alek0

1. Nanotechnology - i.e. medical nanobots, self-replicators, devitrification, universal fabricators, etc.

Items described - definite no. Nanotechnology - definite yes. Samsung already has prototype displays based on field emission from carbon nanotubes. Quantum dot lasers have been demonstrated. Quantum dot corporationa already has commercially available products for bio applications.

2. Artificial Intelligence - theoretically possible. Though practical research will probably be banned if any significant breakthrough is made.

3. "Immortal Androids" - very limited. And that is a good thing.

4. Interstellar Travel - I hope not. Last thing I'd like to see wold be mormon missionaries and JWs and other %^&$^$!!! "spreading the word" accross the galaxy. "Jesus loves you even though you are ugly, green, and have 8 eyes, and those weird tentacles"

Nat

"1. Nanotechnology - i.e. medical nanobots, self-replicators, devitrification, universal fabricators, etc."

Exists now to a degree, but definitions here are very important. Likely there will be usable nanotech systems for breaking down oil spills and the like - we are already doing a version of this with oil eating bacteria, the next step to oil-eating molecules seems reasonable.

Creating very useful nanobots for medical repair and the like will likely be impossible, however, due to the fat finger and the sticky finger problems. To do the work people have discussed, nanobots will have to move individual molecules around, but that might be difficult because the "arms" of the nanobot will also need to be complex molecules.

Regardless, however, the "Grey Goo" problem seems ridiculous - it is unlikely that we will be able to build a self-replicating molecule with an infinite Malthusian Curve.

"2. Artificial Intelligence - at least to the level of human beings, preferably beyond, whatever that means."

Seems to be a problem of definition more than anything else. If you mean sentience - I simply don't know, and I doubt we will even be able to tell if it actually does emerge. Regardless, however, the human brain's neural network is still billions of times ore complicated than the most advanced silicon - without a quantum leap and technology, we will likely not be able to achieve this gap.

"3. "Immortal Androids" - by which I mean, the ability to live essentially forever by constantly replacing those parts of our bodies which are "breaking down", specifically with artificial or robotic parts that are better, stronger, longer lasting."

Read a recent paper on the fundamental impossibility of immortality by Freeman Dyson, but I doubt this applies here (his belief is that information would be fundamentally unable to maintain about 100 billion years from down based on current inflation models).

Extremely extended lifespans seems reasonably possible though a severe problem for society to deal with. Is it even a good idea?

"4. Interstellar Travel - the ability for humans to travel to the nearest stars within their lifetimes."

Theoretically possible now using a simplistic nuclear fusion drive you could hit Alpha Centari in less than 50 years. The question is, would you want to?

Far-reaching concepts such as wormhole/warp generation through negative energy production seem extremely far-fetched and may be physically impossible for any thing bigger than quantum scales. Though, theoretically, if we can open a quantum wormhole, we could send information, and eventually, that may be enough.

Cheers

Bialar Crais

What the hell... My thoughts... (And I use the word thought in the losest sense possible )

</strong>

Partly. Using nano-tech for medical purposes for instance would be a possiblr application. Not on the level of repairing genes, or cells, or whatnot, but perhaps better absorption of medicatrion and suchlike.

</strong>

Yes. I think this will happen. Someday someone is bound to make a complete model of a human brain as a neural net or something, including the development from child to adult. It'll take time before something like this is realised, decades, perhaps centuries, perhaps even longer, but I can see no reason why we shouldn't get there eventually. (Except theological argument that huimans are "special" or have "souls").

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No, not essentially forever, but extended life spans yes. FOr how long, I dunno, but I doubt we'll ever go over a few centuries, unless someone comes up with a way to copy'n'paste parts of the brain from one body to the other and keep the victim 100% the same person.

I think so. NASA's <a href="http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/" target="_blank">Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) Project </a> would be a good start. Obviously scientists "out there" are thinking about possible solutions to the problem. Again, something that'll take deades if not centuries, but I think it'll come to pass.

And here's whats ticks me off about dying. All these (possible) wonderful future technologies and discoveries I will never be able to see or experience. Damn! Those who says living for ever would be boring, well... There's so much to see and learn, and there's more for every passing hour. I think it'd take a LONG time bfore boredom set in.

Krieger

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. YES!

The Lone Ranger

1. Nanotechnology:

I agree with what seems to be the consensus here. Yes, we'll have more advanced nanotechnology in the future, but there are limits. I certainly don't think we're ever going to have microscopic, conscious robots like in Star Trek.

2. Artificial Intelligence:

I see no reason to expect that we won't eventually have true AI. After all, there's certainly no evidence that thinking in humans is due to anything other than neurotransmitters moving across synapses and depolarization of neural membranes. A self-aware computer might be beyond our capacity to build directly, but with evolutionary algorithms, we wouldn't have to take a brute force approach to it. (Evolutionary algorithms already produce computer programs that greatly outperform their original designers' expectations, or so I've been told.)

I find Roger Penrose's claims that the human brain performs "noncomputational functions" and that quantum-level events are an important component of human consciousness utterly unconvincing.

Whether a conscious computer would think like humans is another question entirely.


3. "Immortal Androids":

The problem is that there's one human organ that can't be replaced, and that's the brain. Even a human brain kept alive inside an android body would eventually die, probably in less than 200 years. (The average adult over the age of 40 loses about 10,000 brain cells a day, as I recall.) I doubt we'll ever have the technology to "download" the contents of a human brain into some sort of computer system, though Marvin Minski seems to think that we'll be able to do this in a only a decade or two.


4. Interstellar Travel:

Generation ships, sure. It might even be possible to build ships that travel at relativistic speeds, though most physicists seem to be extremely skeptical. But faster than light drives that would take us to the stars in days or weeks or months instead of decades or centuries? That's exceedingly unlikely.


I agree. Every time I read some story or see some movie in which a character is "cursed" with immortality and really wishes (s)he could die, I always suspect it's sour grapes on the writer's part. ["Well, I'm going to die, like it or not, so I might as well try to convince myself that it's a good thing."]

In Highlander, for instance, characters are always whining about how their friends die. Big deal! Make new ones. Very few of the people whom I considered dear friends just 10 years ago are still a big part of my life, and I expect that many of the people whom I regard as dear friends today will be all but forgotten 10 years from now. That's the way life is.

I'd love to have practical immortality. (By which I mean eternal youth and health, and the ability to end my life if I ever did decide it was no longer worth living.)

Cheers,

Michael

Christopher Lord

1) For the sort term, I think that we will see some fantastic advances, especially in material generation, processors, displays, and memory systems (the 'chip flint' stage).
Further down the line, we will overcome the more difficult problems like heat generation and sticky fingers (both beatable, in my opinion), and have the ability to construct 'seeds' which will grow into factories for the production of almost anything (the dumb node stage). Regenerative medical nanotechnology will require smart nodes, which is much more difficult. Smart nodes will require extremely advanced atomic-scale construction. There is an example of regenerative medical nanotech already in existence, however. It is our own immune system.

2) AI will ride the wake of advancing processor design. Pure human intelligence is almost useless as a model of computation. It wastes gobs of performance on very expensive tasks like awareness. AI is already more advanced than humans in many sub-fields, and will continue to press on. Human-style intelligence is and will be useful for entertainment purposes, however, so I am sure once the circuit complexity is there, someone will take the challenge up. AI will slowly integrate into our lives, so that we almost do not notice their presence. They will NOT explode onto the scene one day. As a side-note, I do not regard creativity as especially difficult, and not really a banner for human greatness.

3) Replaceable parts will require the right techniques. Obviously, hearts, lungs and brains can be built from raw materials (otherwise you would not exist). It's simply a matter of perfecting artificial creation of these parts, and of course proper integration. This will require sub-cellular organic linkage technology. When mechanical technology gets to a certain point, I do not expect to be able to tell it apart from organic technology, except that it can be improved beyond current limits.

4) I do not think interstellar travel will happen for a good long time, UNLESS we get good old human competition into the mix. Here we are only constrained by the lack of incentive.

Bialar Crais

Sorry for the off-topic...
That's about what I think. Either that or some "we're only meant to live suchandsuch long time" sentiments.

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True, and with humans and sorrow, you'll eventually get over it. Sure, it may hurt for a long time but eventually the pain fades and is replaced with only good memories.

</strong>

*nod* Yes, I would in no way mind that. Finally time to learn about everything (if one skull can hold such an amount of knowledge ) and expereince more or less anything. Travel anyplace. Damnm, that's a sweet deal.

Feather

While I agree that human-level AI will be possible, I stand amused and amazed at the apparent ease with which some posters seem to think it will be accomplished.

It seems to me that the impression is that very soon machines (either mechanical or biological) will match human intelligence (or exceed it). This simply isn't the case.

It is one thing to be able to solve problems that match a specific pattern. It is another to solve new, unsolved problems. The latter can be accomplished by repetition (try solution 1; if it works good else try solution 2; repeat), but that is not "creative intelligence" the way the term is usually meant.

When I sit down to do my physics homework, I don't take equation 1 and try it, then equation 2, then equation 3, and so on, until I find the right one. I don't even do that the first time. I examine the system as a whole as a make a determination about which equations to apply (or to create new ones) before I start the solution.

A computing machine may be able to repetitively determine solutions as fast--or faster than--I can by creatively approaching the problem. But that is not "intelligence." The difference may be subtle, but it is important.
Intelligence is no more than the configuration of a system of nuerotransmitters, to be sure. But it's not a simple system.

elwoodblues

On the contrary, pattern-matching is something computers are very, VERY good at. Connectionist networks can be quite clever about it. Just because the process is pretty well understood doesn't make it any LESS than what we can do with a process that isn't understood at all.

Feather

That's fine. But I wasn't speaking of pattern matching. In fact, pattern-matching is not enough to solve new problems. By definition, "new problems" don't (necessarily) fall into a given pattern, and cannot necessarily be completely solved by matching patterns. New patterns must be supplied, and often these have nothing to do with existing patterns.