Last Friday evening, the movie that I had been waiting to have the opportunity to see, Transcendence, came out in the theaters. I went and saw the movie in IMAX. Briefly, the movie is about a scientist who is working on creating an artificial brain. He views his work in a very positive manner and also uses the catchphrase “The Singularity to indicate what the final outcome of his work would be. The singularity describes the point where man and machine become one and cooperate to the overall enhancement and betterment of both. One of the things that stood out to me was the way that two of the characters were depicted and seem to parallel the belief systems of two individuals that are, in fact, in the area of artificial intelligence research and computer science. The role of Will Caster, the lead scientist, is played by Johnny Depp and he reminds me a lot of Ray Kurzweil. His counterpart, Max Waters, is played by Paul Bettany and reminds me a great deal of Hugo de Garis. Without giving away the general plot of the movie, the question that Im left with by the end of the movie is in regard to nanotechnology. What if there were nanotechnology that could be utilized to heal conditions such as heart disease, blindness, deafness or even spinal cord injuries? As with all machines, they are under the control of something. If you had the opportunity to heal a devastating condition like one of the aforementioned, would you allow nano bots to be placed into your body with the full knowledge that they could be controlled from outside your body? I guess to clarify the more contrarian point of view - what if there was the potential for those nano bots to be maliciously controlled and to “take over” your body either by enlisting certain bodily functions or completely overriding your will? Would it not be a reasonable assumption to say that the technology was there simply to help? That would, of course, be the initial “sell!’ I think with the current advances in medicine and the movement toward using nanotechnologies in the area of surgery and even the potential migration towards trans-humanism, these are certainly thoughts that are worth examining.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:50:04 +0000
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