The Noble Lie

When my grandmother passed away a few years ago, along with the mourning, I was bewildered when I reflected on how much life has changed in her lifetime. She lived on a farm when she was a child. There had been no world wars. There was no electricity, telephone, radio, television, or any of the devices that define modern existence and modern culture. It amazes me how much elderly people like her have seen in their lifetime, and how rapidly they adapted to a transformed world.

The amount of change my grandmother saw in her lifetime is nothing compared to the changes I have begun to see, and the changes that will take place over the next decade or two (or by 2012, depending on whom you ask). Ray Kurzweil, programmer of human-computer interactions and futurist, explains why in this talk. Molecular computing is just one example. The ramifications of what he talks about will transform society drastically, probably starting with the elimination of your job by a robot or computer program.

Watch the video, then think about how this technology can be used to control us. They claim it will set us free from the drudgery of labor, but that claim has been made about every piece of labor-saving technology that has ever been created, and look at us today.

Kurzweil has also written a few books if people want to learn more. The Age of Spiritual Machines I have read, The Singularity is Near I have not. As hinted in his Wikipedia profile, there is a form of religion at work here. In a backwards-telling of the Bible reminiscent of the Rosicrucians, he muses that mankind one day will turn the universe into a singular massive sentient intelligence, a Godhead.