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Kurzweil started us off today with what he probably felt was a hope-filled presentation about where technology is going. While he didn’t make the connections with urbanity too well, his points were thought-provoking, nonetheless. I condensed it down to this:

Technology (a term Kurzweil uses loosely: cities are a form of technology that allows the aggregation of people in one place) is experiencing and will continue to experience exponential growth. Often on a linear chart this growth looks like a very sharp incline that appears to happen without any forewarning. Basic tipping point stuff.

Technology will remove most of our human and societal ills. Foremost of these, disease and death and unlimited sources of energy. If you can live for another 15 years, you have a good chance at living to 100. Each year after 2020, will add even more years to your life. Immortality doesn’t seem an impossibility for Kurzweil.

The human brain doesn’t have as much potential as an electronic brain. To maximize human potential, we should embrace this reality and integrate biology with technology. Nanotechnology and genetics will usher in a new revolution where this is possible.

The dawn of this new era will become evident over the next 20 years but is already happening. Scientists are already using genetics to cure diseases in animals and have proven that they can use genetics to allow an animal to eat as much as it wants to eat and still remain fit and healthy, simply by activating gene inhibitors. A new genetic-based cure for heart disease has already been approved by the FDA. Intel is already working on transmitters the size of molecules. He showed us a video demonstration of himself talking in three different languages using an instant translation software program that enabled him to communicate perfectly with a German.

This would all sounds pretty sci-fi were it not for the fact that Kurzweil has accurately predicted (often facing public ridicule) most of the major technological advances we’ve seen in the last 15 years.

My Take
Kurzweil’s a smart guy. And I imagine his predictions are very accurate. That’s what freaks me out. I’m of the school of thought that says, “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.” It’s the old Hebrew story of the tower of Babel. God actually went on record as saying something akin to “mankind can accomplish anything they set their minds to” and then promptly disrupted progress with a simple cure: different languages. Evidently, everything man sets its mind to isn’t always good for man, a phenomenon my eco-sensibility is pretty attuned to. Technology comes with inherent responsibilities and an inherent requirement for thinking about the moral and long-term implications of its adoption.

Drawing the Eco-Urban Correlation
Despite the skyscraper association with the Tower of Babel, I think Sprawl is a better candidate for comparison today. Just because we can build out into green-fields doesn’t mean we should. We’re just now (40 years too late) seeing the implications of an unchecked exploitation of the technology of Sprawl; pollution, isolation, income-based segregation, mono-culture, to name a few off the top of my head.

And unchecked technology is at the heart of my concern. Those who advance Kurzweillian thought often point out that technology will always solve its own problems: especially as we move more and more toward a cyber-society where human and machine merge. But, I’m not sure I like that future and what it will do to humanity. My observation is that an excessive dependence on technology degrades our essential human-ness. Look at the automobile. To be human means to live in relationship with others and few technologies have damaged our relationships more than the car and its concurrent industrial model of 20th century life. We’re working hard as a company to mitigate and reverse this damage. (I’m sure Kurzweil would say this falls right in line: we’re the new technology or paradigm fixing the problems with the former.) While Kurzwell’s future might allow us to live longer, will we love each other more?, be more virtuous?, will the division between the have’s and have-nots grow less or more?, will arts and culture and diversity flourish? And if not, is living longer really a better thing?

Few could have anticipated the long-term implications of the car. Likewise, how can we anticipate the long-term implications of the cyber-humanity Kurzweil advocates. Furthermore, exponential growth comes along with an inherent point of no return. The car is a part of our life, whether we like it or not. Change seems to happen “all of a sudden;” often, that suddenness comes with the point of no return. Not using cell phones would be hard now, even if we learned that it had a direct correlation with an increased incidence of brain damage.

Then there’s the question about whether or not intelligent machines will want to co-exist with humans, especially if, as Kurzweil predicts, they will be faster, smarter and more capable than humans in almost every way. Are we, like Shelley’s Doctor Frankenstein, unwittingly creating a monster that will inevitable kill us? Isn’t this the horrendous back-story behind The Matrix?

I guess I just think the march of progress should be less marchlike with more room for pause, looking backward, looking sideways at our fellow marchers and having the freedom to say, “This is wrong; we shouldn’t be marching here.” Otherwise, we’re not controlling it, its controlling us.

Jason