Immortality in 20 years?
Nanotechnology will give people immortality by 2030
Alexey Tymoshenko, GZT.RU
By 2030, humanity will gain immortality. This forecast was made by the American inventor and futurist Raymond Kurzweil. According to his theory, the development of nanotechnology will allow you to live indefinitely, read books in minutes, swim for hours under water without scuba gear – even human sexuality will change!
Predictions of varying degrees of plausibility (for example, about an artificial brain) have been made, are being made and will be made by many. But Raymond Kurzweil stands alone among the predictors: he is a futurologist, a specialist who makes forecasts professionally. In addition, his considerable fortune (Raymond is a millionaire) was obtained through the development and sale of a high–tech product – text recognition systems and its translation into speech.
Singularity Kurzweil's recently announced forecast, as well as a number of his previous statements (the first book, The Era of Intelligent Machines, was published in 1990) is based on the concept of technological singularity.
What is it? The best way to answer this question is with a list of previous discoveries and inventions of mankind.
In the Paleolithic era, about 70 thousand years ago, people learned to process stones with fire. After 35 thousand years, the first sculptures and musical instruments appeared. At the same time, throwing darts were invented, but in general progress was extremely slow: tens of thousands of years passed between inventions. Ceramic figurines, it would seem, are very close to the dishes, but between the oldest shards and fragments of figurines (which, surprisingly, are older!) the time interval is at least 15 millennia.
About 7.5 thousand years ago, the first cattle breeders and farmers came to the territory of Germany – at the same time Europe began to drink milk. Around this time, by the way, the familiar type of Europeans with white skin appeared, and a thousand years later, the construction of the first cities began in the deltas of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates. Keep an eye on the scale – from one coup to another is not tens of thousands of years, but centuries!
4.5 thousand years ago, the pyramids were built, 2,700 years ago, 100 thousand people lived in Nineveh and water supply was already carried out there. Further – more: gunpowder, the printing press, the appearance of physics and differential calculus took 500 years. The creation of a steam engine, a railway, an electric motor and a generator took several centuries, and less than a century passed from the first generator to the radio. It took half a century to go from the first experiments on the splitting of the atomic nucleus to the creation of bombs and reactors, and even less time passed from the establishment of the DNA structure to the first transgenic animal.
The interval between discoveries is shortening, and their complexity and impact on everyday life are increasing. According to Kurzweil and some other futurists, such as science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, sooner or later there will be an explosive leap in technological progress. This approach, of course, has a number of critics who defend their arguments. But it is difficult to argue with the fact that the speed of scientific research is radically increasing every year.
A complete reading of human DNA, for example, is getting cheaper every year and is carried out much faster: what two of the world's largest laboratories did in the 1990s for a billion dollars, now it's really possible to do for tens of thousands of dollars, which is 10 times cheaper!
The result of the singularity
The term "singularity" is taken from mathematics, where it denotes a point beyond which it is almost impossible to predict the development of events. Systems whose behavior has such a point are called singularly perturbed. A falling coin is a classic example of such a system: you can predict how it will fall when thrown from one centimeter, but it is impossible to predict heads or tails with a fair throw from a meter.
But you can list various options – and Kurzweil, who expects a technological singularity in the next 20 years, does exactly that. On the pages of the Telegraph, several of his forecasts are given. The futurologist believes that progress in the field of genetic engineering will allow changing the human genome so that the body, firstly, will become virtually immortal, and secondly, will acquire a number of abilities that now seem more like attributes of superheroes from comics.
A classic example of a work describing a hypothetical future with nanotechnology,
implanted devices, robots and computer networks –
a series of animated films Ghost in the Shell.
For example, four-hour swims under water without scuba gear. Or a 15-minute run at the speed of an Olympic champion in the 100 m. Or read "War and Peace" in a few minutes, followed by writing your own book in the same time. Go full-fledged virtual reality and even the transformation of human sexuality.
Impossible?
The forecast certainly seems fantastic. However, making forecasts is generally a thankless task, and brilliant scientists or industrialists who have successfully raised a new industry have repeatedly been burned on this. Personal computers, for example, back in the 1970s were considered an extremely dubious prospect, and even in 1995 there were articles (for example, in Newsweek magazine) where the Internet was called a toy.
An Apple commercial based on the novel "1984" –
one of the first mass commercials advertising a personal computer in such a colorful form.
Ten years before, computers for every family were considered an extremely dubious idea.
In 1984, only in the first three months and only Apple sold 70 thousand computers.
However, just as often scientists, businessmen or writers were mistaken in the other direction. Including Kurzweil himself. In 1990, he predicted (and directly in his field of activity) that in the next 20 years, in fact until today, there will be an automatic translator built into the phone from one language to another, so that it will be possible to speak calmly, for example, to a Frenchman with a Chinese – the machine will automatically translate French into Chinese and vice versa.
A robot built as part of the Aiko project.
It is notable for the fact that it was created by a small industrial center in Japan
(recognized robotics center), and a Canadian researcher.
Another forecast that did not come true is cars with autopilot. In 1990, Kurzweil predicted the appearance of devices that would allow you to go on the highway and just tell the car where to go – then the robot will take care of everything. In the forecasts of the futurologist, in addition, exoskeletons for the disabled appeared – here Raymond was more lucky: such devices have appeared at least in laboratories.
Leisure of the immortals
Along with the radical restructuring of the human body, Kurzweil predicts the emergence of virtual reality. In particular, he claims that the direct connection of the brain with the computer will allow you to create a world that will be practically no different from the present. This, in turn, will even lead to changes in human sexuality, since a person's sexual life can also move into virtual reality.
According to Raymond, and in full accordance with the concept of technological singularity, after a certain point in history it is virtually impossible to predict changes in people's lives, in their morals and habits, and it is difficult to talk about the very existence of man as a biological species.
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24.09.2009