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Plant Our Brains in Robots, Keep Them Alive Forever
Wired.com: The Pentagon’s new Avatar project, unveiled by Danger Room a few weeks back, sounds freaky enough: Soldiers practically inhabiting the bodies of robots, who’d act as “surrogates” for their human overlords in battle.
But according to Dmitry Itskov, a 31-year-old Russian entrepreneur, the U.S. military’s Avatar initiative doesn’t go nearly far enough. He’s got a massive, sci-fi-esque venture of his own that he hopes will put the Pentagon’s project to shame. Itskov’s plan: Construct robots that’ll (within 10 years, he hopes) actually store a human’s mind and keep that consciousness working. Forever.
“This project is leading down the road to immortality,” Itskov, who founded New Media Stars, a Russian company that runs several online news outlets, tells Danger Room. “A person with a perfect Avatar will be able to remain part of society. People don’t want to die.”
Itskov’s project, also called “Avatar,” actually precedes the Pentagon’s. He launched the initiative a year ago, but recently divulged more details to a group of futurists — including Ray Kurzweil — at a three-day conference, called Global Future 2045, held in Moscow.
Until now, most of the work on Itskov’s Avatar has taken place in Russia, where he claims to have hired 30 researchers — all of them paid out of his own deep pockets. Now, Itskov plans to take the mission global. “I want to collaborate with scientists from around the world,” he says. “This is a new strategy for the future; for humanity.”
So how would Itskov’s “Avatar” work? Well, he anticipates developing the program in stages. Within the next few years, Itskov plans to deploy robots that can be operated by the human mind. That’s actually not too wild a proposition: Pentagon-backed research has already demonstrated a monkey controlling a robotic arm using some nifty mind-meld tech, for example. And one study on human patients, out of Johns Hopkins, is using brain implants to control artificial limbs.
After phase one of “Avatar,” however, Itskov’s ambitions arguably eclipse even those of the Pentagon’s maddest mad scientists. In 10 years, he anticipates “transplanting” a human mind into a robotic one. After that, Itskov wants to do away with surgical procedures and instead upload the contents of the mind into its brand new, artificial robo-body. And, last but not least, within 30 years Itskov anticipates developing hologram-type bodies — instead of tangible robotic ones — that can “host” human consciousness.
“Holograms give plenty of advantages. You can walk through walls, move at the speed of light,” he says. “Remember in Star Wars, Obi-Wan’s hologram? That was pretty amazing.”
Amazing, yes. Scientifically feasible? Certainly not right now, and maybe not ever. “I understand these are some very big challenges for scientists,” Itskov acknowledges. “But I believe in something you call ‘The American Dream.’ If you put all your energy and time into something, you can make it a reality.”
Itskov, who plans to open two American offices this year, even hopes to collaborate with Darpa on the agency’s ‘Avatar’ program. And he’s keen to talk to agency scientists about the next, more far-out stages of brain-machine interfaces that he plans to develop. “I’m sure someone at Darpa is interested in taking this further,” he says.
So far, at least, Danger Room hasn’t come across any Darpa-funded ventures to develop immortal hologram-brain interfaces. But the agency just might find a little extra blue-sky inspiration in Itskov, who likens Avatar to Darpa’s best-known innovation: The internet.
“Years ago, people didn’t believe the internet could work,” he says. “I think of Avatar in the same light. Right now, the idea is new and radical. It won’t always be that way.”
Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/dmitry-itskov/
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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