Do you believe this will happen in the future?

Question

My friend is a technology junkie. He is smart when it comes to computers and science. Here are his theories:

1) He believes that we will soon reach a point of singularity.

2) He believes that within 100 years humans will develop artificial intelligence and computers or robots will be able to outsmart humans.

3)He believes that science and medicine will get so good that the life of humans will be extended drastically by many many years.

4)He also thinks it might be possible to bring dead people back to life in the future. (i think it is called cryogenics?)

Answer 1

1&4- He lost track of the difference between theory and real life.

2-very feasible

3-hardly so (I think human age follows bell shaped function skewed to the right - once you go over a certain age, people can indeed live longer but not in opimal conditons)

Answer 2

1) The concept of a singularity is a mathematical one.  It is not a proven fact that one even exists.  It's like the idea of a perfect circle, which is a Platonic notion.  There are no perfect circles in nature or anywhere in the universe.  I'm sure that your friend is thinking about the "Big Crunch", which is like the Big Bang in reverse.  The problem is, one cannot use General Relativity solely to explain either--quantum effects have to be taken into account.  When you consider quantum effects, the concept of singularity crumbles.

2)  We're already getting there.  IBM's supercomputer Blue Gene is already beating the world's best chess players.  There is no question that robots with AI will soon exceed human performance both physically and in intelligence in many ways.  What remains is the "Mr Data" problem in the Star Trek: Next Generation series---how closely can robots be like humans?

3)  That is a very reasonable expectation, in that medical technology can dramatically improve not only the quality of life but the length of it.  There could be a serious social consequence to this---such cutting edge medical technology could be accessible only to the very rich, leaving the rest without the means.  Will we see a replay of the French Revolution?  Has anyone already written a science fiction novel along this line?

4)  Depends on what's "dead" and for how long.  Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, can temporarily "kill" a person, so that for all practical purposes life has ceased, and yet they can be later revived.  People do not have to be frozen to be in a "state of suspended animation".  Unfortunately, when people die ordinarily, the decay process can be extremely rapid, so that in a matter of hours, there is not much left in the brain to be able to reconstruct the original person.  Otherwise, we'd have a cure for stroke victims.

Answer 3

Your friend is foolishly hopeful, ignorant of history and obviously loves science -fiction-, but knows very little of science.

1) "He believes that we will soon reach a point of singularity."

Who is "we", when is "soon" and and what does he mean by "singularity"? If he means like a black hole, then he should learn some astrophysics. Our sun is an average star and likely much too small to ever become a black hole. A white dwarf is the most likely and only after becoming a red giant.

2) "He believes that within 100 years humans will develop artificial intelligence and computers or robots will be able to outsmart humans."

Well, a computer has already beaten every human in chess. Americans voted for George W. Bush -twice-, so I expect you friend is a little late to the game. Your average toaster isn't as stupid as most humans already are.

3) "He believes that science and medicine will get so good that the life of humans will be extended drastically by many many years."

This is nothing new. Again he is late to the game. In our short time on earth, humans have already extended their lifespan greatly compared to any other species on the planet. Without specifics, his prediction is worthless.

4) "He also thinks it might be possible to bring dead people back to life in the future. (i think it is called cryogenics?)"

"In the future" is a great cop-out. Cryogenics does not bring dead people back to life. It only implies the ability to freeze a person in hopes that some future technology might be able to restore that person to life. However, there is very little guarantee that the person will a) have any intelligence, b) remember anything because the crystallization process of freezing will probably munch all his brain cells, or c) actually want to continue living after they've been restored in a crippled, near brain-dead state.

Also please get your friend to ask his own stupid questions separately. For a technology junkie he apparently never learned how to use Yahoo Answers. Weak.

He should come to Mountain View, CA and learn a few things at the Computer History Museum and travel around the technology center of the world. Oh, he could visit Google too. It's just down the street.

Answer 4

No.

and the thing about cyrogenics is this::

http://cryogenics.nist.gov/