The Day You Discard Your Body

[Synexious]

Virtual reality really hasn't even begun to take off yet. In ten years, while VR still may or may not reach mainstream saturation, it will certainly be possible for enthusiasts like us, at least, to build affordable, fully audiovisually immersive VR setups with sophisticated motion and haptics. After a decade of silence, the consumer HMD market has been jumpstarted with Sony's surprise announcement of its HMZ-T1 Personal 3D Viewer in 2011. The first sub-$1000 HMD with effective 720p resolution, it uses OLED technology, which is dramatically superior to LCD. The necessary technologies are finally beginning to mature.

By 2020 Snow Crash-style HMDs with 180° FOV and 4K resolution or better will be available to buy or build. HMDs better than the $100,000 Sensics piSight will be affordable for all. If VR isn't mainstream by 2020 then it should be by 2030. By midcentury we'll have built a real holodeck, with even simulated smells and tastes. Eventually VR will be almost perfect. But not quite. VR will never be totally perfect. No matter how advanced it becomes we will still be limited by our physical bodies. Someday VR will give way to SR - simulated reality. You've seen SR in The Matrix. But how will we actually create an SR interface?

The answer is the Vertebrane. In The Day You Discard Your Body, Marshall Brain, HowStuffWorks founder, describes how we will escape the confines of our bodies via an artificial replacement vertebra. The body will be put on autopilot, feeding, grooming, cleaning, and exercising itself, while the mind roams freely across the metaverse. Marshall believes the technology could be available in 40-50 years with an intensive, Manhattan Project-style research project. Further out, he envisions isolated brains living for centuries in brain storage facilities. And ultimately, centuries from now, we'll be uploading our minds into advanced computer systems.

Young people today, and perhaps even middle-aged people, may live to see the Vertebrane become a reality. Medical advances are expected by some scientists to enable people alive today to live to 150 years of age. If that is the case, and brain isolation is developed in that time, that means there are people alive now who will never die - medical advances coupled with the Vertebrane would keep our bodies from dying of disease, age, or accident while we await the development of brain isolation technology, which would increase our lifespan by centuries, as the brain, as long as it does not deteriorate from Alzheimer's or other brain diseases, can live much longer than a normal body, giving us enough time until the holy grail - uploading - becomes available.

The idea of living to see the day when your mind can be uploaded into a computer doesn't seem as absurd once you realize the potential of "stopgap" technologies (and everyone knows technology is advancing at an accelerating pace) to string us along further and further until eventually we reach the ultimate goal - transcending the human condition; the end of death, suffering, scarcity, and physical limitations. What humanity will accomplish over the course of this century will eclipse the myopic visions of mainstream science fiction set centuries or even millennia hence. Mid to late 21st humanity (or transhumanity, as it were) will make the 24th century humans of Star Trek look like the Amish.



Moore's Law - The Past


Moore's Law - The Future

[cybereality]

Actually, I think it is coming much sooner. If you read Ray Kurzweil, specifically The Singularity is Near, he talks about how we should have non-biological humans surpassing biological humans around 2045. This would mean we could effectively get new bodies, or at least significant augmentations, which would allow us to live much longer (maybe indefinitely). Its hard to say if we will have a Matrix style SR by that time, but we should have enough medical advances (nanotechnology, etc.) that we will be able to live to whenever that happens. In his book he details how pretty much every technology is advancing exponentially, not just computer chips, and that most predictions of the future do not take this into account. So we will not be waiting centuries for this to happen, it will be within our lifetime (provided we live long enough to reach it). He also talks about full sensory VR, and how this will happen via nanotech inside our bodies, and also advanced AR with nanotech structures that can build and re-configure themselves on-the-fly to simulate any physical object. Really interesting stuff, and he claims it will happen within the next 40 years. A great book for anyone into this stuff.

[Synexious]

I haven't read The Singularity is Near, but I have read Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku. I've also seen Transcendent Man and Transcendent Man Live. I'm very familiar with Kurzweil's timeline. Unfortunately, it's way too optimistic. His predictions for the past are behind schedule. Kurzweil says we'll have "full-immersion, shared, virtual-reality environments, or spaces, involving all the senses, where we can actually go inside our bodies and brains and tap into the flow of signals" by 2030, but that actually is SR, not VR. Tapping straight into the brain and manipulating sensory signals directly is the definition of SR. So we're twenty years away, according to Ray.

In 2045 artificial intelligence, having already eclipsed human intelligence (I think around 2040), is supposed to explode, recursively improving upon itself infinitely, causing the equivalent of centuries of progress per second. This is absolutely ridiculous to me. Michio Kaku writes in PotF that there are significant problems to the realization of Kurzweil's vision. PZ Myers has also noted the folly of Ray's vision. Yes, we are experiencing exponential growth due to Moore's Law, but even that breakneck pace is still not enough for Ray to be correct. He's placed the Singularity, conveniently, right around the end of his projected normal lifespan.

This is how absurd Kurzweil is - if we can upload our minds in thirty years or so, as he says, we will have the far less advanced Vertebrane in maybe ten years. That is simply not going to happen. I do believe the Singularity will inevitably happen, but not for a long time.

[mAchiNE]

Interesting suff! sound like this could definatley happen in our lifetime, but this all depends on civilisation not tearing itself apart before then....

[cybereality]

I don't think Ray's predictions are that far off. Look at how far computers have come in just 20 years. Today we have smart phones in our pockets vastly more powerful than super-computers of the past. We can press a button on the phone and say "where is the nearest Italian restaurant" and the phone can give detailed directions on how to get there. I am not even going to suggest I know what we will have in our pockets (or brains) in another 20 years, but it will probably surprise even Kurzweil.

There are already humans *today* with non-biological augmentation: robotic arms they can move with their mind, blind people able to see with camera connected to the optic nerve, not to mention cochlear implants, pace makers, etc. Within rats there have been experiments which successfully implanted computer chips which were able to retain memories. This is all stuff we have today. Its only a matter of time before a full robotic body could be produced, ready to drop a brain into. Not to mention less drastic measures, like implanting nanotechnology into a biological body and having them keep your body healthy from the inside. Kurzweil talks about all this in his book. We will be able to eat as much as we want and never get fat, reverse aging, cure cancer, AIDS, etc. This is all going to happen relatively soon (according to him) but this at least seems realistic. We are talking in the next 20 years. Which means we will likely be able to live much longer lives, over 100 years probably. So our generation will see more change than any other ever, and live long enough to experience the next generation.

I think the main impediment toward the kind of strong AI talked about in the book is just us as humans, and our own limitations. There is no doubt it will happen eventually, and we may have the hardware necessary to do it within the next 40 years or whatever. But its always the software that lags behind. Just has today we have amazing display technology, widely available and cheap trackers, affordable super computers, etc. and still don't have really any compelling VR software (aside from proprietary stuff that never sees the light of day). If you were to go back into the 90's and tell yourself the kind of hardware we have now you'd imagine we'd have VR already. But sadly we basically have DOOM with better graphics. So it may be the same thing. I think if there was a strong interest in creating the sort of AI Ray talks about, I think we could do it. But that is just no guarantee all the pieces will fall into place.

But, at the very least, we will have the ability to directly connect our minds into some sort of networked environment at some point in the near future. Like I said, we have already accomplished primitive direct neural connections for sight, sound, motor reflexes. Its not hard to imagine this progressing within 20 or 30 years, into something that would surpass modern day video games played directly in your brain. Make it a shared experience, and we have virtual reality. I don't think its that hard to believe.

[Bishop51]

Actually I think Kurzweil is pretty close to the mark with 2030, as it is based on the naturally multiplying, exponential growth of technology and the crossover with medical advances. I know that number seems like its just around the corner but we'll have made some amazing strides in 20 years. You only need to look at the rapid uptake in advances since the 90's to see where this is all headed.

Now, whether or not these breakthroughs will be available to us middle class shulbs...that's another question entirely.

[Aeroflux]

If anyone has heard of the show Curiosity on the Science channel (US), the next show might be of interest. The topic is about replicating/replacing human bodies and extending life expectancy by a thousand years or more.

[Bishop51]

Given a long enough curve I would be very surprised if we don't eventually swap out bodies (and at very least body parts) with some regularity in future. I have almost no doubt that my kids will live far longer lives than we will but who knows, we might reap some benefits there as well. The older you get the more you realize what a true tragedy it is to prematurely lose a lifetime of knowledge to what is essentially a flawed biological mechanism, or at least one that didn't evolve in step with our cognitive capabilities. I mean, you just start to get a handle on life and before you know it, the show is over. Doesn't seem right.

[Aeroflux]

The depends entirely on your perspective...I make no presumptions of what is behind the curtain, but I've been near death a couple times. It doesn't feel like a wall.

[Syntax]

After reading: "The Singularity is Near", my understanding of the world changed dramaticly. On one hand I strongly embrace this kind of possible future where we as humans can modify ourselfs and dont be tie any longer to genetic makeup BUT on the other hand I m a bit cynical about how we as a culture would define ourself what ethical boundries they will no longer be etc.
I mean if we can decide which specific aspects of your personality you want to be (maybe be a bit of Einstein and a bit of Paris Hilton) it gets pretty awkward. In anycase we should be open up access to these things so that the human species can adapt like the times before.


As far as Kurzweils Predictions I think he is even a bit conservative with his timeline. We are so close to get (real) human speech recognition with semantics to the mass market. I know it I ve seen prototypes at my college and it is pretty impressive how far the machine can recognize meaning in your sentences (Siri is nothing against this)...
Also there allready exists the first generation of nanobots which are the size of a bloodcells which can be used today as refiltering or even partly replace your blood. These experiments are today project it to 10-20 years its amazing.

Anyway I m studying Bioinformatics\Bioengineering and my university lecturer have told us that analyze personal gencodes costs today approximatly 10-50k$ but in 5 years prices will fall dramaticly to a 1000$ pricemark for your entire genome. The possiblities are endless interms of personal/prevential medicine etc.


Also many people think that tapping into your brain is far off reality and doesnt exists yet....
Well think again....

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ ... r_embedded[/youtube-hd]
In this clip you see a left and right image. The left image is the clip a specific person watches and the right image is the reconstruction of the brain (!!!) of that clip/movie.
Pretty amazing huh ^^


It goes on...
recently Carnegie University figuered out how to recognize physical things you memorize as a thought (for expl.: apartment etc)
There using fMRI (funtional magnetic resonance imaging) to scan your brain and use sophisticated allgorithms to allocate your train of thought inside your brain activity. But it doesnt stop there...
A scientist in Berlin-Germany has managed to see a specific "intention" a person would take if he will confronted with choices etc.
pretty scary huh ^^

60 Minutes special about brainscaning (segment):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... wda7YWK0WQ#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;!


[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnjrsnCn ... r_embedded[/youtube-hd]

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVLu5_hv ... r_embedded[/youtube-hd]

You see there is progress on many fields on a daily basis.
In terms of VR I m quiete positiv that we have the possibility to experience full auditory/visual and (partly) haptic Immersion in this decade! But its not only a question of technology but it depends very much on public accaptance and usablity of these things and offcourse: CONTENT. But we are on schedule, I mean people in the 90s have only dreamed about that stuff that we have today.

[PalmerTech]

Maybe I am a luddite, but I don't want to discard my body. Maybe I will change my mind as I pass through middle age, but an immortal society without physical representation is a scary thing to me, even more so if only certain parts of the population can afford to do so.

[Fredz]

In this clip you see a left and right image. The left image is the clip a specific person watches and the right image is the reconstruction of the brain (!!!) of that clip/movie.
Pretty amazing huh ^^

You should have read the publication rather than just viewed the video, this study has nothing to do with the reconstruction of images by reading the brain.

The principle is to record brain activity while showing videos to people, then present new movies while still recording brain activity, and finally try to find the previous videos that best correspond to that brain activity.

In simpler words, they absolutely don't know how information is encoded in the brain, and their convoluted explanations are misleading at best. Another example of oversold research...

Have a look here for more information : http://gallantlab.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Synexious]

Maybe I am a luddite, but I don't want to discard my body. Maybe I will change my mind as I pass through middle age, but an immortal society without physical representation is a scary thing to me, even more so if only certain parts of the population can afford to do so.

There will still be physical representation. You will have a virtual physical form. It can be your normal body, a perfected version of your normal body, someone else's body, or the body of an animal, fantasy creature, robot, or even an object like a rock, lol. And the technology will be expensive at first but will eventually be affordable, and it's the only purchase you ever need make - once you have a Vertebrane everything is free in the simulated world.

[brantlew]

I'm a bit of a Kurzweil skeptic. I've read both his books. I think his ideas are compelling and I believe a "singularity" type event will occur eventually, I just can't buy into his time line. He bases his time table not really on insider knowledge, but purely on extrapolation. If I remember correctly, he uses these logarithmic graphs to show increase in computing power and information density from the beginning of time to arrive at his dates. He basically plots "events" like creation of chemisty, creation of biology, creation of electronic computers on a timeline to show how it is converging toward a singularity event. However I don't think you can make those extrapolations indefinitely because eventually you run into real-world processes that take minimum amounts of time to complete. For example, it's ok to make predictions about each successive technological breakthrough event when your error can be +- decades or years. The activities required to make technological breakthroughs like research, funding, inspiration, eating, sleeping run on real physical and human scales. But when you start running at the edge of the curve and extrapolating major technological breakthrough once a month, week, day, hour... I just feel like the model breaks down because it does not take into account the realities of the world.

I know the counter to this argument...eventually computers are going to be making these breakthroughs and they are not subject to the same time scale. Ok, but I don't think we're as close to strong AI as many believe. I've been involved in image processing and computer vision for a number of years now - and progress (while continuous) is very slow. Humans still easily outpace computers in visual interpretation and this is a problem that is very well bounded and we have the most complete knowledge of any other about how the neural processes work. Now if we actually talk about real cognition and consciousness and how those things come about... Forget it - I don't think we're even close yet. People have been underestimating the difficulty of AI for over a century. We were supposed to have HAL 9000 a decade ago, but right now we only have Watson - a glorified Google.

[cybereality]

It is true. Even if all this stuff comes to pass, lets say by 2045, most likely the middle class population will not be able to afford it. Even today there are many medical procedures (like plastic surgery) that may be outside of people's budgets. But look at something like Lasik eye surgery. When it first came out it was something crazy like $10k+ per eye. Now you can get it done for a few hundred bucks. And that was within 5 or 10 years. So I imagine much of this stuff will be extremely expensive at first. But the cost will come down. Hell, I bet you could even get it done for free if you want to be the first guinea-pig! To be honest, I have no problems leaving my body behind. But I would still like to have an avatar, or maybe multiple avatars, in the real world. I mean, someone has got to come out and check the servers, make sure the power is still running and all that, you know.

[Aeroflux]

Woah woah...not a few hundred dollars my man--not if you want better eyesight than you came in with. It cost me about $3800 for lasik about 8 years ago. Today it's cheaper at $1000 per eye (same place, same doctor). That is a great improvement, but not as drastic as you claim. Lasik might be an outpatient procedure, but having the right doctor and properly calibrated equipment is extremely important if you value eyesight. At the time of my research and procedure there was a lot of unprofessional lasik centers around. Even my own mother went to the wrong place, in search of a good deal. She deals with the problems (inconsistent visual accuracy, dry eyes, halos, etc.) every day.

I understand your point, but the example is flawed.

[Bishop51]

The depends entirely on your perspective...I make no presumptions of what is behind the curtain, but I've been near death a couple times. It doesn't feel like a wall.

To me, the spiritual conundrum isn't necessarily a mutually exclusive issue. There can still be an "after life" even in a post-human world. All things being equal, a soul trapped in a hunk of flesh isn't necessarily the way it has to be. This is simply about choice. I would like to choose how long I live and spend with loved ones here on Earth, how many careers I follow, what good I can do the world with a few centuries of knowledge in tow. Nothing is immortal given a long enough curve but a few 100 years of added life would present some amazing consequences to humanity, good and bad. I'd love to see it.

Will we evolve into something very different than what we are today? YES! In fact, no matter what side of the ethical fence you are on, it's an inevitability. But as with every process in nature, this too is normal. The natural culmination of how organisms evolve and integrate with their world artificial or otherwise.

[Aeroflux]

Very well put, I couldn't agree more.

For me the inhibition to such augmentation is mostly towards losing the senses I have now. While VR will evolve into an alternate dimension (sans-Jobe ) there are plenty of unknowns about the human body which we cannot begin to emulate, mysteries the human race has yet to chart. I can only hope this future of augmentation holds a true symbiosis of technology and humanity.

[Likay]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmQv-HrnjOg[/youtube]

[WiredEarp]

Some really interesting stuff here, but I have to laugh when people claim that AI will surpass peoples intelligence by 'x' period.

In reality, AI requires a serious breakthrough before it gets anywhere near this level. And, since there is no way to predict when this breakthrough will be, I take these claims with some skepticism.

I think the big advances will be with simulation of living systems and brains etc in computers... but to say that AI will be X advanced by Y period is at best, an informed guess, flavored by wishful thinking.

[cybereality]

The thing with AI, is that we just need that first breakthrough, and it will snowball from there. The point when a machine can genuinely be taught and understand arbitrary knowledge will be all it takes. That first machine could run simulations many times faster than real-time (for example, reading the entire Wikipedia in a day) and will thus become more knowledgeable than any single human overnight. And it won't just stop there. It will continue to process all the information available to it, become an expert in all fields (including the field of AI) and then program even smarter AI more intelligent then both us and itself. Its really not unreasonable to think this could happen in the next 30 years. 30 years is a long time in the world of technology. Especially with the established exponential growth in technology, which nobody seems to be disputing. Its just really hard to get your head around the fact that a AI could be smarter than a human, merely because we don't have the capacity to understand what that AI would be thinking or what inventions it could come up with that are beyond our comprehension. But that doesn't mean its not going to happen, just because we can't yet comprehend it.

@Aeroflux: I've seen ads for $299/eye Lasik in NYC. Not that I would go to one of those butchers, but there are places that do it.

[mAchiNE]

AI smarter than humans = Skynet

[WiredEarp]

Indeed! My point was just that it is impossible to predict revolutionary events using an evolutionary extrapolation.

[brantlew]

Indeed! My point was just that it is impossible to predict revolutionary events using an evolutionary extrapolation.

Well put and I agree. You can't just throw transistors and CPU cycles at the AI problem and expect emergent properties to magically appear.

[Bishop51]

Gotta agree with Cyber on that on the AI issue. Its only going to take one catalyzing event to tip the scales and frankly, given the weekly advances, that could come any day now. One key breakthrough and the chain of events to follow will push AI mainstream in a VERY short time-frame. After that the doors fly wide open, especially as it relates to making copies of our minds.

I think one of the many issues that make people uncomfortable with posthumanism is that certain biological functions can and will become extinct. When you really get down to it, the things we'll be trying to keep intact are sensory input, memory and emotion. Everything else is potentially throw-away.

[Fredz]

Well put and I agree. You can't just throw transistors and CPU cycles at the AI problem and expect emergent properties to magically appear.

I'm not so sure about that, when we'll have enough horse power and RAM to completely emulate the complexity of a brain, and we will have working models of neuron activity in the brain, then I think we'll be able to simulate a human brain.

I don't think we'll need to really understand the whole working of the brain or do any breakthrough progress in AI to do this. We would only need to create something similar to the inner brain working, and I think similar capabilities will emerge, even if we don't know how they work.

Having the needed power is probably only a question of decades, around 2020-2030 for the more optimistics considering Moore's (or equivalent) law. The main difficulty I think is to better understand the way neurons work and interact, and that may take a longer time.

[cybereality]

Aside from all the advances in AI, you have to remember there will be similar (and more probable) advances in robotics. We already have amazing stuff *today* like this kid with the robot arm: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13378036" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not to mention the kind of primitive androids available NOW (mostly held back by poor AI):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9MUg6uk5lg[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcZJqiUrbnI[/youtube]

They don't even need to totally understand (reverse-engineer) the human brain. Just figure out a way to transplant a working brain into an android. Then will will be able to live long enough for the rest of the stuff.

[mAchiNE]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW78wbN- ... r_embedded[/youtube]
There's some interesting stuff in this video, but they do suggest that once genitics has advanced enough to be able to clone your body parts then there will be no need for cybernetics. If that does happen then advances in that technology might slow down

[WiredEarp]

@Fred:

I'm not so sure about that, when we'll have enough horse power and RAM to completely emulate the complexity of a brain, and we will have working models of neuron activity in the brain, then I think we'll be able to simulate a human brain.

I don't think we'll need to really understand the whole working of the brain or do any breakthrough progress in AI to do this. We would only need to create something similar to the inner brain working, and I think similar capabilities will emerge, even if we don't know how they work.

That is exactly my thought. Simulation of brain processes, even without truly understanding them, is probably our best chance of developing 'REAL' AI. It has much more potential than hoping that with more lines of code a program will somehow become 'intelligent'.

[adventurer]

In my opinion, Raymond Kurzweil's prediction is not very practical, at least the timeline. He predicted in 2045 it would be the singularity time then all the crazy things happen. But to reach the singularity as he said, at least some thousand years will pass before it could happen because our technology development is still at the beginning state. I don't say all his prediction is impossible. Some of his predictions would come true definitely but forget about the timeline he predict, it's just too sci-fi style!

[blzd1]

@Fred:

I'm not so sure about that, when we'll have enough horse power and RAM to completely emulate the complexity of a brain, and we will have working models of neuron activity in the brain, then I think we'll be able to simulate a human brain.

I don't think we'll need to really understand the whole working of the brain or do any breakthrough progress in AI to do this. We would only need to create something similar to the inner brain working, and I think similar capabilities will emerge, even if we don't know how they work.

That is exactly my thought. Simulation of brain processes, even without truly understanding them, is probably our best chance of developing 'REAL' AI. It has much more potential than hoping that with more lines of code a program will somehow become 'intelligent'.

I came across this page from my University. It is the slides for a graduate level systems design engineering course on how to model neurobiological systems. The professor is a really smart guy who is cross listed in both engineering and philosophy departments and is well aware of all the theoretical issues concerning artificial intelligence.

http://compneuro.uwaterloo.ca/courses/c ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't really understand the math, but gather that it uses basic neuroscience as theory and then models the encoding and decoding of neurons using algebra and calculus. I would assume to model any kind of thought process which may use millions to billions of neurons for any length of time would require supercomputers. I think at this point there is a lot of guesswork among researchers, and they are only just beginning to learn how to model these systems.