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138 Comments
- inactive, on 11/27/2008, -2/+48If we don't kill ourselves out, the next 50 years are going to be incredibly interesting... it's worth just shutting the ***** up and stopping all wars just to see what amazing things we come up with.
SCIENCE - FTW. - ProfessorLX, on 11/27/2008, -3/+33personally i cant wait for the sex bots, the sooner they come, the sooner do i.
- brainovermind, on 11/27/2008, -3/+21I visit Kurzweilai each day just to make sure the singularity hasn't snuck up on me. (really just love futurism and BMIs) I'm glad to see an article from the site moving up. Go Kurzy go!
- InfinitySnatch, on 11/27/2008, -0/+16Sometimes I really regret not being born 20 years or so from now, but I guess I should be grateful that there's a good chance I'll see this come to fruition. I WANT TO BELIEVE
- byukid, on 11/27/2008, -3/+19TOTALLY RADICAL!
- inactive, on 11/27/2008, -1/+16I happen to greatly admire Ray Kurzweil. Even if his ideas never pan out - an unthinkable scenario - in the least, his dreaming is much more helpful than the usual doom and gloom "the sky is falling" and the apocalypse-is-inevitable crap of the major religions.
- JusTuring, on 11/27/2008, -4/+17Great digg MakiMaki! I really await the long promised K. movie..
- inactive, on 11/27/2008, -3/+15A while back I did some research into this topic. It's fascinating stuff, but predominately speculation at this point. Although some aspects will be inevitable. It's going to be interesting to see exactly how this pans out, to say the least.
- Azerael, on 11/27/2008, -0/+10Correction; pharmaceutical companies have not found a profitable means of curing cancer or AIDS.
- lilhelper, on 11/27/2008, -3/+12One person said we haven't even cured cancer or aids. Well, I can almost guarantee that cancer and more likely HIV/AIDS will be cured within 5 years.
We have been building up to this technological explosion and it will be happening very quickly in the next few years.
Just 10 years ago, an 8 core CPU was unheard of. Now you can go out and BUY ONE, albeit for not so cheap, but the fact is you can buy one. In 2 years, everyone will have 8 cores.
in 10 years, AIDS will be cured, Cancer treatment will be so much more effective.
Computers will walk into a completely different realm of possibilities.
Does anyone know that the element, Ununtonium has anti-gravity like properties?
All this new stuff is happening right under our noses. Just open your ears to it. - orion2013, on 11/27/2008, -1/+10THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR.
- clintmaher, on 04/21/2009, -3/+12Very plausible theory.
- Velnich, on 11/27/2008, -0/+7Genetics and/or Cybernetics, at least one of them has to be the future of humanity.
- Azerael, on 11/27/2008, -0/+7It would just be a radio system which transmits information between minds. What, exactly, is so farfetched about it? We have the technology. All we lack is the understanding of the brain.
- InfinitySnatch, on 11/27/2008, -0/+7We will become those superior beings. The indomitable will of humanity will conquer all.
- InfinitySnatch, on 11/27/2008, -1/+7Nothing ever got accomplished with that attitude.
- doiveo, on 11/27/2008, -2/+8if you haven't yet, check out "Temes" http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_blackmore ...
- deadasdisco, on 11/27/2008, -2/+7i'm thinking about getting metal legs.
- squafro, on 11/27/2008, -0/+5This is one of the more positive outlooks on hitting the "technological singularity". Some academics believe that mankind will be cast aside by superior beings after we hit the singularity.
- TheMoniker, on 11/27/2008, -0/+5We have problems with growing religiosity in some parts of the world, true. The overall trend is toward a more secular global population though.
More:
25 years ago in China, over 600M people were living on < $1/day. Today this number is 180M ... meaning 420M+ people are now above this level.
Between 1999 and 2004, 135M people worldwide rose from < $1/day to above this level. This is more people, more quickly than at any other time in history.
In South Asia, the number of people without clean water has halved since 1990.
In 1975, 75% of people aged 15-25 were literate. Now the rate is almost 90%.
In 1970, the fertility rate in East Asia/Pacific was 5.4 and now is 2.1 In South Asia, it was 60 and now is 3.1. Overall, global fertility has fallen from 4.8 to 2.6 in 25 years. Africa has all but one of the countries with fertility rates above 5.0.
In 1990, more than 25% of people in developing countries lived on < $1/day. At current rates, this will be 10% by 2015.
Income is not the only way to quantify improvement for the poor. Monetary measures understate the real gains from things such as lower child mortality, safer water, literacy and other social achievements.
A study shows that the number of conflicts (international and civil) fell from over 50 at the start of the 1990's to just over 30 in 2005. The number of international wars peaked in the 1970's and have been falling ever since. The death toll in battle fell from over 200,000 a year in the mid-1990's to below 20,000 in the mid-2000's. [The WHO has higher numbers.]
This isn't even factoring in the gains that we're seeing in many developing nations from technology such as better water filters, irrigation & sanitation systems, etc. Not to mention that, owing to the exponential price performance of technology, many children in the third world have computers as educational tools--computers that are more powerful than the supercomputers of a few generations ago.
Don't get me wrong, the "drill, baby, drill" mentality of profits at any cost still has a harrowing impact on mankind and the planet. There is still a long, difficult road ahead but, it's not all bad news--and technology is offering opportunities for us as a species that we could never have imagined a few generations ago. - TheMoniker, on 11/27/2008, -0/+5AIDS? We might have that one: http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/eu_med_aids_treatm ... Gene therapy is looking very good right now.
- TheMoniker, on 11/27/2008, -0/+4True, but the choice comes down to:
A) Dying and rotting in the ground.
B) Trying cryonics because, though there's the possibility of civilization's collapse, or the cryonics facility being mismanaged/destroyed/etc. there's also the possibility that you will come back to explore the future and live for, potentially, a very long time.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. - Aethirig, on 11/27/2008, -1/+5The space program, too, has had lots of trickle-down tech.
- TheMoniker, on 11/27/2008, -0/+4Well, if you consider it a worthwhile possibility, you may want to consider cryonics. The argument is compelling to many, as (in some strange irony) time is, for once, on man's side: "will they develop the technology to wake me in twenty years? No? I can wait. A hundred years? No? I can wait. one hundred thousand years? Yes? Well, I'll wake up then." The fly in the ointment is that they may never develop the technology. But then again, that doesn't seem likely given an essentially unlimited amount of time for technological advancement. There's always the chance that we'll die off for some other reason in the meanwhile, but hey....
- TheMoniker, on 11/27/2008, -0/+4I'm not sure that I agree. Over long timescales, the cultural zeitgeist has steadily progressed toward a more compassionate, more thoughtful approach toward the world. Consider that a few short centuries ago, we were killing people for being witches and burning cats alive in bags on the streets of Paris for entertainment. Really, a lot of what limits us is our petty greed and short-sightedness. In a world where accelerating technological price performance is creating abundance and providing good health on the cheap, where we have the mental processing power individually to look beyond the narrow confines of our present cognition, who's to say that we won't continue to move in a more intelligent, peaceful and nurturing direction? I'm not saying it's a certainty, but we shouldn't discount it offhand, as though the only possible conception for the transhuman is a grim, dystopian nightmare along the lines of the Terminator series.
- PeppermintPig, on 11/27/2008, -0/+4lol@logicalfallacy
Sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, sharing your anecdotes and bitter scorn over a world that has outpaced your sensibilities and technological comfort zone.
You seem to have a Futurama vision of the future going on there... I tend to think the future is going to be more like the movie Idiocracy. - Sendai129, on 11/27/2008, -0/+4We will become the Borg. Lower your shields. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance if futile.
- andreegal, on 11/27/2008, -2/+6Nice article, Don't remember where but I heard someone is working on a documentary about Kurweil, should be awesome....I'll be on the lookout.
- Kristijan12, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3What if we figure out how to get outside of the box (universe, more dimensions?)?
What will be revealed to us? - YevS, on 11/27/2008, -2/+5All technological improvements after the computer revolution would not be possible without computers - that includes curing AIDS. So it's logical to assume that greater computational power will aid research in all spheres (especially if we are talking about gene therapy)
- VodkanLemons, on 11/27/2008, -1/+4not so soon,
we still don't have flying cars - inactive, on 11/27/2008, -1/+4***** yes, can't say anything but agree with you
- DiscoUnderpants, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3Projects like the mapping of the human genome or protein folding calculations would now be possible without high power computing equipment
- inactive, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3I've had countless conversations about topics like this many many times over way too many bong rips. . . I just hope that after the singularity, robot-me will be able to get high and still live forever.
- biggerapple3am, on 11/27/2008, -1/+4Your rationale for AIDS being cured is because computer technology improves fast? Ok.
- logicalfallacy, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3Makes you kinds feel special, we could be living in the time of the last "true humans", I kinda like it how things are, some more tech would be cool, but everything good can usually be turned to evil ends as well. I wonder if someday I'll be an old grandpa talking about cyberpunk youths or those damn "uppity robots" trying to get voting rights, I would like to think I'd be good and liberal but the idea just don't seem right even now.
- kd1s, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3Kurzweill has pretty much been right on the money with his predictions.
Look at using fMRI to image blood flow to brain areas. It won't be too long before we can capture the synaptic firings using non-invasive scanning technology. We're also learning more and more about how memories are stored in the brain.
But like I always say, we're still somewhat in the dark ages of medicine and health. We're gradually emerging from the darkness and I think we're going too see some very amazing things happening. - logicalfallacy, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3Laws were made to be broken, and if you can't break 'em, bend them.
- jec68, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3In the future we will be limited by only
1.)the amount of matter in the universe or universes
2.)the laws of physics
3.)our imaginations (if we cannot create AIs that think in different terms)
Misery will be gone (though the same forces of market competition and political economics will still hold) - rockstar1o9, on 11/27/2008, -1/+4Throughout the history of mankind, lot of technological breakthroughs were actually created as a result of war. Even today a huge number of state-of-the-art scientific advances are first developed for military purposes, then eventually as time passes, it trickles down to everyday consumer applications. (military humvees, satellites, and gps guided missiles of yesterday, are now used by everyday people in the form of hummers, sat TV, and gps navigation units). If you really think about it, military technology reaches into every branch of life from health to food science.
While I would never advocate war, you have to wonder --- without war and wartime necessity, would mankind continue to innovate and progress scientifically at the same rate?? - PeppermintPig, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3I find it quirky that we're discussing the limits of computers already. Before we surpass the physical limits in terms of computational power, I think we'll get to a point where there's less desire/need for advancements of said power. I also consider it odd that you discuss the issue in terms of development costs, as if the laws of economics would break down and developing products are successively more expensive.. kind of reminds me how most video games handle 'research' costs... Innovation lowers the cost of creating more advanced products, so I don't see why there's really a problem... even if we claim there is a foreseeable limit, then would we be arguing that the perfect solution has arisen?? Beauty/perfection is in the eye of the beholder because no two individuals have the exact same wants. Anyways, just wanted to point that out. :)
And not to poke fun, but...
Okay, okay, okay... what if, like, there was a microprocessor so powerful that God couldn't create it!?!?
Whoa... *grabs some oreos* /pot philosopher - xander411, on 11/27/2008, -0/+3No.
- jec68, on 11/27/2008, -0/+2I doubt humanity will be able to come up with an answer to that. It would be like asking a monkey to predict the human game of ice hockey (in that it is completely un-relatable to his condition).
There is a lot of interesting stuff to consider about what would happen after the singularity - whether we would be restricted by the speed of light (though quantum entanglement shows promise), what the economic conditions of sentient entities would be (example: how many backups of yourself are you allowed to create? surely your wishes would compete with the wishes of the other sentient beings). Many, many questions - perhaps unanswerable by humans. - tehbored, on 11/28/2008, -0/+2Actually we have found cures or many types of cancer. We've also found some cures for AIDS that simply aren't practical (such as bone marrow transplant). We'll probably have definitive cures within 5 years.
- tehbored, on 11/28/2008, -0/+2Yeah, but that doesn't mean he's wrong. I don't agree with all his ideas, but he's probably right about the singularity.
- inactive, on 11/27/2008, -0/+2http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/321460. ...
- flangepiece, on 11/27/2008, -0/+2Hey, who said anything about shallow? :D
Don't forget invention's mum, Mrs Necessity...once we hit the silicon thermo barrier, someone's either going to have to work out how to properly thread all those zillions of cores they stuffed in their Playstation 12, or come up with cheap but better alternative materials so they can get their bloatware running at 100Ghz :-) - jordantneff, on 11/27/2008, -2/+4I'm thinking about getting metal legs. It's a risky operation, but it'll be worth it.
- Grayfox777, on 11/27/2008, -0/+2We already have the technology to read people's thoughts. Where have you been?
- logicalfallacy, on 11/27/2008, -0/+2Yeah Mibee I have been watching a little too much futurama, would be fun though eh. I suppose if i was being realistic, its probably going to be a ***** more dark than that, but then again a dark futurama would be kinda cool too.
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