Friday, June 9, 2017

Eh?


I recently saw this in my Twitter timeline and watched this video: Watch: Ray Kurzweil Predicts When We’ll Be Able to Program Matter

OK, so this guy is widely recognized as a genius, but watching this I found it made no sense to me at all. Most of the time he seemed to be conflating two different things. OK, so a foglet of nano-robots I can go for... and that they could be programmed to do different things (assemble to form a couch, reassemble to form a chair, etc.), OK, all very reasonable. But how exactly does that constitute man being able to "program matter" as claimed?

He then goes on that "you can transform yourself... project yourself into a space that is far away..." Eh? Is it I can "project myself" or I can project an avatar of myself? The two are not exactly the same! Once again, projecting an avatar is uncontroversial, but "projecting myself" is in the realm of science fiction...

He goes on, that by the 2040's "You could reconfigure yourself into a completely different person... you can look like someone else..." and that "...what is doable in virtual reality will be doable in real reality..." Again, am I re-configuring my nano-based avatar to look like someone else (OK), or does he actually mean what he is (literally) saying? "A couple could become each other...", etc.  I, for one, am willing to say that will not be possible in "real reality"

No comments:

Post a Comment