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Ray Kurzweil On IT And The Future of Technology
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:57 PM
from the change-junior's-batteries dept.
from the change-junior's-batteries dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this interview with CIO Magazine, Ray Kurzweil says that one day, software and computers will reside inside us. He adds that by 2020, "we will be placing millions or billions of nanobots -- blood cell-size devices -- inside our bloodstream to travel into our brains and interact with our neurons." He also says that if we're not enhanced by machines, they will surpass us. But he doesn't think it will happen. According to him, machines and humans will merge. In the mean time, he's pursuing his anti-aging quest and takes about 250 supplements to his diet every day! With this regime, he says his biological age is 40 while he's 56 years old. By 2030, there will be very little difference between 30-year-old and 120-year-old people, says Kurzweil. He's certainly a bright person, but I'm not sure that I agree with someone taking daily such an amount of pills. What do you think? This summary contains some selected -- and biased -- excerpts to help you forge your opinion."
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Gerard Boyers writes "Some members of the US National Academy of Engineering have predicted that Artificial Intelligence will reach the level of humans in around 20 years. Ray Kurzweil leads the charge: 'We will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029. We're already a human machine civilization, we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that. We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons.' Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers, and a gentleman we've discussed previously. He was chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering. The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter."
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You might also be interested to see his (Score:5, Informative)
Re:the nut (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at any autistic person who can memorize a whole phone book - there's orders more than 100,000 chunks there.
Another thing - the brain is incredibly efficient at random-access information stuff - think about how many times you read something, and immediately, you go "bullshit". You KNOW it's wrong, within a fraction of a second, without even having the time to sort out the whole thing "logically". You then check, and find out that your "instincts" were right.
No computer can act as fast, sorting through a lifetime of experience in a fraction of a second and coming to a correct conclusion. Hell, no computer can even have an opinion. And that's probably not going to change even with nanotech, because the consciousness seems to "inhabit" the quantum world, way smaller than your nanobots.
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Re:the nut (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:bs detector (Score:4, Insightful)
So you admit that it works - thank yu.
I wasn't the one who started with the "100,000 chunk" bull-shit - Kurzweil was. We can already store many orders of magnitude of information than that. And we can process it in random order, AND in parallel.
The computer can only process stuff via one or more cpus. The human mind has no such limitation. The best equivalent would be a computer where every byte is associated with a cpu, for MASSIVE parallelism. And those cpus would have to be able to re-wire their conections over time, based on the data in them and their surrounding cpus.
Agreed, but this has nothing to do with Kurzweil's assertion of an extremely low limitation to the amount of info a human can store. We are nowhere near our physical limits yet. The only things preventing people from continuing to learn over their lifetime are laziness and disease.
... and we do amazing stuff that a computer will never be able to do. The "computational stuff" is done with the oldest part of the brain - the "reptilian" part. The interesting stuff - emotions, etc., is newer. We've had adding machines for centuries (abascus, for example). We'll never have a machine that can create "Spaceballs".
... assuming you're giving an example of human stupidity, there are computer programs all the time that screw up too. Some due to hardware flaws (the floating point bug, etc), many due to software flaws (insert the rant of your choice against the OS of yuor choice here).
It in no way invalidates myu contention that Kurzweil is wrong about his "100,000 chunks of data" limit, and needing nanotech to enhance people's performance. In the case you cited, raising gasoline prices to $10/gallon would provide incentive enough to get the driver to develop a more optimal behaviour.
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2030? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2030? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yuck.
I want some anti anti nano machines I can buy from the local kiosk...
This gets really weird if you think about it.
Anything we thought was speculative goes out the window really fast. (and I've been watching the
sci fi perspective for almost 30 years).
Re:1900 versus 2000 versus 2100 (Score:5, Informative)
People weren't just keeling over at age 30.
Concrete example: The direct paternal line of my ancestors, of which I have complete birth/death detail back to 1634, all lived into their 70's, a good number of them into their 80's and 90's until the middle of the last century, when my father broke the record by dying of lung cancer at age 54. He was a heavy smoker, so I don't consider this a significant statistical factor as compared to the rest of the paternal line. If you factor in all the dead babies and dead young children, the average numbers come out low for my family as well - even though just about every one who made it to 21 also made it way past 60. This isn't lifespan extension, so much as it is the puffing up of a somewhat vaguely named average number.
No question there have been health care improvements; lifespan extension into old age is happening, but it has not doubled by any means. 90 year olds, somewhat exceptional in the 1700's and 1800's in my family, are still just somewhat exceptional. And no one is living to 180, I assure you.
Your longevity stats are also affected by amelioration of disease effects. For instance, if you get cancer, you're still probably going to die. You will quite probably live a few more years if it is caught early, but the odds are very much against your living more than an additional five to ten. If you catch a flu, we can do a lot more, you probably won't die, though we still lose thousands to it every year in the US. Sanitation is also better, and that has a very large effect upon the general ability of many diseases to take hold.
What I'm trying to say here is that "lifespan extension" appears to me to be somewhat of an illusion. YMMV, and in fact, I hope it does. :)
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More info (Score:3, Informative)
Resistance is futile (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Resistance is futile (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I think Kurzweil's 20 year estimates are overly optimistic, although the general principles of what he talks about do hold up...
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Life extension w/o nanobots (Score:4, Insightful)
It's obvious that what he really wants is life extension. And he may get some.
We already have the means to extend our lives and it doesn't involve nanobots. Here's a recap:
We don't have to wait for any nanobots to start living longer lives. But the above suggestions don't grab as many headlines as nanotechnology, I guess.
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Re:Life extension w/o nanobots (Score:5, Insightful)
Kurzweil is looking to life extension of centuries and thousands of years, quite a difference. That's way he gets headlines.
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Obligatory Dilbert quote: (Score:4, Funny)
Asok: "Can you think of anything Wally would do vigorously?"
Alice: "I'd rather not"
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Re:"Resistance is futile" 'cause you're gonna bite (Score:3, Insightful)
My career (Score:4, Funny)
2010-2013: Law school (job was outsourced to India).
2014-2030: Lawyer
2030-present: Software engineer (India is outsourcing to US)
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Re:Resistance is futile (Score:3, Interesting)
Because nanotech and fusion power combined will make production of anything dirtcheap. You'll license designs covered by IP rights for your nanofactory, which will build the thing out of basic atoms. There will be free designs, government-made and/or open source. The poor will have access to n
Uh huh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no problem with this, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I have no problem with this, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
What Kurzweil is saying is that, as a species, it's time for us to create our children. The next step in our evolution is to for us to transcend humanity... which is likely to make some people very unhappy because we would, in effect, be emulating god.
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Re:I have no problem with this, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have no problem with this, but.... (Score:3)
I always found the "Singularity" concept facinating, see: http://www.singinst.org/ for some info. But basically it states that we will soon reach a point in advancement, be it through AI or genetic engineering or whatever, that good old natural "humans" will become not just inferior but obsolete.
The problem with that for you 'human' loving beings? Well simply that some things don't change so easily, given half a reason (say land / air / water / energy shortages) what reason would these new supe
Re:I have no problem with this, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask my mother, who had to care for my father during his descent into Alzheimer's, and whose dream of going places and doing things during retirement turned into a nightmare of losing her lifelong companion followed by bleak widowhood. If you survive her response, I'll be sorely tempted to finish the job for her.
Long ago, I read a book written by a doctor, who bloviated on about what he considered the "bright side" of what was then called senile dementia. He spouted BS about a "Puzzled Angel" whose attentions took the aged into a supposedly better world of reliving their youth and childhood. I'm glad I never met the [expletive] who wrote that. To give up is to be less than human. I'm with Dylan Thomas in this issue, thank you very much.
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Re:I have no problem with this, but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I dont like pills but... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I dont like pills but... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I dont like pills but... (Score:5, Funny)
The printing mechanism is still a bit rudimentary, using a mechanism similar to a large format plotter (moving a pen in X/Y coordinates). Some models do this better than others. Some are even extraordinary at this. A few work well in 3D space. Unfortunately, if you are saddled with a lower performing output module, you cannot yet buy an upgrade for it, nor install a new one. You are stuck with it as delivered.
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Shutter. (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, I can't be the
No More Roland Articles Please!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you at least add him the the author list so we could at least filter him out?
This guy is using slashdot as his own advert. How come nobody running this site is noticing or addressing it?
Re:No More Roland Articles Please!! (Score:4, Funny)
While both Kurzweil and Roland make electronic keyboards and synthesizers of various shapes and sizes, I do not think the two companies would be happy about your confusion between them, nor would Roland be happy that you are insinuating that they are trying to make Kurzweil look like a nutjob.
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Supplements might not be a good idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Careless use of vitamins, taken by millions in the belief that they promote good health, could be causing thousands of premature deaths.
A study investigating whether antioxidant vitamin supplements can prevent cancer found that rather than saving lives they seemed to increase overall risk of death.
Although the effect was small, it amounted to 9,000 premature deaths among every million supplement users.
Food for thought.
Re:Supplements might not be a good idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've found that I no longer get sick and am in much better health overall than I was before. My guess is because I let my body do what it should, and not get used to artificial aids that are often not as good as what the body can do anyway. I'm 42, and am often told I look 30. When I have my backpack on my shoulder, as I do frequently, I am still mistaken for a student at one of the local universities. I've had gray hairs -- they show up during stress, then fade a few months after the stressful events. My barber has noticed this, too.
I'm not saying I've found a fountain of youth, but I have noticed dropping out of the 9 to 5 world, running my own business on my own terms, and not letting meds fix everything in my body seems to have made a HUGE difference in how I feel, how much energy I have, and (according to others) in how I don't look anywhere near my age.
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Re:Supplements might not be a good idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
A few years ago, a large scale study was done on smokers taking vitamin suppliments and, contrary to what the researchers expected to find, certain components in the multivitamin actually proved to be quite harmful.
A Finnish study of 29,000 male smokers, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that participants were 18% more likely to develop lung cancer if they were given beta-carotene.
(See linked article here) [bbc.co.uk]
Now, in case you want to post an insightful reply for a quick infusion of karma, you could start with the obvious fact that smoking isn't the smartest thing to do in the first place...
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Limitations of the study (Score:5, Informative)
I agree too many people think vitamins and herbal supplements are the magical solution to simple problems so thanks for sharing the link. But I think it's important to consider the serious limitations of that study and what one can justifiably conclude from it.
1. The study did not include 'healthy' people. All participants had cancer of the gullet, stomach and intestine, bowel, pancreas or liver. Conclusions about any supplement's effect on a person without those cancers is not supported by this study. It would have been interesting to include a group of healthy patients in the study to see if the supplements were accelerating the existing cancer or causing some other form of death. The cause(s) of death is not stated in the article but probably is in the study itself. (Link to the study, anyone?)
2. The supplements studied were limited to beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, and E, and selenium, alone or in combination. The premature death increases were connected to taking both beta-carotene and either A or E. Conclusions about supplements other than beta-carotene and A or E aren't supported by this study.
I'm not saying you can't extrapolate in your own mind about what other supplements might do to healthy people. Maybe that's a safe thing to do. But it isn't something the study is suggesting.
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"Bright" in What Sense? (Score:5, Funny)
So, either 94-year-olds today have a surprisingly youthful future to look forward to, or today's 4-year-olds are going to age awfully fast!
Re:"Bright" in What Sense? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a mere 45 year old.
Anyone who thinks that Martin Gardner went senile at age 60 is obviously brain dead. He's 90 now, and we hope he beats George Burns...
Don't trash older folk. I once used to help my father at the oldest continously running hospital in Europe (The Great Hospital Bishopsgate Norwich) and I can tell you that the worst thing you can do to an older person is dump them in a place for old people...
Wh
Vision of the future (Score:5, Insightful)
My only beef with him is that his timeline is pretty radical. His whole premise is based on his 'Law of Accelerating Returns' which basically states that the pace of technological growth is increasing exponentially and we're at the point where the pace of growth is about to shoot straight up. The reason I think his timeline for all these predictions is too optimistic is because of considerations outside of his realm of thinking. Things like politics, buearocracy and social concerns can really slow down the adoption of new technology. What good is the latest nerve regeneration treatment when stem cells are illegal in the US. What good is the latest disease fighting nano-bots when their FDA approval is pending. What good is the latest wearable computer when all your friends will make fun of you when you wear it. These are the types of issues he never really deals with.
Re:Vision of the future (Score:5, Funny)
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Met with Ray Kurzweil (Score:5, Informative)
I also managed to ask him about his views (in his capacity as an established innovator/inventor) on aggressive Patenting and Copyright laws by corporations (for example SCO vs IBM, and the Record Industry lawsuits).
It was gratifying to know that he was well aware of these problems, and even commended the "Open Source movement" and stressed on it's importance to encourage free flow of information and it's significance in the fight against the evergrowing stifling of innovation.
It was an interesting lecture, where he covered quite a few of the topics in this article. Apparently, he treats his body as a "biological experiment" to try out different drugs (he's a diabetic) on himself.
An interesting guy to say the least.
Kurtzweil is overoptimistic (Score:5, Insightful)
If we get life extension that really works, it will probably work only for genetically modified humans. The genome, and the species, will have to be changed. The new models probably won't interbreed with the old ones. It will take a few generations to get these new species thoroughly debugged. But it will be really great for people a few centuries downstream.
If you thought race and religion were problems, wait until we have multiple species of humans.
Ray's timing is out there (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine in 1776 you had a portable gas generator, and a truckload of computer parts from the last 20 years. Could you assemble a computer? sure. But what If you had 18th century knowlege. Your not really going to understand what the generator is for. Your probably going to try and make the peices into some sort of clock arrangement, marveling that you got the PCI card properly inserted into an ISA port.
I'm not ragging on Biological Scientists, but right now were at the stage where we have found the pile of computer parts, and we know how a few of them fit, but It might be a while before we notice that seam on the back of the palm pilot for batteries. Because it doesn't look important.
It might be a while before we really figure out how cellular life works. 10 years seems optomistic for just that. Ageing is a way larger issue. I dont think that immortality is around the bend.
Either way, I hope Ray keeps up the good fight.
Storm
the *real* secret to long life (Score:5, Insightful)
250 Supplements/"Certain Diet" (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Kurzweil is a freaking idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
1. great statements require great proof.
2. predictions should follow patterns of substructure
He offers no proof - he simply says : look what's happened so far, by (x) date (which will likely be after I'm dead) the world will be SO different and it will be like (THIS).
His claims of AI are floundering on simple facts like Intel scrapping 4gHz chips [slashdot.org] and any number of other signs that Moore's Law, on which Kurzweil's argument rests, is being scrapped as we speak.
another example: stick a blank floppy in your fancy pants XP machine and start the computer up. Computers are SO far from being "intelligent" in even the most rudimentary way, it's absurd. The basic flaw in Kurzweil's notions are that he believes that intelligence is a disembodied effect, when (if the likes of Ramachandran are correct) intelligence is an embodied effect and specifically dependent on wetware. So, the pattern doesn't hold, and he has no real proof. He's selling snake oil to technodweebs.
Then there's the entire issue of social class, and Kurzweil has no interest in serving the greater masses of humanity. He is interested in pushing a technological vanguard that will be open only to the rich, who, once properly enabled/enhanced with have no need or desire to accomodate a working class. Why bring on board the middle classes, when you can replace them all with machines? And if you think this doesn't mean you, you're an idiot.
But beyond all that his fantasy is just that: a fantasy.Technology is a means, not an end in itself, and the likes of Kurzweil seek to put the managers of technology in a position of power above and beyond democratic principles, and for that he and his ilk must be opposed and revealed for what they are: techno-fascists.
Now, for full disclosure: I do think we need a robust space program, I do think we need faster and better computers, I do think we can and should use technology to solve the world's ills where technology is a legitimate solution. I *even agree* that we can make humans more disease resistant and longer lived, and I also believe that that is a good thing. However:
I do not see technology as Kurzweil does: in some kind of Messianic Eschatology. It's not like that, and I feel that he and his ilk are perpetrating a fraud on the public, but mostly on the people they advocate the most: technologists. I think the Really Hard Nut To Crack is not going to be technological, but sociological and political.
Jaron Lanier wrote an interesting opposition paper [edge.org] that also opposes Kurzweil, but in more polite language than myself. I guess Lanier doesn't consider Kurzweil to be the charlatan I see him as.
RS
Re:I think Kurzweil is a freaking idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Moore's law [wikipedia.org] does not deal with clock speed. It deals with complexity. Intel did say they were working on making the processors more efficient (per cycle). That is typically achieved by adding more hardware; increased complexity.
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from my blog (Score:5, Interesting)
But still, he lacked situational awareness, and it was awkward at times. I wanted to ask questions, but there wasn't an option.
The interview linked above is a lot like his talk. He talked about the numerous exponential growths in recent technology, and not just Moore's Law.
He figures that he should try to be healthy until 2020, then a biomedical revolution will keep him healthy for another 20 years, and then a nano-technology revolution will kick in to keep him alive forever.
By "alive", he means that his intelligence propagates in the cold, soul-less heart of a machine. But considering that I agree with him that there is no ghost in the shell, this soulless form doesn't seem that bad. At least you're still sentient!
I agree with the principle, that there is nothing to stop this, that all technology is pushing us in this direction, and that it would prove to be a very positive experience. I do not necessarily agree about the time frame. I can't really trust the curves that he fits with so much confidence. Then again, I'm 32 years younger than him, so if he is off by 32 years, I guess I shouldn't complain
Last night at a party, drunk enough to make the discussion interesting, some folks objected to the extrapolation of the increasing rate of expansion of scientific knowledge. What guarantee is there, after all, to find all the secrets in that time? I would say first that the rate of growth in the number of researchers alone could do it. Also, increases in productivity, have always been accompanied with "this pace can't continue" claims, which have always been wrong.
Also brought up was the notion that life is defined by death. That is a very defeatist thought, which I will fight, err, to my grave. In addition, some thought they would get bored if they lived forever. I would say that I could never complain about there being "more books than i could ever read", which is a great thing. Also, I've always wanted to get really good at GO.
Finally, the notion of replication of machine intelligence was introduced. Someone claimed that I shouldn't discount the important sociological and physical implications of being born from a human whom. I agreed, only to realize that the first few moments of any existence will have a huge implication on the formation of the individual intelligence. So if I copy myself, I'll have to think of a few appropriate words to introduce the other me into this world. So far, all I can come up with is "hi".
Re:Kurzweil is a genius (Score:5, Insightful)
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Crazy geniuses (Score:4, Interesting)
I remembered reading something about this, so I Googled it. There was a Harvard/U Toronto study [sciencedaily.com] about the linkage between creativity and "latent inhibition". Basically the conclusion is that highly creative people with high IQs don't filter incoming information in the same fashion that the rest of us do.
This is just one study, of course. But it is interesting. One thing I've noticed about the mentally instable people I've met (not that my sample is large), is that they do tend to exhibit more outward manifestations of creativity. Perhaps it's because they are less bound by the need to categorize the world in which they live. We certainly do have a lot to learn about how the mind works.
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Re:what do I think? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. There's a sensor in your cells that measures the amount of oxidative damage done. Beyond a certain limit it kicks in the senescence program, and BAM! your cells go into G2 meaning a slow coast to death (can't go into much detail on this one)
2. Stem cell maintenance. You need telomerase for that, an enzyme composed of RNA and protein. It keeps the length of the ends of your chromosomes more or less constant. People without functional telomerase (a disease called dyskeratosis congenita) die at a young age of anemia, leukemia and other disorders associated with aging. They also have bowel problems and their skin looks like it's 80 years old when they're 30
3. Genome integrity. A whole bunch of enzymes is busy keeping your chromosomes from breaking, effecting all kinds of different repairs needed for all sorts of damage that a genome (an organism's DNA) can suffer. Various diseases result from a lack of one of these enzymes and they all mimick an aspect of ageing (Werner's, Bloom's, Xeroderma Pigmentosum, Fanconi anemia etc etc).
So, preventing ageing will not be the result of tackling oxidation or whatever on its own (which is what all the supplements are doing). IF we are ever going to be able to offer any kind of athanatic treatment (term borrowed from Dan Simson) it is going to be a complex one.
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Re:Why is this 'futurist' drivel in 'Science'? (Score:3, Funny)
I can at least hope that he has to stuff a reasonable portion of those pills up his ass.
Re:Machines *in* humans (Score:3, Interesting)
"I wasn't trying to predict the future, I was trying to prevent it." - Ray Bradbury.