2045年的世界什么样

云端大脑

    如果想一想，云端大脑在这个互联的世界中将扮演什么样的角色，这个话题就会变得更有意思了。库兹韦尔说，大脑移植将成为司空见惯的事，但这不仅仅增强了大脑的能力，也开启了云端的能力。

    和在智能手机上点击屏幕以追踪网上信息或从邮件中检索电话号码一样，未来几十年内，我们的大脑将能读取云端收集的信息，以指数级程度进行延伸。新皮层中神经细胞组和神经网络的数量是有限的，库兹韦尔说，所以人类大脑能存储和检索的容量确实有限。但如果能直接连到云端，在理论上我们的大脑就能获得无限的信息和处理能力。

    库兹韦尔说，换言之，科技将在本质上对新皮层做无限的延伸。“还记得我们最近一次延伸新皮层时出现了什么情况吗？”

2045年：永生成为现实

    或者说，科技将至少在可预见的未来极大地延长人的寿命。

    过去的200年里，我们成功地将发达国家的人均寿命延长了一倍，而且由于医疗技术和改善生活质量的技术不断改进，我们将继续以更快地速度延长寿命。库兹韦尔说，到某个时刻（这个时刻很快将到来），我们将跨过一个临界值。届时，每过一年，我们的人均寿命将延长一岁。

    “从现在开始的10到20年里，这方面的技术将高速发展，可能在不到15年的时间里，我们就能抵达这个临界点。到时候，借助科学进步，我们能增加的寿命将比已度过的岁月更长久，”库兹韦尔说。“今后10到20年间的某个时刻，健康和医疗将会出现惊人的转化。”

    当然，延长平均寿命对并不不能阻止死亡。（实际上，考虑到资源不足，它反而会导致痛苦和死亡的增加。）但库兹韦尔讨论的永生是数字化的永生，即让大脑存活在机器替身里或上传到硅片中——指的是在过去十年中出现的神经系统科学和脑机接口领域相对巨大的突破。能对大脑信号做出反应的假肢在10年前还只是科幻小说里的内容，但在全球未来2045大会上，观众看到了一个实际可用的脑控假体在运动。同样地，在2013年听起来荒谬的事可能在2023年会显得更合理，甚至在2033年就成为司空见惯的事。

    伊茨科夫相信，到那个时候，永生行业将一派欣欣向荣，它将确保一个人生理寿命的结束不一定一定意味着意识生命的终结。他说，永生会变得很普遍，而不是只有富人才能买得起的特权。伊茨科夫用手机举例解释说，技术在10年内技术便宜了1000倍。虽然在手机时代的黎明期，只有富裕的人才能拥有手机，那时的技术很麻烦，功能有限，而且不是很好用，但现在的手机已经普及到人手一只了。

    伊茨科夫揶揄说，“只有富人才会花钱消费不成熟的技术。”当寿命延长和“永生”技术足够成熟，能成为主流时，成本将会下降到大众有能力支付的范围。

Your brain on the cloud

    All of this gets far more interesting when one considers what it means in the context of the connected world. Brain implants are going to become commonplace, but they won't just enhance the power of the brain -- they'll unlock the power of the cloud, Kurzweil says.

    In the same way we tap our smartphones to track down information across the web or retrieve a phone number from an email, within a couple of decades our brains will be able to access the collected information in the cloud, extending its reach by an exponential degree. The number of neuron clusters and neural networks in the neocortex is finite, Kurzweil says -- there's quite literally a limit to what we can store and retrieve in the human brain. But with a direct line to the cloud, our brains could theoretically access infinite information and infinite processing power.

    In other words, technology will essentially extend the neocortex indefinitely, Kurzweil said. "Remember what happened the last time we expanded our neocortex?"

2045: Immortality is real

    Or, at the very least, technology will vastly increase the human lifespan in the foreseeable future.

    In the last 200 years we've essentially doubled the average life expectancy for people in developed countries, and we continue to extend it at faster and faster rates thanks to better medical technologies as well as technologies that make human life better. At some point -- and that point is coming soon, Kurzweil said -- we will cross a threshold where every year that goes by we will add a year to the average lifespan.

    "This will go into high gear within 10 or 20 years from now, in probably less than 15 we will be reaching that tipping point where we add more time than has gone by because of scientific progress," Kurzweil said. "Somewhere between 10 and 20 years, there is going to be tremendous transformation of health and medicine."

    Of course, extending the average lifespan isn't a hedge against all death. (In fact, where resource scarcity is concerned, it's a recipe for increased misery and death.) But where the kind of immortality Itskov is talking about -- the digital kind, where the brain is either kept alive in a robotic surrogate or uploaded to silicon -- he points to the relatively huge breakthroughs in the realms of neuroscience and brain machine interfaces that have emerged over the last decade. Prosthetic limbs that respond to brain signals remained the stuff of science fiction a decade ago, yet at Global Futures 2045 the audience saw a working mind-controlled prosthesis in action. Likewise, what sounds absolutely absurd in 2013 might seem a lot more reasonable by 2023 and even commonplace by 2033.

    Itskov believes a thriving immortality industry could be well underway by then, ensuring that the end of one's biological life doesn't necessarily spell the end of one's conscious life. And it will become ubiquitous; immortality won't be a privilege only the wealthy can afford, he says. Kurzweil points to the cell phone. In 10 years technologies tend to become 1,000 times less expensive, he said. Everyone has a cell phone now, and while it's true that at the dawn of the cell phone era only the well-heeled owned them, the technology at that point was cumbersome, limited in function, and didn't work very well.

    "Only the rich have these technologies when they don't work," Kurzweil quipped. By the time life extension and "immortality" technologies are mature enough to be mainstream, the cost will have come down enough to place it within the reach of millions.