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Ray Kurzweil's Dangerous Idea
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0627.html
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Ray Kurzweil's Dangerous Idea
The near-term inevitability of radical life extension and expansion
"What is your dangerous idea?" Over one hundred big thinkers answered this question, as part of The Edge's Annual Question for 2006. Ray Kurzweil's dangerous idea? We can achieve immortality in our lifetime.
This is an excerpt of an article originally published on Edge
January 1, 2006. Published with permission on KurzweilAI.net
January 17, 2006.
My dangerous idea is the near-term inevitability of radical life
extension and expansion. The idea is dangerous, however, only when
contemplated from current linear perspectives.
First the inevitability: the power of information technologies
is doubling each year, and moreover comprises areas beyond computation,
most notably our knowledge of biology and of our own intelligence.
It took 15 years to sequence HIV and from that perspective the genome
project seemed impossible in 1990. But the amount of genetic data
we were able to sequence doubled every year while the cost came
down by half each year.
We finished the genome project on schedule and were able to sequence
SARS in only 31 days. We are also gaining the means to reprogram
the ancient information processes underlying biology. RNA interference
can turn genes off by blocking the messenger RNA that express them.
New forms of gene therapy are now able to place new genetic information
in the right place on the right chromosome. We can create or block
enzymes, the work horses of biology. We are reverse-engineering—and
gaining the means to reprogram—the information processes underlying
disease and aging, and this process is accelerating, doubling every
year. If we think linearly, then the idea of turning off all disease
and aging processes appears far off into the future just as the
genome project did in 1990. On the other hand, if we factor in the
doubling of the power of these technologies each year, the prospect
of radical life extension is only a couple of decades away.
In addition to reprogramming biology, we will be able to go substantially
beyond biology with nanotechnology in the form of computerized nanobots
in the bloodstream. If the idea of programmable devices the size
of blood cells performing therapeutic functions in the bloodstream
sounds like far off science fiction, I would point out that we are
doing this already in animals. One scientist cured type I diabetes
in rats with blood cell sized devices containing 7 nanometer pores
that let insulin out in a controlled fashion and that block antibodies.
If we factor in the exponential advance of computation and communication
(price-performance multiplying by a factor of a billion in 25 years
while at the same time shrinking in size by a factor of thousands),
these scenarios are highly realistic.
The apparent dangers are not real while unapparent dangers are
real. The apparent dangers are that a dramatic reduction in the
death rate will create over population and thereby strain energy
and other resources while exacerbating environmental degradation.
However we only need to capture 1 percent of 1 percent of the sunlight
to meet all of our energy needs (3 percent of 1 percent by 2025)
and nanoengineered solar panels and fuel cells will be able to do
this, thereby meeting all of our energy needs in the late 2020s
with clean and renewable methods. Molecular nanoassembly devices
will be able to manufacture a wide range of products, just about
everything we need, with inexpensive tabletop devices. The power
and price-performance of these systems will double each year, much
faster than the doubling rate of the biological population. As a
result, poverty and pollution will decline and ultimately vanish
despite growth of the biological population.
There are real downsides, however, and this is not a utopian vision.
We have a new existential threat today in the potential of a bioterrorist
to engineer a new biological virus. We actually do have the knowledge
to combat this problem (for example, new vaccine technologies and
RNA interference which has been shown capable of destroying arbitrary
biological viruses), but it will be a race. We will have similar
issues with the feasibility of self-replicating nanotechnology in
the late 2020s. Containing these perils while we harvest the promise
is arguably the most important issue we face.
Some people see these prospects as dangerous because they threaten
their view of what it means to be human. There is a fundamental
philosophical divide here. In my view, it is not our limitations
that define our humanity. Rather, we are the species that seeks
and succeeds in going beyond our limitations.
[Continued on Edge]
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dangerous Idea
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I also believe there is not enough being done in the field of life-extension. Cancer and AIDS research get far more funding than life-extension and you just have to look at the statistical deaths from those diseases to see the problems haven't gone away. Depending on the singularity to suddenly fix all our problems is an irresponsible and dangerous mentality for the people that live in the here and now. There are biological hurdles that must be overcome, if there weren't, then the technology would already exist. It's nice to just think we can put nanobots in our blood and all will be good but I have seen nothing truly remarkable created in this field yet. Yes there are basic little advances but basic advances aren't the problem, because they're easy and don't require overcoming the most difficult challenges we have. As my biochemistry professor once told us, the easy questions have been answered, the hard ones remain, and that's why novel biological breakthroughs have slowed down, even as computation power accelerates.
People poorly made predictions in the past because they were missing many facts about the world around them. While we don't know everything, we know a lot more now and can make more accurate predictions, if this wasn't true, then Ray has no business in trying to predict the future. I don't believe there will suddenly be a leap from living to 75 on average to living 1000 years. There has to be a transition and it's not going to come overnight. I see people debating physics all the time on this site, and nanotechnology, but when it comes down to the biology, where are all the advances, the accurate predictions, and why have we done so little already? I don't want to just have faith in some abstract idea that hasn't been proven, I want to see real breatkthroughs, real advances, because I live in reality, here and now, not 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, or 100 years from now. |
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Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dangerous Idea
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Yes, but that is pretty much Kurzweil's take on how longevity will be achieved. He does not say that we will leap to lifespans of 1000 years in a single bound. He believes that there are techniques being developed in labs right now that may give us just that little bit of extra time that takes us to slightly better techniques that further delay 'the inevitable' and so on ad infinitum.
Kebooo's belief that the idea of longevity is one without proof is mistaken. As evidence of this, consider this quote, taken from an article by David Sinclair and Lenny Guarente called 'unlocking the secrets of longevity genes'.
'Because people have sought to slow aging for thousands of years without success, some may find it hard to accept that human aging might be controlled by tweaking a handful of genes. (Yet) without knowing the precise, and potentially mryiad, causes of aging, we have already demonstrated in a variety of life-forms that it can be delayed by manipulating a few regulators and letting them take care of organism's health.
We also know that SIR2 genes evolved far beack in time because they are found in organisms ranging from yeast, roundworms, flies and humans. In all these organisms but the last, which has not been tested, Sirtuins dictate length of life. This fact alone convinces us that human Sirtuin genes probably hold the key to our health and longevity as well.
Both our labs are running carefully controlled mouse experiments that should soon tell us whether the SIRT1 gene controls health and life span in a mammal. We will not know definitively how Sirtuin genes affect human longevity for decades'.
So there IS evidence to back up the idea that lifespans can be extended beyond what we now consider the 'natural' limit, and this is far from the only research that I could have quoted from. As to that timespan of 'decades' before we fully understand its affect (if any) on humans..well it's cutting it a bit close to the bone for the likes of Kurzweil, eh? His response to this is that other areas of sci-tech will inevitably bring forth new equipment that will rapidly improve our ability to perform the necessary work, so that what once would have required 'decades' can be performed in months..weeks..days..minutes.
Again, to show there is some evidence to back up such a claim, consider that a new machine is due to go on the market that could read a person's genome in a day, whereas current machines would require decades. Furthermore, although one machine will set you back a cool million pounds, a rapid price drop is expected once mass-production begins.
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