While looking for something entertaining to watch during the long weekend, my wife and I rented the movie Transcendence.
Its about a really clever fellow who wants to understand the mysteries of the universe and believes that a technology based artificial intelligence is the way to find such answers. While making a speech on the topic, this brainy type, this "head" as it were, is posed a question by a young man, "So, you want to build your own god?" The computer wiz answers, "Isn't that what every man does?" Shortly afterwards the questioner shows up with a pistol and fatally wounds the computer scientist (the wound is superficial, but the bullet was poisoned with Pollonium.) The wife of the stricken man (who is also a computer geek) uses technology to scan the electrical impulses in her husband's brain, so that she can rebuild his mind in an advanced high speed computer that is already equipped with a form of Artificial intelligence software. The end result is that the "mind" of the computer scientist is "preserved" in the machine which immediately goes about the business of improving the technology that has sustained "him," developing networked nanobots, that he uses to cure the blind and heal the lame, etc., and build an army of independent but communally active hybrids (cyborgs) to carry out his plan for expansion and world salvation (domination). Finally he develops a way to grow a new body (using his nanite technology) and is physically resurrected. The sane people in the world do their best to stop him with a computer virus written from his own Artificial intelligence software code and doom themselves to a life without technology (how sad), yet he cleverly survives their plan by hiding in nanobots that have survived the computer virus in a puddle of water in a screened off "garden" (RF deaf) together with the mental remnant of his wife, presumably for a sequel.
This morning I noticed a short news piece about the possibility in the not too distant future of using robots (nanites) in your wash to clean your clothes (without the need for detergents.)
The author of "Transcendence" appears to believe that technology combined with our own enlightened goodness will change the world and usher mankind into a brilliant future somewhat resembling the promised millennial kingdom of God. His attitude is common among "technologists" and scientists. Is this where we're headed?
Terrorist threats like ISIS are things which the world are ready to oppose with force and violence, but why oppose a promise of utopia?
Its about a really clever fellow who wants to understand the mysteries of the universe and believes that a technology based artificial intelligence is the way to find such answers. While making a speech on the topic, this brainy type, this "head" as it were, is posed a question by a young man, "So, you want to build your own god?" The computer wiz answers, "Isn't that what every man does?" Shortly afterwards the questioner shows up with a pistol and fatally wounds the computer scientist (the wound is superficial, but the bullet was poisoned with Pollonium.) The wife of the stricken man (who is also a computer geek) uses technology to scan the electrical impulses in her husband's brain, so that she can rebuild his mind in an advanced high speed computer that is already equipped with a form of Artificial intelligence software. The end result is that the "mind" of the computer scientist is "preserved" in the machine which immediately goes about the business of improving the technology that has sustained "him," developing networked nanobots, that he uses to cure the blind and heal the lame, etc., and build an army of independent but communally active hybrids (cyborgs) to carry out his plan for expansion and world salvation (domination). Finally he develops a way to grow a new body (using his nanite technology) and is physically resurrected. The sane people in the world do their best to stop him with a computer virus written from his own Artificial intelligence software code and doom themselves to a life without technology (how sad), yet he cleverly survives their plan by hiding in nanobots that have survived the computer virus in a puddle of water in a screened off "garden" (RF deaf) together with the mental remnant of his wife, presumably for a sequel.
This morning I noticed a short news piece about the possibility in the not too distant future of using robots (nanites) in your wash to clean your clothes (without the need for detergents.)
The author of "Transcendence" appears to believe that technology combined with our own enlightened goodness will change the world and usher mankind into a brilliant future somewhat resembling the promised millennial kingdom of God. His attitude is common among "technologists" and scientists. Is this where we're headed?
Terrorist threats like ISIS are things which the world are ready to oppose with force and violence, but why oppose a promise of utopia?
