Only Humans Can Dance Ballet

In Ray Kurzweil's book , 'The Singularity is Near' there is an illustration that is very telling: (click to enlarge it)



Lets toss a page up on the wall that says: Only humans can dance ballet... and then wonder when it will get torn down off the wall.

The video below is property of Fox Entertainment who retains all rights. It is from Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles and its a mash-up of Cameron who is a Terminator from the future.(Played by the goddess Summer Glau of Firefly/ Serenity fame who incidentally was a prima ballerina before she became an actress.) It treats of the intersection and union of humans and machines and treats - as does the Kurzweil illustration - of the awful, intriguing, awe-inspring question: What's the difference?



So what to do with the look on Reese's face at the very end (at 3:50 - 3:59) of this video? When he sees the Terminator that he hates, dancing ballet - exquisitely.  I am rather of the opinion that all of mankind should be preparing themselves for experiencing the emotions that bring that look to his face.

How long before "Only a human can seduce your daughter" or "Only humans can convince people to become suicide bombers" get torn from the wall and thrown onto the floor?

This video is also property of Fox and is also from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  It's called 'Scary Robot'; but consider which is scarier: The terminator with the knife and the Thermite? or the terminator with the ballet slippers?



We need to be thinking about the singularity. We need to be discussing it. Debating it. At the very least we need to be understanding it. It will be a shame if it surprises us considering how many people are evangelizing the idea.

-j