August 2024 – Page 7 – Our Awesome Universe

Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews futurist Ray Kurzweil in this repeat StarTalk episode from November 2022 titled “Could We Someday Liver Forever? With Ray Kurzweil.” It is a heavy conversation about living forever as we integrate technology even more into our lives. Throughout the conversation Neil makes reference to a book coming out in 2023. In fact, the book came out in June of this year, which is probably why the episode is available again.

Here is a description of the new book from the publisher:

In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and “After Life” technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.

The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil’s crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come.

You will want listen to the podcast interview, and afterward you might even want to pick up the book.

^{Image (Credit): JWST’s view of exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, E. Matthews (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy))}

This week’s image looks dark and simple, and yet it is an amazing sight provided by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows a directly imaged exoplanets that resides about 12 light-years from us. It is called Epsilon Indi Ab and is several times the mass of Jupiter.

Here is an explanation from NASA about what you are seeing in the image:

This image of the gas-giant exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab was taken with the on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument). A star symbol marks the location of the host star Epsilon Indi A, whose light has been blocked by the coronagraph, resulting in the dark circle marked with a dashed white line. Epsilon Indi Ab is one of the coldest exoplanets ever directly imaged. Light at 10.6 microns was assigned the color blue, while light at 15.5 microns was assigned the color orange. MIRI did not resolve the planet, which is a point source.