Horizon: Human 2.0

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Horizon: Human 2.0 - Part 2

Horizon is the BBC's flagship science documentary. It consists of an extremely numerous collection of documentaries, still being produced at a rate of several per year, and each of which attempt to investigate the hard questions on a pressing topic in science or technology. They speak to experts in the field, and garner as much research and demonstration as possible, for an intellectual audience.

The documentary entitled Human 2.0 is a long look at the near-future for the human condition, taking views from futurists and technologists, examining current research aimed at expanding what it means to be human. The documentary was broadcast on 24 October 2006, so some aspectss are now behind the bleeding edge of research by quite a ways.

Because the BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation - is a government run institution, and because of the nature of the horizon documentary as a public service, the full 47 minute long documentary is freely, and legally available via YouTube. This is part 2. Running time, 8.05 minutes.

This second part opens partway through a discussion of Moore's law started in the first episode, and moves from that to interview Ray Kurzweril, futurist.In this segment, Kurzweil postulates that Moore's law applies to neuroscience just as much as computer science - our understanding will accelerate dramatically year on year, to the point that we understand its complecxity fully, at about the same time that computers of the same level of power are commonly available - 2029.

Next, the documentary switches to neuroscience directly. It begins analysing the work of Dr Don Chapin at the State University of New York, and the remote controlled rat.

Next, the brain machine interface is tackled, through the work of Professor Miguel Nicoleus and decoding a monkey's brain patterns sufficient to evesdrop on basic thoughts. The documentary stays with him, to cover the first attempts by a monkey to move a robot arm as if it was the monkey's own, in 2003.