K
KHAKI GOO: Military nanotechnology;
see grey goo.
KARDASCHEV TYPES: A classification
of possible civilizations after energy usage. Type I civilizations control
all available energy on a single planet. Type II civilizations control
all available energy in a solar system (for example, using Dyson
spheres). Type III civilizations control use all available energy
in an entire galaxy. (Mitch Porter suggested that a Type IV civilization
controls all available energy in the entire universe) We are currently
moving towards a Type I civilization. [Nikolai Kardaschev, 1964].
KNOWBOTS: Knowledge robots, first developed
Vinton G. Cref and Robert E. Kahn for National Research Initiatives.
Knowbots are programmed by users to scan networks for various kinds
of related information, regardless of the language or form in which
it expressed. "Knowbots support parallel computations at different
sites. They communicate with one another, and with various servers in
the network and with users." [Scientific American, September 1991,
p.74.]
KOLMOGOROV COMPLEXITY: The
Kolmogorov complexity of a string of bits is the length of the smallest
Turing machine
program which produces the bit string as output. (It is therefore somewhat
dependent on one's choice of Turing machine, but since every Turing
machine can be emulated by an universal
Turing machine with a constant increase in program length this doesn't
matter much).
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