My question is, what will the world look like in the years immediately before this happens? Aubrey De Grey has said that he hopes that by this time the general public will at least realize that this is about to happen.

Will this be achieved by conquering major diseases like cancer and heart disease, or will it come about more gradually by just adding more time to the average lifespan in general through overall better health? What diseases do you see as being conquered first?

You were recently interviewed in the January issue of Musician’s Friend. At one point, during the discussion of computer generated art, you said that by the year 2029, computers would be able to match the human capacity to convey emotion. With all due respect, I think you are wrong. Conveying emotion means that the conveyor (human or computer) has the ability to communicate the emotion felt by the conveyor to an observer or listener. Emotion, by definition, requires consciousness to exist.
Computers can certainly mimic human logic. That’s what programming is. We don’t really understand what consciousness is, but it is highly unlikely that it can be spontaneously generated by increasingly complex electrical pathways. Consciousness is a qualitatively different thing and no amount of computer evolution will ever lead to a conscious machine. The best a computer will be able to do is to evoke emotions in an observer or listener. This is not that difficult and is already being done. Research into which combinations of stimuli cause particular human emotional reactions can be incorporated into programming by which the computer can produce a “work of art” which will evoke specific emotions in the observer/listener. This is not the conveyance of emotion because that emotion does not originate in the computer. It is only the back end of the process.
Respectfully,
Harvey Lane

Although I share your optimism for the future, I feel not enough is being said about the societal impacts that will increasingly follow; the job issues, while a big dilemma now, is only one…what can low-skilled workers do when robotics take away work? and when the niche of creative output, or whatever work that humans can still do, increasingly becomes smaller? One could argue that we move into a resource-based economy or a type of new system that reflects the new changes happening around us, but this is easier said then done. I know you have your views that we will augment and merge with machines, but it seems that such changes won’t happen for decades, and people need food to eat right now.

It’s not just that, there is more…not to long ago, their was a chain mail spread around about a mandatory implant that would be a part of Obamacare…it was obviously a hoax, but on a deeper level, it made me think about what it would be like when the man/machine divide becomes more and more blurred – when people with very rigid worldviews find these technological advances completely impeding and going against their views. An overwhelming number of people in this country subscribe to the belief that the earth is less then ten thousand years old, and while they are free to do so, it raises questions of how that be contended when advances appear that go against everything they believe in. If such a fuss can be drawn over this little chip, how will people react when greater technological advances appear?

I’m aware these are many questions, but I feel the message is the same: what can more can be done to alleviate the economic and societal changes happening right now and yet to come? I feel their simply is an overwhelming amount of people who, besides being unable to adapt, simply are not aware of what is going on and this is a real issue. It seems like we are in the middle of a period of transition which will be ongoing with bigger and bigger implications, and the period of adaptation to what is happening will grow even smaller. It seems like proactive education and public awareness is what needs to be done in order to help alleviate these issues, but the government doesn’t seem to be reacting all that much.