Hurtling Towards the Singularity

Dear Readers,

After watching the documentary on the (questionably sane) prophetic futurist Ray Kurzweil and having seen the feature-length pilot for the new Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica, I'll admit it: I'm totally hooked on all things Future and the computer's inevitable entangling with humanity. Not just socially or figuratively, but physically.

Fathers cloning their dead daughters via a Cylon in "Caprica"

A friend visiting a virtual reality world where a

computer version of her dead friend exists

Actually, ever since I saw MINORITY REPORT and heard that they consulted "futurists" to determine how new technologies will interact with humans on a daily basis, I thought, "Wow, The Gap will scan my retinas to suggest what I might like buying on this trip based on what I bought last time??" Well, no, my first thought was "Futurist is a job? WTF kind of qualifications does one need for that?" But anyway, you get the point, I was sold on this whole philosophical and academic community devoted to predicting things to come. I realize I must be wary of every prediction that comes to pass - this community is just ripe for crackpots preaching dystopian battlefields a la the first TERMINATOR movie. However, I remain cautiously optimistic...

New developments such as robots downloading other robots' personalities or using tiny robots for medical purposes are just the next steps to Kurzweil's prediction about humans and robots becoming hybrid beings. No longer do the ethical concerns just consist of cloning yourself another human you, but now, downloading your thoughts and memories into a hyper-intelligent robotic entity that is given the conscious capacity for thought, reasoning, and emotions. At what point do we declare it worthy of the rights of humanity? Does it share your identity, and therefore, social security and bank accounts? Or at what point does a robotically-enhanced human lose the status of homo sapien sapien? We mock surgically-enhanced women of not being all real, but truly we soon will have robotic joints and potentially memory-enhancing microbes injected into our brains - so will we then become not human?

I suppose when we reach this "Singularity" as the experts call it, we will have to breach from the current taxonomy and create a new species: Homo Sapien Computus? This is no doubt an inevitability - but how exciting it is to think of a whole world of Chips from NOT QUITE HUMAN??

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself with the human robots - if you want to think of computer progress helping humans in the next 5 years - the key words are: information, portability, access, technology, metadata, economy. And with those in mind, I think of this great presentation at the last TED conference of how augmented reality (soon to be in contact lenses??) will literally be worn around our necks. Don't even get me started on Apple's patent for using piezoelectricity in their future handhelds....Ok, I'm getting worked up, must. stop. nerding. out.

If you're on Twitter, follow @futureaware for amassing all news and trends of the #future as they tag it.

Bowtie,

Bowtie