Live Forever February 21, 2011March 21, 2017 Caveat emptor. Friday’s footnote notwithstanding, that’s pretty much all I remember from three years of Latin. (Cogito, ergo sum. Res ipsa loquitur. Arma virumque cano . . .) But in a few years I may have all the world’s languages implanted in my little brain: KURZWEIL, TELOMERASE, JEOPARDY, 2001 Sue Hoell: ‘Did you see the TIME article on Ray Kurzweil?’ ☞ The basic notion is that in about 35 years computers will have become so fast – and so much smarter than humans – that they will take over their own continuously improved designs and brush us aside (what would they need us for?) or meld with us (who among us would not want a few implanted superpowers?). And (as mentioned here from time to time), we could live forever. (‘In November, researchers at Harvard Medical School announced in Nature that they had . . . administered telomerase to a group of mice suffering from age-related degeneration. The damage went away. The mice didn’t just get better; they got younger.’) Forty-three years ago, the computer HAL (subtract one letter from I and B and M) all but succeeded in brushing aside its human masters in the iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Last week, IBM’s Watson drubbed its human competitors at Jeopardy. Where will we be in 2045? And wouldn’t it be a very good idea to learn to get along with each other in the meantime? Don’t miss this story. Amo amas amat; amamus amatis amant. Ave, atque vale.