Nanobot Machines "to match man by 2029"
February 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm by Jarrod
Engineer Ray Kurzweil has stated that he believes that humanity is on the brink of seeing robots implanted in people’s brains to “make them more intelligent.” Kurzweil suggests that these nanobots could be inserted into the human brain via capillaries and “interact with our biological neurons” making us “smarter” and able to “remember things better.” The engineer doesn’t stop there, he also thinks that these machines will help us go into full emergent virtual reality environments. Sounds strangely like they are trying to implement the matrix, which I’m not sure would be as entertaining as it looks in the movies.
It is undeniable that some people’s standard of living would improve drastically, by being made artificially more intelligent. They could get better jobs, earn more money, be more motivated, and if it is possible for these machines to make us healthier, perhaps even be less of a burden on the troubled health system. Ironically, the people who would need this technology the most would be the people who couldn’t afford it. So the rich, who could afford to make themselves infinitely clever with the insertion of more and more nanobots, would get richer, and the poorer, left behind in terms of intelligence, would get ever poorer. Soon our country would be left with a massive divide between the intelligent and the now ‘unintelligent’ people, and no-one would be able to bridge this gap. The naturally remarkable and exceptionally clever amongst us, would disappear, as everyone would be ‘special’, which, to quote Pixar, “is another way of saying that no-one would be”.
If they did manage to make this technology affordable for the masses, and therefore everyone had countless robots inserted into their brains, then everyone would be truly equal, meaning they could save time and money in development, and just bring back ‘idealistic communism.’ On a more serious note, if everyone was really clever then there would be no-one prepared to do any of the mundane jobs in our society. Who would want to work in a supermarket, or being a refuse engineer, with an IQ nearing 200? Our society as we know it would fall apart.
None would argue that artificial intelligence is not an important step, however, I’m not sure that should be directed towards inserting things into our bodies. They should focus on making life much easier, robot servants for example.
There are many massively more important issues and advancements that need to be covered on the recently released ‘challenges facing humanity’ list, than ensuring that everyone is equal. ‘Making solar energy affordable,’ or merely implementing renewable energy sources around the world, and therefore stabilising our planet before we destroy it further. Also, developing cures for diseases, general engineering of cheaper and more effective medicines, providing clean water for the world, and though it isn’t on the list, stemming the needless bloodshed that plagues our planet.
Though the opportunity of ‘absorption learning’ like in the Matrix does have its appeals, I think the immediately obvious concerns and issues with artificially improving humans need to be dealt with first. Finally, all of this should only occur once we have solved the much more pressing issues of life on this planet.