Next Big Future: Analyzing the Edge 2009 Question and Answers
GoatGuy
· 11 months ago
Were I a science fiction writer, there certainly is a lot of grist for the old mill here.
A couple of thoughts ... on a couple of thoughts ...
Artificial cognition, interfaces to our own wetware, cognitive immortality, cognitive (trans)portability :==: All very interesting, based on a belief (which I find just astoundingly myopic) that by very, very closely modelling the actions of our neurons, that we can make computational systems that at (one must assume) the height of our engineering modelling, reproduce or even exceed the full intellectual capacity of the human brain, the human mind, to cognate.
Also, the lemma that once the computational fabric of the mind is worked out, that it then becomes possible to map one's mind-essence either into an electronic memory store - to be RESTORED just like a tape backup of a network server - or to be mapped onto another person's assortment of neurons in a way giving rise to dual personalities, personality-putsches, and the like.
Let's just remember one key thing: our current set of tools used to understand the brain is on the order of complexity as a pygmy with a hammer and a full bladder peeing on the ground whereever he happens to destroy some (for him) unimaginably complex chip inside the Blue Gene computer, and a light somewhere flickers in response. Oh yes, one must recall the breathless divinity of the researchers who have claimed to freeze the itty-bitty neuron mass of a fruit fly, then shave it into sub-micron thick frozen sections with a microtome, then with exceedingly care, tickle out all the interconnections of all the neurons, one by one. Yes, to the brightest pygmy with the smallest hammer, he too would feel that he would be teasing out the means by which the Blue Gene was doing its computing ... but I hate to tell him ... Uh, no. You're still just breaking the chips, pal. You don't have the first inkling as to how they're actualy working in any level of detail.
Further, we must remember that no matter what, ALL of my neurons are hooked up to each other in ways statistically certainly different from how yours are hooked up. All those tiny synapses have formed, unformed, reformed, propagated, apoptotically died ... I've gotten konked on the noggin falling off bicycles as a kid, fighting with my idiot cousins. I've run into things, had dibilitating colds that ruined my balance ... but it seemingly grew back after awhile.
I mean, let's be real! Except that generally most non-color blind people agree that "red" is "red", do we have even a single test that can, on an absolute scale, say that two people, let alone a bear and a goat, at the hardware level perceive "red" in the same approximate way? Some people for Cripes sakes even "hear" and "taste" color. It just boggles me to think that we have the projective certainty to think that with our million dollar neural sledge hammers and fvcking KNIVES, figure out how more than a handful of neurons work, let alone how the "brain" of a fruit fly works to the degree where a synthetic analog of it can be put to work ... as a fruit fly.
OTHER ITEMS in the list are better.
I especially like those that prosaically call for us escaping "the gravity well" and so on. Yes, these are important goals, and should really be at the focus of our enterprise. Even if the first serious project is an equatorial 'mass launcher' to lob "SpacEx" packages of tools, raw materials, DVDs and Playboy magazines to those poor sots locked in their vacuum cans ... even that would be a big bene.
Other things would be inventing whatever technologies necessary (which may include mundane mechanical robotics) to be able to "charge" or "fill" the batteries of electric vehicles in minutes, just as a filling station's machinations today suffice. Who says the batteries, for instance, need to be bolted to the car? If the batteries in my digital camera, my laptop, my Makita drill and my cell phone are replaceable - by mere mortals - then why the heck can't the industry standardize on an undercarriage accessible battery that is robotically opened, emptied of its contents, and refilled with "full up" cells? Geez, folks ... we make the amazing contraptions called washer-dryers available at Sears for less than $1000 ... is it all that outlandish that all electric vehicles should have trivially accessible trap-doors to release the standardized, giant version of Makita batteries so that the cars can be "recharged" in minutes?
Drugs to extend life, to reverse ageing, to do all sorts of repair - these are great. However, ... be careful of what we wish for. You want to retire "under drugs" at age 175, only to make it to 200? You see what I'm getting at: in our spiral for non-replacement and mortality avoidance, unless we develop armies of happy, mindful robots to do not just most, but all of the bidding of the immortal overseers, well, we'll have to work for a mighty long set of years to "afford" retirement.
I, for one, don't think much of this is going to happen soon.
Though, if I were King ... I'd certainly mandate that the automotive and electronic industry standardize on at most 4 different kinds of chainable, mechanically replaceable battery packs. That, and I'd mandate that the battery replacement stations be placed on all public roads within 50 miles of the most inaccessible location, just as today's gasoline delivery stations are so placed. Yes, they wouldn't get used much to begin with, but with such a STANDARDS oriented mandate, it would be very, very easy for the car-making industries of this planet to adopt the standards, and make electric vehicles that would not only make a huge difference to our planet, but which would be easily adopted by the public. You wouldn't have to worry about getting a hydrocarbon burner for long trips, vacations, or much of anything. The IEEE MotoCell approach would ensure you'd always have access to power.
BTW ... one great spinoff would be that the MotoCell battery stations would be operator-less for the most part, so could be as accessible as bank ATM machines, 24 hours a day. Also ... in the windier parts of the country, the could be connected without long transmission lines to their own farms, close by. Or photovoltaic cell arrays ... and enough extra MotoCells so that the "reserve" or "cache" supply could be topped off every sunny day.
The statistical weighting of the connection between neurons can be physically seen in the synapse. Either the synapse core bundles are hollow or are not hollow. got this info from the IBM brain researcher. the strength of each and every synapse connection can be seen physically. So the level of analysis is possible and does tell us something.
Thus it may not be unreasonable that the neuron, synapse level of emulation might achieve the result. But the roadmap has deeper level of emulation if that proves to be insufficient.
Brute force could work and will have more and more interesting results especially when integrated with mobile robotics with sensors.
I prefer to think about productive tasks either replacement of human for tasks or enhancement of human in a task. Robotic / AI driving and flying that is better than human. Integrate into a system that works with what we can build.
Look at the list of jobs and see where AI could positively alter the world.
Automate control of transportation (moving stuff here and there/truck drivers, pilots). Save 1.2 million lives/year from traffic accidents if we get this system right. Make things more productive.
Already replacing retail tellers. bank tellers, etc...
Retirement is a social economic construct. There is nothing that says that society much have it.
GoatGuy
· 11 months ago
Yes, that which you cite is so.
There are some aspects though which no matter how strong the IBM researcher's evidence is, remain decidedly in the domain of 'characterizing pebbles'. For instance, I'm sure the science isn't at the point - or even envisioned within decades - to where the "red" associating neurons could be found without a live subject under the knife to 'try and see'.
That, is my point, really. While there are uncontrovertibly "red" and "grandmother" and "smells like tomatoes" neurons, they neither have convenient labels, nor are their interconnections apparent without destroying the brain itself, irrevocably. Indeed, even if destroyed, it isn't probable that the "smells like tomatoes" neuron would ever be identified. Heck, we can't really even say with plausible authority why all of the various proteins encoded in DNA are coded the way they are, and do what they do, in concert with all the others. By comparison to brain-mapping, they're bloody trivial!
AI, on the other hand, NOT modelled after billions of neurons and potentially trillions of synapses ... but on the logic that we can tease out of what we do on a subjective level - is likely where your assertions of utility are correct. AI in transportation ... would be a great thing. It has to come really, really inexpensively though, before its implementation is widespread. Tellers may be being replaced, but "not really", just the more mundane functions they formerly were asked to perform.
Also - and I know it seems pedantic - but I rail at the idea that "brute force" is the enterprise of computer scientists, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and physical biologists in just "emulating externally" what an arbitrary neural system (such as a fruit fly) does. I think in many regards it is the very opposite: emulation at the high level is refined, delicate, scientific, logical, and parametrically mouldable. Emulation of interconnected neurons ... now THAT is brute force. "Let's put trillions of OPS behind emulating thousands of neurons, and lo! We have a fruit fly!" ... without eyes, without snout, without well, most everything. A fruit fly indeed.
RETIREMENT ... is a social construct - recognizing that the four phases of life are sweet when the realities of the psyche are accomodated. Youth is fairly psychotic, and the young are protected, allowed to learn, to experience, and not be held too accountable for their aberrations. Early adulthood finds its members driven to achieve, to better themselves, to make use of what their youth learned and experienced. Post-children adulthood is reflective, eventually acknowledging the failings of ageing - diminished vitality, desire for simplicity, shedding of complex social pathologies, living with pains, looking for rest. Senescence ... is the all but inevitable graceful fading of enterprise, faculty, acuity, and instead the blossoming of philosophy, enjoyment of the simple, recounting of the past, mastering (or just not thinking about) eventual death.
Retirement as society's convenent to the aged, to you, may be a social economic construct, yet it is a convention that all civilisations and societies have embraced, from prehistory until the present. Children are protected not because they're cute, but because we embody a social covenant recognizing that they are, as we were, "next" ... and their future, as was ours, will possibly be improved by the covenant of tolerance, love, leadership and responsibility that we give them. In just the same way, the pervasive "golden ring" of senescence is the covenant between the working class and our elders, recognizing that they helped us, and us in turn are morally and ethically responsible to return the favor, either individually or collectively, as their acuity and sensibilities begin to crumble.
This covenant IS civilization, good moderator. Living to one hundred and ninety seven is too? It depends. If we live to 200, and in full faculty inside a youthful corpus, if we retain our cognition, our drive, our striving to better our condition ... if (almost frighteningly) we retain our ability to conceive more children, or say they're delivered by FedEx from the genetic screening baby factory ... for as long as we like ... then the whole social construct changes, to be sure. Yet, somehow, I cannot see us wanting to cure 'the decline of ageing'. It may not appeal to youth, yet from my experience with our large family of elders ... they all grew to enjoy it and its tiny little bowls of fruits-of-their-investment.
Well ... that was more philosophical than I thought I would venture.
But I also agree with you: the "AI in your pocket" is really what we will need, will use, and will become as ubiquitous as cellphones and our army of gadgets. I, for one, can't wait for the day I can get the "Alice" AI for my 17th upgraded PDA/cell phone ... which has the "brains" and bearing of your basic office secretary. I can't wait to have a conversation with "her", where she learns what I want, what I don't want, and the colloquial way that it all comes across.
GoatGuy
nextbigfuture
· 11 months ago
Retirement has not been embraced since pre-history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement In most countries, the idea of a fixed retirement age is of recent origin, being introduced during the 19th and 20th centuries. Previously, the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until death, or relied on personal savings or the support of family or friends.
There has been the idea of respecting elders in some societies and for children and grandchildren to share in helping out elders who were no longer able to work. It was family, tribe and community support, which was not absolute or universal or even the dominant situation.
Which shows that in most of olden times things were pretty bad if you were elderly, frail or both.
============
BTW: my model would be to achieve financial and technological and actuarial escape velocity, Financial escape velocity is where a person has enough money so that work is optional regardless of age and regardless of how many years they have left. When I personally reach the work is optional stage, I still expect to work and contribute but it will be on my own terms and focused on high risk/high return projects that can change the world.
Yes ... you're right ... things were worse back then. The cycles of societal and civilisational "progress" are reflected in the ideals of one's life mission. We today live very much like the nobility of old ... hot and cold water, soap, a panoply of foods, drink, entertainment, education, medicines, aided by machines, technologies, logic and maths. Fantastic communication, limitless access to the repositories of knowledge and literature.
Which of course both is, and is not the point. I'm trying to make the point that civilisation always has a more noble vision of the future, an ideal, eutopia (old spelling) - the good place to wish for. The vision has been nearly universal, but obviously not attainable until the 20th century. Living "happily ever after" supposedly dates to antiquity.
Of course people couldn't pine for "retirement" when the average lifespan of a pre-Hellenic adult was 35 years of age. The cold knife of demographics, lack of real science, applicable technology and comprehensive knowledge kept people from living to senescence.
In prehistory, only the rarest person would survive until their 60's. Incredibly rare. Yet if you will allow the nations of America's native tribes to be "modern pre-history" folks, they most certainly did have great respect for the ancients among them. Living gods, walking. Similarly, with the peoples of Africa ... which until both were inculcated with the trappings of western civilisation were as near as you could get to a snapshot of the Stone Age.
Well, I for one hope that a society bequethed with double or triple lifespans, and say "near perfect health until death" doesn't allow at least some of a long life's fruits be realized as a period of retirement. For "retirement" need not be growing fat in front of the TV eating Doritos ... it can be a whole lot more, and in fact can be the era when much of what a person hoped - but had no time - to do ... is finally engaged.
GoatGuy
Tom_Craver
· 11 months ago
Hi Brian. I don't expect my thoughts on likelihood or impact to be especially prescient. But note that when I specify a likelihood, it's a likelihood of the particular item having a "world changing" impact, not just of it becoming possible.
For example, developing synthetic life isn't world-changing in itself (well, maybe in how it impacts some people's beliefs or some such, but I focused on more practical measures). I figure synthetic life will continue making good advances, but will take a while yet in development and in finding applications where it provides unique value - and then because of its nature, it may be slower to roll-out due to regulatory issues and caution on the part of the developers. So I put it out at 20 years. I didn't try to get more precise than 5, 10 or 20 years.
Stem cell tech, I agree, is already shaping up for nearer term application - but I'd count it as "world changing" only at the point where it starts to become a common and successful treatment for problems - brain damage, organ replacements, etc. Not at the point it becomes technically possible, but at the point it'll actually be changing the world. So to me, if it is successfully applied to treating Alzheimers in a clinical test, that's not yet world changing. When approved for general treatment of Alzheimer's patients, it changes the world in a significant way. My best quess was that we're still 10 years from that point, due to further research and then the usual medical regulatory delays.
TomC
boarding
· 8 months ago
Nice one, i just loved it, keep posting stuff like this!
All Comments
A couple of thoughts ... on a couple of thoughts ...
Artificial cognition, interfaces to our own wetware, cognitive immortality, cognitive (trans)portability :==: All very interesting, based on a belief (which I find just astoundingly myopic) that by very, very closely modelling the actions of our neurons, that we can make computational systems that at (one must assume) the height of our engineering modelling, reproduce or even exceed the full intellectual capacity of the human brain, the human mind, to cognate.
Also, the lemma that once the computational fabric of the mind is worked out, that it then becomes possible to map one's mind-essence either into an electronic memory store - to be RESTORED just like a tape backup of a network server - or to be mapped onto another person's assortment of neurons in a way giving rise to dual personalities, personality-putsches, and the like.
Let's just remember one key thing: our current set of tools used to understand the brain is on the order of complexity as a pygmy with a hammer and a full bladder peeing on the ground whereever he happens to destroy some (for him) unimaginably complex chip inside the Blue Gene computer, and a light somewhere flickers in response. Oh yes, one must recall the breathless divinity of the researchers who have claimed to freeze the itty-bitty neuron mass of a fruit fly, then shave it into sub-micron thick frozen sections with a microtome, then with exceedingly care, tickle out all the interconnections of all the neurons, one by one. Yes, to the brightest pygmy with the smallest hammer, he too would feel that he would be teasing out the means by which the Blue Gene was doing its computing ... but I hate to tell him ... Uh, no. You're still just breaking the chips, pal. You don't have the first inkling as to how they're actualy working in any level of detail.
Further, we must remember that no matter what, ALL of my neurons are hooked up to each other in ways statistically certainly different from how yours are hooked up. All those tiny synapses have formed, unformed, reformed, propagated, apoptotically died ... I've gotten konked on the noggin falling off bicycles as a kid, fighting with my idiot cousins. I've run into things, had dibilitating colds that ruined my balance ... but it seemingly grew back after awhile.
I mean, let's be real! Except that generally most non-color blind people agree that "red" is "red", do we have even a single test that can, on an absolute scale, say that two people, let alone a bear and a goat, at the hardware level perceive "red" in the same approximate way? Some people for Cripes sakes even "hear" and "taste" color. It just boggles me to think that we have the projective certainty to think that with our million dollar neural sledge hammers and fvcking KNIVES, figure out how more than a handful of neurons work, let alone how the "brain" of a fruit fly works to the degree where a synthetic analog of it can be put to work ... as a fruit fly.
OTHER ITEMS in the list are better.
I especially like those that prosaically call for us escaping "the gravity well" and so on. Yes, these are important goals, and should really be at the focus of our enterprise. Even if the first serious project is an equatorial 'mass launcher' to lob "SpacEx" packages of tools, raw materials, DVDs and Playboy magazines to those poor sots locked in their vacuum cans ... even that would be a big bene.
Other things would be inventing whatever technologies necessary (which may include mundane mechanical robotics) to be able to "charge" or "fill" the batteries of electric vehicles in minutes, just as a filling station's machinations today suffice. Who says the batteries, for instance, need to be bolted to the car? If the batteries in my digital camera, my laptop, my Makita drill and my cell phone are replaceable - by mere mortals - then why the heck can't the industry standardize on an undercarriage accessible battery that is robotically opened, emptied of its contents, and refilled with "full up" cells? Geez, folks ... we make the amazing contraptions called washer-dryers available at Sears for less than $1000 ... is it all that outlandish that all electric vehicles should have trivially accessible trap-doors to release the standardized, giant version of Makita batteries so that the cars can be "recharged" in minutes?
Drugs to extend life, to reverse ageing, to do all sorts of repair - these are great. However, ... be careful of what we wish for. You want to retire "under drugs" at age 175, only to make it to 200? You see what I'm getting at: in our spiral for non-replacement and mortality avoidance, unless we develop armies of happy, mindful robots to do not just most, but all of the bidding of the immortal overseers, well, we'll have to work for a mighty long set of years to "afford" retirement.
I, for one, don't think much of this is going to happen soon.
Though, if I were King ... I'd certainly mandate that the automotive and electronic industry standardize on at most 4 different kinds of chainable, mechanically replaceable battery packs. That, and I'd mandate that the battery replacement stations be placed on all public roads within 50 miles of the most inaccessible location, just as today's gasoline delivery stations are so placed. Yes, they wouldn't get used much to begin with, but with such a STANDARDS oriented mandate, it would be very, very easy for the car-making industries of this planet to adopt the standards, and make electric vehicles that would not only make a huge difference to our planet, but which would be easily adopted by the public. You wouldn't have to worry about getting a hydrocarbon burner for long trips, vacations, or much of anything. The IEEE MotoCell approach would ensure you'd always have access to power.
BTW ... one great spinoff would be that the MotoCell battery stations would be operator-less for the most part, so could be as accessible as bank ATM machines, 24 hours a day. Also ... in the windier parts of the country, the could be connected without long transmission lines to their own farms, close by. Or photovoltaic cell arrays ... and enough extra MotoCells so that the "reserve" or "cache" supply could be topped off every sunny day.
GoatGuy
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/10/singularity-su...
The statistical weighting of the connection between neurons can be physically seen in the synapse. Either the synapse core bundles are hollow or are not hollow. got this info from the IBM brain researcher. the strength of each and every synapse connection can be seen physically. So the level of analysis is possible and does tell us something.
Thus it may not be unreasonable that the neuron, synapse level of emulation might achieve the result. But the roadmap has deeper level of emulation if that proves to be insufficient.
Brute force could work and will have more and more interesting results especially when integrated with mobile robotics with sensors.
I prefer to think about productive tasks either replacement of human for tasks or enhancement of human in a task.
Robotic / AI driving and flying that is better than human. Integrate into a system that works with what we can build.
Look at the list of jobs and see where AI could positively alter the world.
Automate control of transportation (moving stuff here and there/truck drivers, pilots). Save 1.2 million lives/year from traffic accidents if we get this system right. Make things more productive.
Already replacing retail tellers. bank tellers, etc...
Retirement is a social economic construct. There is nothing that says that society much have it.
There are some aspects though which no matter how strong the IBM researcher's evidence is, remain decidedly in the domain of 'characterizing pebbles'. For instance, I'm sure the science isn't at the point - or even envisioned within decades - to where the "red" associating neurons could be found without a live subject under the knife to 'try and see'.
That, is my point, really. While there are uncontrovertibly "red" and "grandmother" and "smells like tomatoes" neurons, they neither have convenient labels, nor are their interconnections apparent without destroying the brain itself, irrevocably. Indeed, even if destroyed, it isn't probable that the "smells like tomatoes" neuron would ever be identified. Heck, we can't really even say with plausible authority why all of the various proteins encoded in DNA are coded the way they are, and do what they do, in concert with all the others. By comparison to brain-mapping, they're bloody trivial!
AI, on the other hand, NOT modelled after billions of neurons and potentially trillions of synapses ... but on the logic that we can tease out of what we do on a subjective level - is likely where your assertions of utility are correct. AI in transportation ... would be a great thing. It has to come really, really inexpensively though, before its implementation is widespread. Tellers may be being replaced, but "not really", just the more mundane functions they formerly were asked to perform.
Also - and I know it seems pedantic - but I rail at the idea that "brute force" is the enterprise of computer scientists, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers and physical biologists in just "emulating externally" what an arbitrary neural system (such as a fruit fly) does. I think in many regards it is the very opposite: emulation at the high level is refined, delicate, scientific, logical, and parametrically mouldable. Emulation of interconnected neurons ... now THAT is brute force. "Let's put trillions of OPS behind emulating thousands of neurons, and lo! We have a fruit fly!" ... without eyes, without snout, without well, most everything. A fruit fly indeed.
RETIREMENT ... is a social construct - recognizing that the four phases of life are sweet when the realities of the psyche are accomodated. Youth is fairly psychotic, and the young are protected, allowed to learn, to experience, and not be held too accountable for their aberrations. Early adulthood finds its members driven to achieve, to better themselves, to make use of what their youth learned and experienced. Post-children adulthood is reflective, eventually acknowledging the failings of ageing - diminished vitality, desire for simplicity, shedding of complex social pathologies, living with pains, looking for rest. Senescence ... is the all but inevitable graceful fading of enterprise, faculty, acuity, and instead the blossoming of philosophy, enjoyment of the simple, recounting of the past, mastering (or just not thinking about) eventual death.
Retirement as society's convenent to the aged, to you, may be a social economic construct, yet it is a convention that all civilisations and societies have embraced, from prehistory until the present. Children are protected not because they're cute, but because we embody a social covenant recognizing that they are, as we were, "next" ... and their future, as was ours, will possibly be improved by the covenant of tolerance, love, leadership and responsibility that we give them. In just the same way, the pervasive "golden ring" of senescence is the covenant between the working class and our elders, recognizing that they helped us, and us in turn are morally and ethically responsible to return the favor, either individually or collectively, as their acuity and sensibilities begin to crumble.
This covenant IS civilization, good moderator. Living to one hundred and ninety seven is too? It depends. If we live to 200, and in full faculty inside a youthful corpus, if we retain our cognition, our drive, our striving to better our condition ... if (almost frighteningly) we retain our ability to conceive more children, or say they're delivered by FedEx from the genetic screening baby factory ... for as long as we like ... then the whole social construct changes, to be sure. Yet, somehow, I cannot see us wanting to cure 'the decline of ageing'. It may not appeal to youth, yet from my experience with our large family of elders ... they all grew to enjoy it and its tiny little bowls of fruits-of-their-investment.
Well ... that was more philosophical than I thought I would venture.
But I also agree with you: the "AI in your pocket" is really what we will need, will use, and will become as ubiquitous as cellphones and our army of gadgets. I, for one, can't wait for the day I can get the "Alice" AI for my 17th upgraded PDA/cell phone ... which has the "brains" and bearing of your basic office secretary. I can't wait to have a conversation with "her", where she learns what I want, what I don't want, and the colloquial way that it all comes across.
GoatGuy
The history of retirement
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/short.retire...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement
In most countries, the idea of a fixed retirement age is of recent origin, being introduced during the 19th and 20th centuries. Previously, the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until death, or relied on personal savings or the support of family or friends.
History of social security
http://www.ssa.gov/history/pdf/histdev.pdf
There has been the idea of respecting elders in some societies and for children and grandchildren to share in helping out elders who were no longer able to work. It was family, tribe and community support, which was not absolute or universal or even the dominant situation.
there is also the history of insurance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_insurance
Here is a google book on geronticide
http://books.google.com/books?id=SvqBZGNubRsC&p...
Which shows that in most of olden times things were pretty bad if you were elderly, frail or both.
============
BTW: my model would be to achieve financial and technological and actuarial escape velocity, Financial escape velocity is where a person has enough money so that work is optional regardless of age and regardless of how many years they have left. When I personally reach the work is optional stage, I still expect to work and contribute but it will be on my own terms and focused on high risk/high return projects that can change the world.
About 100,000 to 1 million such people in the world now
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/06/rich-still-got...
Actuarial escape velocity
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/9904usle/
This goal is known as actuarial escape velocity, the point at which our life is moving faster than the approach of age-related degeneration and death.
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?reque...
Technological escape velocity would be achieving a mundane singularity or greater
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/10/update-of-mund...
Which of course both is, and is not the point. I'm trying to make the point that civilisation always has a more noble vision of the future, an ideal, eutopia (old spelling) - the good place to wish for. The vision has been nearly universal, but obviously not attainable until the 20th century. Living "happily ever after" supposedly dates to antiquity.
Of course people couldn't pine for "retirement" when the average lifespan of a pre-Hellenic adult was 35 years of age. The cold knife of demographics, lack of real science, applicable technology and comprehensive knowledge kept people from living to senescence.
In prehistory, only the rarest person would survive until their 60's. Incredibly rare. Yet if you will allow the nations of America's native tribes to be "modern pre-history" folks, they most certainly did have great respect for the ancients among them. Living gods, walking. Similarly, with the peoples of Africa ... which until both were inculcated with the trappings of western civilisation were as near as you could get to a snapshot of the Stone Age.
Well, I for one hope that a society bequethed with double or triple lifespans, and say "near perfect health until death" doesn't allow at least some of a long life's fruits be realized as a period of retirement. For "retirement" need not be growing fat in front of the TV eating Doritos ... it can be a whole lot more, and in fact can be the era when much of what a person hoped - but had no time - to do ... is finally engaged.
GoatGuy
For example, developing synthetic life isn't world-changing in itself (well, maybe in how it impacts some people's beliefs or some such, but I focused on more practical measures). I figure synthetic life will continue making good advances, but will take a while yet in development and in finding applications where it provides unique value - and then because of its nature, it may be slower to roll-out due to regulatory issues and caution on the part of the developers. So I put it out at 20 years. I didn't try to get more precise than 5, 10 or 20 years.
Stem cell tech, I agree, is already shaping up for nearer term application - but I'd count it as "world changing" only at the point where it starts to become a common and successful treatment for problems - brain damage, organ replacements, etc. Not at the point it becomes technically possible, but at the point it'll actually be changing the world. So to me, if it is successfully applied to treating Alzheimers in a clinical test, that's not yet world changing. When approved for general treatment of Alzheimer's patients, it changes the world in a significant way. My best quess was that we're still 10 years from that point, due to further research and then the usual medical regulatory delays.
TomC