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Vice Blog

TECHNOLOGY ISSUE - INSIDE THE SINGULARITY ON VBS (UPDATED)

In a couple days you're going to be able to find our Technology Issue, which has a lot of smart stories in there about sciencey and computery things that'll get your mind's rainbow wheel of death spinning for a while. We wanted to show you just how seriously we're not fucking around by featuring our

interview with Ray Kurzweil

first thing this morning, but how fantastic, we're having technical difficulties. (PS: all fixed. Enjoy.) Why don't you go over to

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VBS

, where today Kurzweil's telling us more about his vision of the Singuarlity—a point around 2045 when computers will acquire full-blown artificial intelligence and technology will infuse itself with biology.

His theories

have all sorts of supporters, detractors, and critics, but do you even remember what life was like before three-year-olds had cell phones and you actually had to remember facts instead of relying on the internet? That was only ten years ago. If Kurzweil is right, we'll have supercomputers more powerful than every human brain on the planet combined within a few decades. Despite being perceived as an extreme optimist, Kurzweil is the first to admit that this technology could very quickly bring an end to the world as we know it. Stuff like

gray goo

is a concern, but a biological terrorist attack could happen tomorrow that is based on the very same type of technology he touts as the harbingers of the unimaginable future. He believes we'll exist in a permanent virtual/"real"-reality hybrid. It makes us think about future people spending all day auto-mastubrating to polygons with the genital equivalent of the Power Glove. But we're sick like that, and if Ray is right, unenlightened pigs like us won't be around in 40 years. Everyone will be hyper-intelligent, shapeshifting nonbiological humans who can live forever. It's a bummer, a blessing, and a mind-fuck all at the same time. That's about as much as we can explain on our own. Unless you're really religious or dumb, watch on to have your brain melted. And if you're still jonesing for more Kurzweil, be sure to catch the new documentary

Transcendent Man

, premiering in late April.