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Fujitsu CTO ponders immortality
Nano nano, I’m going to live for ever
CeBIT 2005 Fujitsu’s CTO came over philosophical at CeBIT yesterday, pondering how nano-technology meant some lucky souls could end up being around as long the plastic parts of the PC you’re reading this on.
In a session titled “What’s on the CTO’s mind?”, Joseph Reger speculated on how the coming together of technology and biology may affect what it means to be human.
Nanotechnology raised the possibility of “nano robots” that could be introduced into the human body to do “repair jobs”, he said.
This raises the possibility of “a new era for mankind [even] an era of immortality”, according to Reger.
This throws up all sorts of questions. What will all these half human-half machine decrepitoids do to fill the time? Where will they live? Will they eventually go rusty? Who’s going to pay for all this? Who would want to experience immortality if it means being subjected to endless cable TV re-runs while slowly being submerged under a mountain of non-biodegradable supermarket carrier bags.
Ultimately, it depends what you mean by immortality. After all, the IT industry’s definition of lifetime is rather elastic – look at the average warranty. ®
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