[extropy-chat] Warwick: Could future computer viruses infect humans?

Hara Ra harara at sbcglobal.net
Tue Nov 16 01:56:19 UTC 2004


Well, I disagree.

Most cyberpathogens come via Microsoft products due to MS having a seizure 
this last decade about Internet access. The main door is the email and 
browser. With Eudora email I get nothing virus wise. I still have to 
routinely scrape the hull with Search and Destroy, and AdAware. Were I to 
change browser most of that would go too. And yes have a hardware 
router/firewall in place. If you change your OS much of this vanishes. 
Apple, or Linux good examples.

Life learned at high cost long ago to vary its DNA, and sex developed 
mostly in response to pathogens of all kinds, as variance leaves survivors 
of just about anything. Even Ebola only kills 90%. Sex is costly, but note 
that each day, 1/3 of prokayrotes in ocean destroyed by viruses.

So, OSs will have to evolve to something like sex, and each machine is 
different. How to avoid the associated software installation nightmare, gaaaah.

Like the old "it's not a bug, it's a feature", future virii may be a bit 
blurry as to their function. Individual brains have lots of variations, so 
I expect high resistance there. We already have higher level virii, usually 
called memes, and the word 'fundamentalism'  describes a whole phylum of these.

At 03:51 AM 11/15/2004, you wrote:
>Very interesting article on Silicon.com (found via KurzweilAI): Kevin
>Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University, warned the
>day will come when computer viruses can infect humans as well as PCs.
>"We're looking at software viruses and biological viruses becoming one
>and the same," he said. "The security problems [will] be much, much
>greater... they will have to become critical in future."
>If humans were networked, the implications of being hacked would be
>far more serious and attitudes towards hackers would be radically
>changed, he added.
>"For those of you that want to stay human... you'll be a subspecies in
>the future," he said.
>Warwick believes that there are advantages for a human being to be
>networked to a computer.
>Networking a human brain would mean an almost "infinite knowledge
>base", he said, adding it would be akin to "upgrading humans... giving
>us abilities we don't already have".
>http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D3958
>http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39125887,00.htm

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=   Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob)    =
=     harara at sbcglobal.net       =
=   Alcor North Cryomanagement   =
=   Alcor Advisor to Board       =
=       831 429 8637             =
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