From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sat Apr 06 2002 - 00:24:14 MST
On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, William wrote:
> I did find "mind uploading" to be a bit too fanciful and fantasy-like
> until I read Kurzweil's The_Age_of_Spiritual_Machines (and part of
> NanoMedicine). This was the first time that neuro-nanobots and the
> economic drivers toward this made realistic sense to me.
To make another data point: being raised on scientific (especially
cybernetics) literature and lots of science fiction (including Stanislaw
Lem) AI and cyborgs made sense to me as a kid already. I figured out that
uploading might be feasible as a teenager, and that it needs molecular
circuitry and would be best done in frozen state. The first time I learned
that there were people thinking the same and actually *doing* it, was in
Charles Platt's 1991 novel "The Silicon Man", who mentioned Alcor in
Acknowledgements.
> Since then, I have found reputable research regarding EEGs hooked up
> to quadriplegics, neural interface design for artificial limbs and, of
> course, Kevin Warwicks experiments detailed at
> http://www.kevinwarwick.org/. The nanotech research or "enabling
Kevin Warwick is a media stuntman, not a scientist. I'd rather recommend
http://www.kevinwarwick.org.uk/ , or entering Warwick as search term in
"Search The Register" at http://theregister.co.uk/ for a more balanced
coverage.
> technology" that must precede it is heating up in both US gov. funding
> (www.nano.gov) and much private funding. I do find mind uploading
> dramatically more realistic and even fairly near-term (2020 or 2030).
2020, that's just 18 years. We will certainly slay the mighty worm C.
elegans by then, and maybe will have progressed as far as the fruit fly,
but I wouldn't even bet on an individually accurate mouse emulation by
2030. (But I wouldn't bet against it, either, at least not on a signficant
sum of money). People by 2020 or 2030, no way. We won't even have the
hardware ready by 2030.
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