I consider myself a techno utopian. I grew up around technology and I have to admit that 2006 technology is much better than 1992 technology. So what if Mr. Kurzweil is correct? Is the singularity near?

I think it is. We have experienced more change the last 20 years than in the last 100 years. The World Wide Web experience for most people is under 10 years old. Video on demand through the Internet is possible because the peer-to-peer networks, and most people have downloaded high-quality video segments within the last few years. Video on demand over a common telephone wire or cable connection was impossible in 1992. Something amazing is happening.

Age of spiritual machines correctly pointed out that computer technology with sufficient artificial intelligence could cognitively compete and outperform human intelligence. Just by using simple loops, for next decision trees, and select case statements it is possible theoretically to automate programming and let the computer manage its processes. We are not at this level of AI or automated intelligence, but as Mr. Kurzweil pointed out the singularity is near. How fast we will get self programming computers depends on how many people are interested in the self programming concept and how connected together they are to make it happen.

Every week there is new information, new stories that challenge the basic fabric of reality. It in this week alone I read about how cancer is affected by a single gene called P53 and how this gene is modified. Although I do not smoke, I have been around people who smoke and no one wants to get cancer from smoking. There is a connection between gene mutations in the p53 protein related to cigarette smoking that may play a role in the development of certain cancers.

More interesting than P53 was the knowledge that DNA and RNA are controlled by a new process which is now being scientifically understood. This might be the basis for how DNA and RNA create, modify, and control various proteins and molecules needed for the proper functioning of human biology. It is interesting to note that the New York Times broke the story, but KurtzweilAI.net gave critical information without having to read the original story. Thanks to RSS I never had to pay for or read the New York Times.

Goodbye technology, goodbye publishing, hello singularity!

If the singularity is not advancing technology, tech is definitely getting better. I desperately need to believe that technology will have a utopian payout within or before the next 50 years.That science, good science, good open-source science will save the world from internal collapse. Open source science is not motivated by capitalist greed and and/or socialist ideas but is, "post-ism". That we once and for all, create a society that technologically delivers to every citizen a model life.

Advances made in open source software are now filtering over into commercial software like Dragon naturally speaking. Nuance, the company that owns Dragon NaturallySpeaking, is behind an open source platform for SR. Development of technology increases when people work together to solve a common problem. SR accuracy is a human problem.

Accurate text-to-speech synthesis will allow organizations to create products that deliver technological advantage at a lower cost. Because the science behind the technology needed to create a product was developed open-source, less cost is incurred in development because the information and costs are shared.

We may ultimately have to write off millions of people before a select few receive the first treatments that radically extend human life. I suggest we have a scaled system that allows the people that have been not given an excellent life are given the opportunity through singularity science to have a nice car, a small but functional house, the opportunity to create kids who are safe from domestic terrorists aka "bullies" and give adults without any access to good paying jobs the right to create and support a family.

I would like to live in a world where technology worked to help people,and our social systems worked to give everyone in our society great jobs. Where our political system moved to scientific governance and where everyone was treated with respect and everyone is given opportunity because opportunity becomes a scientific process and a basic right.

Hopefully in the next 50 years we will have clinical regenerative medicine to turn back the clock and give every citizen a life worth living. (Not just the few that have the good life today.)