By any measure, Kurzweil has had an exceptional career. Now, however, he has a new project: to be a god. And not just because he thinks he can live forever. Within decades, he predicts, he will be billions of times more intelligent than he is today, able to read minds, assume different forms, and reshape his physical environment at will. So will everyone. Today’s human beings, mere quintessences of dust, will be as outmoded as Homo Erectus. #
An inspiring, although perhaps slightly ‘cyberiffic’ guy, Kurzweil. Even if he may or may not be flamingly crazy…
According to a battery of controversial tests administered by Terry Grossman, the anti-aging expert who co-wrote ‘‘Fantastic Voyage,” Kurzweil has not aged appreciably in the past 17 years.
Either way, I am incidentally reading Accelerando, which, like Kurzweils latest book, also deals with the singularity; a long time favorite subject of mine.
I read “Accelerando” recently, and found it to be inferior to previous work from Charles Stross, although still great stuff. Part of the problem is that nobody really has a clue what the implications of “singularity” are, but the real problem lies in the scope of the book in the first place. It tries to achieve the same sort of grand vision that Asimov has with his “Foundation” stories, but compressed into one volume. The result is a series of jarring jumps, with just a small piece of linking narrative to blend each time segment.
Very interesting. I’m in a class about ethics and the impact of technology on society, and we touched a little on the subject of extending life. It’s enough to say that for ages humanity has been obsessed with it, and it is something that would change us forever.
One thing that comes to mind immediately is overpopulation… the earth just can’t hold everyone if they live really long.
Then there’s a lack of resources, complete destruction of all open space, possible increases in the gap between the wealthy who can afford the technology and the poor who can’t (and die). It’s incredibly extremely complex.
There are a lot of technologies on the horizon with this common quality of unprecedented complexity from both technological and social perspectives… genetic engineering, nanotechnology, AI’s and supercomputing, life extention… just to name a few.
Frankly, I will be very impressed if humanity survives. I’ll be even more impressed if I’m still alive to be impressed that we survive. Heh.