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And also, I recently saw a really good documentary called "Transcendent Man". It's all about
Ray Kurzweil, and he's one of these futurists who has made a number of different predictions.
He's also possibly a little bit nuts. He's constantly taking all of these different supplements
and medications which he claims are, what is it, Natan? It's he's reprogramming his
biochemistry or something?
Natan: That's right.
David: And he... the movie's incredible, I highly, highly recommend it, but it brings
up a lot of interesting questions, which is as technology continues to accelerate at a
faster and faster rate, eventually, and this could happen in the next 10, 15, 20 years,
technology will be accelerating at such a rate that the human mind would not be able
to learn to use that technology without some kind of artificial learning assistance, in
other words, implanting, for lack of a better comparison, like in the Matrix when you are...
you have a software installed that teaches you how to do martial arts, for example. You
get the idea, that the rate of acceleration in technology, if it continues where it is,
is going to get to a point where we will need artificial learning, so to speak.
Louis: Well, I mean, in a way, hasn't that already happened? I mean, if you're just someone
who doesn't keep up to date with the technology, OK, my grandmother and my laptop, OK, does
not work.
David: Sure. It's indistinguishable from magic to her.
Louis: She would need... right. She would need some type of assisted learning.
David: An implant of some kind.
Louis: To be able to use that. Just nothing about it makes any sense to her.
David: OK.
Louis: She has no concept of it.
David: But some of that is generational. I'm talking even for somebody who is heavily involved,
there will just be so much, so fast. Yeah.
Natan: Yeah, no, I think the point here isn't that, you know, in the case of Louis's grandmother,
she didn't grow up with it, it's just hard, it's very hard for her to learn, this is that
no normal person without any sort of, you know, mechanical brain implant would be able
to learn it. It's just not something a normal human could do.
Louis: See, I don't think that makes sense. I think... I think that technology has to
stay at the same level as the people who are going to be using it. I mean ,it's people
who are creating it, it just doesn't make sense that it would surpass that.
David: Well...
Louis: And wouldn't you have to create more technology just to be able to use the technology
that's being... that's been created?
David: I don't agree with that. I think the growth... the acceleration rate can surpass.
Think about, if we look at, flying is a perfect example, and aviation. Look at how long humans
have been aware that things can fly, and look at how long humans have been around, and look
at the tiny fraction of time during which aviation has existed, and look at the acceleration
of it, OK?
Thousands of... tens of thousands, who knows how long people have been seeing birds and
thinking maybe a human could fly, and then finally we get the Wright Brothers with this
little rickety plane, and then 25 years later, we have... we have commercial aviation, the
jet engine, supersonic flight, and then soon, you know, we're having...
Louis: We're in space.
David: The Boeing Dreamliner, which can fly between any two points on Earth based on its
range at increased comfort. Look at that, if we put it on a big scale, how long there
has been aviation. That's a fast acceleration, Louis. I know for us, being 20-something,
it seems like it's kind of a long time. Yeah.
Natan: That's a good point, but I don't think it's the right analogy, because we can...
a person can understand how flying works physically and mechanically by studying it, not everyone
knows exactly how it works. But the point here is that we won't be able to learn certain
things unless we have some sort of assistance.
David: My point was the idea... I'm illustrating the idea that the acceleration can go at a
rate which is unimaginable, at least which Louis is not giving credit for.
Natan: But Louis does have a point in the sense that it can accelerate, but can it go
beyond what humans are capable of? And I would say that in a way, that's already the case
with, you know, high-level computers.
Louis: Yeah, with certain things, you have your certain, you know, niches that... and
there are people trained to do that. Like I don't know how the particle accelerator
in Sweden, or wherever it is, works. Swiss, maybe. But there are lots of people who do,
and so I think it's like more a matter of specialization than really overall...
David: I think in 10 to 15 years it won't be that way. The other thing on this is are
religious and political obstacles going to get in the way of this accelerating technological
development? I think there's a very good chance of that, at least in the U.S., so I think
we need to be prepared for that, and hopefully we have a pro-science president, no matter
who it is that's elected. As you know, Louis, on the Republican side, you can be pro- or
anti-science, the same way you could be pro- or anti-air, I guess. I don't know.
Louis: Right.
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