Chapter 16

This was a pretty weird one. I’m actually familiar with Kurzweil’s book since my boyfriend had to read it for engineering our first year at Clemson. It really goes into some crazy details that seem like the mutterings of a crazy old man. But apparently he is brilliant, so I’ll let it slide.

This article really hit on some crazy things that actually all come together to make sense. If you look at the history of the world, it would seem that Kurzweil may be going in the right direction. After all, over the history of our Earth we have seen that all major changes to life as we know it come from something simpler. For example, the floods and problems that led to people’s inability to continue following herds led to farming which still runs our world today. So why would it be so implausible for computers to take over the world and kill us all (cue I-Robot). Riiiiiiight.

I just found the article almost humerous. I did like the “singularity” notions. It was interesting learning that the singularity causes a change in all things valued and done in the world. However, I just can not see how it would be at all plausible for us to basically evolve into computers. Pardon my health science major rant here but, IT’S HUMANLY IMPOSSIBLE. The inner workings of our body would never allow it. I really do not think our bodies would ever be capable of evolving into something that did not die. And if it did, it CERTAINLY could not happen within fifty of our lifetimes—let alone one. But if he is right, more power to him. It’d be fun to live forever eh? But if this is bound to happen than we really are envisioning the wrong problems for the future of our environment. Because no matter which way you swing it, our Earth would NEVER be able to hold so many people at one time. Add it to the list of the many things that could potentially ruin our world someday.