2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

[Javaman]

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html

That was Kurzweil's real secret, and back in 1965 nobody guessed it. Maybe not even him, not yet. But now, 46 years later, Kurzweil believes that we're approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. When that happens, humanity — our bodies, our minds, our civilization — will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away.

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If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there's no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators. Imagine a computer scientist that was itself a super-intelligent computer. It would work incredibly quickly. It could draw on huge amounts of data effortlessly. It wouldn't even take breaks to play Farmville.

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More at link...

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Next genus: Homo Eternus.

[Swede]

1. I've been interested in the singularity for years.

I get daily emails from Kurzweil's website. It is fascinating stuff,to be sure. Next week Jeopardy's all time champs take on the computer "Watson". It will also,be fascinating.


link to jeopardy story:


http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2011-02-11-jeopardy-champs-computer_N.htm