Well, I probably won't live long enough, but I still love to play in this sandbox...
I hope you've come across the book "The Coming Singularity" by Ray Kurzweil or have checked out his Singularity University. Kurzweil speculates on a not-so-distant moment in time when the growing rate of technological change transitions from its already step slope to vertical status, representing infinite change, and therefore defines a singularity (i.e., a single point when you look downwards).
A natural (sic) consequence of this event, or the time leading up to it, is (speculated) that we'll start replacing our squishier organic body components with more advanced functional equivalents. The motivation will come from the reality that computers will far exceed our brains in computing power in many ways, leaving us with a sink or swim scenario. Moving to this "post-biological" phase will be necessary in order to keep up with this next order of knowledge and simultaneously benefit from it.
So, as a spectator, the most fascinating part of this is how people might react to this pending reality. People will understandably picture Terminator robots. That's inevitable and unfortunate.
But it ain't going to be that way. Take a look at what's happening with nanotechnology. It's not about making tiny machines out of metal (that look like robots). It's about reformulating configurations of elements, for instance, carbon into bucky balls, nanotubes or ultra thin sheets called graphene that, by their physical characteristics, do amazing, highly focused functions such as sniffing out toxic elements in the air. Nanotechnology will be the foundation of better hearts, better brains, better motor skills, better senses...
So aside from just dealing with good old change, I don't really think there's as much to fear about the guttural reactions I'm seeing when the public is confronted with this amazing and, understandably, disconcerting topic.After all, what's really happening here is that we're taking knowledge we acquire from a point in time ten to twenty years in our past and apply it to completely new projections twenty to thirty years in the future. Not a problem 100 years ago when the rate of change in a few decades was so small from the perspective of the average guy and gal. Big problem when the data you're just getting comfortable is out-data and just plain wrong. When the rate of change becomes more asymtopic, the knowledge we are just getting to be comfortable with, like cell phones and GPS, prepares us even less for the new stuff around the corner. It's basically that feeling you get at the Boardwalk when you're slowly approaching the apex of that first Roller-coaster peak and...
Check out the arguments at: http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=390vckvrxu
1 comment:
No, Kurtzveil is not brilliant.
While his efforts to underline the very clear exponential pattern of technological development which has been apparent to many of us for more than half a century (even quantified by Gordon Moore 40 years back) are to be commended, Kurtzveil remains completely oblivious to the clear and inevitable extension of biological evolution which, by a process of self-assembly rather than direct human design, which will, within decades, transition to a new inorganic (most likely diamond-based) phase of the observed life process.
Kurtzveil's great naivety in this respect no doubt stems from two factors. Firstly, a too close focus on his own specialist discipline of IT. Secondly, from anthropocentrism. This colored the beliefs of the religionists of yesteryear and, in modern times, has spurred the transhumanist mindsets of Kurtzveil and most others of his ilk.
An empirical take on the much wider interpretation and implications of natural processes (of which technology is one) is provided in my book “Unusual Perspectives” (available at eponymous website for free download)
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