Re: The Singularity Is Near

On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:37:12 -0700, El Castor
<justuschickens@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
>
>Monday, October 3, 2005
>
>Inventor Ray Kurzweil's new book, "The Singularity Is Near," predicts
>the fusion of humans and machines to create powerful and potentially
>immortal life forms.
>
>In his book, "Enough," environmentalist Bill McKibben says that unless
>we forgo such technological fixes, and accept death, we will
>ultimately cease to be human.
>
>Between these extremes rages a debate about the role that technology
>will -- or should -- play in shaping the future.
>
>Recently the initiative has been with Kurzweil, who predicts that
>"within the next several decades" new beings will arise that blend
>human and machine traits, "a destiny we have come to refer to as the
>Singularity."
>
>As part of a book promotion tour, Kurzweil spoke to about 400 people
>at San Francisco's Herbst Theater Sept. 23. The event was organized by
>Stewart Brand, a 67-year-old Bay Area visionary who was a leading
>force in the pioneering online community the Well.
>
>At age 57, Kurzweil is a tech-industry legend whose accomplishments
>include inventing the first device to scan text and render it into
>sound to enable the blind to "read." He has also written a series of
>books on artificial intelligence, beginning with "The Age of
>Intelligent Machines" in 1990, a precursor to "The Singularity."
>
>"If anything the future will be more wonderful than anything we can
>imagine today," Kurzweil said in trying to get across the gist of his
>652-page tome.
>
>"The Singularity" argues that technology is a continuation of the
>life-improvement process commonly called evolution. DNA created
>biological life forms. Biological life forms advanced over eons and
>developed Homo sapiens. Their big brains and opposing thumbs and
>forefingers made them adept toolmakers. Today their cutting-edge tools
>-- computers, software, gene-splicing techniques and nanotechnology --
>are poised for integration with human biological systems to evolve a
>hybrid life form.
>
>Accelerating returns
>
>Far from being some distant science-fiction dream, these
>bio-mechanical beings will evolve sooner rather than later, Kurzweil
>argues, based on another of his key ideas which he calls the law of
>accelerating returns.
>
>In essence, Kurzweil says progress occurs at an exponential rate. At
>first, things take forever. Eons elapsed between the primordial soup
>and Homo sapiens. It took thousands of years for the hunter-gatherers
>to get their hands on the computer mouse. But once that happened,
>things started to get interesting, and quickly.
>
>Now gadgets like cell phones get smaller, faster and cheaper thanks to
>Moore's Law, which says microprocessor power doubles every 18 months
>or so. Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns posits that this same
>exponential pace governs efforts to splice DNA, unravel genomes,
>reverse-engineer the brain and develop nanotech machines.
>
I hope they stop being enamored with the miniturazation of some of
this stuff. I have to get a flashlight and a magnifying glass out to
read the buttons on both our DVD player and most of our electronic
equipment in the house. My cell phone is a struggle, but I use it very
little. If I had a blackberry, the keys would be too small. The worst
is when the letters are embedded on black. It gives me satisfaction to
think that some day these whiz kid designers are going to have the
same problems seeing and keying these devices.

>Given all these developments, converging at exponential rates,
>Kurzweil considers it inevitable that our own technological creations
>will infuse new capabilities into human biological systems that have
>been resting on their evolutionary laurels for the last 100,000 years
>or so.
>
>"We will combine the subtle capabilities of human intelligence, which
>is basically pattern recognition," he said in San Francisco, "with the
>things that a thousand-dollar computer can already do better than us."
>
>Technological implants will improve our bodies, he said, citing a
>research paper that theorizes how nanotechnologists might build
>respirocytes -- artificial red blood cells that can carry 236 times
>more oxygen than the natural alternative. "We will not just have
>designer babies," he quipped, "but designer Baby Boomers."

There was an article in our hometown newspaper this morning talking
about using miniature nanotubes of carbon inserts into bone to fix
broken bones.
>
>Kurzweil believes post-Singularity humans will cheat death. He writes:
>"When our human hardware crashes ... software-based humans ... will
>live out on the Web, projecting bodies whenever they need or want
>them, including virtual bodies in diverse realms of virtual reality."
>
>Kurzweil admits the potential perils of a cyborgian future. He cites
>the 2000 essay, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," in which
>software-guru-turned-venture-capitalist Bill Joy argued that, "We are
>being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no
>brakes."
>More .....
>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/03/BUG8QF0OO81.DTL&hw=singularity&sn=001&sc=1000
>
>"Arguing on UseNet is like competing in the Special
>Olympics. Even if you win, you're still retarded."

.

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