Research*EU Magazine | Number 51 (April 2016)

Blurring the lines: man meets machine

Summary:

Raymond Kurzweil is probably one of the most inspiring computer scientists and futurists of his generation — with a career paved with head-turning innovations, prestigious awards for his inventions and a place in the US National Inventors Hall of Fame. However, his legacy will mostly be that of a curious prediction: Kurzweil believes that, in around 2045, machines will outsmart people to the point where they can actually improve themselves without any help from their human designers.

According to some theories, that event might actually mark the moment when humans and machines merge with each other. Humans would then be blessed with the likes of eternal life and intellectual and physical capacities beyond imagination. Some 30 years separate us from the potential realisation of this theory. So the question is, are we getting any closer to that point? Are scientific efforts to produce more human-like machines and blur the lines between virtual and ‘real’ reality proving to be fruitful? This edition of the Research*EU magazine is shedding some light on this issue by presenting some of the latest achievements of scientists thanks to EU funding.

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