"The Quickening"

[Matthew X]

A draft government report says we will alter human evolution within 20 
years by combining what we know of nanotechnology, biotechnology, IT and 
cognitive sciences. The 405-page report sponsored by the US National 
Science Foundation and Commerce Department, Converging Technologies for 
Improving Human Performance, calls for a broad-based research program to 
improve human performance leading to telepathy, machine-to-human 
communication, amplified personal sensory devices and enhanced intellectual 
capacity.
People may download their consciousnesses into computers or other bodies 
even on the other side of the solar system, or participate in a giant "hive 
mind", a network of intelligences connected through ultra-fast 
communications networks. "With knowledge no longer encapsulated in 
individuals, the distinction between individuals and the entirety of 
humanity would blur," the report says. "Think Vulcan mind-meld. We would 
perhaps become more of a hive mind - an enormous, single, intelligent entity."
Armies may one day be fielded by machines that think for themselves while 
devices will respond to soldiers' commands before their thoughts are fully 
formed, it says. The report says the abilities are within our grasp but 
will require an intense public-relations effort to "prepare key 
organisations and societal activities for the changes made possible by 
converging technologies", and to counter concern over "ethical, legal and 
moral" issues. Education should be overhauled down to the primary-school 
level to bridge curriculum gaps between disparate subject areas.
Professional societies should be open to practitioners from other fields, 
it says. "The success of this convergent-technologies priority area is 
crucial to the future of humanity," the report says. 
wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/Report/NBIC-pre-publication.pdf
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