So just to make this clear at the beginning, this post is not going to be very structured because of all of the questions I have about this topic. The ideas and theories presented in 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal are so interesting. I find this sort of subject fascinating; my brother and I talk about it for hours. How would life be different if man really did merge with technology? If "the quantity of artificial intelligence created will be about a billion times the sum of all the human intelligence that exists today," how would our daily routines then differ from today's society? We really can't even comprehend this sort of intelligence. There are so many questions I can think of that won't receive answers until the time comes. We can only hypothesize and create theories. Huxley was well ahead of his time when he wrote the book A Brave New World. He essentially created a reality in which humans in a way did merge with machines. They were born from bottles. Can this even be considered 'authentically human’? I don't believe so. I believe that physically, yes, the people of Huxley's society are considered human. But human intelligence consists of new ideas, creativity, individual thought, personal morality, self-expression, and so many more things that these people are trained not to have.
Another parallel between the article and the book is about prolonging life. I personally think this is a terrible thing. It is so unnatural and if we were meant to live that long I think we would already be doing so without the help of machines. Kurzweil says “we'll be able to transfer our minds to sturdier vessels such as computers and robots.” This will lead to being “functionally immortal”. Immortality? Holy cow. What would really happen if we were immortal? What would we be giving up to become this way? If we were really transferred to machines like Kurzweil says, what sort of thoughts would we be giving up? Maybe things said to be human like simple thoughts and emotion. Possibly anything that is not said to be logical and that will make sense to a computer? I am all for technological advancement. I love my smart phone and I love my MacBook. However I don’t love the idea of losing the things that I consider to make me human.
Another parallel between the article and the book is about prolonging life. I personally think this is a terrible thing. It is so unnatural and if we were meant to live that long I think we would already be doing so without the help of machines. Kurzweil says “we'll be able to transfer our minds to sturdier vessels such as computers and robots.” This will lead to being “functionally immortal”. Immortality? Holy cow. What would really happen if we were immortal? What would we be giving up to become this way? If we were really transferred to machines like Kurzweil says, what sort of thoughts would we be giving up? Maybe things said to be human like simple thoughts and emotion. Possibly anything that is not said to be logical and that will make sense to a computer? I am all for technological advancement. I love my smart phone and I love my MacBook. However I don’t love the idea of losing the things that I consider to make me human.
