Documenting the Coming Singularity

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Multiple Personalities: It's Not a Disorder Anymore

I hope you've had a chance to watch Ray Kurzweil's presentation on yesterday's post. My interest was piqued by several things he mentioned. (I wish I could think about them all at the same time, but possessing that kind of capability will have to wait for some heavy duty augmentation.) One thing in particular got a good grasp on my attention. Ray spent about 2 seconds on the idea that technological advances in virtual reality and artificial intelligence will allow me to create several virtual personalities to perform the routine transactions made necessary by modern life.

Consider the massive increase in my productivity when I can create these personalities at will and dispatch them out into the world to take care of the mundane tasks that I, Barry Prime, am simply too busy to bother with. Barry-23 could appear and record the presentations delivered at a B-list event. Barry-51 would be available to open a new bank account to store my newly acquired wealth. And so on.

Each one would be built on a single template and given specific instructions and knowledge for the task at hand. Once the task was completed and the results transmitted to me, the VP (virtual personality) could be saved and stored or erased. (Here we run into those sticky ethical considerations I posted about earlier.) I could go to meetings, start business ventures, search for and acquire data, all at the same time. My people could meet with your people. Finally I would have people. Sweet.

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