Ray Kurzweil Does Not Understand the Brain 830
jamie writes "There he goes again, making up nonsense and making ridiculous claims that have no relationship to reality. Ray Kurzweil must be able to spin out a good line of bafflegab, because he seems to have the tech media convinced..."
10 years?! (Score:4, Funny)
His latest claim is that we'll be able to reverse engineer the human brain within a decade
Amateur. I could put something together to simulate the human brain in about 8 months.
(Plus another 3 minutes at the start)
Re:It would be nice.. (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, the article quotes some pretty funny statements.
Sejnowski says he agrees with Kurzweil's assessment that about a million lines of code may be enough to simulate the human brain.
You know, the program they had set up in Jurassic Park supposedly had MILLIONS of lines of code, and look how well THAT turned out.
Re:10 years?! (Score:5, Funny)
More like half an hour. It doesn't take Jello all that long to set up.
(Just finished an hour drive in Seattle - my current impression of the human brain isn't particularly complimentary.)
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:5, Funny)
Myself, I think that both the singularity and the rapture have already happened. You didn't translate to the other realm. Get over it.
Re:It would be nice.. (Score:5, Funny)
Man (Score:3, Funny)
I wish I could get a job as a futurist....think about it:
"What do you think is going to happen in the future???"
"Um...dogs will bring soda to you when you whistle a Cradle of Filth song?"
"OMFG THATZ BRILLIANT. HERE R MONIES, PLZ HAS MAH BABBIES!"
Re:Uh (Score:5, Funny)
Get Kurzweil a slashdot account, stat!
50 Megabytes is WAY too much ! (Score:5, Funny)
Sejnowski says he agrees with Kurzweil's assessment that about a million lines of code may be enough to simulate the human brain.
Kurzweil explains: The design of the brain is in the genome. The human genome has three billion base pairs or six billion bits, which is about 800 million bytes before compression, he says.Eliminating redundancies and applying loss-less compression, that information can be compressed into about 50 million bytes, according to Kurzweil.
Dude, the equations of quantum mechanics can be written on one page. General Relativity can be written on a second page. What more do you need ? Clearly, a few hundred lines of code (and a few do loops) should be enough to simulate the entire universe, brains and all.
Glad we cleared that up. All you physicists and astronomers can go home now and work on your resumes.
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:5, Funny)
as opposed to those who are satisfied with the theory that life evolved from inorganic chemical compounds, totally by chance, with a series of ininitely improbable events occurring in the right sequence over and over and over again.
What a lovely caricature you've constructed there. Secondly, just like most crappy caricatures of biological evolution you also seem to conveniently gloss over the major role that natural selection plays which is not random.
Oh, yeah...explain the platypus, then.
No one understands The Brain... (Score:4, Funny)
...except, maybe, Pinky.
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:5, Funny)
And of course, John Woo. Let's hear it for two-fisting, slow motion and doves!
R'ing TFA? Heresy! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh (Score:5, Funny)
Which account is it?
PS: Go fuck yourself.
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:3, Funny)
Even evolution has a sense of humor.
Re:The Devil's In The Details (Score:3, Funny)
Kurzweil's assessment that about a million lines of code may be enough to simulate the human brain.
If you accept that, then the real problem to solve becomes: in what language do you write the code?
Why, Brainfuck [wikipedia.org] of course!
Re:Laughable (Score:3, Funny)
Of course not. No self-respecting Autobot would be caught dead disguised as a Prius.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:3, Funny)
Let's hear it for two-fisting
yeah, let's...hear it.
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Laughable (Score:1, Funny)
>>I haven't come across a sentient Prius yet.
Don't you think it's odd that every time someone guesses that they might be sentient, there's an accident caused by "unintended acceleration"? Do you actually think that they're dumb enough to allow this to get out?
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:3, Funny)
You could get really lucky and end up +5 Troll. I've only managed +1 Troll myself, I need practice. =p
Re:So, you believe in a planned economy, then? (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously, by your logic, a free market economy is impossible, Our economy is too complex to have evolved on its own. In fact, it is far more complex, with far more different parts, than a human being. It must have had a creator. If most any part of the economy, like the steel industry, say, were removed, the economy would not function. How did the economy function before there was a steel industry? Obviously, it couldn't, and therefore we have demonstrated irreducible specificated complexification or something.
All this free market talk is obvious bullshit, and we actually DO have a centrally planned economy because it is impossible for something so complex to have evolved without a central planner.
The Illuminati control the free market. Point Intelligent Design.
Re:ahh, the "singularity"... (Score:4, Funny)
And forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men! Slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?
(Award yourself two points for not having to use Google.)