Nerding it up on Nanobots

I am going to nerd it up, so feel free to skip it if you like.

I listen to a podcast where weird things are discussed and one of the topics they like to cover is The Singularity. The Singularity is projected to occur within the next 50 years based on the Moore’s Law. One of the key things that may occur in with The Singularity is that our lives may be prolonged indefinitely either through placing out brains in computers or through preserving our bodies.

Currently scientists are developing with nano-bots to do many things such as cure cancer. These are essentially very small robots that can be smaller than your cells.

Lately I have been considering some of these ideas and what they could mean. Some of these thoughts were also influenced by a video game which utilized nano-bots in the human body as part of the story line.

There is a lot of potential with nano-bots in the future. Some of the basic stuff consists of body repair, cures for diseases, reducing/eliminating aging, but I feel that is only scratching the surface. Consider this, what if your brain could be downloaded onto a many nano -bots? These bots would reside distributed  throughout your body and would back up your brain.

Let’s take an extreme example, say you were shot in the head. These nano-bots could keep your organs alive until you were taken to a hospital where you could then be repaired. Forget the hospital, maybe they would be able to able to repair the damage (imagine fast automatic healing like you seen in the movies). The physical damage which occurred to the brain will have destroyed the information stored there (memories etc.). No big deal, the nano-bots will re-install those memories.

With the back up of your knowledge stored in your body there is the potential for loss of some of those nano-bots withthe loss of blood. If these nano-bots could communicate with the internet your brain could be backed up elsewhere so you could be restored no matter what.

Further considering internet access, imagine having all the information on the internet available to your mind any time you needed it. Now you can be like The Matrix and you can “download” kung-fu to your brain.

If you were on a team of any sort, imagine how productive you could be in sharing information. You could complete a project faster or if you are part of a sports team you could communicate where you are with the ball to your teammates immediately.

Going back inside the body, the communication from your brain to other parts could be sped up. Your brain works on electricity but the electricity is transferred chemically which is much slower than normal electricity. Your reaction speed would be 2.5 million times faster or you could solve a problem that much faster.

I am really focusing on the potential of this technology here but there are some concerns including your nano-bots being hacked, privacy of your brain, someone taking over control of the nano-bots, what is considered living, how the soul is involved, morality of enhancing your body, and general morality of the concept.