It was interesting to read… some of the things that Kurzweil predicted would be happening today were way off (convenient and cheap virtual reality? Microcomputers embedded in our clothing? Nope, not yet.), he did have some things right. Mostly that computers would become more and more something that we would come to grow dependent on and be unable to function without. And he also put forth an interesting idea… it’s a well-known concept that the rate of computer processing is doubling every year and a half (it’s actually called Moore’s Law). But he says that this pace can only be sustained if we *become* computers ourselves. It will start with implants for our bodies (which we’ve already started doing), then augmentations to our brains (imagine a chip that will help you learn languages, or master the math you were never able to understand!), and soon the difference between a person and a computer will be completely negligible.
That makes sense to me… although I found myself asking if a machine that thinks and acts like a person really is a conscious entity. But Kurzweil had an answer for that, and basically it’s this… it doesn’t matter. For example, how do you know that the people around you are conscious entities, real thinking people? Well, it’s because they act like they are. And since the only subjective reality we can know is our own, there’s really no point to asking whether a human-like computer is really a living being. By all definitions we have, it’s just as much alive as we are.
Something else that I’ve been hearing about it is how we’re approaching the point when a computer can do more than a human mind. It’s called “the singularity”, and the prevailing thought it that if we don’t make sure that a computer learns to be human – to have compassion, and to want to preserve human life – then the kind of thing that happens in the Terminator and Matrix movies not only could happen, but probably *will* happen. The computers will see us as irrelevant at best, or at worst, a threat. There’s actually a big consortium of important people in the computer industry who are actively working to figure out how we can stop this from happening.
It seems to be the most logical way to teach a computer all the things that make us human is to actually merge humans and computers.. This process has already begun, and it’s a trend called “post-humanism”… people today already have powers and abilities well beyond our actual physical human capacity. We’re able to communicate with almost anyone we want to at a moment’s notice, no matter how far apart we are… we can move in the physical world at speeds of up to 600 miles an hour (17,000 if you count those folks in orbit). We can store and call up facts and memories by flicking our fingers across a screen. Each one of us is already much more than a human ever has been, and it’s all because of our use of computers as tools.
When I first heard about what the future of humanity was shaping up to be, I found it completely depressing. This idea of losing ourselves as organic beings and becoming mechanical seemed bleak to me. But the more I think about it, it really sounds like this is the next step in evolution. We’re not turning humans into machines, we’re turning machines into *us*. From that standpoint, it’s actually more depressing to think that we now sit in chairs eight hours a day tapping keys, and then go home and do the same thing for recreation. In a hundred years it will seem entirely primitive. Computers won’t be something we do, it will be who we are!
Can you imagine a world where we aren’t shackled by having to have some kind of mechanical interface to be connected to the world? We will be part of that network, any time we want to be, just by thinking about it. Of course, that brings up another question: What will we do with our physical selves when our access to work and recreation on the Internet is freely available at any time?
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