Singularity

How to usher humanity into an era of transhumanist bliss: first, end scarcity. Second, eradicate death. Third, eliminate the bungled mechanisms that introduce imperfections into the human body. The vehicle for accomplishing all three? Molecular nanotechnology—in essence, the reduction of all material things to the status of software.

Robots and humans always seem to end up at odds, whether it's battling over pieces of NASA's budget or literally fighting in science fiction stories such as "The Matrix" and "Battlestar Galactica." Now a former NASA historian and an American University professor suggest that the future of space exploration could very well depend on a merging of metal and flesh.

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Brain-computer interfaces are on the verge of commercialization in medicine, robotics, and gaming, say a panel of heavyweight neuroscientists.

Below, two cool graphs from Ray "The Singularity is Near" Kurzweil's presentation at Harvard Business School's Cyberposium this weekend. Kurzweil whipped up these charts to show how awesomely fast cultural, biological, and technological progress can accumulate. The upshot is that ideas which seem far-fetched--like the possibility of extending human life indefinitely, cybernetic implants, and nanobots in our bloodstreams, all of which Kurzweil has predicted--could be upon us sooner than you think, because change is accelerating at such a mind-blowing pace that our linearly-predisposed brains have trouble comprehending it.