The remaining problem is to figure out how to keep a brain alive in a vat, and making the life-support devices small enough to fit inside the body. It's probably not too difficult; you need to circulate blood, remove carbon dioxide, add oxygen, add glucose. You could probably keep the brain alive indefinitely.
Talk about jumping to conclusions.
"We have a computer that can play chess, which means we'll soon be able to replace humans by AIs" - someone in 1970
> You could probably keep the brain alive indefinitely.
> It's probably not too difficult
Why do 1/3rd to half of people above 85 have Alzheimer's/Parkinson's/Dementia then ?
Software developers have very simplistic and optimistic views about these things, we're very far away from anything remotely close to have you're talking about. The human body is infinitely more complex than what your comment hints
One that I would personally be very interested in would be improving human-computer interactions. Preferably with no quirurgical procedures, or something extremely non-invasive and quick.
Some applications, like digital eyes, which connect directly to the optic nerve, would be first used to cure blindness, but soon people would start replacing their functioning eyes too, if it allows feeding pixels directly into the brain. Same with prosthetics, if they'd be better than biological ones. Then if you have cyborg eyes, arms and legs, why have a biological 'core' which is pretty much useless at this point.
Storing the brain in the body would actually be a bad idea. Human brains could be stored in a warehouse and they'd control robotic bodies remotely. You'd be able to jump into different bodies all over the world, and choose from different form-factors (ant, whale, dragon, etc.) This would actually be easier to implement, because the life-support system for the brain could be larger and consume more energy and other resources. You'd also be able to choose whether you want to live in a simulated world or a physical world through robots.
I think this is where we're quite realistically heading in less than 50 years.
They're exploring the "digital eye" concept you mentioned. Really cool stuff. Probably less than 50 years for the fixing some types of blindness.
I also want some kind of biological USB, that we need years of training to be able to use fast xD
Come on man, I can't believe people do these wild extrapolations out of nothing like this, when every two days an article on HN and a hundred on reddit claim to definitely cure cancer and aids and whatnot
This always seems to be followed by something that demonstrates that the poster did not understand correctly
However, and in the end you'd be bored, because you could get rid of all of your human flaws, which is what makes life interesting. It'd be really depressing and boring to be a superintelligent computer.
And then that would live on in a new environment, becoming something entirely different.
I take it you have never written any large applications or simulations.