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Topics: News, Technology, Science, Weird
Britt Jones
Okay, technology is good but surely it’s not the elixir to immortality.
Well, it might be.
According to an expert on the future, human beings might be able to achieve immortality in the next eight years.
Obviously, it’s just an estimate and not the exact timeframe but it’s still quite cool and very close to happening.
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This is why Ray Kurzweil, an alleged expert on the future, thinks after landing some pretty big wins in the past.
For instance, he predicted that back in 1990, a computer would be able to beat the world’s best chess player by the year 2000.
Just seven years later, his prediction would come true as in 1997, Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov at chess.
Okay, so one correct thing could be a fluke, but he’s done it again!
He also said in the past that mobile handheld devices such as smartphones would be the future of the world…
Now, that is very true indeed, considering you’re probably using yours now to read this.
Anyway, they aren’t the only predictions that he’s made that have been true, in fact he’s also made some significant predictions on artificial intelligence and human immortality.
Kurzweil believes that an AI will beat the Turing Test, which shows whether machines can exhibit intelligent ‘human-like’ behaviour, before 2030.
Well, considering there are AI machines being created to look like people and they do quite a good job of holding a conversation, we’d say they’re nearly there.
But will humans ever achieve immortality?
The futurist believe that it’ll happen by the end of 2030, which is very soon.
But who would want to live forever?
He told Futurism: “2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence.
“I have set the date 2045 for the 'Singularity', which is when we will multiply our effective intelligence a billion-fold by merging with the intelligence we have created.”
Whilst on a podcast with scientist Lex Fridman, he mentioned that he thinks we’ll be able to ‘advance human life expectancy’ by ‘more than a year every year and I think we can get there [to immortality] by the end of this decade’.
So, how would we do this?
Well, Kurzweil has suggested that it could be through nanobots roaming through our blood vessels, which is not a great thought.
Apparently these nanobots will check how we’re getting on, as well as uploading thoughts and memories onto the cloud.
As long as no one can hack that cloud, I think we’ll be okay!
Do you think it’ll actually happen or is it a fantasy?
We’ll just have to see how the science progresses.