Visions of The Future

[andrewducker]

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

Comments

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

BTW have you ever read any of Ray Kurzweil's books? It's nice to see some of his predictions coming true (although a bit behind schedule)...

[andrewducker]

Nope - I've read interviews and the like though. Are the books worth reading in more detail?

And speaking of that kind of futurism - have you read Accelerando?

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

No I haven't, but I just read the wikipedia article and purchased a copy :-)

I read "Age of Spiritual Machines" a few years ago and it really impressed me at the time. The first half of the book is all research. In second half Kurzweil makes predictions for specific years...2009, 2029, 2059 and 2099 if I remember correctly. He also threads a conversation with a girl through those last chapters: through the years she progresses from being a regular person to becoming a swarm of nanotech with a shared conciousness.

However, the book's ten years old now and most of the predictions for 2009 are looking a bit hokey. Some them were pretty close though.

[andrewducker]

Sounds tempting.

Oh, and read the acknowledgement page when Accelerando gets to you :->

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

If you are mentioned in the acknowledgements it would have totally blown my mind if you hadn't hinted at it :-D