Ulises Celestino Stephan Topf ENGL114B 1 March 2014 Rhetorical (TSIS) Immortality and robot humanoid seem like

things from a science fiction film. Although Mr. Duncan, former rocket scientist and current college president, insists that the near future will be surpassed by technology. Duncan is absolutely confident that the technological takeover will occur in current college students lifetime. Duncan has a number of theories that he preaches to student, one being that immortality may not be as science fictional as many believe. Duncan argues that it will occur whether through medical advancements or uploading brain memory onto computers. Along with technological advancements come moral issues. Mr. Duncan prepares his followers for this by forcing students to wrestle with the moral and ethical implications of a future when man and machine become one a strategy he developed in order to make sure that the human race is at level with that of technology. Mr. Duncan is not the only person pushing the movement of the robots taking over, Raymond Kurzwell, in inventor and author of The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999, Penguin Group) also argues that the manmade computer or technology will surpass the human ability. Kurzwell claims that by the year 2030 computers will have consciousness and be virtually

indistinguishable from humans. He further suggests that by the year 2045 computers and humans will have reached the singularity a term he uses to describe the time where technology will be so advanced that it will aid human beings, leading to immortality.