Raymond Kurzweil, a man of great intelligence beleives in the future humans and machines will become one, this is called the Singularity. The concept of the Singularity is based off the the beleif that computers will become so intelligent that humans will have to merge with the computers just to keep up with progress. An article published by Lev Grossman sums up Kurzweil's idea "[The computer's] rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators." (Grossman 1). So if we were to merge with the machines, would we still be human? Will these future cyborgs resemble what we see as humanity today? Will they still have human emotions, or even look like us? So the real question is how the artificial intelligence will respond to us once it gains conscienceness. "Maybe we'll merge with them to become super-intelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely. Maybe we'll scan our consciousnesses into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us." (Grossman 1). The thought of what could happen is both exciting and frightening. However, if the result ends up a "good" one, will it really be good? Is it worth the cost of loosing our humanity? For example, "Old age is an illness like any other, and what do you do with illnesses? You cure them." (Grossman 3). Would being immortal really be a good thing? Weren't we raised to beleive that death is innevitable? Death is just one thing that makes us human, all humans die eventually, so if we dont die, does that mean we are not human? So my question is what is more important, progress, or preserving what makes us human; is losing our identity as a species worth defying what we thought was impossible?
