, if we are guessing the future from simple trend lines, there is another one that we need to acknowledge: the climate. The specifics of what will change are not for this piece, but the human response very much is.

One possibility is plan A: humanity, in time, reaches net zero when it comes to emissions. In that scenario, we will live in a world where plant proteins replace meat in everyday consumption, where electrically powered networked mass transit reaches into the suburbs and beyond, a world of video-conferencing and remote attendance steadily chipping away at business flights, and of insulation inside the walls of British homes. (Look, it cant all be high-tech.)

If plan A fails, then there is a chance we turn to plan B. That is a world in which megascale injections of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere turn the heavens a milky-white, and a whole generation never sees a clear blue sky, in order to reflect more of the suns rays and pause the greenhouse effect. It is one in which we turn on gigantic processing plants that do nothing but extract carbon dioxide from the air and pump it underground into disused oil wells. It is one in which whole cities are abandoned and populations relocated to avoid the worst effects we cant prevent.

Plan B geoengineering is neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the future of humanity, says Holly Jean Buck, the author of After Geoengineering. The worst thing would be we fail plan A and plan B. Over the next decade, I think geoengineering will definitely be tried. Right now, its toned down, I think because of people not wanting to talk about it. We dont have the body of knowledge, and would need 20 or 30 years to develop it. Right about midcentury means it will be a crunch point: climate change will be really apparent.

But for Buck, as for Bridle, the distinctions that really matter arent necessarily the technology. The choices around whether we have a livable future or a dystopian one are about social attitudes and social changes.

Right now, were in this era of stopgaps. Society used to be able to make a long-term plan: people built long-term infrastructure and thought a bit further out. Thats not something that happens now: we go to quick fixes. We need a cultural change in values, to enable more deliberate decision-making.

There is another possibility: that technology really does save the day, and then some. John Maeda, the chief experience officer at the digital consultancy Publicis Sapient, says that by 2050, computational machines will have surpassed the processing power of all the living human brains on Earth. The cloud will also have absorbed the thinking of the many dead brains on Earth, too and we all need to work together to survive. So I predict that we will see a lasting cooperation between the human race and the computational machines of the future.

This sort of thinking has come to be known as the singularity: the idea that there will be a point, perhaps even a singular moment in time, when the ability of thinking machines outstrips those who created them, and progress accelerates with dizzying results.

If you interview AI researchers about when general AI a machine that can do everything a human can do will arrive, they think its about 50/50 whether it will be before 2050, says Tom Chivers, the author of The AI Does Not Hate You.

They also think that AGI artificial general intelligence can be hugely transformative lots of them signed an open letter in 2015 saying eradication of disease and poverty could be possible. But also, he adds, citing a 2013 survey in the field, on average they think there is about a 15% to 20% chance of a very bad outcome [existential catastrophe], which means everyone dead.

There is, perhaps, little point in dwelling on the 50% chance that AGI does develop. If it does, every other prediction we could make is moot, and this story, and perhaps humanity as we know it, will be forgotten. And if we assume that transcendentally brilliant artificial minds wont be along to save or destroy us, and live according to that outlook, then what is the worst that could happen we build a better world for nothing?

Originally posted here:

Technology in 2050: will it save humanity or destroy us? - The Guardian

Noel Fielding has hinted there will be more of The Mighty Boosh in the new decade.

The comedian and television presenter, who co-wrote as well as starred in the surreal cult comedy series with Julian Barratt from 2004-09, posted an image of himself and Barratt on Instagram and suggested its time for a comeback.

There really wasnt enough Boosh this decade! lets try and rectify that in the next one, Fielding wrote beneath the photo.

Last year Fielding and Barratt returned as The Mighty Boosh for the first time in five years to become the UKsRecord Store Day ambassadorsfor 2019.

We are approaching singularity, when computers will overtake and replace us. Therefore, it suddenly felt prescient to outwit them and somehow save our precious early recordings onto a format that the dawning artificial intelligences will not see as a threat, Barratt said of their acceptance to be ambassadors.

The Mighty Boosh comedy troupe has existed in many artistic forms since its inception in 1998 from stand-up shows and gigs to a radio series and a celebrated TV show.

In recent years, Fielding has co-presented The Great British Bake Off since its move from the BBC to Channel 4, while Barratt has starred in TV shows including Flowers and Killing Eve.

Read this article:

Noel Fielding teases return of 'The Mighty Boosh' - NME.com

Recent research on longevity is making the idea of an elixir of life sound increasingly plausible. But a startup thats started selling a $1 million anti-aging treatment is most likely jumping the gun.

Libella Gene Therapeutics says it will administer volunteers with a gene therapy that it claims can reverse aging by up to 20 years, according to OneZero. Despite the fact that this is the first human trial of the treatment, the company is charging volunteers $1m to take part. In an effort to side-step the FDA, the trial will take place in Colombia.

The therapy will attempt to repair peoples telomeres, the caps on the end of our chromosomes that shorten as people get older. Its long been thought that they play a role in aging, and efforts to extend telomeres in mice have shown that it can delay the signs of getting older and increase healthy lifespan, though its yet to be tested in humans.

Libellas therapy will use viruses to deliver a gene called TERT, which codes for an enzyme called telomerase that re-builds teleomeres, to the patients cells.

Experts told MIT Tech Review that the trial is unethical, poorly designed, and presents serious risks to participants, including the danger of activating dormant cancerous cells. But its also still unclear whether the trial will go ahead, because the company has made previous announcements before without following through.

Whether or not it does, though, medical treatments to head off the slow march towards death are likely to become increasingly common. A growing body of research suggests that aging is an entirely preventable condition and that there may be a variety of ways to treat it, from lifestyle changes to dramatic genetic interventions.

In 2017, scientists showed that using drugs to reprogram epigenetic markerschemical attachments responsible for regulating the genomein mice extended their lifespan by 30 percent. And in 2018, another team showed that using a combination of drugs to kill senescent cellszombie cells that leak harmful chemicals, damaging nearby tissuecould boost the longevity of mice by 36 percent.

Famous geneticist George Church has even launched a startup called Rejuvenate Bio that will use proprietary genetic treatments to prolong the lives of dogs, though he has admitted the ultimate goal is to extend its technology to humans. Last month Churchs group at Harvard also showed that using gene therapies to tackle three age-related diseases at once was effective in mice.

The first anti-aging treatments for people are already starting to appear as well. CEO of longevity company BioViva Elizabeth Parrish injected herself with a gene therapy similar to Libellas back in 2015, and the company has claimed it was successful in lengthening her telomeres, though results were never published.

Earlier this year a study on humans found that a cocktail of drugs could reset the epigenetic clock, epigenetic markers used to measure a persons biological age. The participants also showed signs of a rejuvenated immune system.

And more controversially, the FDA recently had to put out a public service announcement telling people to stop injecting blood plasma from younger people. The idea is built upon recent research that showed a rejuvenating effect in mice, but most experts say its far too early to apply it to humans.

Whether the FDA will be able to keep on top of this burgeoning and highly lucrative market remains to be seen, but given the potential side effects of many of these treatments, it should be a priority.

We also need to have a more in-depth conversation about what these longevity therapies mean for society. Assuming this new trial is effective, what does it mean if only those with $1m to spare get to extend their lives? If treating aging becomes trivial, how is that going to change the nature of our communities? These are questions that may become increasingly relevant in the coming decades.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

Originally posted here:

A New Anti-Aging Therapy Is Starting Its First Human Trialand It Costs $1 Million - Singularity Hub

Key takeaways:

After its Moncler Genius experiment paid off, Moncler wanted to emphasise its positioning as a collaborative, innovative company. This summer, the Italian outerwear brand hosted its first company-wide hackathon in the hopes of landing on another innovative idea.

The brands 450 employees, broken into 37 teams, were asked to brainstorm and develop new ideas across nine categories including products, information technology, supply chain, sustainability and Monclers internal learning academy within 24 hours. The projects were judged on desirability, business impact, feasibility and level of innovation. Some teams were then invited to continue to develop their ideas; the winning team, voted on by the company, is to be announced this week.

The prize: Participation in a training programme at Silicon Valleys Singularity University, an organisation co-founded by futurist Ray Kurzweil and engineer Peter Diamandis in 2008 to teach innovative thinking to executives. The Moncler employees who won the hackathon will spend two days learning about the technologies that will impact the fashion industry and what it means to think like a startup founder.

For years, fashion, which hinges on newness, has been eager to inject innovation from the outside. Gucci has borrowed from software engineering by hiring a scrum master, for example, while both LVMH and Kerings chief digital officers came from tech. Fashion has also turned to startups through incubators like Farfetchs Dream Assembly and LVMHs La Maison des Startups. Taking it a step further, companies are now future-proofing by training existing employees in innovation.

Moncler's summer hackathon separated all 450 employees into groups of 12.

Moncler

In 2018, Monclers Genius project replaced the brands seasonal collections and solo creative director with monthly designer collaborations. It has contributed to double-digit growth for the company since. Moncler Genius turned out to be an innovation within our industry, says Moncler chairman and CEO Remo Ruffini. Now, we must keep on developing and being like a startup that elicits interest and keeps on revamping our clients curiosity.

Fashion and beauty industry executives at Singularity University, which doesnt share information on past students but reports an uptick in interest from fashion companies since 2015, participate in programmes to learn about technologies including artificial intelligence, 3D printing, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality from both faculty and industry experts, says managing director of corporate communications Adolph Hunter.

In the programmes, executives work on using technology to solve business problems or for growth through workshops, prototyping, future mapping and unlearning techniques that encourage new methods of thinking. The courses, which are set up as two-day to week-long crash courses, can be designed as individual lessons or to service classes of 100. The universitys pre-designed exponential innovation programme starts at around $5,000.

While most of the SU clients are not from the fashion industry, Hunter says that the organisation works with fashion, beauty and fashion merchandising and supply chain brands.

The basic premise is that there are so many technologies that are poorly understood and not being well implemented, Hunter says. Fashion leaders leave with a keen understanding of how to harness, not be a victim of, these unstoppable advancements in technology.

Matthew Drinkwater, head of London College of Fashions Innovation Agency, has worked on fashion and beauty mixed reality projects with brands such as Microsoft and Westfield. These projects attracted execs interested in creating something similar, and Drinkwater has developed bespoke courses for senior-level fashion executives. (He doesnt disclose which executives hes worked with.) Teams will often learn general principles about a specific technology before workshopping specific applications in design, supply chain, showcasing and retail, he says. A few participants have developed virtual try-on experiences, and another has been developing a strategy around digital fashion. Programmes start at 5,000 for a one-day workshop.

Drinkwater sees AR and VR as two of the most important emerging technologies in fashion. Immersive technologies are going to redefine the entire ecosystem of fashion as we know it.

Lisa Lang, CEO of fashion-tech consultancy ThePowerHouse, will mentor students in Polimoda's innovation course. Gabriele Moschin, Polimoda head of education, says that member of the fashion industry had been asking for this course.

Federica Fioravanti

This spring, Florence-based fashion school Polimoda will host its first nine-month programme designed to train future chief innovation officers for fashion companies. The programme started after the school heard from fashion brands that graduates needed extra technology education; its also a way for independent designers to gain a competitive edge, says Lisa Lang, the programme mentor and CEO of fashion-tech consultancy ThePowerHouse.

"Our aim is to prepare students to face the fashion world from 2021, which leads us to the next big issue: What will the professions of the future be?" says Gabriele Moschin, Polimoda head of education.

Lang plans to bring in experts from other industries who can apply existing systems and technologies to fashion. Topics will include bio and material science, 3D printing and new textile studies, electronically enhanced materials, anti-counterfeiting and circular economy technology and new business models, and the full programme costs 28,000.

A key lesson for Langs students will be a mindset shift. The current fashion industry is poison for innovation, Lang says, referring to hierarchical, top-down structures. There is no team culture it's everyone for themselves. In tech, you are allowed to question the boss. In fashion, it is a different approach. We are talking about changing the culture, and that takes time.

Lang says that hiring teams with pure technology backgrounds and no experience in fashion isnt the best solution for a long-term shift. Rather than hiring a scrum master who has zero understanding of how fashion works, wouldnt it make sense to train the people who are familiar with the industry? she says. A technical programme designed specifically for fashion works, she says, because sending a fashion person to a technical university would be like flying to Mars and talking to aliens.

Fostering collaboration was part of the impetus for the Moncler hackathon, Ruffini says. Solutions can rarely come from just one person, and we all know that innovations often do not come from specialists or expert[s], adding that establishing a culture of innovation and collaboration is an important investment. He encouraged the hackathon teams to acknowledge when you need to be a good follower and teammate.

But any broad cultural change takes work, and Drinkwater doubts that innovation is a skill that can be taught. I know there is a lot of debate on this one, he says. I sit more on the side that we don't teach innovation; we just create an environment in which it can take place. He says that creating a sense of curiosity and experimentation is vital.

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More on this topic:

Pradas Lorenzo Bertelli sees startups as path to innovation

There are no digitally native luxury brands. Kering wants to retrofit one

How fashion startups get accepted into tech accelerators

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Can innovation be taught? - Vogue Business

Last weekend, in Los Angeles, the indie cinema Alamo Drafthouse hosted a sweaters only screening of the director Rian Johnsons mystery film Knives Out. The dress code was not strictly enforcedinstead, it was more of a gentle invitation to arrive at the theatre in the kind of chunky knits that Chris Evans wears throughout the film, as the spoiled scion Ransom Drysdale, whose mystery-writer grandfather, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), unceremoniously turns up dead. Evans wears one sweater in particular that has become an object of lust and fascination for the public since the film dbuted, in time for the Thanksgiving weekend. Halfway through the film, Evans strides into the familys Gothic manse in a crew neck the color of full-fat eggnog and woven in the traditional Aran Islands style. The sweater features plackets of thick, braided, water-wicking yarn, as if a sheep had yielded its entire winter coat to enwrap Evans in comfort.

Now the sweater is viral. According to one report, the Irish retailer Blarney Woollen Mills, which has been peddling traditional Celtic knitwear since 1823, has seen a hundred-and-fifty-per-cent increase in sales of its a hundred-and-five-dollar Blasket Honeycomb Stitch Aran Sweater since the films dbut. A ninety-nine-dollar cotton dupe at L.L. Bean is completely sold out in the ivory hue. CNN dubbed the sweater this seasons great gift for guys, and, last week, the frenzy hit a kind of absurdist meme singularity when someone Photoshopped a teeny tiny jumper onto Baby Yoda. For a day, the official Knives Out Twitter account changed its name to Chris Evans Sweater Stan Account, and then gave away a hundred sweatshirts that featured a still of Evans in his woolly regalia to fans. Aran sweaters have been a staple of stuffy catalogues for years, but now, suddenly, they feel campy and subversive, a link to murder and malfeasance. What was once a humdrum dad staple took on a fabulous new dimension when it clung to Evanss broad shoulders, as his Ransom smirked at the Drysdale family from a club chair during a will reading. What was he hiding underneath that bone-white coziness?

The Knives Out sweater mania began on the thirst-factory floor of social media, where critics given advance access to the film began to gush early and often about Evanss waggish woolliness. (The only thing I will say about Knives Out, the critic Anna Menta tweeted, in a sentiment that has since racked up more than fifty thousand likes, is that, upon seeing Chris Evans in a sweater, the girl next to me gasped and said very softly and tenderly, Sweater.) Then the films costume designer, Jenny Eagan, started giving interviews that built up the mythology of the sweater. She said that she could not remember who made the sweater (she vaguely remembers purchasing it, but does not recall if it was new or vintage or one of a kind), and that it was now missing. (Evans claims to have swiped much of his wardrobe from the set.) So far, no manufacturer has piped up to claim the glory. A fashion credit that could have launched a thousand shipping boxes is now lost to the ether, which has also allowed every knitwear retailer on earth to pounce on the demand. If you Google Knives Out sweater, dozens of shopping results pop up. Theres this one, from Orvis (now sold out!); or this one, from Huckberry; or this one, from the Irish Store; or this one, from the Aran Sweater Market. Really, any bulky garment the tint of Taleggio cheese could be the One True Sweater.

When I spoke to Eagan recently, she told me that she chose to swaddle Evans in eggshell because it was the color of leisure, of a man who has never had to work a day in his life. He can wear a color that must stay pristine, because hes not doing the kind of labor that would invite stains (or any labor, really). No matter that, traditionally, on the isle of Inishmore, in Galway Bay, where Aran sweaters originated, those who wore bone-colored knits spent their days deboning fish on the decks of trawlers, covered in guts and slurry. In America, among the nouveau riche, fishermans sweaters have lost their yeoman roots and have come to symbolize the erasure of work itself. In Knives Out, Evanss sweater looks pampered, the clothing equivalent of drinking cocoa with extra whipped cream during the aprs-ski. The sweater has tiny holes at the sleeve and the neckline, a detail that Eagan said is purposefulshe wanted it to look like Ransom, who lives off his grandfathers fortune, doesnt care for his clothes. Hes buying expensive things, Eagan said. But he doesnt respect them. She doubled down on this point by giving Evans Gucci loafers that a member of the costume department had pre-distressed by walking around in them and crunching down on the back edges until the leather was ragged and peeling.

Without giving anything away, there is a reason to believe that Ransoms blitheness might make him similarly cavalier toward his family. His sweater becomes a clue. The clothes from Knives Out are not just colorful set dressings; they are, in the classic whodunnit tradition, part of the bread-crumb trail to the truth. Jamie Lee Curtiss jewel-toned pants suits (which Curtis suggested herself for her role, as Linda Drysdale, Harlans eldest daughter) were meant to show that she could sell you anything, Eagan said. Shes a flashy real-estate agent, dripping in Verdura jewelry, highly capable of completing all conceivable tasks (even murder?). This is in high contrast with her brother, Walt (Michael Shannon), who runs Harlans publishing company and wears muted, drab cardigans and milquetoast pleated khakis. His wife, Donna (Riki Lindhome), wears her ice-blond hair pulled back in a severe bun and dons a string of pearls and knee-high riding boots. I wanted her to look as if as if she dressed like she rode horses but didnt have a horse, Eagan said. Together, they aspire to be blue bloods but clearly resent that their wealth is built on someone elses talents. Their attire has the whiff of trying too hard, of desperationare they desperate enough to kill?

And then theres Joni (Toni Collette), Harlans dippy daughter-in-law, who is secretly double-dipping from his bank account to fund her Goop-esque beauty brand, Flam. Eagan put Collette predominantly in the high-end Australian brand Zimmermann, which makes flowy floral maxidresses and aquamarine gauchos and fluttery, ethereal blouses. This is the uniform du jour for the coddled yoga mom, a shorthand for I am a white woman with expendable income and a SoulCycle membership and a passing interest in essential oils. Collettes breezy resort wear, with comical layers of belts and baubles, looks so out of place in dreary New England that it almost seems nefarious. That look is like a salad baryou just keep stacking it on, Eagan said.

The hyperbolic fashion of Knives Out is one of Rian Johnsons many clandestine homages to whodunnits of the past. It makes me think of the first time that I can remember coveting an item of clothing from the screen. I was in the fourth grade, and a babysitter popped in a Blockbuster rental of Jonathan Lynns 1985 mystery-meets-farce-meets-Hasbro-promotional-tool Clue and then left me alone to deduce the killer, while I devoured pepperoni pizza. From the first minutes of the filmwhen Lesley Ann Warren, playing the nineteen-fifties D.C. madam Miss Scarlet, stands outside a baroque villa in the rain, in an iridescent teal coat with a contrasting, oversized bronze collar that envelopes her head like a mollusk shellI was entranced. This was high farce, transmitted through the smallest details. As each character arrives for a dinner party at the secluded house, you know exactly what type of person they are playing, even before they begin speaking. When everyone is a suspect, the viewer begins to look everywhere for signsand it is up to the costume designer to both disguise and wink toward possible solutions to the mystery, through color and textures. Motifs become potential motives. Fabrics and textures help immediately separate and sharpen each member of the ensemble.

In Clue, for example, Warrens baby-blue, elbow-length doeskin gloves perfectly match the whisper-light tulle cape that she pins to her evening gown (deep blue-green and corseted, with a sweetheart neckline), an exaggerated outfit that immediately signals a woman of taste and luxury who cannot be trusted. The late, great comic actress Madeline Kahn played Mrs. White, a widow whose husbands death may not have been accidental, in a glitzy black dress, complete with a net veil, a Louise Brooks bob, and a double choker of pearls. Shes in mourning but flashy about it. (Michael Kaplan, the costume designer behind the film, said her cantilevered breasts were front and center.) When she hands the butler her evening cloak, she reveals the bright white satin of the inner lining, a hint that she might not be grieving as deeply as she lets on.

I called up Kaplan, who has also designed costumes for the Star Wars films since 2015, and he told me that the film is still one of his favorite assignments. He recently got a call from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, in Los Angeles, which will be honoring his career with a special exhibition in 2020. Each one of the students at F.I.D.M. has to design a new costume inspired by one of his projects; he thought they would choose Fight Club or perhaps Blade Runner. Instead, they chose Clue, which tickled him. We all had so much fun on that filmyou can feel it, he said. Eileen Brennan, who played Mrs. Peacock, really used her costumethose fifties cats-eye glasses, that brocade skirt with the overlayer that would move. He also told me that Kahn believed her costume was possessed by the ghost of Judy Garland. She was hysterically funny, doing these Judy maneuvers while she was wearing her coat.

GIFs from Clue have become popular memes in recent years, especially an image of Kahn delivering her flames on the side of my face speech. In preparation for the camp theme at this years Met Gala, Time magazine referenced Clue as a generative sartorial starting point. If the film, which initially flopped, has had tremendous staying power, it is in large part due to Kaplans costumes, which reveal just how much giddy delight a designer can take when outfitting characters who have something to hide.

The same surreal sense of joy that surrounds the costumes in Clue is why Evanss Aran sweater, which could just be another item on an Ivy League freshmans packing checklist, has suddenly become a coveted holiday gift, imbued with kooky glamour. He is not wearing the sweater effortlessly but rather hamming it up, chewing on his shirtsleeves and flinging himself across furniture with louche hubris. Hes a caricature of a Waspy wastrel, of the kind of man who would wear a fishermans sweater ironically because hes never had to get his hands dirty. Evans and Eagan expose the seams in Ransoms attire, the ways he cloaks himself in priggish privilege. That one sweater tells you everything you need to know to solve the riddle. Look closely at the clothes in mystery films: the costume designers are in on the gag. With every cravat and caftan, they are dropping hints just for you.

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The Curious Case of Chris Evanss Sweater in Knives Out - The New Yorker