That was the title of a famous science-fiction story by Philip K. Dick. In the 1980s, it was made into the movie Blade Runner. But long before that, way back in the now ancient-seeming days of Rod Serling’s original Twilight Zone, it inspired an episode of that series.

Recently, I caught a few episodes of the “Twilight Zone Marathon” on the Sci-Fi Channel. I had no idea why I was watching it; I’ve probably seen every episode of the series at one time or another. However, I’ve learned in my life that many “coincidences” are significant.

The last episode I watched was about an android named “Grandma” who comes to live with three young children. She stays with them until they’re ready for college. She provides for all of their education needs, as well as clothing and feeding them in whatever ways are necessary or helpful. She is the embodiment of selfless love and devotion.

At the end of the episode, Rod Serling mused about whether such a robot might ever exist. He implied that if such a thing were to happen, it would be in the far distant future.

Far distant?

Last year, I “met” the Philip K. Dick robot at the annual NextFest Festival of Technology and Innovation in Chicago. As I explained in a recent e-mail update to my Emerging Capital Report subscribers, this robot displayed sufficiently human mannerisms and facial expressions that it enthralled and captivated the audience. People spent up to an hour waiting in line to meet it. At one moment while watching it converse, I had the eerie impression that I was actually watching a human being.

The gentleman behind the software assured me that the robot converses in the same manner as Mr. Dick about 90% of the time. That, it seems to me, would be sufficient to pass the Turing Test
– a now-famous benchmark by which one can supposedly determine whether machines are truly intelligent or not. The essence of the test is that if you can’t distinguish the party you’re conversing with from a person, for all intents and purposes it is a person.

While I consider that definition to be superficial (Who judges, and how thorough is the test?), the very fact that we’re able to build something that starts to resemble a human being in 2005 gives me confidence that, by the year 2025 at latest, companions such as “Grandma” will be real and probably mass manufactured.

In this world of transient relationships, ever more rapid change and great uncertainty, I expect that many people will take great comfort from having an unconditionally loving, extremely wise companion who stays with them from birth to death (in the Twilight Zone, Grandma had to leave when the kids went off to college. In real life, there’s no reason why that would be so).

On the other hand, advances in life extension now blossoming from laboratories such as University of California San Francisco’s Dr. Cynthia Kenyon are such that serious scientists now agree that physical immortality may soon be attainable. (Check out her company, ElixirPharm.com.)

Some of these advances are already commercially available. Our Transformational Technologies Portfolio holding Lifeline (LFLT.OB: OTC BB) has developed a pill that extends healthy lifespan 20% in rodents and appears to do the same for people. It’s based on a breakthrough from the University of Colorado’s Webb Waring Institute for Antioxidant Research.

Other supplements have shown remarkable promise in dealing with atherosclerosis, cancer and other serious conditions. A product with the exotic name Maharishi Amrit Kalash has been proven in multiple university studies to benefit all these conditions and more. (Visit MAPI.com. Note that neither Agora nor I have any financial interest in this company.)

Meanwhile, I’m watching a couple of small companies that are making great progress in developing commercially available intelligent robotics. One of these may soon become a Transformational Technologies Pick of the Month.

To your profitable future,

Jonathan Kolber
August 09, 2006

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