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Subscribe to RSSThe Singularity is back in the spotlight, thanks to a Time cover story focusing on inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil and his forecast that "the end of human civilization as we know it" will come in about 35 years ... just as Kurzweil is nearing his 100th birthday.
Kurzweil is doing everything in his power to make sure he's ready for the big event, which he calls the Singularity. He takes 150 pills a day, keeps himself in shape and looks forward to the day when he can start re-engineering his own body for immortality. And he's not alone. Kurzweil has been spreading the word about the Singularity in a series of books and two documentaries ("The Singularity Is Near" and "Transcendent Man") as well as academic programs at Singularity University in California's Silicon Valley.
Kurzweil projects that computers will match human brain power by around the year 2030, opening the way for a rapid merging of electronic and biological intelligence. Around the year 2045, that merger will lead to a worldwide transformation so dramatic that its follow-on effects would be hard to predict. (Hence the term "singularity.")
"It's a little alarmist, but the idea is that ... it's a kind of cyborgian era, when there's a combination of man and machine. Even now, Parkinson's patients have neural implants in their brain, basically," Time's managing editor, Richard Stengel, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" today. "Why couldn't you be doing that for regular folks, to increase memory, bandwidth, all of that kind of stuff?"
The development of a search-engine / smart-phone / machine-translator system that's wired directly into our brains would certainly mark a turning point. I referred to the Bluetooth/Google/Babelfish implant four years ago, but the idea goes back at least to the "microsofts" described by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer."
Would such devices count as the merging of man and machine? Is the Singularity nearer than we think? I'm betting that the human-vs.-machine divide will become fuzzier and fuzzier — thanks to gimmicks such as Wafaa Bilal's webcam implant and next week's "Jeopardy" face-off as well as more substantive developments. What's your bet? Will the Singularity still be science fiction in 2045? Or will it be ancient history?
More on the Singularity:
- What will happen when machines outthink us?
- Inventor sets his sights on immortality
- Q&A with Ray Kurzweil about the immortality quest
- Wikipedia keeps score on Kurzweil's predictions
- For Singularitans, humans are so yesterday
- Human evolution at the crossroads
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It's silly to talk about humans being better than Eliza or whatever. It's like saying is a tree better than a roller skate. They're so not the same thing.
Humans are not algorithms even though we include a lot of algorithms in our being. But there's way more to us than naturalistic reductionism knows.
where do I volenteer to be a Test case!!
I want to interface with my personal pc w/o a keyboard.
I was fortunate, I learned touch typing, thus was well prepared when the computer revolution took off. Ironically, it is much easier to get us to adapt to the machine than it is to get the machine to adapt to us!
Somehow I feel comforted by the fact I will be dead and gone by the time mankind discovers immortality. I do not fear death near as much as I do human nature. 100 years is just fine.
Quite frankly, I hope I will be around and able to take part when mankind discovers immortality, and I think the odds are quite good. But I too worry about human nature, especially those who revel in ignorance and refuse to see the logical consequences of population growth in terms of geometric progression.
Personally, I can't wait 'til everyone (but me) downloads themselves. Then, when the power goes off they can vanish into the aether and the world will be better off. Bye, y'all!
I agree with most the above, within 45-50 years we will be able to re-charge our dying bodies to keep our mobility. However it is not clear so far if reproduction will continue its "conventional" course.. If not, EXECUSE ME FROM THIS GUESS WORK please..
If they came up with an implant to fix the damaged nerves in my leg id probably pop it in. Brains and computers should not mix though.
When we become Borg, E.T. lookout, Resistance Is Futile ! We will concur and consume every planet we encounter. In the same fashion that we consume Earth.
When all is contaminated from GMO's(Monsanto's seeds), artificial fertilizer's, herbicides and pesticides. Our chocked planet will no longer to support us !
Hopefully we will have learned from our mistakes here, and not take those ways into space. But embrace organic sustainability where every we go. Harmonize with any world, and it will last forever.
But we are known to perpetuate our mistakes, just look at our past.
So we can do the same to the next world, as we did here, and exhaust it, the choice is ours to make..
We always in vision an alien race attacking Earth !
But in truth, it is they who should FEAR us. The most awesome predator we know, ourselves !
Maybe we'll be known as the Planet Eater's. lol
The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men. - Leonardo Da Vinci
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for the survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. - Albert Einstein
Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. - Carl Sagan
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it. - Carl Sagan
All living creatures deserve respect and dignity...
Please See: 10 reasons why we don’t need GM foods.
HTTP://www.gmwatch.org/10-reasons-why-we-dont-need-gm-foods
Monsanto's Roundup triggers over 40 plant diseases and endangers human and
animal health, January 14, 2011
HTTP://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12806:monsanto-s-roundup-triggers-over-40-plant-diseases-and-endangers-human-and-animal-health
To learn more about Monsanto's Kellogg's foods, genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets and Monsanto's crimes (Monsanto Sues More SmallFamily Farmers).
When vaccines were first developed, there were hysterical reactions against it, and dire warnings - but those who ignored the hysteria benefitted, and eventually the hysteria subsided. I suspect that 35 years from now the current hysteria about "genetically modified" organisms will be as quaint and peculiar as the hysteria against vaccines.
The inevitable result of this anti-"GM" hysteria will be to make it more secretive. Researchers will no longer announce a breakthrough as a "genetically modified organism", instead they will pretend that it was just an ordinary mutation or the result of old fashioned cross-breeding, and profit from it anyway.
emf pulse
Asimov described that very thing in his short story "The Last Question" -
One day the universe will end so unless you find a way to journey to another one you'll still be dead as a doorknob and just as cold.
Who else remembers how automation was going to be some marvelous boon to mankind- how we'd all enjoy a stress-free life of leisure, and how working might become a privilege?
The benefits of automation went to the rich.
In what world do you see anything like "singularity" becoming available to most?
In point of fact, if man-machine fusion occurs, I'd expect to live by teleoperating machines- possibly military hardware- via direct neural linkage- or by selling the "unused clock cycles" of my carefully conditioned neural pathways to elevate the intelligence of the person able to pay me for them.
Never forget that tools of great power can be used for good, and for evil- even the simplest, like knives- which can save lives in surgery, or end them horrifically in the hands of a Jack the Ripper. This would be a tool of epic power- new, unpredictable...wonderful, glorious, and incredibly dangerous- with a promise not unlike the glimmering of radium, ending in the hellish flash over Hiroshima, in leukemia- and in atomic power plants, and in cancer treatments.
Like any other dream, singularity has equal potential for becoming a nightmare. Open this box with care. You won't be able to put anything within it back once it gets out- as Pandora discovered.
Funny how you presume everyone else would need to buy your "unused clock cycles" and not the other way around...
Had you read my post, you'd understand that most wouldn't be in the position to buy anything at all; what makes you think I'd be in that position myself? The implication was that it would be a buyer's market. The funniest part would be your "thinking" I might be a buyer- as that sort of error would exclude you from any possibility of finding employment as a seller- after all, the idea would be to raise one's intelligence.
All that aside, I'm too old to engage in that sort of reconditioning- I was actually referring to myself in the general and hypothetical sense, not the personal. Believe me when I say I doubt I could spare the brainpower- at least without losing a lot more than I'd care to.
Well, when we all merge with computers and are immortal, what if you get a virus or malware, and you get stuck in an immortal "blue screen" hell? What if you are just starting your intergalactic journey (too far in to turn back), and your vision system has a catastrophic breakdown? (Sort of like Burgess Meredith at the post-apocalyptic library, and "all the time in the world", and oops, you break your only pair of glasses. "That's nor fair.")
Look how advanced "humans" are, we still get viruses, the most advanced computer will never be perfect enough.
I think technology will definitively be our master, there are shades of it even now if you are observant, technological advances supposedly meant to protect us (that you can't opt out of), may very well enslave us.
INTELLIGENT LIFE AT LAST, THANK YOU GOD! Can man be trusted with his own technology? Hmmmm!
Man is a great cause for his own destruction and his beliefs are dangerious so I say let him guard them with the utmost care. A revoution of the mind is indeed coming and his invention is the computer. There shall be an explosion of information says reveations or something like that. Man will come of age and hopefully the age will come to pass as he learns from it but if his science surpasses his political understandings and he uses that science for world domination and competiveness he may very well lead humanity to one great and final place called War........
Skynet lives!
google "Ghost in the Machine" and see the future
My wife has had a computer chip wired to her brain since 1998, along with a battery pack in her chest. It's called a Deep Brain Stimulator, and it controls her Essential Tremor quite well.
in spite of all that I have said, I do respect the works of ray kurzweil...I have a list of favorite science fiction writers and another of favorite scientists....Kurzweil, you will always be on my list of favorite scientists....hope you can make it to a timmonium hamfest. In the meantime, I am wary of the day when we "grow" artificial intelligence instead of assemble it, we should set the rules now, as they start making rat nuerons fly uavs...I mean it, the geneva convention really should be amended..it sounds funny now....but often life imitates art and there are some movies best left on the silver screen.....
I wish my computer would take over my life for me so I could go fishing. Man there are going to be some really ugly people in the future. Imagine some geezer with all new internal parts driving a hundred and twenty year old machine. By the way. Have you ever read the Immortalist? Its a book i started to read over 30 years ago. This book was so beyond me that I quit after the first ten pages. There must be some really smart people out there. If you plan to read it you better have a dictionary handy.
the technology will exist and our current mindset is not willing to wrap around this one. but my 10 1nd 12 year old children see it as an enviable inevitability. the current media being consumed by the generation who will foster this technology includes many variations of the cyborg theme. in a 1959 yogi bear cartoon the word "duploid" was used for what we would now call a clone. 50 years later, cloning is a reality. Besides, as soon as they start to market the telephone implant I am buying one for my wife.
A lot of people conflate intelligence with an evolutionary stable strategy and that 'ain't necessary so.' If it were a lot of creatures that share the earth with us would also be surrounding themselves with technology. As it is, there is a lot of nesting, and a few creatures like beavers change their environment to their advantage but only we humans have expanded intelligence and technology to the point where it threatens our own well being.
I love these far out theories. It reminds me of my youth. Potheads would sit around and think of stuff like this and of course they would say, "far out." A person can sound pretty smart if they come up with ideas that can't be proven and if they have degree, other than the degree they sound just like potheads.
Bring on the Singularity!
So with the singularity, we would be of one mind. We would be a giant bio-silicon brain and locate ourselves underground and run environmental facilities above ground to feed us and secure us. Three weeks later, a meteor would hit the ground above us and knock us unconscious for millions of years. A new intelligent species would evolve and start mining for resources and discover us and use our brains for fuel......Sounds like a plan.
Dr. Kurweil loves giving the example of a bacteria dividing and cell growth. At first, there's only one bacteria, then there's two. For a while it looks like it's not growing very fast but then suddenly, there's an explosion in growth. He likens this to human knowledge. If you do the math on this bacterial growth, assume that each bacterium divides in 20 minutes. Using Dr Kurzweil's logic, after about 4 days, you will have a ball of bacteria that is growing faster than the speed of sound. If we are to continue to use Dr Kurzweil's logic, within a human lifetime you will have a real singularity, as defined by physicists, in this collection of bacteria.
The Singularity is several centuries away, but in the past. Even before computers were created, humanity had already passed the point where a single human brain was capable of keeping up with the advancement of all sciences. However, even if computers become intelligent, it is by no means necessary that there will be some knowledge that some human or collection of humans, somewhere, is incapable of understanding. Facts are not knowledge. Massive amounts of data does not mean sophistication in understanding.
But, just as we can build more computers, we can also train more scientists, artists, mathematicians and logicians, entities capable of real understanding. Furthermore, humans are also capable of linking their minds so that the sum is greater than the whole. It's known as talking, communicating, sending emails and publishing papers. Computers help by augmenting our minds, doing math for us, helping us remember and helping us find information when we need it. This is a big deal. Although we have, so far at least, failed miserably at building computerized artificial minds, we have done amazingly well at using the Internet and modern communication to build gestalt human minds. The only thing is this real revolution is moving at human speeds and it is going to take decades.
Dr Kurweil and people like him like to call themselves futurists. I would suggest that they are actually closer to pastists, if the reader will forgive such a clumsy term. Conventional AI was conceived a long time ago. As such is a very primitive view of what is possible and completely misses the marvels of the current knowledge revolution.