The Year Man Becomes Immortal Summary

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In recent years technology has been advancing at a rapid rate, which by the looks of it does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Many theorist or as they prefer to be called, Singularitarians. They believe in a phenomenon called the singularity. This theory is comprised of the idea that computers will reach a point of advancement where they will be as smart as humans. In the article “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal” by Lev Grossman he talks about a famous singularitarian called Raymond Kurzweil and his thoughts and beliefs of the singularity. Grossman says that Kurzweil suggest that we might one day live with supercomputers with the thinking capability of humans. Or we might even be able to merge bodies with these computers and …show more content…
The idea of computers reaching a point to human like thinking is one of the theories Grossman and Kurzweil believe in. Grossman himself writes, “computers are getting faster faster that is, the rate at which they’re getting faster is increasing.” In making this comment, Grossman believes that technology can get to a point of human like thinking capability since computers are getting faster at an exponential rate. Another supporting point Grossman brings up for the theory called the Moore’s law which Kurzweil believed in as well. According to Moore’s law “which states that the number of transistors you can put on a microchip doubles about every two years.” in making this comment Grossman tries to solidify his idea that computers are advancing at a fast rate and, that there could be the possibility of computers reaching human thinking capability. Grossmans claim that computers are developing at a fast rate therefore artificial intelligence will be created rest upon the questionable assumption of how likely this is to occur. Just because technology is advancing at a fast rate it does not mean it will be able to form into a supercomputer that can have the same complexity of the human brain and …show more content…
According to Grossman “Maybe we'll scan our consciousnesses into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually”. At first glance this could be a very abstract idea. Grossman’s point is that by being able to transfer your consciousness into a computer you might be able to live longer since you will forever be in a computer. If this does not work Grossman still believe that computers will be able to cure old age by solving the problem of what causes it. Grossman writes “Once hyper-intelligent artificial intelligences arise, armed with advanced nanotechnology, they'll really be able to wrestle with the vastly complex, systemic problems associated with aging in humans”. In other words humans might not be smart enough to solve the problem of old age and supercomputers might be able to help us with that. Grossmans theory of computers being able to help us with our unsolvable medical problems seems quite plausible if they supercomputers where to emerge one day. The reason why is that supercomputers will be able to process information at much higher rates than humans since their thinking capacity will be faster and bigger. Leading to more solutions to current and future problems we will