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Space Science Technology

Augmented Astronauts Needed for Deep Space Missions 182

Posted by michael from the seven-of-nine dept.
A random reader writes "IEEE is carrying a story about how 'extended space missions' may require a little forced evolution, or BORGIFYING. Humans must have additional abilities via implanted technologies (repair bones, monitor radiation levels). Machines must become more organic (fixing themselves, etc)."
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Augmented Astronauts Needed for Deep Space Missions More

Augmented Astronauts Needed for Deep Space Missions

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  • Now I know what to do with unemployed Microserfs!
  • Dont missions into 'deep space' take longer than human life expectancy? I think it would be prudent to work on making humans immortal first :)

  • As long as the software isn't written by Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:34PM (#7305050)
    Running Windows Update so you don't drop dead is a little dodgy.
  • Hell, I volunteer for this. You could be a super hero cyborg or something, like Cable, only without the gayness.

    • I volunteer too! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by chadjg ( 615827 )
      As long as I get to bunk with 7 of 9 that is...

      The article mentioned that double leg amputees may be very well suited to long term work in space because it reduces the work load on the heart.

      There maybe other advantages as well. Less mass for the heart to supply implies less mass to feed and keep hydrated, thus trips to orbit would be easier.

      Internal spaces could be designed differently if you didn't have to account for legs.

      Space suits could be smaller and cheaper, or even completely different. I imag
      • Hmm. While leg amputation may seem drastric to us now, if we had levitating pads to zip up around or something, the social aspect may change. Perhaps bionic legs you could put on and remove would make it a more acceptable option.

        Would you take a replacement eye that had zoom, split-screen, built in browsing, and the ability to record and playback pictures and video?
        • the normal rules don't apply, right?

          I would dearly love to have an eyeball that would do that, and there isn't really see any reason why we couldn't build an eyeball shaped device that would do that. That would be so much fun, but I think that that would have even greater social problems.

          Now I'm mostly guessing here, but I think that such a thing would have to be implanted very early, perhaps even before birth, in order to really make it work. The brain would have to rewire itself to handle the input from
    • And all this time The Register has been lampooning Captain Cyborg [theregister.co.uk]. I guess Warwick was right the whole time.

  • RESISTANCE IS FUTILE (Score:5, Funny)

    by spoonist ( 32012 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:37PM (#7305072) Journal

    Picard: "Mr. LaForge, have you had any success with your attempts at finding a weakness in the Borg? And Mr. Data, have you been able to access their command pathways?"

    Geordi: "Yes, Captain. In fact, we found the answer by searching through our archives on late Twentieth-century computing technology."

    [Geordi presses a key, and a logo appears on the computer screen]

    [Riker looks puzzled] "What the hell is 'Microsoft'?"

    [Data turns to answer] "Allow me to explain. We will send this program, for some reason called 'Windows', through the Borg command pathways. Once inside their root command unit, it will begin consuming system resources at an unstoppable rate."

    Picard: "But the Borg have the ability to adapt. Won't they alter their processing systems to increase their storage capacity?"

    Data: "Yes, Captain. But when 'Windows' detects this, it creates a new version of itself known as an 'upgrade'. The use of resources increases exponentially with each iteration. The Borg will not be able to adapt quickly enough. Eventually all of their processing ability will be taken over and none will be available for their normal operational functions."

    Picard: "Excellent work. This is even better than that 'unsolvable geometric shape' idea."

    . . . 15 Minutes Later . . .

    Data: "Captain, We have successfully installed the 'Windows' in the command unit and, as expected, it immediately consumed 85% of all resources. We however have not received any confirmation of the expected 'upgrade'."

    Geordi: "Our scanners have picked up an increase in Borg storage and CPU capacity to compensate, but we still have no indication of an 'upgrade' to compensate for their increase."

    Picard: "Data, scan the history banks again and determine if there is something we have missed."

    Data: "Sir, I believe there is a reason for the failure in the 'upgrade'. Apparently the Borg have circumvented that part of the plan by not sending in their registration cards.

    Riker: "Captain, we have no choice. Requesting permission to begin emergency escape sequence 3F . . .

    Geordi, excited: "Wait, Captain I just detected their CPU capacity has suddenly dropped to 0% !"

    Picard: "Data, what do your scanners show?"

    Data: "Apparently the Borg have found the internal 'Windows' module named 'Solitaire' and it has used up all the CPU capacity."

    Picard: "Let's wait and see how long this 'solitaire' can reduce their functionality."

    . . .Two Hours Pass. . .

    Riker: "Geordi, what's the status on the Borg?"

    Geordi: "As expected the Borg are attempting to re-engineer to compensate for increased CPU and storage demands, but each time they successfully increase resources I have setup our closest deep space monitor beacon to transmit more 'windows' modules from something called the 'Microsoft fun-pack'.

    Picard: "How much time will that buy us ?"

    Data: "Current Borg solution rates allow me to predicate an interest time span of 6 more hours."

    Geordi: "Captain, another vessel has entered our sector."

    Picard: "Identify."

    Data: "It appears to have markings very similar to the 'Microsoft' logo"

    Over the speakers: "THIS IS ADMIRAL BILL GATES OF THE MICROSOFT FLAGSHIP MONOPOLY. WE HAVE POSITIVE CONFIRMATION OF UNREGISTERED SOFTWARE IN THIS SECTOR. SURRENDER ALL ASSETS AND WE CAN AVOID ANY TROUBLE. YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS"

    Data: "The alien ship has just opened its forward hatches and released thousands of humanoid shaped objects."

    Picard: "Magnify forward viewer on the alien craft"

    Riker: "Good God captain! Those are humans floating straight toward the Borg ship with no life support suits! How can they survive the tortures of deep space ?!"

    Data: "I don't believe that those are humans sir, if you will look closer I believe you will see that they are carrying something recognized by twenty-first century man as doe-skin leat

  • MIRROR (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:38PM (#7305077)
    The Borg Hypothesis
    Robert Hoffman, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Patrick J. Hayes, and Kenneth M. Ford,
    Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

    What if intelligent computing were centered inside humans? This essay's title is inspired by the nemesis of Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the starship Enterprise in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Borg are--or should we say "is"--a species consisting of organic beings symbiotically merged with technology. Each individual Borg is laden with all manner of appliances, ranging from laser eyeballs to appendages resembling drill presses to computational and communication devices implanted in their nervous systems. The Borg is a collective, meaning that they--or it--possess a single mind. That Borg mind has the single intent of "assimilating" all organic species into the collective. Assimilation involves first injecting nanoprobes that thoroughly transform the organic being down to the molecular level, then grafting on the various appliances (or else growing them de novo like so many cloned carrots in a hydroponic garden). Wending their way through the galaxy in huge Rubik Cube-like vehicles, the Borg assimilate entire planets at a time and carve up starships as if they were roast beef, making them (it) an especially nasty adversary.

    In our real world, we already routinely replace hip joints with titanium and inner-ear structures with microcircuits; we can carry telephones comfortably on our heads, and Web-enabled eyeglasses can augment our view of reality. To counter the effects of drowsiness or inattention, DaimlerChrysler is developing prototypes that continuously monitor drivers' physical and mental states, while DARPA's Augmented Cognition Program is planning an even more ambitious reach to "plug in" the warfighter of the future (www.darpa.mil/ipto/programs/augcog/index.htm).

    Portending an even braver and newer world, it's now possible to insert wires into a person's nerves to control appliances. We can even send such signals over the Internet, where they are decoded by computer and then fed into another person's nervous system.1 Human bodies are getting more and more plugged in.

    It's not easy to set aside questions of ethics and choice. It is not even possible. However, in this essay we simply overlook them in order to work toward our hypothesis. To do that, we must take you on a trip into space. Our argument is that if humanity decides to continue human exploration of space, we will sooner or later--probably sooner--be forced to center some intelligent computing inside humans.
    Men into space

    In 1959 and 1960, Ziv Television Productions and producer Lewis J. Rachmil produced a television series titled Men into Space. This series featured the space concepts of artist Chelsey Bonestell, whose works had a major impact on many writers, including Arthur Clarke, and motion pictures, such as Destination Moon and The Conquest of Space. For his TV series, Rachmil also relied heavily on advice from the US Air Force and the Surgeon General. Men into Space was intended to present the most realistic depiction of what it would be like to establish a space station or moon base and then begin the process of exploring the planets. Episodes included one in which a fold on an astronaut's space suit accidentally became crimped between two large pieces of a space station as he was assembling them in space. The problem: Is there a hole in the suit? If so, freeing the suit could kill the astronaut. In another episode, the crew was stranded at the bottom of a crater on the moon after a crash landing. The problem: Radio waves only move in straight lines, and there is no ionosphere to reflect them to receivers that are out of line-of-sight.

    In one especially pertinent episode, an astronaut on a space walk at the space station becomes stressed out during a repair and botches a wiring job. As a result, a stabilizer rocket on the space station misfires, speeding up the rotation of the space wheel to the point where the crush of gravity
    • If anyone's ever seen the Crest of the Stars (Sekai no Monshou) [animenfo.com] anime, you know what I'm talking about. The Abh are a genetically engineered race of humans specifically built to live in space their entire lives.

      To wit; resistance to radiation, normal physiology in low gravity, better performance at high Gs, a sixth space sense, etc. There's a great explanation here [geocities.com]. The anime is actually based on a series of novels; consequently it has a level of narrative depth far higher than most TV series. To me, it

  • A new use for "Clippy." ;) (Score:5, Funny)

    by Not_Wiggins ( 686627 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:40PM (#7305091) Journal
    Because keeping an astronaut alive in space is so expensive and risky, we struggle to leverage the capacity of each member of the small crew through devices such as the Personal Satellite Assistant, an intelligent flying appliance. And some of you may recall occasional glimpses of Shuttle astronauts using laptops to assist them in various ways.

    If Microsoft had its way, this would be powered by "Clippy." ;)

    Astronaught (types into console): "Jetison all waste"

    Clippy: Did you mean jetison all remaining oxygen?
  • It used to be you had to crash your space craft before the Government would announce that 'We have the technology, we can rebuild him' at a cost of 6 million dollars to the taxpayer. Now they want to make you bionic first and then launch you.
  • Machines must become more organic (fixing themselves, etc).

    Imagine the possibilities... Say that two deep space probes were to be disabled by serious failures. With self-repair technology, if they chanced to cross paths, they could join together, merge their resources and continue on a hybrid of their original missions!

  • Organic != "Self-Reparing" (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just because you make a machine out of organic materials, which has yet to be seen... doesn't mean it will repair itself. True, living organisms do have a tendency to repair themselves, but this can't necessarily be recreated artificially. Any machine that could even simply make verbatim copies of itself would be a remarkable achievement. (programming a robotic arm to build another doesn't count...) We are still unable to understand many principles of life, let alone recreate it. Living organisms have
  • I mean seriously, how many science fiction books, shows, movies, etc., have already come to the same conclusions. Earth2 is a prominant one that comes to my mind right now. Settlers on the new planet were given treatments/augmentation to stave off infections, repair broken bones, and quickly heal other injuries.

    Most decent science fiction pulls from science fact and just simply extrapolates on the passage of time with reguards to development of technologies and society. I can't believe that they needed to

  • Not just for space (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ben_of_copenhagen ( 649118 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:49PM (#7305157)
    Theres some bizarre psychology in this that i just dont get.
    What about augmenting people just for general health reasons - not fluffing about in deep space (fascinating as it may sound).

    Every day thousand of people die because one of their cardic valves cave in or because they cant react fast enough in traffic. The former should be easy to monitor with a simple implant that might also be able to medicate the patient before dialling 911 and dumping gps data and medical stats to the paramedics. The latter is about enhancing reflexes.

    Im sure the common /.'er could come up with a handfull of other augmentations that would be nice - or indeed lifesaving to have.
    And i think we will see a lot of those before we see people walking on mars.

    • Re:Not just for space (Score:3, Insightful)

      by danila ( 69889 )
      That's just another illustration. When journalists write about new sub-$1M submarine, they talk about using it to fight terrorism. When they talk about augmentation, they speak about space flight. When they talk about research in anabiosys, they again speak about space flight and ignore other practical uses (cryonics). The reason is that most people are idiots and they can only react to keywords (<META agent="SlashBot" content="Linux, Windows, SCO, goatse">). So journalists take a new item, think a se
    • we're overpopulated as it is... :-P

      modern medicine is seriously halting natural selection.

  • Stephen Hawking's take on this... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jrsimmons ( 469818 ) * on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:51PM (#7305172) Homepage Journal
    For those of you who are truly intrigued by space, time, and the effects it will have on humanity, I highly recommend this book [amazon.com]. Hawking is an excellent writer and reknowned scientist, a rare combination, and goes into detail in his book, "The Universe in a Nutshell". I just finished the cd-rom version and enjoyed it very much.
    • To tell you the truth, I would be much more interested in Hawking's view on human augmentation... I've never read anything about his long-term plans - surely he doesn't want to spend all his time in that wheelchair.

  • This is the wave of the future. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Musc ( 10581 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:52PM (#7305179) Homepage
    I think that the idea of artificially enhancing ourselves with technology is the right approach, but the BORG technique of implanting high-tech computerized devices seems the wrong approach. Basically, this would open up our very bodies to hackers. By now we should all be aware how very difficult a problem computer security is. Personally I feel that computers and networks can never be made secure, and thus we should stop trying. Just imagine the inevitable result when some black-hat cracker breaks through the encryption protecting your enhanced liver, and proceeds to turn it into 'reverse', whereby it spews toxins into your bloodstream? Compound this with the fact that probably our bodies will be running Microsoft operating systems, and you see why this is the wrong approach.

    The correct way to enhance ourselves is the technique outlined by Science Fiction Author Larry Niven. In variou Niven novels and short stories, the characters can live for hundreds of years by means of organ banks. If you lose an arm, use nanotechnology to put on a new arm. Of course, this will require two developments: improved nanotechnology, and the development of organ banks for all body parts. Probably this will lead to the death penalty becoming the standard punishmnent for every minor crime, so as to keep the organ banks full of fresh organs, allowing rich people to live forever at the expense of everybody else.

    I hope this happens within my lifetime, as it is a Utopian scenario indeed.
    • If people were not afraid of death,
      Then what would be the use of an executioner?

      If people were only afraid of death,
      And you executed everyone who did not obey,
      No one would dare to disobey you.
      Then what would be the use of an executioner?

      People fear death because death is an instrument of fate.
      When people are killed by execution rather than by fate,
      This is like carving wood in the place of a carpenter.
      Those who carve wood in place of a carpenter
      Often injure their hands.

      ~Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, 74
    • Basically, this would open up our very bodies to hackers. By now we should all be aware how very difficult a problem computer security is.

      Keeping your computer secure is easy. Don't connect it to the Internet and the hackers can't touch it. A determined hacker could compromise your security by somehow gaining physical access to the machine, but you can prevent this by keeping an eye on the computer at all times.

      This isn't always practical in the case of your home computer, but it's certainly practical
    • Probably this will lead to the death penalty becoming the standard punishmnent for every minor crime, so as to keep the organ banks full of fresh organs, allowing rich people to live forever at the expense of everybody else. I hope this happens within my lifetime, as it is a Utopian scenario indeed.

      I don't think that my getting the chair over a speeding ticket so that you can have a new spleen is very damned Utopian (but maybe it's just me). ;->
    • Why execute people? We can just clone organs can't we? Heck we migth not even need to clone, seeing as how we can build certain parts from scaffold already.

    • Black-hat crackers breaking the encryption on your liver? Sounds like the hepatitis virus to me.

      We already have a vast array of nasties to guard against, they are called pathogens. And yes, they do often use your own "code" against you.

      I'd like to think of BORG-like enchancements as a belt-and-suspenders approach.
      Now, if you are eccentric enough to wear both a belt and suspenders, do you worry that you have one more way for your pants to falldown?

    • I think that the idea of artificially enhancing ourselves with technology is the right approach, but the BORG technique of implanting high-tech computerized devices seems the wrong approach. Basically, this would open up our very bodies to hackers.

      How about this very simple approach: don't make them (easily) acceccible to the outside world.

      If the only way to hack your liver is to plug a cable into it, or first get trough your brain that is actually controlling that liver nobody is going to hack it.


      If
    • Well, the obvious solution would be to wire everyone's brains into a central computer in such a way as to make them incapable of antisocial behavior like hacking each other's implants. Ashcroft would love it.

      Oh wait, that sounds awful familiar...
    • ummm...its not very utopian if only the rich benefit...

      and if everyone benefited...well...can you imagine if nobody ever died....can we say unsustainable

  • Man Plus (Score:2, Interesting)

    by monopole ( 44023 )
    Pohl predicted this in Man Plus(1976), in which a man is modified to survive on the surface of mars. I don't have a copy at hand but there was an excellent passage about how humans can't really live in unmodified form outside of the savanna, the modifications (parkas, fire, etc.) necessary to live elsewere are just reversible so far.
    Of course Cordwainer Smith was there in 1950 with "Scanners Live in Vain" with the Habermen and Scanners.
    • Yeah, I have a copy of Man Plus, and "they" (the dudes at whatever the NASA-like thing) remove the poor guy's wing-wang because I suppose that part can't be exposed to vacuum.
  • Hell, give me some rocket feet and ceramic plates for skin, and we can skip the spaceship altogether!
  • What are we looking at here? The Borg? The Darlecks? Or just the Cybermen?

  • that mostly goes to show that... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:22PM (#7305371)
    IEEE is going downhill. I mean, what a fluff piece.

    To the degree that "augmentation" is going to happen, it's going to happen for medical purposes here on earth: drug delivery, joint replacement, osteoporosis treatment, etc.
    • To the degree that "augmentation" is going to happen, it's going to happen for medical purposes here on earth: drug delivery, joint replacement, osteoporosis treatment, etc.

      Don't forget the ubiquitous "penis enlargement!"

    • Re:that mostly goes to show that... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As a card carrying member of the IEEE, I hope to all creation that this is just pure hyperbole. It seems redundant to state that an organization of engineers is obsessed with sci-fi. Come on, most people that aren't interested in it are just not true radio men. (a term, well before the PC (not player character, perverse child, or personal computer) revolution.
  • I would seriously hate to have an upgrade.
    Especially like the current Mac path where after a few iterations it no longer supports your hardware and you need an operation.

    "You have a G3 brain implant? Too bad, you'll need brain surgery before you can upgrade the OS.
  • imagine a beo...nah, nevermind
  • I know, space is big and dangerous, and we weren't designed to live there. But the whole article is giving me flashblacks to Cordwainer Smith's "Scanners Live in Vain" and Bruce Sterling's more recent Shaper/Mechanist stories. Stories well worth reading for the poetry and mind expansion, by the bye.
  • The human body is simply too costly to transport. It requires too much insulation and for the amount of work it does (like listening to the same old mp3s over and over) requires too much fuel. Why not just transport the brain, say by transplanting it into an artificial body that is able to go on a space walk without a space suit. The artificial body becomes the space suit.

    I see the perfection of evolution as the encoding of the human brain onto an Nth generation processing and storage system. For so

  • Easier WAY????? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by willtsmith ( 466546 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:55PM (#7305563) Journal
    Send robots instead.

    Until a form of suspended animation is found, deep space mission are impractical and a waste of resources.

  • Frederick Pohl covered the idea of altering humans for hostile environments really well with Man Plus.

  • Antigravity/artificial gravity must be found first (Score:5, Interesting)

    by master_p ( 608214 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @07:03PM (#7305595)
    Antigravity is too important to ignore. If it can be found, it means that huge spaceships that are themselves biospheres can be constructed on the Earth's surface, then lifted into space by antigravity.

    Artificial gravity, on the other hand, is necessary because it will allow cosmonauts to be like on Earth, and skip a whole generation of health problems.

    That's the only solution for realistic deep space travel (and if we can crack gravity, maybe the secret of Faster-Than-Light travel is revealed).

  • Differential Ethics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @07:16PM (#7305656)
    Since modifying people has such a high level of ethical and PR baggage, I'd bet that it will be easier and cheaper to modify machines. Nobody has any qualms about trying out new hardware, software, and robotics concepts -- if it doesn't work, throw it out. In contrast, anything to do with people requires such high levels of oversight and ethical review as to make true experimentation impossible.

    I'm not advocating unfettered human experimentation. I'm only pointing out that the stiff, but reasonable, restrictions on it mean that borgification should be approached from the machine side.

  • How it all happened. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @07:19PM (#7305670)
    So a bunch of astronauts have all kinds of techno-mechanical-organic stuff implanted in their bodies to give them the ability to levitate, punch through a 24-inch-thich plate of forged steel without feeling a thing, spacewalk without a space suit, etc. They're hanging out in space on a long mission to Pluto or something, and over the years, they evolve and change, gaining the ability to live in the space environment, etc.

    In the meantime, here on Earth, something terrible happens and just about everybody on the planet croaks, except for some people here and there. Technology all goes down the drain as most devices and whatnot break down and nobody is around to fix them. People band together in little tribes, tattooing the image of their tribes on their bodies to distinguish one another, and mini-wars break out between these tribes, in which people beat the crap out of each other with clubs. People forget the religions that filled the Earth, and they start worshipping rocks, trees, small statues, old tires on the sides of the roads that haven't disintegrated yet, etc. After some 750 years, nobody even remembers the technology that used to be. Most buildings have crumbled from disrepair. Once again, people are living in huts made of straw, sticks, or bricks. (Like the three little pigs.)

    Anyway, while all this is going on, the space crew's decendants had reached Pluto, done some fascinating experiments like gathering samples of Pluto dirt in small jars, and they started on their way back home to Earth, which isn't visible to the naked eye from Pluto. By the 750 years that I mentioned before, the decendants of those who gathered the Pluto dust arrive at Earth. They come in for a landing, and everyone sees this, freaks out, and thinks it's an alien invasion with UFOs or something. Entire religions are invented over this, and people have bloody battles for the next 2000 years over whose account is correct.

  • According to a spam I got today, this [pillsdoc.us] should be all the "augmenting" needed...
  • Operating system of one of the descendants of those astronauts (by a quirk of fate called Neo) discovers it has had a wireless module all alone.
    Neo (watching metallic octopus-like creatures floating in his direction): "Wait! This time it's different! I can feel them"
    Operating system: "New devices of type 'Sentinel 2.3' are nearby. Please wait while drivers are being installed..."
    Neo spreads his arm forth, trying to point his wireless module antenna at creatures, which overloads his RF module and aborts driv

  • "It's not easy to set aside questions of ethics and choice. It is not even possible. However, in this essay we simply overlook them in order to work toward our hypothesis."

    To simply overlook ethics in order to work toward our hypothesis is to deny the very essence of what makes us human. If we simply work towards a single goal without questioning the morality of that goal, we are already computers...the wiring is just a simple detail.


  • Anybody else attend a particular lecture at Minicon (Minneapolis) c. '93? There was a guy who did a heck of a theatre piece -- or was crazy -- or a visionary. Still haven't picked just one. Story was that he was like a cousin in the Japanese solid booster rocket company's family. The problem with 100% solid rockets is apparently the relatively instantanious thrust -- they take off like, well, bottle rockets. So he was centrifuging salemanders regularly to try to figure how much they could take and what

  • Perhaps a re-charge [slashdot.org] would fit in to the plan somewhere?

    Maybe instead of the glass of OJ [amazon.com] after cryogenic fuge, a fresh infusion/replacement of synthetic blood would do the trick?

  • With enough augmentations, you too can be a space cadet.

    --insert brittany spears/pam anderson joke here--
  • "Computational technology also holds great and perhaps more immediate promise, for instance, using artificial intelligence technologies inside us." Artificial Intelligence?! Let's work on natural intelligence, and start with women in parking lots! Wiz
  • With (far) less than a hundred years until super-human intellectual capacities are available in pure computing substrates, how anyone can believe that meat-as-we-know-it will even get out of the solar system is beyond me. By the time life has the resources to expand beyond Sol, it will have assumed bodily forms that weren't specifically evolved to terrestrial living for a billion years. Even tourists like you or I will probably have to have our minds transferred into an aritificial substrate in our entirety
    • With (far) less than a hundred years until super-human intellectual capacities are available in pure computing substrates

      The Singularity is not coming. We will not be surpassed. The future will not be perfect.

      AI has been "fifty years away" for fifty years now. We'll have human-level AI shortly after we have profitable fusion reactors, and to get beyond that, we'll have to do quite a bit more than "trust in the computer."

      And, of course, that's assuming that the same capitalism that came up with Clippy

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