No longer need strokes and neurodegenerative
diseases rob people of speech because we can turn their brainwaves directly into
words.
But this is only the beginning.
Neuroscientists are going to make the mind meld look like child’s play. Mankind
is merging with its machines.
The process began centuries ago with simple
devices such as eyeglasses and ear trumpets that could dramatically improve
human lives.
Then came better machines, such as hearing
aids; and then machines that could save lives, including pacemakers and dialysis
machines.
By the second decade of the 21st Century, we
have become used to organs grown in laboratories, genetic surgery and designer
babies.
In 2002, medical researchers used enzymes and
DNA to build the first molecular computers, and in 2004 improved versions were
being injected into people’s veins to fight cancer.
By 2020 we may be able to put even cleverer
nanocomputers into our brains to speed up synaptic links, give ourselves
perfect memory and perhaps cure dementia.
But inserting technology into human brains is
not the only thing going on. Some scientists also want to insert human brains
into technology.
Since the Sixties, computer chips have been
doubling their speed and halving their cost every 18 months or so.
If the trend continues, the inventor and
predictor Ray Kurzweil has pointed out that by 2029 we will have computers
powerful enough to run programs reproducing the 10,000 trillion electrical
signals that flash around your skull every second.
They will also have enough memory to store the
ten trillion recollections that make you who you are.
And they will also be powerful enough to scan,
neuron by neuron, every contour and wrinkle of your brain.
What this means is that if the trends of the
past 50 years continue, in 17 years’ time we will be able to upload an
electronic replica of your mind on to a machine.
There will be two of you – one a
flesh-and-blood animal, the other inside a computer’s circuits.
And if the trends hold fast beyond that,
Kurzweil adds, by 2045 we will have a computer that is powerful enough to host
every one of the eight billion minds on Earth.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2096522/The-singularity-Mind-blowing-benefits-merging-human-brains-computers.html#ixzz238iW9G5r
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