[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] 'We are all interested in the future...'

[Terry W. Colvin]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1489635,00.html

2050 - and immortality is within our grasp

Britain's leading thinker on the future offers an extraordinary vision 
of life in the next 45 years

David Smith, technology correspondent
Sunday May 22, 2005
The Observer

Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good 
morning before being eaten and human consciousness will be stored on 
supercomputers, promising immortality for all - though it will help to 
be rich.
These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a 
crystal ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of 
Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT.

'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be 
able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a 
major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. 'If you're rich 
enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have 
to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine. We are very serious about 
it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a 
long time in IT.'

Pearson, 44, has formed his mind-boggling vision of the future after 
graduating in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, spending 
four years working in missile design and the past 20 years working in 
optical networks, broadband network evolution and cybernetics in BT's 
laboratories. He admits his prophecies are both 'very exciting' and 
'very scary'.
...
etc



-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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