Word: stainless
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Scientists working with artificial intelligence have a fantasy -- who knows if it is more than that? -- that eventually all the contents of the human brain, a life, can be gradually emptied into a brilliant, nondecaying, stainless, deathless sort of robotic personoid. And when the transfer of all the vast and intricately nuanced matter of the mind and soul has been accomplished, the memories of the cells etched onto microchips, the human body, having been replicated in a better container, will be allowed to wither...
Will evil be transferred along with good and installed in the stainless personoid? Or can the scientists sift the soul through a kind of electronic cheesecloth and remove all the ancient evil traces, the reptilian brain, the lashing violence, the tribal hatred, the will to murder? Will the killer be strained out of the soul? Will the inheritance of Cain be left to wither and die with the human husk, the useless flesh...
...will grace and love, evil's enemies, wither too? The question goes back to the Garden. Does the good become meaningless in a world without evil? Do the angels depart along with the devils? If the stainless canister knows nothing of evil, will Mozart sound the same to it as gunfire...
...When I entered this field 17 years ago, we had only low technology: drab, durable medical equipment mostly made of stainless steel," says Jan Galvin, director of assistive technology at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington. "In the past five years, there has been a real explosion of devices, and the next 10 years will be really amazing. This technology is changing everything, and not just for people with disabilities. By the year 2000, we will all be talking into our word processors instead of typing...