Artificial retinas are under development, and signals have successfully been passed back and forth between a neuron in vitro and a field effect transistor. The researchers suggest the next step is to connect up an array of neurons and electronic components. The dawn of the new millennium will see the ability to use engineered viruses to alter the genetic structure of any cell, even adult, differentiated cells. This will give us pervasive control over our physiology and morphology. The abolition of aging and most involuntary death will be one result.
Immortality is next.
Some machine intelligence researchers, roboticists, and cognitive scientists foresee even more radical posthuman possibilities. Running on new hardware, perhaps connectionist nanocomputers, our mental processes could run up to a million times faster, and should admit of far easier and more extensive modification than allowed by our natural brains. To ask these questions is almost to answer them. The hypothetical questioner sounds timid, cringing, or self-satisfied. The Enlightenment and the humanist perspective assure us that progress is possible, that life is a grand adventure, and that reason, science, and good will can free us from the confines of the past.