Cells, as cancer shows, are inherently immortal.

profitsbeard on January 27, 2013 at 11:06 PM

Actually, quite the opposite. When they try to get outside their normal bounds they tend to malignancy and end up killing us.

Look to the left. Way back in the 60s we decided to shun technical progress in favor of social progress. It was far more important to us as a society to tech kids that all are equal, that other cultures are better and the wickedness of the world was because of rich white males. We decided it was a far better use of money to provide drug addicts with clean needles than it was to build a Moon base. We don’t have hover/mag-lev cars because we didn’t want them. It’s that simple.

Dr. Frank Enstine on January 28, 2013 at 8:30 AM

Give this man the Nobel.

I honestly cannot look at an old magazine with starry-eyed predictions of the future because of this. We threw away so. much. in the 60′s. It literally breaks my heart to think of what might have been.

So, just to make sure we’ve covered everything:
- Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down: Skynet, Judgment Day, the history of things to come. It’s not every day you find out that you’re responsible for 3 billion deaths. He took it pretty well.

- Greetings. The Master Control Program has chosen you to serve your system on the Game Grid. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard, substandard training which will result in your eventual elimination. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the warrior elite of the MCP.

And in the 1930′s we were all going to be living in a utopian, futuristic world by now with hover/mag-lev cars. Still using gasoline and tires…

Logus on January 27, 2013 at 10:50 PM

Look to the left. Way back in the 60s we decided to shun technical progress in favor of social progress. It was far more important to us as a society to tech kids that all are equal, that other cultures are better and the wickedness of the world was because of rich white males. We decided it was a far better use of money to provide drug addicts with clean needles than it was to build a Moon base. We don’t have hover/mag-lev cars because we didn’t want them. It’s that simple.

1) We don’t know how consciousness might arise from the physical brain, so throwing more computational power at it is next to futile.

2) The actual physical structure of the brain is radically different than what computing technology we have and neuroscience is at about the same stage as Galileo with his telescope in understanding that structure.

3) Further, computers are just complex pieces of clockwork that use electrons instead of gears. They merely execute instructions which are fed into them.

4) All of this presumes materialist metaphysics, which traditionally break down at a theory of knowledge.

5) Additionally, it ignores entropy, which you can’t escape.

Cyberwar becomes up close, personal… real.

Yeah…that will work out so well “for some.”

The program was designed to emulate Cyrus Vance (former Secretary of State) and in a demonstration the Real Cyrus Vance and the program answered Blind Questions on screens.

People were astonished at how they could not tell the computer from the real Cyrus Vance. Both kept answering intricate questions identically!

Until; someone who was not so easily impressed asked Two Simple Questions.

1) Have you ever met Prime Minister Margret Thatcher?
A) Yes B) Yes
2) Have you ever met a Female Head of State?
A) Yes B) Unknown

No matter how well you try to program A.I. to be human, it is like Trisecting an angle – It cannot be done.

Not as long as we have words like Bill.
1) Duck’s Mouth
2) Leading Edge of a Cap
3) Statement of Money Owed
4) List of contents
5) Person’s Name
6) Denomination of Money

jd