Closing the circle of information technology

research in physics, chemistry, and mathematics nourishes progress in medicine and health, we can hardly imagine what shape the advances will take. But we can be sure that, coupled with the power of information technology, they will dwarf those of the 20th century , or even those through all of human history. We already have experimental nanochips that simulate the electrical activity of a normal nerve synapse by letting nerve axons regrow through the chip. We imagine implanting a chip in the brain, directly in those areas where intention resides. Thus, we would be able to bypass the areas of muscular control. Such a confluence of microelectronics and neural research holds great promise for improving the operation of artificial limbs, or even for bypassing spinal-cord injuries, creating hope that a paraplegic may walk again. Even for some types of mental illness, we can imagine a computer implant that might provide the missing neurological circuitry necessary for normal brain functioning. In my research in the field of environment and health, computing has already brought us to the threshold of being able to predict epidemics of cholera and other diseases. We are beginning to have at our fingertips information about emerging diseases as they are identified. We can now track the progress of these diseases from Information technology has already penetrated and transformed research in science and technology so fundamentally that younger generations will not know what it was like before the computing revolution. My own career as a microbiologist exploring the linkages between environment and health has paralleled this transformation. My own research experience has given me a deep respect for the power of computing to propel us on to new discoveries in all research disciplines. As this revolution continues, I have very high hopes for the potential of information technology. ity—being able to " live and communicate " forever. We believe along with Ray Kurzweil, Hans Morovec, and others, that it is likely there will be more and more faithful avatars over the next century. By 2040, Morovec predicts robots will be as smart as humans. Successive generations of question-answering avatars will gradually become indistinguishable from the actual persons we know and love in 2001, enabling that person to appear to " live forever. " Gordon Bell (gbell@Microsoft.com) is a senior researcher at Microsoft, Redmond, WA. He is also a member of Communications' Advisory Board.) We believe that two-way immortality, …