Ray Kurzweil's Science Cult | Newsweek Science

Member Comments

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: drew3000 @ 05/21/2009 5:31:20 AM

I enjoy Kurzweil's insights much in the way I enjoy Rudy Rucker's sci-fi, and as someone who does see a sort of AI as inevitable, I think people do sort of jump the gun a bit, and sort of talk about "The Singularity" in a sort of overly reverent tone. However, as has been stated here, you can't really compare the two. The singularity concept does come from sound science and projection models that are debated and refined among peers. Kurzweil's analysis gets heightened attention because of his celebrity status, but he is not the only one predicting this or mapping out a timeline. In Religion, the comparable peer process would be amongst the different post-schism sects, and there is no way for peers to actually view the source data.

As mentioned here, Narrow AI is in use and already impacting our lives in subtle ways that we don't immediately recognise. How much more instantly do we simply turn to a search engine to find out informaiton now? How much more do we instinctively rely on sophisticated programs to sort out the data about who our friends (or like-minded people) are and what they are up to at any given moment? How often now do we consider purchasing items that a computer has figured out we might like? There won't be a "wham" moment when we say this is a postsingular world, just as the dawn of the information age or industrial age was a longer process than any given specific date can describe.

There are countless things that must take place, some predicted and other random, and no one has truly accurately predicted the accelleration of acceleration itself. It will creep in, not bolt in.

But one day your pajamas will wake you up in the morning with a gentle massage and temperature change as they discuss with your coffee maker which sort of blend is most appropriate given your night's sleep, the day's weather, and the angry email from your boss waiting in your in-box.
- - Reply
  - Report Abuse
  Posted By: RobertClaypool @ 05/21/2009 4:06:17 PM
  
  "But one day your pajamas will wake you up in the morning with a gentle massage and temperature change as they discuss with your coffee maker which sort of blend is most appropriate given your night's sleep, the day's weather, and the angry email from your boss waiting in your in-box."
  
  -- That's a great quote! Really made me laugh and then wonder ...

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: RobertClaypool @ 05/20/2009 12:11:08 PM

You assert that AI is failing to have significant progress ... or that AI will not become a world changer ... because we can't even get computers to recognize "simple things" such as the difference between dogs and cats. Perhaps your classification of what is simple (and what to classify as significant progress) is off base. Once computers are able to "think" or compute things on the level of a 3 year old, they will have already transformed our world in unimaginable ways.

You should also consider the effects that Narrow AI can have even if AGI (artificial general intelligence) fails. Google and Wolfram Alpha are services that employ Narrow AI, and as they continue to improve, they will continue to impact our everyday lives in very real and significant ways. The world wide web is only 7,373 days old [ as of today, source: http://www61.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Monday%2C+March+13%2C+1989]. What will it bring in the next 7,000 days? Much more in terms of Narrow AI and ubiquitous computing; perhaps augmented reality and communication channels we haven't even imagined now.

As for your point that we are still working on cancer, I think you ignore the real point of Kurzweil's argument around biotech. His point is that since 1991, sequencing a human genome has dropped from a 13 year, 2.7 billion dollar international project, to a week long, $5,000 automated process. The price will soon be less than a nice pair of jeans. ** That ** will be the delivery vehicle for all kinds of progress in medicine, like we have never seen before. After all, we have never had access to the "code" running in our bodies or been able to run large scale analysis on millions of people's DNA.

Modern Intel chips can processes up to 76 Billion instructions in ** one second **. We are rapidly approaching trillions and quintillions of instructions in one second. This is the kind of processing that will analyze DNA at large scales and do so much more.

I'm not a believer in some of Kurzweil's ideas - like bringing back his dead father - but you should not underestimate the power of exponential progress in computing, biotech, robotics, communications and other areas that Kurzweil talks about.

Robert Claypool,
http://techencoder.com

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Battleshield @ 05/19/2009 12:25:09 PM

To add to the previous comment, You are also fallinf prey to what the very same RayKurzweil calls linear thinking. You are seeing thinfs as they are now. You must view the data presented by Mr. Kurzweil and extrapolate or project into the near-to-mid-term future. How many distinct nodes were there on the Internet in 1985? 1990? 1995? You are essentially standing in 1985 and mocking that the Internet will EVER be ubiquitous.....

Posted By: Battleshield @ 05/19/2009 12:24:38 PM
- Reply
- Report Abuse
To add to the previous comment, You are also fallinf prey to what the very same RayKurzweil calls linear thinking. You are seeing thinfs as they are now. You must view the data presented by Mr. Kurzweil and extrapolate or project into the near-to-mid-term future. How many distinct nodes were there on the Internet in 1985? 1990? 1995? You are essentially standing in 1985 and mocking that the Internet will EVER be ubiquitous.....

- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: rickschettino @ 05/19/2009 5:31:25 AM

"Apocalyptic cult"?? I must have missed the part about the apocalypse - or the cult for that matter... That aside, you are basically saying that Kurzweil's entire argument is absurd. Just because (it sounds like) you chased an unfounded dream many years too early, doesn't mean that your jaded view of reality is really reality and that the people who subscribe to the ideas of a genius like Kurzweil are absurd. You're either trying to be bold for selfish reasons or just plain bitter.