Genesis 3:204
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God….”
And you will be like God.
That’s the same promise Google’s director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, recently made at Singularity University when, in a few years, nano and miniature robots are implanted into human brains.
Chris Matyszczyk writes for CNet Magazine, Oct. 1, 2015:
I suspect a few of you are looking forward to being robots….
What kind of robots will we be? Happily, I can provide an answer. For living inside my head all day have been the words of Google’s director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil.
For more than a curt while, he’s been keen on humans going over to the bright side. He’s predicted that humans will be hybrid robots by 2030…. [in 15 years!]
Kurzweil has a truly, madly, deeply optimistic view of who we will be when nanobots are implanted into our brains so we can expand our intelligence by directly tapping into the Internet.
This is such a relief. I had feared that when a robot was implanted into my brain, my head would hurt. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be quite in touch with my feelings, as I wouldn’t be sure if they were real or just the promptings of my inner robot.
Kurzweil, though, has reassured me. Speaking recently at Singularity University, where he is a member of the faculty, he explained that my brain will develop in the same way my smartphone has.
“We’re going to add additional levels of abstraction,” he said, “and create more-profound means of expression.”
More profound than Twitter? Is that possible?
Kurzweil continued: “We’re going to be more musical. We’re going to be funnier. We’re going to be better at expressing loving sentiment.”
Because robots are renowned for their musicality, their sense of humor and their essential loving qualities. Especially in Hollywood movies.
Kurzweil insists, though, that this is the next natural phase of our existence.
“Evolution creates structures and patterns that over time are more complicated, more knowledgeable, more intelligent, more creative, more capable of expressing higher sentiments like being loving,” he said. “So it’s moving in the direction that God has been described as having — these qualities without limit.”
Yes, we are becoming gods.
“Evolution is a spiritual process and makes us more godlike,” was Kurzweil’s conclusion.
There’s something so uplifting, yet so splendidly egocentric in suggesting that man will soon be God, thanks to artificial intelligence. The mere fact that this intelligence is artificial might be a clue as to its potential limitations.
Moreover, I rather think of us as a dangerous species: Primitive, yet believing we’re so very clever.
There are so many fundamental things with which we struggle. Here we are, though, believing that we’ll be godlike in a few years’ time.
Lord, help us.
Indeed, with no substantial improvement of our morals and ethics, a more powerful godlike human species is a frightening thought.
We’ll be like the powerful but grievously flawed gods and goddesses of the mythic Greek pantheon — petty, petulant, selfish, jealous, lustful, vengeful, and murderous, unconstrained by notions of morality and the common good.
Just think of George Soros as a human-robot hybrid who can live forever . . . .
Wikipedia describes Ray Kurzweil, 67, as a secular Jew, an agnostic, and “a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements.” Determined to live longer, Kurzweil only recently cut down the number of supplement pills he takes each day from 250 to 150. He says in the future, everyone will live forever. A member of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation cryonics company, Kurzweil has instructed that should he die, his body will be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to repair his tissues and revive him.
~Éowyn