Frequent contributor KBar sent me a clipping about Ray Kurzweil predicting that Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029. I have great respect for Mr. Kurzweil's abilities. I own a Kurzweil M12 keyboard, one of the most elaborate made by his company way back when. I don't play it enough as I'm focusing more on guitar these days.
Reading through the article, nothing Mr. Kurzweil is predicting is all that "out there". We'll have nanobotic technology injected into our bodies and these nanobots will make us better...somethings. We have plenty of human-machine interfaces right now -- I'm entering this blog post into one. It's called a desktop computer -- Mr. Kurzweil is suggesting that interface be internalized rather than externalized. Again, nothing new. Star TrekTM's Borg and Babylon 5TM's Shadows did the same thing. The concept has been in the science fiction literature for years. Correlate this with recent advances in synthetic biology and you have...oh...I don't know...the next stage in human evolution? One that humans propagate themselves rather than waiting for some creator to do it for them? Or ecological forces? Choose your pick.
One of the benefits suggested by Mr. Kurzweil is that we'll be able to remember everything we've ever said. I loved KBar's thought on that -- "Personally, I don't need a machine implanted in my brain to help me remember everything I've ever said.
My ex-wife already does that for me."
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