Persistence Pays Off For Ray Kurzweil
As a long time singularitarian, Ray Kurzweil, is obsessed with a limitless future. The visionary scientist and inventor spends every waking moment scheming to discover new ways to prolong his personal existence with the aid of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. In this excerpt from a 2008 article in WIRED magazine we see a glimpse of this ambitious goal.
Kurzweil predicts that by the early 2030s, most of our fallible internal organs will have been replaced by tiny robots. We’ll have “eliminated the heart, lungs, red and white blood cells, platelets, pancreas, thyroid and all the hormone-producing organs, kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and bowel. What we have left at this point is the skeleton, skin, sex organs, sensory organs, mouth and upper esophagus, and brain.”
Kurzweil’s vision has been to upload the intellect, emotions, and experiences of a physical human into a self-aware, machine-based virtual person. Based on his calculations of the exponential development of computing technology, he predicted this would happen by the year 2054. Other experts, including Cisco futurist David Evans, felt it would take even longer. Yet in 2036, against all odds and 18 years ahead of schedule, Kurzweil’s dream is now a commercial reality. Today he has the historic distinction of being the world’s first bigenerate (physical and virtual) being thanks to technology NASA abandoned because it was too impractical.
NASA determined that a two-year manned mission to Mars was too risky and expensive and felt it would be safer to upload the consciousness of human astronauts onto computers inside an unmanned spacecraft instead.
When NASA engineers discovered that the virtual astronauts would require a huge cluster of computers even larger than a human life support system, they were forced to abandon the project. Realizing that this technology was exactly what he needed, Kurzweil snatched up a license and proceeded to build an earthbound container for his own massive intellect.
For a period of three months, engineers began uploading copies of his consciousness and considerable intelligence into a massive data center somewhere south of Idaho. After several weeks of neurologic therapy and training, his alternate virtual “self” became fully self-aware and was functioning normally.
The virtual Kurzweil achieved a remarkable 89.3% score in terms of replicating the scientific creativity and business acumen of his human self. And in terms of overall mental processing speed and efficiency, he has achieved an astonishing 3100% score thanks in part to digital replication enhancements and the extreme parallel processing facilities assigned to his new virtual essence. Because he is virtually everywhere on the Internet at all times, his presence is now singlehandedly approaching the theoretical equivalent of Twitter 2.0 and 3.0 combined.
Today Kurzweil meets weekly with his original human counterpart to discuss personal and business matters. Whenever asked, neither can tell if they felt more like twins rather than a single person with both a human and a digital body. Network psychologists say this confusion is normal due to the fact that while bigenerate beings share the same thoughts, they do not share sensory experiences.
Others followHaving achieved his personal goal of machine-assisted existence, Kurzweil invited other technology leaders to try it out including John Chambers, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Larry Ellison. All but Ellison now have their own data centers equipped with fully aware, high-performance digital avatars. A new company and a new type of serviceNext, Kurzweil turned his focus on making the technology available for consumers. His new company, iPersist, is the world’s first “Existence as a Service” (EaaS) provider and it delivers an economical version of the same high-end technologies his wealthier clients enjoy.
Data center resources are prohibitively expensive, so to make his service affordable, Kurzweil instituted an existential time-share program where virtual customers are only awake for a two-week period each year. For the remaining 50 weeks, they remain in hibernation so others can use the facilities. Extra awakenings are free for family funerals, which tend to increase iPersist survivor trial subscriptions and family-plan sales.
All plans guarantee perpetual existence, and foreclosure protection is included with every subscription.
Additional Information
- You can read more about virtual existence, iPersist, and what happened to Larry Ellison at www.futurefactoids.wordpress.com.
- How we post information from the future.
- Predictions from Cisco chief futurist Dave Evans
