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#1 2005-05-24 2:59 am
Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
The front page of MacAddict.com has this link on it today. It's suggesting that by 2050 people will be able to download their entire brains onto computers.
London, England -- By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.
Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.
Ok, great. Once we're downloaded, will it be possible to upload into a new body? That would be nice - immortality! I just read a book where the people are all immortal due to that process.
But the article lead on to suggest other applications.
Pearson also predicted that it would be possible to build a fully conscious computer with superhuman levels of intelligence as early as 2020.
IBM's BlueGene computer can already perform 70.72 trillion calculations a second and Pearson said the next computing goal was to replicate consciousness.
"We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could become conscious. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that's what we're trying to design in computer."
Pearson said that computer consciousness would make feasible a whole new sphere of emotional machines, such as airplanes that are afraid of crashing.
Airplanes that are afraid of crashing. So they're afraid of heights? We're not even at the point that we can create AI yet, and they're planning on giving them phobias and forcing them to confront said phobias. WHAT SADISTIC BASTARD WOULD PROGRAM AN AIRPLANE TO BE AFRAID TO FLY?
"Attention, Attention: Flight 104 from Newark to Los Angeles is now delayed while we try to convince the airplane to leave the ground. Flight 104 will commence as soon as we get the plane to stop sobbing pitifully."
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#2 2005-05-24 3:10 am
- ironhawk
- Shai Dorsai!
- From: San Francisco
- Registered: 2001-10-16
- Posts: 3080
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
An airplane with clinical depression could be interesting 
All posts on the internet are postfixed by an invisible "IMHO". It's not in the html code, either.
-titok16
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#3 2005-05-24 3:11 am
- ironhawk
- Shai Dorsai!
- From: San Francisco
- Registered: 2001-10-16
- Posts: 3080
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
And no one would pick on the passive-agressive airplane
All posts on the internet are postfixed by an invisible "IMHO". It's not in the html code, either.
-titok16
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#4 2005-05-24 3:13 am
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
ironhawk wrote:
An airplane with clinical depression could be interesting
If it followed human phobia/depression patterns, it might suicide instead of being forced to face its unescapable fear again and again and again. It might suicide with a cabin full of passengers. 
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#7 2005-05-24 3:28 am
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
Call that job satisfaction? 'Coz I don't.
/ 
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#8 2005-05-24 11:11 am
- Marc
- On the run from the MPAA
- Registered: 2003-05-10
- Posts: 13129
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
"Which way would you like to go? Personally I love going down, though up can be fun for a change of pace too"
I am not looking forward to elevators with personalities
You know the hole, the one you put the pie in?
My mean my pie-hole?
Yeah, shut it.
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#9 2005-05-24 11:13 am
- NAG
- A witch!
- Royal Wombat
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- Registered: 2000-09-22
- Posts: 30229
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
OMG, we will be able to marry our toasters!
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#11 2005-05-24 1:03 pm
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
Of course, computing power is one thing, it's another to write software to make those computers conscious. Of course, that's assuming we can get the computing power up that high in 15 years... (very highly doubtful within the next century)
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#12 2005-05-24 7:31 pm
- i think G4 imac
- Member
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- Registered: 2000-05-25
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Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
what happens when a virtual consciousness wants to trasfer itself to a body?
does Keanu or Will Smith come and save us?
"I'm 430 pounds of internet fury. When I die Pepsi/Frito-Lay stock will drop a point."
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#13 2005-05-24 9:04 pm
- Thunderstruck
- Goatee
- From: West Melbourne, Vic
- Registered: 2002-11-19
- Posts: 2662
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Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
You may be able to download information from the brain but I have a hard time believing consciousness can be reproduced or transferred.
Last edited by Thunderstruck (2005-05-24 9:09 pm)
iBook G4 | 12" | 40GB | 1.33GHz | 512MB | Combo | 10.4.3
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#14 2005-05-24 9:36 pm
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
I'd like to upload my brain full of opinions to the interweb for the world to see...
...no, wait. That's a blog, and still, no one will care. Nevermind. Carry on.
-Tim
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#15 2005-05-24 10:26 pm
- Light Speed
- Doubter of Einstein
- Registered: 2002-08-17
- Posts: 3694
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
An airplane that was afraid of crashing would never take off!!!!
Futility is sublime 
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#16 2005-05-24 10:44 pm
- benightedbastard
- Cheap and Juicy!
- From: Western Australia
- Registered: 1999-06-03
- Posts: 28733
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Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
oatmeal wrote:
London, England -- By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.
Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.
Has anyone thought about the ramifications of this and MiniThink?
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#17 2005-05-24 10:59 pm
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
benightedbastard wrote:
oatmeal wrote:
London, England -- By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.
Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years.Has anyone thought about the ramifications of this and MiniThink?
I was trying not to.
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#18 2005-05-24 11:35 pm
- mo' ron
- PS3 4 EVA
- From: NC, USA
- Registered: 2002-10-15
- Posts: 14253
Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
That "article" is pure speculation, and nothing more, and I don't think by 2050 we'll be even close to being able to do that. The basis the "leading thinker" used to make his assumptions is because the PS3 is marketed as being "35x the power of the PS2," which is wrong for various reasons. I was going to make a post about this article, and how ridiculous it was, but I decided against it so that it wouldn't help it out on Google's page rank.
But, whenever the time comes for people to be able to download their brains, or to create AI, I think it will be a glorious time, and herald a new age of human existence. I don't think an AI will develop a psychopathic need to murder all humans, as movies often suggest either.
I do think though we will be able to reach a Star Trek Computer level of AI within the next 25-50 years, and a full-blown AI within 75-200 years (IMO, the biggest block to good AIs now is computing power, particularly mass-storage access times).
Last edited by mo' ron (2005-05-24 11:37 pm)
What is the difference between Vista and OSX?
- Microsoft employees are excited about OSX.
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#19 2005-05-25 8:18 am
- agedgruel
- insert clever phrase here
- From: Great Plains, U.S.A.
- Registered: 2004-06-05
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Re: Download Your Brain & Neurotic Airplanes
[HAL]
I'm afraid of heights, Dave.
[/HAL]
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