Washtech.com | The Next Generation: Biotechnology May Make Superhero Fantasy a Reality

...You can also find disagreement about whether the biological revolution or the computer revolution first will lead us to becoming trans-humans.

This weekend in Silicon Valley, Kurzweil is scheduled to debate Gregory Stock, author of "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future," and director of the UCLA Program on Medicine, Technology and Society. Stock foresees "widespread reworking of human biology via genetic engineering -- neither governments nor religious groups will be able to stop this" in the next few decades, says Christine Petersen, president of the Foresight Institute running the program. "Greg sees computer technology as increasingly intelligent, but by and large not integrated with the human body.

"Kurzweil agrees with Stock that the biogenetic changes he foresees will take place, but believes that we will also see profound integration of our biological systems with nonbiological intelligence," enabling routine integration of machines and the brain by 2030. By 2040, the nonbiological portion will be far more powerful than the biological portion: We will have become cyborgs, Kurzweil argues.