Should Humans "Merge with Machine?"

[God.]

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Tiny machines could roam the body curing diseases

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.
Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent, said Ray Kurzweil.
The engineer believes machines and humans will eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.
"It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil explained.
"But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us."
Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.
Man versus machine
"I've made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029," he said
"We're already a human machine civilisation; we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that."
Humans and machines would eventually merge, by means of devices embedded in people's bodies to keep them healthy and improve their intelligence, predicted Mr Kurzweil.
"We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons," he told BBC News.
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CHALLENGES FACING HUMANITY
Make solar energy affordable
Provide energy from fusion
Develop carbon sequestration
Manage the nitrogen cycle
Provide access to clean water
Reverse engineer the brain
Prevent nuclear terror
Secure cyberspace
Enhance virtual reality
Improve urban infrastructure
Advance health informatics
Engineer better medicines
Advance personalised learning
Explore natural frontiers


The nanobots, he said, would "make us smarter, remember things better and automatically go into full emergent virtual reality environments through the nervous system".
Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering.
The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter.
The 14 challenges were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, which concludes on Monday.



"Humans and machines would eventually merge, by means of devices embedded in people's bodies to keep them healthy and improve their intelligence, predicted Mr Kurzweil."

I find that paragraph horrifying, and belieev there will be numerous problems associated with prolonging human life,

What if they malfunction? How long is it before they're used to infect, rather than cure? Population booms, all over the world, I think there are many problems to fix on this planet before we start "merging humans with machines."

I think it's a truly horrifying prospect.

[adam_smith]

I like the idea if its going to make the human race smarter
(Y)
but if something did happen to go wrong then we will have a human vs Human cyborg war on our hands (i know wht side id rather be on)

ps that would be so cool

[*Jess*]

I don't think that any form of computer should be put into our bodies, instead they should work on developing natural immunity. Prolonging life against nature is immoral to me, and completely pointless. The world is already overpopulated.

The only thing I agree with is nanotechnology when it is used in conjunction with developing medicines which bring a natural immunity, for example enclosing the gene for counterracting the faulty gene in cystic fibrosis in a lipid capsule which is then inhaled into the lungs so they can actually breathe.

[Hells_Zargon]

This reminds me of that Futurama episode when Fry gets worms. With their technology they go about repairing his body and he becomes much smarter and stronger, therefore giving them more chance of survival. Anyway, back to "reality".

Whether you agree or disagree, in the long term I think this kind of nano-technology is inevitable to some degree. The main problem I have with the example of small machines being used to treat disease is that it will effectively allow the natural immune system to become complacent and much more ineffective, leaving humans with a major immune weakness which could possibly be exploited. A person injected with disease-curing nanomachines from birth would possibly never need to even use their immune system. As a method for treatment in the face of death (such as the cystic fibrosis vector example mentioned in the previous post), I agree it is a good idea, but to use it to prevent minor illnesses isn't really that much of a good idea.

Same goes for intelligence enhancement, it poses far more problems than answers.

I'm mixed about prolonging human life. Everybody wants to remain young for longer, but I think there needs to be a line drawn in the future. That line should be at implanting, unless there is a genuine medical reason (prosthetic limbs etc).

However this technology poses more of a threat as a weapon, possible to be used for a variety of means all the way from airbourne "artificial viruses" through to even subtle mind control.

[Kate]

The world is already overpopulated enough, without making people live longer. What happened to methods of population control? Machines should stay in plastic, and not go anywhere inside of the human body.

[Jyt]

I'm sure that population control won't be a very big problem if the next US president keeps the same foreign policy going.
And Russia is beginning to get a little passive-aggressive (restarting training missions from cold war, testing new weapons)
Plus, lets not forget all the new superbugs, and HIV is still uncured with hundreds more people being infected every week.
These nanomachines may not be a bad idea, if they leave a few of the illnesses out there to keep us under control.
Of course, stupidity will always kill off plenty of people.
I think we should at least have a decent planetary colonization plan ready before going through with it though. For one, these will help with planetary colonization, and secondly we will then have enough space to allow a population burst.
Remember that more of us being alive will seriously fuck up the ecosystem. lets say our population triples: thats triple the amount of food needed, less oxygen in the air (through more of us breathing and less plants being able to photosynthesize to produce oxygen if we eat them), less wildlife, more pollution probably.
I hope whoever gain control of this technology will do some serious consideration into the ecological side effects.

[iaxa]

aww when i read the title to this thread i thought it was going to be something like master chief or robo cop XD

tbh i dont like the idea of nano technology on humans but prosthetic limbs or a spine is a good idea. other then that i am with jess on this.

[Nirvana_rox]

Don't like the sounds of that...
That would just make me feel weird.

[Innamorata]

Sounds creepy.

.......................

[adam_smith]

aww when i read the title to this thread i thought it was going to be something like master chief or robo cop XD
Ditto
(limit.....)

[Hugga-Bear]

Thats not what nanobots are about : /.

nanobots are being designed to help cure disease by targeting viruses which are normally too small and non-descript and clever to be targeted. Nanobots properly programmed could easily eliminate them.

As for using them to infect, yay, expensive anthrax.

wow, this is just like them predicting we would live on the moon before 2000....

[*Jess*]

Thats not what nanobots are about : /.

nanobots are being designed to help cure disease by targeting viruses which are normally too small and non-descript and clever to be targeted. Nanobots properly programmed could easily eliminate them.

As for using them to infect, yay, expensive anthrax.

wow, this is just like them predicting we would live on the moon before 2000....

Nanobots are designed to whatever the medical engineers and scientists and researchers who have a great deal more knowledge than you make them to be, not what you decide they should be.

[Jyt]

Nanobots are designed to whatever the medical engineers and scientists and researchers who have a great deal more knowledge than you make them to be, not what you decide they should be.

Wrong, they are designed to help cure disease and prevent life. They will be implemented for whatever the medical engineers and scientists and researchers decide.
And how can we trust those people to choose morally and not based on who fills their pocket most?

[Innamorata]

Why did you just say "wrong", and then agree with her?

[Jyt]

I didn't. Theres a difference between design and implementation.

[Innamorata]

I know that. She's basically saying they could be used for anything, and so are you.

[Jyt]

Maybe. My problem is with the way it was worded, it seemed like she was saying that there's people designing them specifically for stuff like infecting millions of people with a disease.
Though, there are a few governments that I wouldn't put it past to do that in order to have control of the population. And I suppose it would be handy in a riot to have an illness that can be turned on and off at will in order to stop people.

[iaxa]

Thats not what nanobots are about : /.

nanobots are being designed to help cure disease by targeting viruses which are normally too small and non-descript and clever to be targeted. Nanobots properly programmed could easily eliminate them.

As for using them to infect, yay, expensive anthrax.

wow, this is just like them predicting we would live on the moon before 2000....

it depends what they are programmed for tbh. you dont just make a nano bot and it starts curing disease there is programming implemented so who is to say someone wont buy the shells of the nanobots and design a program to destroy water based lifeforms (we are 80% water or some shit). nanotech is alright in some aspects but imo they rely on the programs too much where as prosthetic limbs act on the nerve system more , with the prosthetic organs you could put a 50 year deterioration too seem more human i guess. i dunno this is all far fetched to me. i would love to live forever but if it means becoming a tin can nty i will stick to witch craft :) *hocus pokus*

[kralian_Wings]

No! No! No!

For god's sake, why do humans have such an obsession with having to better technology? We already have plenty enough to make our lives easier and more comfortable, but no people can't just be happy with that...we have to exploit EVERYTHING.

Computers/robots etc. are capable of being much smarter than us anyway...if they get to that level of having basic human intelligence, they are not going to take orders from us and do what we want them to! why would they?
They would be more than capable of taking over. They probably wouldn't have to eat, sleep etc. and possibly wouldn't be effected by feelings like pain either..they would be far more effective at surviving than us, so why the heck would they take orders from us!?

Ok, ranting over..I don't really have any proper arguments for why this type of thing shouldn't happen, apart from the fact that I don't think humans should try to play God.

ETA: As for computers and robots being merged with humans...people will eventually find a way to use this for crime etc. and then where will we be. Terrible, terrible idea.

[Hugga-Bear]

Average life expectancy is rocketing, unfortunately healthy life expectancy has barely increased at all, were living longer, but not in the good way.

Nanobots ARE being designed to go into your bloodstream and fight disease at a cellular level, they're all we have (besides stem cells which for some reason is being delayed *cough*catholic church*cough*). If someone decided to wipe out the human race I doubt they would use nanobots when there are far more effective and FAR cheaper methods out there to do it...

Anyway, the researchers who crack it will get the most money from the government for the medicinal properties, its too expensive per capita for the military to use...

[diabloprimeevil]

i think nano bots in the body would be awsome but i fail to see how it would make us smarter.

stronger yes as it could manipulate musculs in the same way as a ab belt by administering tiny electric shocks and also diabling the parts in the body wich stop the person from using full strenth as it could dammage the musculs.

faster you could run for longer and faster and they could increast oxigen flow around the body getting it to the places that need it also could stop cramps

cure sickness by fighting it on the same level like a programable white blood cell but with that comes the fact that if the programing got corrupted it could turn on the red blood cells and kill you in a matter of seconds

but still am up for it if they need a guinni pig i would be willing to do ma bit

1 question in the case of nuclear war what would happen when the EMP wave hits you?