Ray Kurzweil On The Singularity

[nemorathwald]

Ray Kurzweil is a guest blogger on Non-Prophet, to promote the ideas in his latest book, "The Singularity Is Near."

"If people stop dying, isn’t that going to lead to overpopulation?

A common mistake that people make when considering the future is to envision a major change to today’s world, such as radical life extension, as if nothing else were going to change. The GNR [genetics, nanotechnology, robotics] revolutions will result in other transformations that address this issue. For example, nanotechnology will enable us to create virtually any physical product from information and very inexpensive raw materials, leading to radical wealth creation. We’ll have the means to meet the material needs of any conceivable size population of biological humans. Nanotechnology will also provide the means of cleaning up environmental damage from earlier stages of industrialization."

Another excerpt:

"With gene technologies, we're now on the verge of being able to control how genes express themselves. We now have a powerful new tool called RNA interference (RNAi), which is capable of turning specific genes off. It blocks the messenger RNA of specific genes, preventing them from creating proteins. Since viral diseases, cancer, and many other diseases use gene expression at some crucial point in their life cycle, this promises to be a breakthrough technology."

I had no idea that this technology even existed. We live in the most exciting time in human history.

Comments

[rachelann1977.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it could be an interesting read.

I did know about the ability to turn off certain genes, only because of research I've been following where they turn off the gene (or set of genes) that allow us to store extra food as fat. They can turn it off in lab mice, allowing them to eat as much as they want without gaining weight. The drawback is if they stop eating for any length of time, they will die quickly.

Now if we can actually figure out what all of the various genes actually do, maybe this will be more useful. Right now, we only really know the function of a few select genes/groups of genes. Even that information is not as specific as some would like to think.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

I would take issue with nanotech being a world saver. Like any new technology, its going to be (at least initially) very expensive. The rich will tend to keep the technologies that allow life extension to be priced out of the average man's ability to afford.

I see a critical juncture coming within our lifetime. The human species is going to have to grow up fast or we're going to have some massive famines and probably another world war.

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

These objections are addressed in the article. To begin with, specifically look for:

"Won’t the Singularity create the ultimate "digital divide" due to unequal access to radical life extension and superintelligent computers?"

To sum up Kurzweil's answer, in the 80's cell phones didn't work well and were ultra-expensive. In the 90's they worked a little better and were less expensive. Today they work great and are inexpensive enough for populations in Asia who were pushing a plow fifteen years ago. Tomorrow's mobile communications will be ubuquitous and nearly as too-cheap-to-meter as ones and zeros are on the internet. This is how information techologies proceed.

To elaborate on what Kurzweil is saying, I see fabrication machines extending that principle to personal desktop manufacturing. By the time fabbers start constructing other fabbers, the social and economic forces you are counting on will be turned on their heads.

The real threat of entrenched interests creating the digital divide which you describe comes from over-rigidity of intellectual property law. See Cory Doctorow's recent short story "Printcrime" for an illustration.