The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

by Ray Kurzweil

  109. Eric Drexler, “Drexler Counters,” first published on KurzweilAI.net on November 1, 2003: http://www.KurzweilAI.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0606.html. See also K. Eric Drexler, Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation (New York: Wiley Interscience, 1992), chapter 8; Ralph C. Merkle, “Foresight Debate with Scientific American” (1995), http://www.foresight.org/SciAmDebate/SciAmResponse.html; Wilson Ho and Hyojune Lee, “Single Bond Formation and Characterization with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope,” Science 286. 5445 (November 26, 1999): 1719–22, http://www.physics.uci.edu/~wilsonho/stm-iets.html; K. Eric Drexler, David Forrest, Robert A. Freitas Jr., J. Storrs Hall, Neil Jacobstein, Tom McKendree, Ralph Merkle, and Christine Peterson, “On Physics, Fundamentals, and Nanorobots: A Rebuttal to Smalley’s Assertion that Self-Replicating Mechanical Nanorobots Are Simply Not Possible: A Debate About Assemblers” (2001), http://www.imm.org/SciAmDebate2/smalley.html.

  110. See http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/8148counterpoint.html; http://www.kurzweilAI.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0604.html?.

  111. D. Maysinger et al., “Block Copolymers Modify the Internalization of Micelle-Incorporated Probes into Neural Cells,” Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1539.3 (June 20, 2001): 205–17; R. Savic et al., “Micellar Nanocontainers Distribute to Defined Cytoplasmic Organelles,” Science 300.5619 (April 25, 2003): 615–18.

  112. T. Yamada et al., “Nanoparticles for the Delivery of Genes and Drugs to Human Hepatocytes,” Nature Biotechnology 21.8 (August 2003): 885–90. Published electronically June 29, 2003. Abstract: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/v21/n8/abs/nbt843.html. Short press release from Nature: http://www.nature.com/nbt/press_release/nbt0803.html.

  113. Richards Grayson et al., “A BioMEMS Review: MEMS Technology for Physiologically Integrated Devices,” IEEE Proceedings 92 (2004): 6–21; Richards Grayson et al., “Molecular Release from a Polymeric Microreservoir Device: Influence of Chemistry, Polymer Swelling, and Loading on Device Performance,” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research 69A.3 (June 1, 2004): 502–12.

  114. D. Patrick O’Neal et al., “Photo-thermal Tumor Ablation in Mice Using Near Infrared-Absorbing Nanoparticles,” Cancer Lett ers 209.2 (June 25, 2004): 171–76.

  115. International Energy Agency, from an R. E. Smalley presentation, “Nanotechnology, the S&T Workforce, Energy & Prosperity,” p. 12, presented at PCAST (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology), Washington, D.C., March 3, 2003, http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/PCAST%203-3-03%20R%20Smalley%20Slides.pdf; also at http://cohesion.rice.edu/NaturalSciences/Smalley/emplibrary/PCAST%20March%203,%202003.ppt.

  116. Smalley, “Nanotechnology, the S&T Workforce, Energy & Prosperity.”

  117. “FutureGen—A Sequestration and Hydrogen Research Initiative,” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, February 2003, http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/

  futuregen_factsheet.pdf.

  118. Drexler, Nanosystems, pp. 428, 433.

  119. Barnaby J. Feder, “Scientist at Work/Richard Smalley: Small Thoughts for a Global Grid,” New York Times, September 2, 2003; the following link requires subscription or purchase: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C17FC3D5C0C718CDDA00894DB404482.

  120. International Energy Agency, from Smalley, “Nanotechnology, the S&T Work-force, Energy & Prosperity,” p. 12.

  121. American Council for the United Nations University, Millennium Project Global Challenge 13: http://www.acunu.org/millennium/ch-13.html.

  122. “Wireless Transmission in Earth’s Energy Future,” Environment News Service, November 19, 2002, reporting on Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon in “2002 State of the Future,” American Council for the United Nations University (August 2002).

  123. Disclosure: the author is an adviser to and investor in this company.

  124. “NEC Unveils Methanol-Fueled Laptop,” Associated Press, June 30, 2003, http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/6203790.htm, reporting on NEC press release, “NEC Unveils Notebook PC with Built-In Fuel Cell,” June 30, 2003, http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/0306/3002.html.

  125. Tony Smith, “Toshiba Boffins Prep Laptop Fuel Cell,” The Register, March 5, 2003, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/03/05/

  toshiba_boffins_prep_laptop_fuel; Yoshiko Hara, “Toshiba Develops Matchbox-Sized Fuel Cell for Mobile Phones,” EE Times, June 24, 2004, http://www.eet.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=22101804, reporting on Toshiba press release, “Toshiba Announces World’s Smallest Direct Methanol Fuel Cell with Energy Output of 100 Milliwats,” http://www.toshiba.com/taec/press/dmfc_04_222.shtml.

  126. Karen Lurie, “Hydrogen Cars,” ScienceCentral News, May 13, 2004, http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?language=english&type=article&article_id=218392247.

  127. Louise Knapp, “Booze to Fuel Gadget Batteries,” Wired News, April 2, 2003, http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,58119,00.html, and St. Louis University press release, “Powered by Your Liquor Cabinet, New Biofuel Cell Could Replace Rechargeable Batteries,” March 24, 2003, http://www.slu.edu/readstory/newsinfo/2474, reporting on Nick Akers and Shelley Minteer, “Towards the Development of a Membrane Electrode Assembly,” presented at the American Chemical Society national meeting, Anaheim, Calif. (2003).

  128. “Biofuel Cell Runs on Metabolic Energy to Power Medical Implants,” Nature Online, November 12, 2002, http://www.nature.com/news/2002/021111/full/021111-1.html, reporting on N. Mano, F. Mao, and A. Heller, “A Miniature Biofuel Cell Operating in a Physiological Buffer,” Journal of the American Chemical Society 124 (2002): 12962–63.

  129. “Power from Blood Could Lead to ‘Human Batteries,’” FairfaxDigital, August 4, 2003, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/03/1059849278131.html?oneclick=true. Read more about the microbial fuel cells here: http://www.geobacter.org/research/microbial/. Matsuhiko Nishizawa’s BioMEMs laboratory diagrams a micro-biofuel cell: http://www.biomems.mech.tohoku.ac.jp/research_e.html. This short article describes work on an implantable, nontoxic power source that now can produce 0.2 watts: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw111596760144B215.

  130. Mike Martin, “Pace-Setting Nanotubes May Power Micro-Devices,” NewsFactor, February 27, 2003, http://physics.iisc.ernet.in/~asood/Pace-Setting%20Nanotubes%20May%20Power%20Micro-Devices.htm.

  131. “Finally, it is possible to derive a limit to the total planetary active nanorobot mass by considering the global energy balance. Total solar insolation received at the Earth’s surface is ~1.75 1017 watts (IEarth ~ 1370 W/m2 ± 0.4% at normal incidence).” Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, vol. 1, Basic Capabilities, section 6.5.7, “Global Hypsithermal Limit” (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 1999), pp. 175–76, http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/6.5.7.htm#p1.

  132. This assumes 10 billion (1010) persons, a power density for nanorobots of around 107 watts per cubic meter, a nanorobot size of one cubic micron, and a power draw of about 10 picowatts (10–11 watts) per nanorobot. The hypsithermal limit of 1016 watts implies about 10 kilograms of nanorobots per person, or 1016 nanorobots per person. Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, vol. 1, Basic Capabilities, section 6.5.7 “Global Hypsithermal Limit” (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 1999), pp. 175–76, http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/6.5.7.htm#p4.

  133. Alternatively, nanotechnology can be designed to be extremely energy efficient in the first place so that energy recapture would be unnecessary, and infeasible because there would be relatively little heat dissipation to recapture. In a private communication (January 2005), Robert A. Freitas Jr. writes: “Drexler (Nanosystems: 396) claims that energy dissipation may in theory be as low as Ediss ~ 0.1 MJ/kg ‘if one assumes the development of a set of mechanochemical processes capable of transforming feedstock molecules into complex product structures using only reliable, nearly reversible steps.’ 0.1 MJ/kg of diamond corresponds roughly to the minimum thermal noise at room temperature (e.g., kT ~ 4 zJ/atom at 298 K).
”

  134. Alexis De Vos, Endoreversible Thermodynamics of Solar Energy Conversion (London: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 103.

  135. R. D. Schaller and V. I. Klimov, “High Efficiency Carrier Multiplication in PbSe Nanocrystals: Implications for Solar Energy Conversion,” Physical Review Letters 92.18 (May 7, 2004): 186601.

  136. National Academies Press, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, Harnessing Light: Optical Science and Engineering for the 21st Century, (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1998), p. 166, http://books.nap.edu/books/0309059917/html/166.html.

  137. Matt Marshall, “World Events Spark Interest in Solar Cell Energy Start-ups,” Mercury News, August 15, 2004, http://www.konarkatech.com/news_articles_082004/b-silicon_valley.php and http://www.nanosolar.com/cache/merc081504.htm.

  138. John Gartner, “NASA Spaces on Energy Solution,” Wired News, June 22, 2004, http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63913,00.html. See also Arthur Smith, “The Case for Solar Power from Space,” http://www.lispace.org/articles/SSPCase.html.

  139. “The Space Elevator Primer,” Spaceward Foundation, http://www.elevator2010.org/site/primer.html.

  140. Kenneth Chang, “Experts Say New Desktop Fusion Claims Seem More Credible,” New York Times, March 3, 2004, http://www.rpi.edu/web/News/nytlahey3.html, reporting on R. P. Taleyarkhan,“Additional Evidence of Nuclear Emissions During Acoustic Cavitation,” Physical Review E: Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics 69.3, pt. 2 (March 2004): 036109.

  141. The original Pons and Fleischman method of desktop cold fusion using palladium electrodes is not dead. Ardent advocates have continued to pursue the technology, and the Department of Energy announced in 2004 that it was conducting a new formal review of the recent research in this field. Toni Feder, “DOE Warms to Cold Fusion,” Physics Today (April 2004), http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-4/p27.html.

  142. Akira Fujishima, Tata N. Rao, and Donald A. Tryk, “Titanium Dioxide Photo-catalysis,” Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology C: Photochemistry Review 1 (June 29, 2000): 1–21; Prashant V. Kamat, Rebecca Huehn, and Roxana Nicolaescu, “A ‘Sense and Shoot’ Approach for Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Contaminants in Water,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B 106 (January 31, 2002): 788–94.

  143. A. G. Panov et al., “Photooxidation of Toluene and p-Xylene in Cation-Exchanged Zeolites X, Y, ZSM-5, and Beta: The Role of Zeolite Physicochemical Properties in Product Yield and Selectivity,” Journal of Physical Chemistry B 104 (June 22, 2000): 5706–14.

  144. Gabor A. Somorjai and Keith McCrea, “Roadmap for Catalysis Science in the 21st Century: A Personal View of Building the Future on Past and Present Accomplishments,” Applied Catalysis A:General 222.1–2 (2001): 3–18, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory number 3.LBNL-48555, http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/~gasgrp/2000.html (publication 877). See also Zhao, Lu, and Millar, “Advances in mesoporous molecular sieve MCM-41,” Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 35 (1996): 2075–90, http://cheed.nus.edu.sg/~chezxs/Zhao/publication/1996_2075.pdf.

  145. NTSC/NSET report, National Nanotechnology Initiative: The Initiative and Its Implementation Plan, July 2000, http://www.nano.gov/html/res/nni2.pdf.

  146. Wei-xian Zhang, Chuan-Bao Wang, and Hsing-Lung Lien, “Treatment of Chlorinated Organic Contaminants with Nanoscale Bimetallic Particles,” Catalysis Today 40 (May 14, 1988): 387–95.

  147. R. Q. Long and R. T. Yang, “Carbon Nanotubes as Superior Sorbent for Dioxin Removal,” Journal of the American Chemical Society 123.9 (2001): 2058–59.

  148. Robert A. Freitas, Jr. “Death Is an Outrage!” presented at the Fifth Alcor Conference on Extreme Life Extension, Newport Beach, California, November 16, 2002, http://www.rfreitas.com/Nano/DeathIsAnOutrage.htm.

  149. For example, the fifth annual BIOMEMS conference, June 2003, San Jose, http://www.knowledgepress.com/events/11201717.htm.

  150. First two volumes of a planned four-volume series: Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nano-medicine, vol. I, Basic Capabilities (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 1999); Nanomedicine, vol. IIA, Biocompatibility (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 2003); http://www.nanomedicine.com.

  151. Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell,” Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobilization Biotechnology 26 (1998): 411–30, http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes.html.

  152. Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Microbivores: Artificial Mechanical Phagocytes using Digest and Discharge Protocol,” Zyvex preprint, March 2001, http://www.rfreitas.com/Nano/Microbivores.htm; Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Microbivores: Artificial Mechanical Phagocytes,” Foresight Update no. 44, March 31, 2001, pp. 11–13, http://www.imm.org/Reports/Rep025.html; see also microbivore images at the Nanomedicine Art Gallery, http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Gallery/Species/

  Microbivores.html.

  153. Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, vol. I, Basic Capabilities, section 9.4.2.5 “Nanomechanisms for Natation” (Georgetown, Tex.: Landes Bioscience, 1999), pp. 309–12, http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/9.4.2.5.htm.

  154. George Whitesides, “Nanoinspiration: The Once and Future Nanomachine,” Scientific American 285.3 (September 16, 2001): 78–83.

  155. “According to Einstein’s approximation for Brownian motion, after 1 second has elapsed at room temperature a fluidic water molecule has, on average, diffused a distance of ~50 microns (~400,000 molecular diameters) whereas a 1-micron nanorobot immersed in that same fluid has displaced by only ~0.7 microns (only ~0.7 device diameter) during the same time period. Thus Brownian motion is at most a minor source of navigational error for motile medical nanorobots.” See K. Eric Drexler et al., “Many Future Nanomachines: A Rebuttal to Whitesides’ Assertion That Mechanical Molecular Assemblers Are Not Workable and Not a Concern,” a Debate about Assemblers, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, 2001, http://www.imm.org/SciAmDebate2/whitesides.html.

  156. Tejal A. Desai, “MEMS-Based Technologies for Cellular Encapsulation,” American Journal of Drug Delivery 1.1 (2003): 3–11, abstract available at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/search/expand?pub=infobike://adis/add/2003/00000001/00000001/art00001.

  157. As quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (New York: Basic Books, 1979).

  158. The author runs a company, FATKAT (Financial Accelerating Transactions by Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies), which applies computerized pattern recognition to financial data to make stock-market investment decisions, http://www.FatKat.com.

  159. See discussion in chapter 2 on price-performance improvements in computer memory and electronics in general.

  160. Runaway AI refers to a scenario where, as Max More describes, “superintelligent machines, initially harnessed for human benefit, soon leave us behind.” Max More, “Embrace, Don’t Relinquish, the Future,” http://www.KurzweilAI.net/articles/art0106.html?printable=1. See also Damien Broderick’s description of the “Seed AI”: “A self-improving seed AI could run glacially slowly on a limited machine substrate. The point is, so long as it has the capacity to improve itself, at some point it will do so convulsively, bursting through any architectural bottlenecks to design its own improved hardware, maybe even build it (if it’s allowed control of tools in a fabrication plant).” Damien Broderick, “Tearing Toward the Spike,” presented at “Australia at the Crossroads? Scenarios and Strategies for the Future” (April 31–May 2, 2000), published on KurzweilAI.net May 7, 2001, http://www.KurzweilAI.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0173.html.

  161. David Talbot, “Lord of the Robots,” Technology Review (April 2002).

  162. Heather Havenstein writes that the “inflated notions spawned by science fiction writers about the convergence of humans and machines tarnished the image of AI in the 1980s because AI was perceived as failing to live up to its potential.” Heather Havenstein, “Spring Comes to AI Winter: A Thousand Applications Bloom in Medicine, Customer Service, Education and Manufac
turing,” Computerworld, February 14, 2005, http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/

  0,10801,99691,00.html. This tarnished image led to “AI Winter,” defined as “a term coined by Richard Gabriel for the (circa 1990–94?) crash of the wave of enthusiasm for the AI language Lisp and AI itself, following a boom in the 1980s.” Duane Rettig wrote: “. . . companies rode the great AI wave in the early 80’s, when large corporations poured billions of dollars into the AI hype that promised thinking machines in 10 years. When the promises turned out to be harder than originally thought, the AI wave crashed, and Lisp crashed with it because of its association with AI. We refer to it as the AI Winter.” Duane Rettig quoted in “AI Winter,” http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AiWinter.

  163. The General Problem Solver (GPS) computer program, written in 1957, was able to solve problems through rules that allowed the GPS to divide a problem’s goals into subgoals, and then check if obtaining a particular subgoal would bring the GPS closer to solving the overall goal. In the early 1960s Thomas Evan wrote ANALOGY, a “program [that] solves geometric-analogy problems of the form A:B::C:? taken from IQ tests and college entrance exams.” Boicho Kokinov and Robert M. French, “Computational Models of Analogy-Making,” in L. Nadel, ed., Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, vol. 1 (London: Nature Publishing Group, 2003), pp. 113–18. See also A. Newell, J. C. Shaw, and H. A. Simon, “Report on a General Problem-Solving Program,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Processing (Paris: UNESCO House, 1959), pp. 256–64; Thomas Evans, “A Heuristic Program to Solve Geometric-Analogy Problems,” in M. Minsky, ed., Semantic Information Processing (Cam-bridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968).