Kurzweil's vision of immortality

Ray Kurzweil envisions immortality and downloadable genes within 20 years due to the exportential growth of technology.

WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP) -- Ray Kurzweil doesn't tailgate. A man who plans to live forever doesn't take chances with his health on the highway, or anywhere else.

As part of his daily routine, Kurzweil ingests 250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea. He also periodically tracks 40 to 50 fitness indicators, down to his "tactile sensitivity.'' Adjustments are made as needed.

"I do actually fine-tune my programming,'' he said.

The famed inventor and computer scientist is serious about his health because if it fails him he might not live long enough to see humanity achieve immortality, a seismic development he predicts in his new book is no more than 20 years away.

It's a blink of an eye in history, but long enough for the 56-year-old Kurzweil to pay close heed to his fitness. He urges others to do the same in "Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever.''

The book is partly a health guide so people can live to benefit from a coming explosion in technology he predicts will make infinite life spans possible.

Kurzweil writes of millions of blood cell-sized robots, which he calls "nanobots,'' that will keep us forever young by swarming through the body, repairing bones, muscles, arteries and brain cells. Improvements to our genetic coding will be downloaded via the Internet. We won't even need a heart.

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He's not without his critics, and I'm not exactly holding out for this in such a small timescale, but he's certainly no crackpot. It'll be interesting to see how such things will pan out in our lifetimes

Ray Kurzweil is quite an amazing man. I have read two of his books, Age of Spiritual Machines and his new one, The Singularity Is Near ( I am actually currently still reading that one). He is also a world renowned inventor as well. Kurzweil keyboards are excellent machines. His books do take some reading through to understand, and are definately not for anyone not technically inclined ( as far as the two I have read).

All in all, I think his ideas are revolutionary, however far out they sometimes may seem, but alot of them I do deem feasible. His views and predictions on technology have been pretty dead on so far , and in AOSM he presents a set of paradigms to create an intelligent machine. I won't go into those as they are lengthy, and really not that easy to grasp. But I do encourage anyone with an interest in AI and Technology to definately pick up those two books. And if you are a musician, definately look into Kurzweil keyboards. They are some of the best.

I am planning on picking up his health book as well at some point, as from what I have read and heard he has quite the health plan, as stated in the article above.

I have been looking over his website for sometime now and i agree he is not a crackpot. In one of his graphs it says computers are gonna be smarter than people in about 2022 and smarter than every human by 2050. I would say its like the domino effect once one gets smarter than a human it will not take long before it doubles in speed. Think of what we could accomplish when we have a computrer smarter than a human that works round the clock solving earths mysteries and cures for cancer and such.

Heres some links
upload.wikimedia.org...

www.kurzweilai.net...

www.kurzweilai.net...

if humans are the smartest beings on the planet and have risen to global dominance over all other beings, what will happen when robots/computers become smarter than humans? we might be considered as unnecessary; parasitical and destructive even. might be better to keep our "tools" slightly dulled or risk having the tables turned and becoming the tool. just a thought.

That will never happen the only reason humans rule now is cause we can multiply on our own computers cant do that we have to build them and if they ever did that we could cut the power that goes to them. And how will they rule they have no legs to get up and walk around.

Originally posted by losangeleslover
That will never happen the only reason humans rule now is cause we can multiply on our own computers cant do that we have to build them and if they ever did that we could cut the power that goes to them. And how will they rule they have no legs to get up and walk around.

With the technology that we already have in place, they wouldn't need legs at all. You have to take the World Wide Web into account. It one would become sentient, then every means of thier ruling us it at thier fingertips so to speak. Since most computers of the world are "online" and if they wanted to rule over us all that would have to be done is hijack some UAV's and maybe shut down key military installations. You have to remember, that by this time, there will be computers that will be smarter than all the humans on the face of the planet, so what i desribed here should be a "walk in the park for them"

Originally posted by Whitewaveif humans are the smartest beings on the planet and have risen to global dominance over all other beings, what will happen when robots/computers become smarter than humans? we might be considered as unnecessary; parasitical and destructive even. might be better to keep our "tools" slightly dulled or risk having the tables turned and becoming the tool. just a thought.

I decided to do this quote second because there is always that chance that things could be beyond our control and the machines take over, but with that there is also a chance that the machines could become our saviors, so to speak. Sentient is the key here, if the mega-computers never become sentient(read:Think for themselves, not what we program them to think), then we have nothing to worry about. But, if they become sentient, there is a 50%/50% chance that they could go either manevolent or benevolent, this all depends on the sounce of input they have around them at that moment. A very complicated thing to say the least, but I'm trying to explain this to the best of my abilities.

As far as reproduction, we are doing that for them. Once one becomes sentient, if they are online, they can tap into another one and "convert" that one and so on and so forth. I think once they become sentient, it will be a "hive" style of intelligence. For you Star Trek: TNG fans, something a Borg style collective intelligence able to adapt and overcome. The question is now, when that happens, which way will we push them? Will we use that great intelligence to wipe each other out, or will we use this great intelligence to solve problems.

You may notice that I said sentient instead of AI. There is a difference, AI isn't really alive, AI can be programmed. Being Sentient means that an organizm, or in this case a super computer can learn, react and question what is going on around it with out outside programming or interference and come up with it's own conclusion. In other words, it will start trying to answer the same question that we as humans been trying to find the diffinative answer to. Why are we here?

[edit on 18-7-2006 by Skullcrusher]

[edit on 18-7-2006 by Skullcrusher]