Post by sunnydaze on Apr 13, 2009 8:54:53 GMT -5
Virtual reality will come from inside our brain, not goggles, says Ray Kurzweil
Virtual reality has long promised a way to create an immersive illusion so convincing that you can tell the fake from the real. Futurist Ray Kurzweil says that virtual reality will make virtual travel possible. But not in the way that you might expect with a super-realistic display creating faux imagery on a screen or a pair of goggles.
Rather, Kurzweil speculates in an interview with Good magazine that nanotechnology will supply the trip. That is, you could have an injection of nanobots into your brain that could trick your neurons into thinking that you’re really traveling to someplace you aren’t.
You might liken this to the psychedelic drugs of Carlos Castaneda. You get pretty much the same effect, but these nanobots are technically robots, not drugs.
I don’t think this means that it’s time to invest in nanotechnology gaming and to sell short anything that has to do with display-based video games or virtual worlds. I think the display-based worlds are going to have quite a long run before the nanobots are perfected. I mean, can you imagine what happens if the nanobots stimulate the wrong part of your brain and give you some kind of nightmare or seizure? Uh, I’m not going to be the guinea pig for that experiment.
I’ve heard Kurzweil talk last year about game development and the next 20 years at the Game Developers Conference. He speculated back then that human lifespans would start stretching longer and we would start becoming immortal at some point as nanotechnology and biological research advances make it possible to repair our bodies as they age. Kurzweil is also a proponent of the Singularity theory and has been pushing that idea forward.
I would wager we’re quite a few years away from making this happen. As for virtual travel, Kurzweil estimates that flawless virtual travel will be doable around 2030. But the Good magazine interview is nevertheless fascinating.
venturebeat.com/2009/04/12/virtual-reality-will-come-from-inside-our-brain-not-goggles-says-ray-kurzweil/
sunnydaze
ps - I think the article was supposed to say that you CAN'T tell the fake from the real....
Virtual reality has long promised a way to create an immersive illusion so convincing that you can tell the fake from the real. Futurist Ray Kurzweil says that virtual reality will make virtual travel possible. But not in the way that you might expect with a super-realistic display creating faux imagery on a screen or a pair of goggles.
Rather, Kurzweil speculates in an interview with Good magazine that nanotechnology will supply the trip. That is, you could have an injection of nanobots into your brain that could trick your neurons into thinking that you’re really traveling to someplace you aren’t.
You might liken this to the psychedelic drugs of Carlos Castaneda. You get pretty much the same effect, but these nanobots are technically robots, not drugs.
I don’t think this means that it’s time to invest in nanotechnology gaming and to sell short anything that has to do with display-based video games or virtual worlds. I think the display-based worlds are going to have quite a long run before the nanobots are perfected. I mean, can you imagine what happens if the nanobots stimulate the wrong part of your brain and give you some kind of nightmare or seizure? Uh, I’m not going to be the guinea pig for that experiment.
I’ve heard Kurzweil talk last year about game development and the next 20 years at the Game Developers Conference. He speculated back then that human lifespans would start stretching longer and we would start becoming immortal at some point as nanotechnology and biological research advances make it possible to repair our bodies as they age. Kurzweil is also a proponent of the Singularity theory and has been pushing that idea forward.
I would wager we’re quite a few years away from making this happen. As for virtual travel, Kurzweil estimates that flawless virtual travel will be doable around 2030. But the Good magazine interview is nevertheless fascinating.
venturebeat.com/2009/04/12/virtual-reality-will-come-from-inside-our-brain-not-goggles-says-ray-kurzweil/
sunnydaze
ps - I think the article was supposed to say that you CAN'T tell the fake from the real....