The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (113 page)

21
. Medtronic also makes an implant for cerebral palsy. See S. Hart, “Brain Implant Quells Tremors,” ABC News, December 23, 1997,
http://nasw.org/users/hart/subhtml/abcnews.html
. Also see the Medtronic Web site,
http://www.medtronic.com
.

22
. Günther Zeck and Peter Fromherz, “Noninvasive Neuroelectronic Interfacing with Synaptically Connected Snail Neurons Immobilized on a Semiconductor Chip,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
98.18 (August 28, 2001): 10457–62.

23
. See R.Colin Johnson, “Scientists Activate Neurons with Quantum Dots,”
EE Times
, December 4, 2001,
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011204S0068
. Quantum dots can also be used for imaging; see M. Dahan et al., “Diffusion Dynamics of Glycine Receptors Revealed by Single-Quantum Dot Tracking,”
Science
302.5644 (October 17, 2003): 442–45; J. K. Jaiswal and S. M. Simon, “Potentials and Pitfalls of Fluorescent Quantum Dots for Biological Imaging,”
Trends in Cell Biology
14.9 (September 2004): 497–504.

24
. S. Shoham et al., “Motor-Cortical Activity in Tetraplegics,”
Nature
413.6858 (October 25, 2001): 793. For the University of Utah news release, see “An Early Step Toward Helping the Paralyzed Walk,” October 24, 2001,
http://www.utah.edu/news/releases/01/oct/spinal.html
.

25
. Stephen Hawking’s remarks, which were mistranslated by
Focus
, were quoted in Nick Paton Walsh, “Alter Our DNA or Robots Will Take Over, Warns Hawking,”
Observer
, September 2, 2001,
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,545653,00.html
. The widely reported mistranslation implied that Hawking was warning against developing smarter-than-human machine intelligence. In fact, he was advocating that we hasten to close links between biological and non-biological intelligence. Hawking provided the exact quotes to KurzweilAI.net (“Hawking Misquoted on Computers Taking Over,” September 13, 2001,
http://www.KurzweilAI.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id%3D495
).

26
. See note 34 in chapter 1.

27
. One example, Nomad for Military Applications, has been produced by Micro-vision, a company based in Bothell, Washington. See
http://www.microvision.com/nomadmilitary/index.html
.

28
. Olga Kharif, “Your Lapel Is Ringing,”
Business Week
, June 21, 2004.

29
. Laila Weir, “High-Tech Hearing Bypasses Ears,”
Wired News
, September 16, 2004,
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64963,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
.

30
. Hypersonic Sound technology,
http://www.atcsd.com/tl_hss.html
; Audio Spotlight,
http://www.holosonics.com/technology.html
.

31
. Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein,
American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
236 (August 7, 1995),
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/1995/physnews
.
236.htm. See also R. Weis and P. Fromherz, “Frequency Dependent Signal-Transfer in Neuron-Transistors,”
Physical Review E
55 (1997): 877–89.

32
. See note 18 above. Also see J. O. Winter et al., “Recognition Molecule Directed Interfacing Between Semiconductor Quantum Dots and Nerve Cells,”
Advanced Materials
13 (November 2001): 1673–77; I. Willner and B. Willner, “Biomaterials Integrated with Electronic Elements: En Route to Bioelectronics,”
Trends in Biotechnology
19 (June 2001): 222–30; Deborah A. Fitzgerald, “Bridging the Gap with Bioelectronics,”
Scientist
16.6 (March 18, 2002): 38.

33
. Robert Freitas provides an analysis of this scenario: Robert A. Freitas Jr.,
Nanomedicine
, vol. 1,
Basic Capabilities
, section 7.4.5.4, “Cell Message Modification” (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 1999), pp. 194–96,
http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/7.4.5.4.htm#p5
, and section 7.4.5.6, “Outmessaging to Neurons,” pp. 196–97,
http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/7.4.5.6.htm#p2
.

34
. For descriptions of the Ramona project, including videos of the virtual-reality presentation at the TED conference and a behind-the-scenes “Making of Ramona” video, see “All About Ramona,”
http://www.KurzweilAI.net/meme/frame.html?m=9
.

35
. I. Fried et al., “Electric Current Stimulates Laughter,”
Nature
391.6668 (February 12, 1998): 650. See Ray Kurzweil,
The Age of Spiritual Machines
(New York: Viking, 1999).

36
. Robert A. Freitas Jr.,
Nanomedicine
, vol. 1,
Basic Capabilities
, section 7.3, “Communication Networks” (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 1999), pp. 186–88,
http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/7.3.htm
.

37
. Allen Kurzweil,
The Grand Complication: A Novel
(New York: Hyperion, 2002); Allen Kurzweil,
A Case of Curiosities
(New York: Harvest Books, 2001). Allen Kurzweil is my first cousin.

38
. As quoted in Aubrey de Grey, “Engineering Negligible Senescence: Rational Design of Feasible, Comprehensive Rejuvenation Biotechnology,” Kronos Institute Seminar Series, February 8, 2002. PowerPoint presentation available at
http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/sensov.ppt
.

39
. Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Death Is an Outrage!” presentation at the fifth Alcor Conference on Extreme Life Extension, Newport Beach, Calif., November 16, 2002,
http://www.rfreitas.com/Nano/DeathIsAnOutrage.htm
, published on KurzweilAI.net January 9, 2003:
http://www.KurzweilAI.net/articles/art0536.html
.

40
.Cro-magnon, “30 years or less, often much less . . .”:
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/sapiens_culture.htm
.

Egypt: Jac J. Janssen quoted in Brett Palmer, “Playing the Numbers Game,” in
Skeptical Review
, published online May 5, 2004, at
http://www.theskepticalreview.com/palmer/numbers.html
.

Europe 1400: Gregory Clark,
The Conquest of Nature: A Brief Economic History of the World
(Princeton University Press, forthcoming, 2005), chapter 5, “Mortality in the Malthusian Era,”
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/GlobalHistory/Global%20History-5.pdf
.

1800: James Riley,
Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 32–33.

1900:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/tables/2003/03hus027.pdf
.

41
. The museum was originally located in Boston and is now in Mountain View, Calif. (
http://www.computerhistory.org
).

42
. Lyman and Kahle on long-term storage: “While good paper lasts 500 years, computer tapes last 10. While there are active organizations to make copies, we will keep our information safe, we do not have an effective mechanism to make 500 year copies of digital materials. . . .” Peter Lyman and Brewster Kahle, “Archiving Digital Cultural Artifacts: Organizing an Agenda for Action,”
D-Lib Magazine
, July–August 1998.

Stewart Brand writes: “Behind every hot new working computer is a trail of bodies of extinct computers, extinct storage media, extinct applications, extinct files. Science fiction writer Bruce Sterling refers to our time as ‘the Golden Age of dead media, most of them with the working lifespan of a pack of Twinkies.’ ” Stewart Brand, “Written on the Wind,”
Civilization Magazine
, November 1998 (“01998” in Long Now terminology), available online at
http://www.longnow.org/10klibrary/library.htm
.

43
. DARPA’s Information Processing Technology Office’s project in this vein is called LifeLog,
http://www.darpa.mil/ipto/Programs/lifelog
; see also Noah Shachtman, “A Spy Machine of DARPA’s Dreams,”
Wired News
, May 20, 2003,
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58909,00.html
; Gordon Bell’s project (for Microsoft) is MyLifeBits,
http://research.microsoft.com/research/barc/MediaPresence/
MyLifeBits.aspx
; for the Long Now Foundation, see
http://longnow.org
.

44
. Bergeron is assistant professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School and the author of such books as
Bioinformatics Computing, Biotech Industry: A Global, Economic, and Financing Overview
, and
The Wireless Web and Healthcare
.

45
. The Long Now Foundation is developing one possible solution: the Rosetta Disk, which will contain extensive archives of text in languages that may be lost in the far future. They plan to use a unique storage technology based on a two-inch nickel disk that can store up to 350,000 pages per disk, with an estimated life expectancy of 2,000 to 10,000 years. See the Long Now Foundation, Library Ideas,
http://longnow.org/10klibrary/10kLibConference.htm
.

46
. John A. Parmentola, “Paradigm Shifting Capabilities for Army Transformation,” invited paper presented at the SPIE European Symposium on Optics/Photonics in Security and Defence, October 25–28, 2004; available electronically at
Bridge
34.3 (Fall 2004),
http://www.nae.edu/NAE/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/MKEZ-65RLTA?OpenDocument
.

47
. Fred Bayles, “High-tech Project Aims to Make Super-soldiers,”
USA Today
, May 23, 2003,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-05-22-nanotech-usat_x.htm
; see the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies Web site,
http://web.mit.edu/isn
; Sarah Putnam, “Researchers Tout Opportunities in Nanotech,” MIT News Office, October 9, 2002,
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/cdc-nanotech-1009.html
.

48
. Ron Schafer, “Robotics to Play Major Role in Future Warfighting,”
http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2003/pa072903.htm
; Dr. Russell Richards, “Unmanned Systems: A Big Player for Future Forces?” Unmanned Effects Workshop at the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, July 29–August 1, 2003.

49
. John Rhea, “NASA Robot in Form of Snake Planned to Penetrate Inaccessible Areas,”
Military and Aerospace Electronics
, November 2000,
http://mae.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Archives&Subsection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=86890
.

50
. Lakshmi Sandhana, “The Drone Armies Are Coming,”
Wired News
, August 30, 2002,
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54728,00.html
. See also Mario Gerla, Kaixin Xu, and Allen Moshfegh, “Minuteman: Forward Projection of Unmanned Agents Using the Airborne Internet,” IEEE Aerospace Conference 2002, Big Sky, Mont., March 2002:
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/NRL/wireless/uploads/mgerla_aerospace02.pdf
.

51
. James Kennedy and Russell C. Eberhart, with Yuhui Shi,
Swarm Intelligence
(San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 2001),
http://www.swarmintelligence.org/SIBook/SI.php
.

52
. Will Knight, “Military Robots to Get Swarm Intelligence,” April 25, 2003,
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993661
.

53
. Ibid.

54
. S. R. White et al., “Autonomic Healing of Polymer Composites,”
Nature
409 (February 15, 2001): 794–97,
http://www.autonomic.uiuc.edu/files/NaturePaper.pdf
; Kristin Leutwyler, “Self-Healing Plastics,” ScientificAmerican.com, February 15, 2001,
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B307F-C71A-1C5AB882809EC588ED9F
.

55
. Sue Baker,“Predator Missile Launch Test Totally Successful,”
Strategic Affairs
, April 1, 2001,
http://www.stratmag.com/issueApr-1/page02.htm
.

56
. See the OpenCourseWare course list at
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
.

57
. Brigitte Bouissou quoted on MIT OpenCourseWare’s additional quotes page at
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/additionalquotes.htm
and Eric Bender, “Teach Locally, Educate Globally,”
MIT Technology Review
, June 2004,
http://www.techreview.com/articles/04/06/bender0604.asp?p=1
.

58
. Kurzweil Educational Systems (
http://www.Kurzweiledu.com
) provides the Kurzweil 3000 reading system for people with dyslexia. It can read any book to the user while highlighting what is being read on a high-resolution image of the page. It incorporates a range of features to improve the reading skills of users.