Ray Kurzweil On IT And The Future of Technology 450
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this interview with CIO Magazine, Ray Kurzweil says that one day, software and computers will reside inside us. He adds that by 2020, "we will be placing millions or billions of nanobots -- blood cell-size devices -- inside our bloodstream to travel into our brains and interact with our neurons." He also says that if we're not enhanced by machines, they will surpass us. But he doesn't think it will happen. According to him, machines and humans will merge. In the mean time, he's pursuing his anti-aging quest and takes about 250 supplements to his diet every day! With this regime, he says his biological age is 40 while he's 56 years old. By 2030, there will be very little difference between 30-year-old and 120-year-old people, says Kurzweil. He's certainly a bright person, but I'm not sure that I agree with someone taking daily such an amount of pills. What do you think? This summary contains some selected -- and biased -- excerpts to help you forge your opinion."
You might also be interested to see his (Score:5, Informative)
More info (Score:3, Informative)
Supplements might not be a good idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Careless use of vitamins, taken by millions in the belief that they promote good health, could be causing thousands of premature deaths.
A study investigating whether antioxidant vitamin supplements can prevent cancer found that rather than saving lives they seemed to increase overall risk of death.
Although the effect was small, it amounted to 9,000 premature deaths among every million supplement users.
Food for thought.
Met with Ray Kurzweil (Score:5, Informative)
I also managed to ask him about his views (in his capacity as an established innovator/inventor) on aggressive Patenting and Copyright laws by corporations (for example SCO vs IBM, and the Record Industry lawsuits).
It was gratifying to know that he was well aware of these problems, and even commended the "Open Source movement" and stressed on it's importance to encourage free flow of information and it's significance in the fight against the evergrowing stifling of innovation.
It was an interesting lecture, where he covered quite a few of the topics in this article. Apparently, he treats his body as a "biological experiment" to try out different drugs (he's a diabetic) on himself.
An interesting guy to say the least.
Pills-Overdose (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Vision of the future (Score:2, Informative)
Contrary to what the opponents of the current administration would have you believe, stem cell research is legal in the US. The federal government will not fund research on new embryonic stem cell lines, however.
Here is President Bush's speech explaining it. [whitehouse.gov]
So, if new embryonic stem cell lines are likely to cure diseases, private industry will probably jump in so they can patent the resulting cures.
Limitations of the study (Score:5, Informative)
I agree too many people think vitamins and herbal supplements are the magical solution to simple problems so thanks for sharing the link. But I think it's important to consider the serious limitations of that study and what one can justifiably conclude from it.
1. The study did not include 'healthy' people. All participants had cancer of the gullet, stomach and intestine, bowel, pancreas or liver. Conclusions about any supplement's effect on a person without those cancers is not supported by this study. It would have been interesting to include a group of healthy patients in the study to see if the supplements were accelerating the existing cancer or causing some other form of death. The cause(s) of death is not stated in the article but probably is in the study itself. (Link to the study, anyone?)
2. The supplements studied were limited to beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, and E, and selenium, alone or in combination. The premature death increases were connected to taking both beta-carotene and either A or E. Conclusions about supplements other than beta-carotene and A or E aren't supported by this study.
I'm not saying you can't extrapolate in your own mind about what other supplements might do to healthy people. Maybe that's a safe thing to do. But it isn't something the study is suggesting.
Re:1900 versus 2000 versus 2100 (Score:5, Informative)
People weren't just keeling over at age 30.
Concrete example: The direct paternal line of my ancestors, of which I have complete birth/death detail back to 1634, all lived into their 70's, a good number of them into their 80's and 90's until the middle of the last century, when my father broke the record by dying of lung cancer at age 54. He was a heavy smoker, so I don't consider this a significant statistical factor as compared to the rest of the paternal line. If you factor in all the dead babies and dead young children, the average numbers come out low for my family as well - even though just about every one who made it to 21 also made it way past 60. This isn't lifespan extension, so much as it is the puffing up of a somewhat vaguely named average number.
No question there have been health care improvements; lifespan extension into old age is happening, but it has not doubled by any means. 90 year olds, somewhat exceptional in the 1700's and 1800's in my family, are still just somewhat exceptional. And no one is living to 180, I assure you.
Your longevity stats are also affected by amelioration of disease effects. For instance, if you get cancer, you're still probably going to die. You will quite probably live a few more years if it is caught early, but the odds are very much against your living more than an additional five to ten. If you catch a flu, we can do a lot more, you probably won't die, though we still lose thousands to it every year in the US. Sanitation is also better, and that has a very large effect upon the general ability of many diseases to take hold.
What I'm trying to say here is that "lifespan extension" appears to me to be somewhat of an illusion. YMMV, and in fact, I hope it does. :)
Re:Vision of the future (Score:2, Informative)
> treatment when stem cells are illegal in the US.
*SMACK*
Stem cells are not illegal in the US. They just are no longer funded by the federal government.
There's nothing stopping you from researching them, Uncle Sam just isn't going to give you a meaty grant to do it.