Ray Kurzweil, variously described as a technology guru, visionary, prognosticator, inventor or nutcase and often all five at once has a new book out ” The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology” and is out on the road to promote it.
As the rather unimpressed New York Times puts it, Kurzweil “postulates that we are fast approaching a time when humankind melds with technology to produce mind-boggling advances in intelligence. We will be able to play quidditch as Harry Potter does. We will control the aging process. We will be smarter by a factor of trillions. We will be so smart that we understand what Ray Kurzweil is talking about.”
We quite enjoy Kurzweils work, although it does have a certain care free optimism that assumes that providing the long term vision is right scientists will just pop up ands make it so. And natturally, as in any vision of technology more than a few years hence, nanotechnology will provide the magic ingredient that will enable all of this to come to pass, or in this case it’s the return of the dreaded zombie like nanobots. Just once we think we’ve finally disposed of the last one, they all get up and self assemble all over again.
Kurzweil explains it all to Fast Company:
FC: When will people choose to stop aging?
Kurzweil: The killer app for nanotechnology is nanobots. Some will be
in the environment, cleaning up, providing energy. Some will be
involved in automated manufacturing. Some will be in our bodies,
keeping us healthy from the inside. Destroying pathogens, getting rid
of toxins, killing cancer cells. It will be routine.FC: Nanofood?
Kurzweil: Making sure our bloodstream has all the nutrients it needs
regardless of what we eat. We’ll ultimately disconnect the sensual
and social pleasures of eating from the biochemical task of keeping
an optimum set of nutrients in our bloodstream.