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Essay for E-School News
Speaking at the 18th Annual Conference on "Technology and Persons with Disabilities" at California State University Northridge in March 2003, Ray Kurzweil described how key developments in science and technology will affect society, alter education and other fields, and benefit everyone, especially those with disabilities. This article is based on that address.
Originally published on eSchool
News July 1, 2003. Published on KurzweilAI.net Oct. 2, 2003.
I've been involved in inventing since I was five, and I quickly
realized that for an invention to succeed, you have to target the
world of the future. But what would the future be like?
To find out, I became a student of technology trends and began
to develop mathematical models of different technologies: computation,
miniaturization, evolution over time. I've been doing that for 25
years, and it's been remarkable to me how powerful and predictive
these models are.
Now, before I show you some of these models and then try to build
with you some of the scenarios for the future—and, in particular,
focus on how these will benefit technology for the disabled—I'd
like to share one trend that I think is particularly profound and
that many people fail to take into consideration. It is this: The
rate of progress—what I call the "paradigm-shift rate"—is
itself accelerating.
We are doubling this paradigm-shift rate every decade. The whole
20th century was not 100 years of progress as we know
it today, because it has taken us a while to speed up to the current
level of progress. The 20th century represented about
20 years of progress in terms of today's rate. And at today's rate
of change, we will achieve an amount of progress equivalent to that
of the whole 20th century in 14 years, then as the acceleration
continues, in 7 years. The progress in the 21st century
will be about 1,000 times greater than that in the 20th
century, which was no slouch in terms of change.
When you say the pace of change is accelerating, most people are
quick to agree, as if that's an obvious statement. But when you
ask otherwise thoughtful observers—including Nobel Prize winners—what
they expect to see 50 years from now, they often vastly understate
the progress of technology.
This happened at a conference I spoke at recently. Time
magazine held a conference on the 50th anniversary of the discovery
of DNA. Most speakers looked at the last 50 years and saw how much
change there was and used that as a model for the next 50 years.
No less a luminary than James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA,
said that in 50 years we will have drugs that will allow us to eat
as much as we want and we won't gain weight. I said, 50 years? We
have done that in mice already by identifying the fat insulin receptor
gene. The drugs are on the drawing board now and will be in FDA
tests in several years—and we will have these available in
close to five years, not 50.
The first step in technological evolution took a few tens of thousands
of years: fire, the wheel, stone tools. And now paradigm shifts
take only a few years' time.
The one exponential trend people have heard of is Moore's Law,
pertaining to the accelerating rate of computers and electronics.
Every two years, we can place twice as many transistors at the same
cost on an integrated circuit. They work twice as fast because the
electrons have half the distance to travel, so the speed of computing
doubles every two years.
Scientists have been debating when that particular paradigm will
come to an end. Optimists say 18 years, pessimists say 12—but
sometime in the teen years, we won't be able to shrink computing
components any more because they will be just a few atoms wide.
Will it be the end of Moore's Law? Perhaps—but other paradigms
will emerge that hold even greater potential.
3-D molecular computing
When the trend for traditional computers runs out of steam—and
we can see the end of that road—we will have three-dimensional
molecular computing.
I pointed this out in my book "The Age of Spiritual Machines" four
years ago, and it was considered a radical notion then—but
there's been a sea change in attitude toward that idea. It's now
the mainstream view that we'll have 3-D molecular computing long
before Moore's Law runs out.</p>
<p>There's been enormous progress in four years. In fact, the favorite
technology appears to be the one I have felt would win: <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Nanotubes')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Nanotubes')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">nanotubes</a>,
comprised of <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Carbon')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Carbon')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">carbon</a> atoms, that can be organized in three dimensions
and that can compute very efficiently. They're up to 100 times as
strong as steel, so you can use them to create structural components
and little "<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Machine')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Machine')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">machine</a>s." A one-inch tube of nanotube <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Circuit')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Circuit')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">circuit</a>ry would
be a million times more powerful than the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Human')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Human')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">human</a> <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Brain')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Brain')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">brain</a>.</p>
<p>We are miniaturizing all technology. The first <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Reading Machine')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Reading Machine')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">reading machine</a>
we created in the early 1970s used a large washing-machine-sized
computer that was less powerful than the computer in your wristwatch
now and cost tens of thousands of dollars. And we are also miniaturizing
mechanical <a href="javascript:loadBrain('System')" onMouseOver="playBrain('System')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">system</a>s, which inevitably will lead to <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Nanotechnology')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Nanotechnology')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">nanotechnology</a>
by the 2020s.</p>
<p>Nanotechnology was first described by Eric Drexler in a pioneering
thesis he did at MIT in the 1980s. <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Minsky, Marvin')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Minsky, Marvin')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">Marvin Minsky</a>, who was also my
mentor, was the only professor willing to be his thesis advisor
because it was such a radical idea. Drexler described machines that
could be built <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Atom')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Atom')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">atom</a> by atom, and then replicated millions or billions
of times. Recently, scientists have used <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Supercomputer')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Supercomputer')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">supercomputer</a>s to simulate
some of his original designs from 1986.</p>
<h2><b>Threshold of human <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Intelligence')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Intelligence')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">intelligence</a></b></h2>
<p>Right now, $1,000 of computing power is between that of the brain
of an <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Insect')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Insect')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">insect</a> and a <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Mouse')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Mouse')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">mouse</a>, at least in terms of <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Hardware')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Hardware')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">hardware</a> <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Capacity')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Capacity')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">capacity</a>.
We will cross the threshold of the hardware capacity of the human
brain by 2020, and the computers we use then will be deeply embedded
in our environment. Computers per se will disappear; they will be
in our bodies, in tables, chairs, and everywhere. But we will routinely
have enough power to replicate human intelligence in the 2020s.
</p>
<p>Critics say, "Sure, we will have computers that are as powerful
as the human brain, but they will just be fast <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Calculator')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Calculator')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">calculator</a>s and will
not have the other aspects of human intelligence." So, really, the
challenge is this: Where will the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Software')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Software')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">software</a>—where will the templates
of human intelligence—come from? </p>
<p>To achieve this, another grand project is needed, comparable to
the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Human Genome Project')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Human Genome Project')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">human genome project</a>, to really understand the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Method')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Method')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">method</a>s used
by the human brain. This project is already well under way, in terms
of scanning the human brain and developing detailed mathematical
models of <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Neuron')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Neuron')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">neuron</a>s and brain regions. </p>
<p>Resolution, speed, price, performance, and <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Bandwidth')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Bandwidth')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">bandwidth</a> of human brain
scanning is growing exponentially. An upcoming technology will be
able to see the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Structure')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Structure')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">structure</a>s, non-invasively, of clusters of thousands
of neurons, giving scientists an ability to see how memories work.
At that point, we will begin to understand how the human brain applies
different cognitive functions. </p>
<p>One point about the human brain: It's not really one organ. </p>
<p>Asking "How does the brain work?" is a little like asking, "How
does the human body work?" You can't answer that question unless
you break it down. Well, the body consists of a lot of different
parts, and the lungs work differently from the heart, and the liver
has many regions. </p>
<p>It's the same with the brain. The brain is actually several hundred
<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Information')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Information')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">information</a>-processing organs, and they have an intricate <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Architecture')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Architecture')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">architecture</a>.
We are beginning to describe in mathematical models how the different
modules of the brain work. </p>
<h3>Reverse-<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Engine')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Engine')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">engine</a>ering the brain</h3>
<p>In my view, it is a conservative projection to say that within
20 or 25 years we will have reverse-engineered the principles of
how the human brain works, and we will be using that <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Knowledge')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Knowledge')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">knowledge</a> to
produce <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Biological')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Biological')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">biological</a>ly inspired models of computation. We are doing
that already. We learned things about how the human auditory system
processes sounds. We used that in speech recognition, as I demonstrated,
and got better results. We are applying these insights into the
software of human intelligence.</p>
<h2>Let's talk about some scenarios. </h2>
<p>By 2010, computers will disappear. They will be so tiny that they
will be embedded in our environment, in clothing, and so on. We
will have high-bandwidth connections to the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Internet')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Internet')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">Internet</a> at all times.
We will have eyeglasses for the sighted that display images directly
in our <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Retina')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Retina')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">retina</a>: contact lenses for full-immersion <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Virtual Reality')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Virtual Reality')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">virtual reality</a>.
</p>
<p>I have a prototype, a <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Device')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Device')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">device</a> allowing me to teleport my image in
three dimensions to other locations from my office. I gave a speech
to people in Vienna, Austria. It looked to the audience like I was
present in three dimensions. People who did not know what was going
on thought I was there. </p>
<p>By 2010, we all will be able to do this routinely—full-immersion
virtual reality. </p>
<p>Besides <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Teleportation')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Teleportation')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">teleportation</a>, we will have relatively powerful (but not
human level) <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Artificial intelligence (AI)')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Artificial intelligence (AI)')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">artificial intelligence</a> (AI) on web sites—artificial
personalities such as the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Avatar')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Avatar')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">avatar</a>-like <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Ramona')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Ramona')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">Ramona</a>, who greats visitors
and answers questions at the KurzweilAI.net web site. </p>
<h2><b>Technology for sensory impairments</b></h2>
<p>For the deaf, we will have systems that provide subtitles around
the world. We're getting close to the point where speaker-independent
speech recognition will become common. Machines will create subtitles
automatically and on the fly, and these subtitles will be a pretty
accurate representation of what people are saying. It won't be error-free.
But then, our own auditory understanding is not error-free, either.
The same is true of reading machines.</p>
<p>We will have listening systems that allow deaf persons to understand
what people are saying. The inability to do so is the principal
handicap associated with deafness.</p>
<p>For blind people, we actually will have reading machines within
a few years that are not just sitting on a desk, but are tiny devices
you put in your pocket. You'll take pictures of signs on the wall,
handouts at meetings, and so on. We all encounter text everywhere,
on the back of packages, on menus. By 2010, these devices will be
very tiny. You will be able to wear one on your lapel and scan in
all directions. These devices probably will be used by the sighted
as well, because they will allow us to get visual information from
all around us.</p>
<p>Such devices also will translate the information from one <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Language')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Language')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">language</a>
to another for everyone. We've put together demonstration technology
to show just how the information will be transferred back and forth
from English to German, from German to French, from French to English,
and so on. </p>
<p>And the voice we use in the demonstration is actually derived from
a new generation of synthetic speech. Although it sounds relatively
normal, it is not recorded human speech. We use that new speech
<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Synthesizer')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Synthesizer')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">synthesizer</a> in the Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 reading systems.</p>
<h2><b>Exoskeletal aid for physical impairments</b></h2>
<p>Another area of progress will be in relation to spinal cord injuries
and for physically disabled people in general. Two different scenarios:
I have always been interested in exoskeletal robotic systems that
you could put on like clothing. Such systems could be used discreetly.
They could be worn under regular clothing and be relatively invisible.</p>
<p>Such a system would work in concert with the user's own <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Sense')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Sense')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">sense</a> of
balance, enabling the user to walk and climb stairs. Being unable
to do those two things is the principal handicap in, say, paraplegia.
Analysis shows this approach is feasible. One of the philosophies
of developing technology for the disabled is to work in close concert
with the general flexible intelligence of the disabled person himself
or herself.</p>
<p>We are not yet on the verge of creating cybernetic <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Genius')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Genius')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">genius</a>es. But
we have many systems in our societies that already can perform intelligently
in narrow areas. We have hundreds of examples of these machines.
Some of them are flying and landing our airplanes, or guiding intelligent
<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Weapon')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Weapon')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">weapon</a>s. We have electrocardiogram systems that provide an analysis
as accurate as your doctor's. We have some systems that can diagnose
blood-<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Cell')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Cell')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">cell</a> images, others that automatically make financial decisions
involving stock-market investments. In fact, $1 trillion in stock-market
investments use these systems. Other intelligent systems look
for credit card fraud, and find optimal routes for <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Email')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Email')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">email</a> messages
and cell phone calls. </p>
<p>In this way technology is already deeply embedded in our infrastructure.
Some observers ask, "What ever happened to artificial intelligence?"
It's like people going to the rain forest looking for ants, with
50 <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Species')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Species')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">species</a> of ants right below them. But the ants go unseen, because
they are embedded.</p>
<p>A disabled person has a narrow need. In the case of a blind person,
he or she needs <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Access')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Access')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">access</a> to ordinary printed material. Deaf persons
need to be able to understand ordinary speech from people they encounter
at random. Devices to do such things can work in close concert with
the much broader, more flexible intelligence of the disabled persons
themselves. </p>
<p>And that will be part of the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Philosophy')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Philosophy')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">philosophy</a> of an exoskeletal robotic
device, to guide and provide balance. </p>
<h2><b>Reconnecting broken <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Nerve')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Nerve')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">nerve</a> pathways</b></h2>
<p>The more profound promise of this <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Research')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Research')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">research</a> will be to actually
overcome spinal cord injuries and reconnect the broken nerve pathways.
One of the challenges is that the nerves atrophy fairly quickly
through disuse. If you wait years after an injury, since the nerves
are not being used, they begin to degenerate. So the pathway is
no longer intact and functioning. </p>
<p>There have been interesting <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Experiment')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Experiment')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">experiment</a>s in scanning brain <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Pattern')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Pattern')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">pattern</a>s
15 or 20 years after the injury in spinal cord patients. They are
asked to perform certain functions—lift your leg, walk across
the room. The brain-pattern activity was the same as in a non-disabled
person, but obviously it was not communicating, because the pathways
were broken.</p>
<p>Still, it will be quite feasible to pick up the patterns in the
brain and <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Wireless')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Wireless')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">wireless</a>ly communicate them to the muscles, completely
bypassing the nervous system that's no longer functioning. </p>
<p>Ultimately, we will be able to create the muscles as well. We are
creating muscle <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Analog')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Analog')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">analog</a>s for robots, but those could be used for
disabled persons as well. There are other challenges—creating
a skeletal system to replace one that may not be up to the task,
dealing with the cardiovascular implications. These are complex
projects, but I believe we will see profound steps forward by 2010.
And by 2020, I think we will have largely overcome the handicaps
of spinal cord injuries. </p>
<p>By 2029, all these different trends will mature and come to a head.
A thousand dollars of computing power will be a thousand times more
powerful than the human brain. We will have completed the reverse
engineering of the human brain. </p>
<p>In some ways, machines can do better than humans. Computers are
much faster than people when they master tasks and can share knowledge.
Something this computer has learned can be shared with thousands
of other computers instantly; whereas, if I learn French, I can't
just <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Download')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Download')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">download</a> that to you. </p>
<h2><b>Enhancing our own intelligence</b></h2>
<p>The implication of that will not be just an alien invasion of intelligent
machines to compete with us. We are going to enhance our own intelligence
by getting closer and closer to machine intelligence—and that's
already happening.</p>
<p>There are many people walking around now who are essentially <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Cyborg')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Cyborg')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">cyborg</a>s
and have computers in their brains interfacing with their biological
neurons. The Food and Drug Administration just approved a neural
implant for <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Parkinson\'s Disease')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Parkinson\'s Disease')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">Parkinson's disease</a> that replaces the portion of the
brain destroyed by that <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Disease')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Disease')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">disease</a>. And there are more than a dozen
different types of implants like that in use or being developed.
Now, they require surgical implantation; but by 2029, we will be
able to send these intelligent devices through the bloodstream.</p>
<p>We are already beginning to put them into our bloodstream, although
the process is not as sophisticated as it will be in 2029. We will
be able to send very intelligent <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Nanobot')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Nanobot')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">nanobot</a>s—nano-robots—into
the blood stream to communicate with our nervous system, and they
will be able to provide a virtual reality, in which they shut down
the signals from my real senses and replace them with the signals
from that environment—and it can be just as realistic as actual
<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Reality')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Reality')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">reality</a>.</p>
<p>Some of these environments will be earthly, some will be fantastic
and won't exist on <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Earth')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Earth')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">Earth</a>. A new <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Art')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Art')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">art</a> form will be to create new virtual
reality environments. You will be able to go there by yourself or
with other people and have encounters with one or thousands of other
people in these virtual-reality environments, incorporating all
the senses.</p>
<p>One <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Phenomenon')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Phenomenon')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">phenomenon</a> will involve people—"<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Experience')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Experience')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">experience</a> beamers," I
call them—putting their flow of sensory experience on the Internet,
kind of like the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Concept')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Concept')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">concept</a> in the movie "Being John Malkovich."</p>
<h2><b>The <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Import')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Import')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">import</a>ance of hanging around</b></h2>
<p>But the real profound implication will be an expansion of human
intelligence.</p>
<p>Right now, we are restricted to a mere hundred trillion inter-neural
connections. I don't know about you, but I find that quite limiting.
Many people send me books to read, web sites to visit, conferences
to attend. And I would <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Love')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Love')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">love</a> to be able to do all these things, but
our human bandwidth is quite limited.</p>
<p>Ultimately, we won't be restricted to 100 trillion connections.
We will able to create new ones with nanobots, and we will have
200 trillion connections or more.</p>
<p>We are today profoundly expanding human intelligence as a species
through the Internet and all of our technology. Through much more
intimate connections with this technology, we will continue to profoundly
expand human intelligence.</p>
<p>Human <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Life')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Life')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">life</a> expectancy is another one of those exponential trends.
Every year during the 18th and 19th centuries, we added a few days
to the human life expectancy. Now, we are at the intersection of
<a href="javascript:loadBrain('Biology')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Biology')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">biology</a> and information <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Science')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Science')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">science</a>. </p>
<p>Today, we are adding about 120 days every year to the human life
expectancy. With the full flowering of the <a href="javascript:loadBrain('Biotechnology')" onMouseOver="playBrain('Biotechnology')" onMouseOut="stopBrain()" class="thought">biotechnology</a> revolution,
within 10 years, we will be adding more than a year to the human
life expectancy every year. </p>
<p>So if we can hang in there for another 10 years, we may actually
get to experience the full measure of the profound century ahead.</p>
<p><i>© 2003 KurzweilAI.net</i></p>
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<td bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan="4"><p>as we glide in toward the sing, millions of human and posthuman specimens are going to be required in the laboratories. mice and bugs arent going to do the trick anymore. it could be considered a kind of perpetual holocaust. lasting forever. </p></td>
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<td bgcolor=#CCCCCC><p>Re: the specimen pools<br><span class="mindxheader"><i>posted on 10/04/2003 12:58 PM by <a href="/mindx/profile.php?id=2">subtillioN</a></i></span></td>
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<td bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan="4"><p>enter the neo-mort vegetable...</p></td>
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<td bgcolor=#CCCCCC><p>Re: the specimen pools<br><span class="mindxheader"><i>posted on 10/04/2003 7:34 PM by <a href="/mindx/profile.php?id=175">JoeFrat</a></i></span></td>
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<td bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan="4"><p>Are you talking about clinical trials? Do you think we will start performing experiments on people against their will? </p></td>
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<td bgcolor=#CCCCCC><p>Re: the specimen pools<br><span class="mindxheader"><i>posted on 10/04/2003 8:03 PM by <a href="/mindx/profile.php?id=2">subtillioN</a></i></span></td>
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<td bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan="4"><p>We will give artificial birth to living cadavers for this purpose, if we can't develop functional biological organismic simulations.
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<td bgcolor=#CCCCCC><p>Re: the specimen pools<br><span class="mindxheader"><i>posted on 10/05/2003 4:38 PM by <a href="/mindx/profile.php?id=175">JoeFrat</a></i></span></td>
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<td bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan="4"><p>For what purpose would you ever create a "living cadaver"? Don't you think there are plenty of blind people willing to experiment with artificial eyes?</p></td>
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<td bgcolor=#CCCCCC><p>Re: the specimen pools<br><span class="mindxheader"><i>posted on 10/05/2003 5:48 PM by <a href="/mindx/profile.php?id=2">subtillioN</a></i></span></td>
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<td bgcolor=#DDDDDD colspan="4"><p>Our ethics clearly limits the depth to which we can experiment on human subjects. That is why we use animals. The problem is that animals make for poor humans. Hence, the neomort vegetable.</p></td>
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