In Transcendence out Friday and directed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight) Johnny Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, an artificial-intelligence researcher who has spent his career trying to design a sentient computer that can hold, and even exceed, the worlds collective intelligence. <\/p>\n
After hes shot by antitechnology activists, his consciousness is uploaded to a computer network just before his body dies. A few years in, Depp-as-computer has developed the ability to heal people while networking their consciousness into his. As Wills powers threaten to overwhelm the world, those on the outside debate whether he should be regarded as mankinds savior or its downfall. <\/p>\n
While the film is science fiction, its technological milestones are based on real scientific theories and advances that could well happen, possibly in our lifetimes. Many scientists believe that the worlds aggregate computing intelligence will eventually eclipse the sum of all human knowledge. At that point, the worlds computers could become sentient, growing independent of us and operating on their own. <\/p>\n
Heres a look at how and how soon it could happen. <\/p>\n
The theories associated with the film say that when a strong artificial intelligence wakes up, it will quickly become more intelligent than a human being, screenwriter Jack Paglen says, referring to a concept known as the singularity. <\/p>\n
In the film, the path toward the singularity occurs not organically, via evolving computer intelligence, but by the intentional copying of Wills brain. <\/p>\n
Efforts toward making this a real-life possibility have accelerated of late. In February, President Obama announced a billion-dollar effort to map out the human brain which could lead to cures for scores of diseases and the European Union has a similar effort underway. <\/p>\n
There are people working on mapping the human brain right now, says Pfister. A neurobiologist at Caltech thinks well be able to map a human brain and possibly duplicate it [in about] 30 years. <\/p>\n
Later in the film, as Wills powers grow, he begins to pull off fantastic achievements, including giving a blind man sight, regenerating his own body and spreading his power to the water and the air. <\/p>\n
This conjecture was influenced by nanotechnology, the field of manipulating matter at the scale of a nanometer, or one-billionth of a meter. (By comparison, a human hair is around 70,000-100,000 nanometers wide.) <\/p>\n
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Transcendence provokes talks for brain mapping innovation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Transcendence out Friday and directed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight) Johnny Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, an artificial-intelligence researcher who has spent his career trying to design a sentient computer that can hold, and even exceed, the worlds collective intelligence. After hes shot by antitechnology activists, his consciousness is uploaded to a computer network just before his body dies Continue reading