185 replies to this topic

[SIN]

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In all, this claimed “world’s fastest desktop supercomputer” comes in at a rather bargain basement (as far as supercomputers are concerned) price of only 4,000 euros ($5,823.41 USD). It may seem like a lot of money for a computer, but this isn’t just any old computer. This beast outfitted as highlighted above is capable of 12 Teraflops (1 Teraflop = 1 trillion floating points per second) of computing power per second. Yep, that’s fast.

LINK


So that's about 2 Teraflops for the price of $1,000. So yep, that prediction cam true  

[Arie]

myg3ne, on May 31 2008, 06:57 AM, said:

Mind, on 30-May 2008, 03:33 PM, said:

Talk to me on December 31st 2009 and then we can issue the final judgement. For crying out loud, it is only May of 2008! I don't think Kurzweil has been too far off the mark and is still the most accurate long term futurist. Nobody else is even trying.

yep.

Well Mind, time flies doesn't it? And happy new year by the way.

Anybody interested in defending the following predictions, now that the year has passed?


KURZWEIL PREDICTIONS FOR 2009

Personal computers with high resolution interface embedded in clothing and jewelry, networked in Body LAN's.

The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition (CSR) software.

Computer displays built into eyeglasses project the images directly onto the user's retinas.

In terms of circuitry, three-dimensional chips are commonly used.

Translating Telephone technology is commonly used for many language pairs.

Warfare is dominated by unmanned intelligent airborne devices. Many of these flying weapons are the size of small birds, or smaller.

Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel. Once your car's computer guidance system locks onto the control sensors on one of these highways, you can sit back and relax.

[Arie]

And this is what Kurzweil wrote last month (december 2009)

By 2020, memory devices will be integrated into our clothing. And the very idea of a “smart phone” will begin to change. Rather than looking at a tiny screen, our glasses will beam images directly to our retinas, creating a high resolution virtual display that hovers in air.

Some things will look pretty similar in 2020. We’ll still drive cars — although they will have the intelligence to avoid many accidents and self-driving cars will at least be experimented with.


Gotcha!... he's now predicting the very same things as in 1999, but  for 2020 instead of 2009 !

Breaking news - singularity delayed

Edited by Arie, 01 January 2010 - 07:14 PM.

[Luna]

Arie, on Jan 1 2010, 07:08 PM, said:

And this is what Kurzweil wrote last month (december 2009)

By 2020, memory devices will be integrated into our clothing. And the very idea of a “smart phone” will begin to change. Rather than looking at a tiny screen, our glasses will beam images directly to our retinas, creating a high resolution virtual display that hovers in air.

Some things will look pretty similar in 2020. We’ll still drive cars — although they will have the intelligence to avoid many accidents and self-driving cars will at least be experimented with.


Gotcha!... he's now predicting the very same things as in 1999, but  for 2020 instead of 2009 !

Breaking news - singularity delayed

as much as I would agree predictions are off, I wouldn't be so joyful to hear the singularity is delayed if I were.. well, anyone alive.

[Mind]

Yay! I am glad you brought this up again.

My stance hasn't changed from the posts earlier in this thread. Kurzweil's predictions seem generally good with much of the technology existing or in development, and Kurzweil-haters are still in full force. I am unsure of anyone else who made such definitive predictions so far in advance and was at least partially correct. Nobody else has the courage (haters would say nobody is crazy/insane/stupid enough)

We do have another thread that tries to gauge the accuracy the many Kurzweil predictions, which is better than this thread which basically asserts Kurzweil is 100% WRONG WRONG WRONG.

A couple other threads started after popular media interviews with Kurzweil.
Newsweek quotes.(cryonics)
Rolling Stone Interview

[David Styles]

As has been pointed out, some are incorrect, some are correct, and some have frankly been trumped already by better technology than predicted (like the first one, I'd say Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense Device trumps that).

So, not really too optimistic, which I understand was your original question. Merely correct in some areas and not in others; predicted some advances that didn't happen, and failed to predict some advances that did.

Being a pragmatic sort of person myself, I'm not really sure what your point is. What are you bringing to the table here, and how can we benefit from it?

Critical analysis is great if it can lead to something useful. What useful end did you have in mind, from demonstrating that Kurzweil is in fact not perfect? Did you think we, he, or indeed anyone else thought he was some quasi-religious prophet whose words are gospel?

You take a top Wall Street stockbroker, and they'll make predictions regarding how the stockmarket will go. They are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong. But they are experts in their field, so people with less of a clue look to them for their predictions, even though they recognise that they may not be perfect.

My agenda is to live forever and transcend the human condition. I will do this by whatever means I may. I make use of any emergent technologies that might come along, as they come along. If they're not here yet, it's utterly irrelevant to me whether someone predicted they would be or not. If they are here now, it's once again utterly irrelevant to me whether somebody predicted they would be or not.

Why is it so relevant to you?

What is your agenda?

Edited by David Styles, 01 January 2010 - 07:37 PM.

[Arie]

Quote

Kurzweil's predictions seem generally good with much of the technology existing or in development, and Kurzweil-haters are still in full force

As expected, no effort from Mind to present supporting evidence to defend the predictions in question. Which would be some monumental task, as Kurzweil himself is now shifting predictions from 2009 to 2020.

Kurzweil haters etc. etc... anyone notice how religious worshippers always try to deflect criticism with charges about the supposedly vile nature of their opponents, instead of offering sound evidence?

As for the other thread, some people are excited about commercially available VR goggles, which is all nice, but ofcourse a long way from “eyeglasses projecting images directly onto the retina”
On a positive note, there is a chance however, that this year we will see some crude prototype of  such a system, so if that happens, I'll credit Kurzweil for making a reasonably correct prediction. Of course body lan's, CSR, 3d chips, translating telephones, miniature drones and intelligent cars are NOT swarming the planet, and will not for the forseeable future. Although i agree that 2020 seems a more reasonable target.

David Styles, on Jan 1 2010, 03:36 PM, said:

As has been pointed out, some are incorrect, some are correct,

Are you talking about the specific predictions that I listed above?
Because you would be right that Kurzweil made correct predictions in the past, but all of those have been proven incorrect sofar.

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and some have frankly been trumped already by better technology than predicted (like the first one, I'd say Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense Device trumps that).

The prediction was:
-personal computers
-embedded in clothing and jewelry
-networked in body lan's

The Sixth Sense Device is a camera, projector and computer which you have to wear around your neck. You could call it a “body lan” with some stretch of imagination, but it's not embedded at all. Furthermore it's a prototype/student project, god knows when it will be useful enough to sell to the masses. The SSD is a great idea, but not much more than an idea at this stage. You won't be able to stream video supplementing a newspaper in real life.

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Critical analysis is great if it can lead to something useful. What useful end did you have in mind, from demonstrating that Kurzweil is in fact not perfect? Did you think we, he, or indeed anyone else thought he was some quasi-religious prophet whose words are gospel?

Well yes, after hanging around here for a while, i'm beginning to think that some people do actually think he is a prophet whose words are gospel, because i can't think of another reason why people would try to deny Kurzweils mistakes, and getting bitter and personally hostile when somebody is pointing them out, even if this person is clearly sympathetic to the transhumanist movement.

As for what use, curious that somebody who identifies himself as a person who wants to live forever and transcend the flesh would ask that question. If Kurzweil is 20-30 years off with his predicion of the GNR revolution and resulting extreme life extension, it might make a big difference for your future plans wouldn't it? Perhaps in the end you'll regret your ascetic lifestyle and spending a fortune on supplements, when you could have had at least more fun with the risky lifestyle of the average citizen.

As for myself, i abandoned cigarettes and cheeseburgers for the possibility that it might help to get to a bridge to a bridge to a bridge. I bought a lot of stocks to be able to cash in on exponential economic growth. That's how serious i take Kurzweil et al. On the other hand, i don't like deluding myself and have to prepare for the possibility that stuff like indefinite lifespan and transcendence will take much longer than uber-optimists like Kurzweil claim. For example the Y2K bug disaster had some pretty solid evidence, some very smart minds predicted that catastrophe was inevitable, and then nothing happened. So. tracking predictions and outcomes is an invaluable tool to me to see how much weight i should give to ideas like the technological singularity. Depending on the outcome, i might change my way of life.

Kurweils predictions for the coming decades are ofcourse outrageous for most people. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. He's got some good points, but his evidence for machine intelligence in 2029 doesn't look very extraordinary to me, for example.
Kurzweil is rightly given credit for predicting the rise of the internet, machine supremacy in chess and the fall of the soviet union in the eighties. As time went by, his predictions became more and more fantastic, and if everyday non-transhumanist people are to be convinced, you have to be able to validate his later predictions. Public awareness of transhumanism will mean a big difference, especially for things like the SENS project. If massive funds were to be allocated to longevity-therapies by society, you would benefit. Before that happens, people will demand proof that these projects are indeed realistic, and if technology doesn't advance fast enough, people will remain skeptical.

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You take a top Wall Street stockbroker, and they'll make predictions regarding how the stockmarket will go. They are sometimes right, and sometimes wrong. But they are experts in their field, so people with less of a clue look to them for their predictions, even though they recognise that they may not be perfect.

Only a very select group of stock analysts are correct more than chance would predict. And all they predict is whether stocks will go up or down, so they are usually right half of the time. Futurists on the other hand,  can be completely wrong.
My teacher in 1983 predicted we'll all go on vacation to the moon by the year 2000. Now ofcourse SOME people, to whom the teacher is God, would claim that he was correct after all, since Russia is now offering space flights to millionaires. But they would look like fanatical Kurzweil followers who deny that The Age of Spiritual Machines had a lot of false predictions.

Edited by Arie, 01 January 2010 - 11:20 PM.

[David Styles]

Arie, on Jan 1 2010, 11:01 PM, said:

As for what use, curious that somebody who identifies himself as a person who wants to live forever and transcend the flesh would ask that question. If Kurzweil is 20-30 years off with his predicion of the GNR revolution and resulting extreme life extension, it might make a big difference for your future plans wouldn't it? Perhaps in the end you'll regret your ascetic lifestyle and spending a fortune on supplements, when you could have had at least more fun with the risky lifestyle of the average citizen.

No.

No matter what someone predicts or doesn't, I will still make whatever choices seem to give me the best chance of survival. The top minds in the field could tell me that a cure for aging will be found in 200 years, that cryonic suspension will never be reversable, and I would still try to extend my life to get to wherever I need to to have my aging reversed, and I would still keep my cryonics contract in force and still do what I can to make cryonics work.

I would never, in any circumstances, give up.

Quote

As for myself, i abandoned cigarettes and cheeseburgers for the possibility that it might help to get to a bridge to a bridge to a bridge. I bought a lot of stocks to be able to cash in on exponential economic growth. That's how serious i take Kurzweil et al. On the other hand, i don't like deluding myself and have to prepare for the possibility that stuff like indefinite lifespan and transcendence will take much longer than uber-optimists like Kurzweil claim.

Likewise.

On this point, I can actually see a practical purpose to your attacks. Do I understand correctly then that you are concerned people are believing such predictions / taking them on faith, and failing to prepare for the worst? Given I always try to cover all bases personally, and have back-up plans for my back-up plans, this is not something I had considered. If people do hold that "we'll be saved soon, we don't need to prepare for a long haul" attitude, then they are quite possibly going to die as a result.

I simply hadn't thought about the possibility of immortalists not taking steps to live forever that they could.

Was this your point?

[atp]

Arie, on Jan 1 2010, 08:08 PM, said:

And this is what Kurzweil wrote last month (december 2009)

By 2020, memory devices will be integrated into our clothing. And the very idea of a “smart phone” will begin to change. Rather than looking at a tiny screen, our glasses will beam images directly to our retinas, creating a high resolution virtual display that hovers in air.

Some things will look pretty similar in 2020. We’ll still drive cars — although they will have the intelligence to avoid many accidents and self-driving cars will at least be experimented with.


Gotcha!... he's now predicting the very same things as in 1999, but  for 2020 instead of 2009 !

Breaking news - singularity delayed

i do not think that memory devices in our clothing are essential for singularity.

singularity depends on
progress in computer power.
progress in brain scanning
progress in brain understanding
progress in artificial general intelligence.

we have no memory devices in our clothing but perhaps we already have the technology to do it.
we have 3d cinema and outstanding realworld realistic computer graphics and simulations. in my opinion, this is more impressive than memory devices in clothing.

3 dimensional chips:
new paradigms only get strong if old paradigms reach their limit.
it is of now relevance if computer power comes from 3 dimensional chips or from more powerful chips of conventional technology.

in some points, kurzweil was too pessimistic.

we have commercial games which are controlled by human thoughts just for 100$:
http://www.mindflexgames.com/

we have thoughts to speach devices:
http://www.physorg.c...s180620740.html

we have an artificial hand which can be linked to the brain and the human can feel what he grasp.

in my opinion this is more impressive than memory in clothing.
and it shows that we make progress in brain understanding which is of more importance for singularity than memory in clothes.

Edited by atp, 02 January 2010 - 03:02 AM.

[atp]

i have forgotten: we already have artificial retinas as examples for computer brain interfaces working today.

http://www.cnn.com/2....eye/index.html

[KalaBeth]

1. I agree RK's predictions - and timeline- are heavily coloured by his personal desires.
I'm also not surprised... he's got a monkey brain like the rest of us. We all have our blindspots and places where emotion overshadows reason.
(as a sideline, he definitely looks midway into in his 60's to me. But given his other health considerations that in itself is no small feat. Also, I'm a product of my own generation, and consider it quite possible that what looks "60-70" to me might well look "40-50" to someone who grew up in harsher conditions that wore away at the body faster).


2. Some of the predictions are well within our technical capabilities - body LANS for instance, but either aren't economical or there is insufficient interest for them. We have bluetooth headsets talking to phones because it's practical - but we don't need a LAN to know if our shirt needs washing or our shoesoles are wearing out.
That said, the fact that he's run a number of successful business based on bringing new technology to market is de facto evidence he's better than average at predicting both technological capability and the economics of a new product. But again "better than average" does not mean "infallible."

3. I do take issue with the "exponential lifespan" thing simply because there are historical records for relatively well to do people in centuries past having lifespans comparable to our own today. Beating mass infant mortality and most of the causes that killed us prior to simple metabolic wear and tear does is neither an exponential nor a sustainable growth pattern. I know he's more than smart enough to know that, but it doesn't come across in his talks.

4. And most importantly - as ATP noted the adaptation of specific technologies does not make or break his broader predictions. Some are core, others peripheral. For instance - if I believed the linchpin was AI, I'd be more inclined to look at the development of pattern recognition software in UAVs and the various military robots in the US is starting to field than in whether I can get a display beamed onto my retina instead of played on an iPhone.


5. In the long term, 5 or ten - or 50 or 100 - years either way doesn't matter.
Some matter of rejuvenation tech is coming because it's coming up on the technical horizon and people WANT it - want it in a way that makes the details of toys and gadgets of any given decade pale. Whether RK himself will live to see that, no idea.

... but if we're truly 20-40 years from being able to regrow and replace most any tissue other than the brain, I'd say the odds of most anyone with at least that much life expectancy left - and the ability to afford it - have at least a decent shot at seeing it.

[atp]

KalaBeth, on Jan 2 2010, 04:17 AM, said:

3. I do take issue with the "exponential lifespan" thing simply because there are historical records for relatively well to do people in centuries past having lifespans comparable to our own today. Beating mass infant mortality and most of the causes that killed us prior to simple metabolic wear and tear does is neither an exponential nor a sustainable growth pattern. I know he's more than smart enough to know that, but it doesn't come across in his talks.

kurzweil et al. do not speak of exponential growth of lifespan.
they argue that we should reach an escape velocity within 15 to 30 years because we have to expect an exponential growth in biotech.

escape velocity = the moment where lifespan growth is linear not exponential(!!!) with a speed of one year every year.

exponential accelaration of biotech is predicted because since screening the genome biotech has become an information based technology which is known to have the ability for an exponential accelaration for several decades.

furthermore we have reached the macromolecular biological level not only by knowledge but also by tools. there is no deeper level of life. so the point being able to manipulate the most fundamantel processes of life is from a conceptual point within a visual range and already demonstrated in many experiments.

Edited by atp, 02 January 2010 - 03:52 AM.

[KalaBeth]

My apologies.. I phrased that badly.

First, let me say agree with your larger point - that "accelerating returns" from information technology feed biotechnology, and the two together hold staggering potential for a great number of issues, not the least of which is lifespan.. potentially even to the point of an indefinite lifespan. My issue is not a practical or technical one, but rather a semantic/speechgiving one.

Specifically, that showing me a chart of median life expectancy increases over the last few centuries - as his usual spiel often does right alongside all the other graphs of technology milestones - is meaningless at best and misleading at worst. Some people have regularly lived into their 70's and beyond throughout that time.. that more people aren't dying sooner from childbirth, infection, or just plain overwork is a wonderful thing, but immaterial to the question of life span.

[atp]

KalaBeth, on Jan 2 2010, 05:25 AM, said:

My apologies.. I phrased that badly.

First, let me say agree with your larger point - that "accelerating returns" from information technology feed biotechnology, and the two together hold staggering potential for a great number of issues, not the least of which is lifespan.. potentially even to the point of an indefinite lifespan. My issue is not a practical or technical one, but rather a semantic/speechgiving one.

Specifically, that showing me a chart of median life expectancy increases over the last few centuries - as his usual spiel often does right alongside all the other graphs of technology milestones - is meaningless at best and misleading at worst. Some people have regularly lived into their 70's and beyond throughout that time.. that more people aren't dying sooner from childbirth, infection, or just plain overwork is a wonderful thing, but immaterial to the question of life span.

yes, increase in median life expectancy is not sufficient to raise maximum life expectancy at the same time.
but it is somehow a necessary condition.

it is similar to the change of paradigms in technology.

only if a certain technology reaches its limits then a new and better technology arises.

only if median life expectancy reaches its limits and tends towards maximum lifespan then the pressure for more fundamental technology to extend human lifespan will arise.

if we increase maximum lifespan but median life expectancy would be the same then obviously only very few people would have benefit.
but if median expectancy is at its limit then a lot of people would benefit from an increasing maximum lifespan.
thus, the pressure to push the progress for maximum lifespan will become higher and higher if median life expectancy increases.

only if we have solved the problems to bring median life expactancy towards maximum lifespan we will use time, money and personal resources to increase maximum lifespan in order to continue the desired increase in median life expectancy.

Edited by atp, 02 January 2010 - 01:22 PM.

[Arie]

David Styles, on Jan 1 2010, 06:27 PM, said:

“I would never, in any circumstances, give up”

I see, i did not know you had a cryonics contract. For everyone else, lying in bed with stage iv cancer with one week to live is enough reason to give up, and realize that all efforts were wasted.
Some older people might give up their pleasures in life hoping to make it to the life extension revolution, only to be diagnosed with an incurable disease. And that's a message that will hit you a hundred fold when you were expecting to live forever.

Quote

Do I understand correctly then that you are concerned people are believing such predictions / taking them on faith, and failing to prepare for the worst?

For one thing, yes i am concerned, mostly that people will see their expectations go up in smoke.  As for life extension, the longer therapies are delayed, the more people will have to face that hope is lost, and the bet of cryonics is not for everyone.
Once my boss came back from a Kurzweil talk, exclaiming how “it's now possible to inject yourself with artificial bloodcells and sit on the bottom of a pool for half an hour”.Clearly he was talking about Freitas's “respirocytes”, but the fact that this is still a hypothetical technology eluded him. It's now 5 years later and respirocytes are as theoretical as ever as far as i know.

Also, the singularity field is not established science. It is a department of futurism that should be exposed to scrutiny. If you can't criticize an extreme idea like “saturation of the universe with intelligence”, then we are talking about religion.
Usually on public fora i am defending Kurzweil because i think it's a shame that accelarating change is never taken into consideration in mainstream thought about politics, economics etc. On a forum like this however, i expect that everybody knows about and is generally on board with transhumanist ideas. This should be an environment where people with similar interests can debate about certain theories and time frames. What is the evidence for and against, how to seperate the speculative from certainty, is reality keeping up with expectations? This should be of interest for everybody. Luckily balanced people like ATP and Kalabeth seem to understand this, i enjoyed their contributions .I'm afraid though, that like everywhere, some people don't realize that wanting something to be true doesn't make it so.

[Arie]

atp, on Jan 1 2010, 09:02 PM, said:

i do not think that memory devices in our clothing are essential for singularity.

singularity depends on 
progress in computer power.
progress in brain scanning
progress in brain understanding
progress in artificial general intelligence.

What about molecular manufacturing through nano-techology? This has been an important subject for every singularity theorist. Body-LANs, retina beams, 3D chips and birdsize military drones would be miniaturization milestones on the way to true nano-technology. Think about the challenges to power these gadgets with the current state of batteries, or to implement wireless transmitters and receivers. No doubt Kurzweil thought the state of miniaturization in 2009 would enable the widespread application of these technologies.

Kurzweil (Age of Spiritual Machines): “[in 2009] Computers with a high-resolution visual interface range from rings and pins and credit cards up to the size of a thin book. People typically have at least a dozen computers on and around their bodies, which are networked using "body LANs" (local area networks). These computers provide communication facilities similar to cellular phones, pagers, and web surfers, monitor body functions, provide automated identity (to conduct financial transactions and allow entry into secure areas), provide directions for navigation, and a variety of other services.

Quote

we have 3d cinema and outstanding realworld realistic computer graphics and simulations. in my opinion, this is more impressive than memory devices in clothing.

Its more impressive than memory devices, but certainly a joggingsuit with integrated wireless computers that are streaming personalised augmented reality data to your glasses is much cooler.

Quote

we have an artificial hand which can be linked to the brain and the human can feel what he grasp.

I watched the video and i agree this is totally awesome. I wonder when artificial limbs like that will be available for the common patient.

[Arie]

KalaBeth, on Jan 1 2010, 10:17 PM, said:

1. I agree RK's predictions - and timeline- are heavily coloured by his personal desires.

2. Some of the predictions are well within our technical capabilities - body LANS for instance, but either aren't economical or there is insufficient interest for them.

I can understand Kurzweil for guessing that people prefer talking to their computers instead of using a keyboard, speech recognition was one of his personal accomplishments. But from my own experience i can tell that even disabled people are easily frustrated giving spoken commands to a computer.

Quote

4. And most importantly - as ATP noted the adaptation of specific technologies does not make or break his broader predictions. Some are core, others peripheral.

So, how are we going to determine which are the important ones? What about this one:

Kurzweil (Singularity is Near): [At the beginning of the next decade] we will have virtual personalities that overlay the real world helping us with information retrieval and our chores and transactions. (..) your retinal display might remind us: “That's John Smith (…) you saw him six months ago.|”

Now that's some pretty daring prediction for the next few years. For this scenario, you need not only powerful and highly portable wireless computing devices, but also a high level of artificial intelligence build inside your body computer(the digital assistent recognizing the face of mr. Smith, digging up knowledge and telling you about him)
If AI is the single most important development leading to the Singularity, this would be a prediction to follow closely.

Edited by Arie, 02 January 2010 - 06:59 PM.

[atp]

Arie, on Jan 2 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

atp, on Jan 1 2010, 09:02 PM, said:

i do not think that memory devices in our clothing are essential for singularity.

singularity depends on 
progress in computer power.
progress in brain scanning
progress in brain understanding
progress in artificial general intelligence.

What about molecular manufacturing through nano-techology? This has been an important subject for every singularity theorist. Body-LANs, retina beams, 3D chips and birdsize military drones would be miniaturization milestones on the way to true nano-technology. Think about the challenges to power these gadgets with the current state of batteries, or to implement wireless transmitters and receivers. No doubt Kurzweil thought the state of miniaturization in 2009 would enable the widespread application of these technologies.

Kurzweil (Age of Spiritual Machines): “[in 2009] Computers with a high-resolution visual interface range from rings and pins and credit cards up to the size of a thin book. People typically have at least a dozen computers on and around their bodies, which are networked using "body LANs" (local area networks). These computers provide communication facilities similar to cellular phones, pagers, and web surfers, monitor body functions, provide automated identity (to conduct financial transactions and allow entry into secure areas), provide directions for navigation, and a variety of other services.

nano tech by itself is not essential for singularity. as long as computing power increases singularity prognoses hold.

Edited by atp, 02 January 2010 - 07:48 PM.

[atp]

Arie, on Jan 2 2010, 07:54 PM, said:

KalaBeth, on Jan 1 2010, 10:17 PM, said:

1. I agree RK's predictions - and timeline- are heavily coloured by his personal desires.

2. Some of the predictions are well within our technical capabilities - body LANS for instance, but either aren't economical or there is insufficient interest for them.

I can understand Kurzweil for guessing that people prefer talking to their computers instead of using a keyboard, speech recognition was one of his personal accomplishments. But from my own experience i can tell that even disabled people are easily frustrated giving spoken commands to a computer.

Quote

4. And most importantly - as ATP noted the adaptation of specific technologies does not make or break his broader predictions. Some are core, others peripheral.

So, how are we going to determine which are the important ones? What about this one:

Kurzweil (Singularity is Near): [At the beginning of the next decade] we will have virtual personalities that overlay the real world helping us with information retrieval and our chores and transactions. (..) your retinal display might remind us: “That's John Smith (…) you saw him six months ago.|”

Now that's some pretty daring prediction for the next few years. For this scenario, you need not only powerful and highly portable wireless computing devices, but also a high level of artificial intelligence build inside your body computer(the digital assistent recognizing the face of mr. Smith, digging up knowledge and telling you about him)
If AI is the single most important development leading to the Singularity, this would be a prediction to follow closely.

in my opinion, human level ai will not develop gradually.
suddenly it will be there, as  it was the case in human natural intelligence. and if you compare the whole time of biological evolution with a year then human intelligence is less than a day on this planet.
from a biological point of view, we already have a biological singularity which means that there is a lifeform, which is able to correct its own genes. we do this:

http://abcnews.go.co...tory?id=8908584

it will be the same with technological singularity. suddenly it will be there. and there will be a machine which is able to to understand its own construction and will enhance its own software.

Edited by atp, 02 January 2010 - 07:46 PM.

[Arie]

atp, on Jan 2 2010, 02:25 PM, said:

nano tech by itself is not essential for singularity. as long as computing power increases singularity prognoses hold.

"A key question regarding the Singularity is whether the chicken (strong AI) or the egg (nanotechnology) will come first.
In other words, will strong AI lead to full nanotechnology or full nanotechnology to strong AI.
(..)
The reality is that progress in both areas will necassarily use our most advanced tools, so advances in each field will instantaneoously facilitate the other.
However, i do expect that full MNT will emerge prior to strong AI, but only by a few years."
Singularity is Near, p.261

So Kurzweil disagrees, nanotech is essential and development of strong AI will depend on mature nano-technology.

[Luna]

Arie, on Jan 2 2010, 07:54 PM, said:

Kurzweil (Singularity is Near): [At the beginning of the next decade] we will have virtual personalities that overlay the real world helping us with information retrieval and our chores and transactions. (..) your retinal display might remind us: “That's John Smith (…) you saw him six months ago.|”

Now that's some pretty daring prediction for the next few years. For this scenario, you need not only powerful and highly portable wireless computing devices, but also a high level of artificial intelligence build inside your body computer(the digital assistent recognizing the face of mr. Smith, digging up knowledge and telling you about him)
If AI is the single most important development leading to the Singularity, this would be a prediction to follow closely.

Actually that is already possible!
There is that robot usually in Japaneese restaurants that looks like an astronaut, it can recognize faces, gestures (body and facial).
And lately Val made a post about something that projects information to the eye directly.

Then again, the question of will anyone actually do it any time soon and how long after someone did it and said "cool" and until it's available for the masses..

Many times people say "It's already possible" or "It already exists" but does it count if only one person have it? out of 6 billion, we have to be really lucky if that's the case!

[Luna]

Arie, on Jan 2 2010, 09:02 PM, said:

atp, on Jan 2 2010, 02:25 PM, said:

nano tech by itself is not essential for singularity. as long as computing power increases singularity prognoses hold.

"A key question regarding the Singularity is whether the chicken (strong AI) or the egg (nanotechnology) will come first.
In other words, will strong AI lead to full nanotechnology or full nanotechnology to strong AI.
(..)
The reality is that progress in both areas will necassarily use our most advanced tools, so advances in each field will instantaneoously facilitate the other.
However, i do expect that full MNT will emerge prior to strong AI, but only by a few years."
Singularity is Near, p.261

So Kurzweil disagrees, nanotech is essential and development of strong AI will depend on mature nano-technology.

No, he does not say it is required at all in that quote.
And even if he thought it is, it's not like he's always right!

[ben951]

Arie, on Jan 1 2010, 01:43 PM, said:

Well Mind, time flies doesn't it? And happy new year by the way.

Anybody interested in defending the following predictions, now that the year has passed?


KURZWEIL PREDICTIONS FOR 2009


Personal computers with high resolution interface embedded in clothing and jewelry, networked in Body LAN's.

The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition (CSR) software.

Computer displays built into eyeglasses project the images directly onto the user's retinas.

In terms of circuitry, three-dimensional chips are commonly used.

Translating Telephone technology is commonly used for many language pairs.

Warfare is dominated by unmanned intelligent airborne devices. Many of these flying weapons are the size of small birds, or smaller.

Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel. Once your car's computer guidance system locks onto the control sensors on one of these highways, you can sit back and relax.

Isn't this a translating telephone  ?
Or was he thinking about another technology ?
I don't know if this app it's widely used but the iPhone is.

Has said before 3d chips cannot exist before 2 chips reach theirs limits in exponential progress.
So he was rather pessimistic in this prediction, will still have plenty of time before we need to develop 3d chips to continue the exponential grow.

Driving seems to be a lot more complicated than he assumed and also people won't give the wheel to computer that easily.

[KalaBeth]

Quote

I can understand Kurzweil for guessing that people prefer talking to their computers instead of using a keyboard, speech recognition was one of his personal accomplishments. But from my own experience i can tell that even disabled people are easily frustrated giving spoken commands to a computer.

That's a good point.. there's plenty of "images of the future" we all carry in our heads because they feature so prominently in sci-fi movies - but in practical terms are horrid. That's a great example - spoken language is a hideously inefficient means of information transfer - it's beautiful, it's wonderful, it's fun - but compared to looking at a table of data on the screen it's tediously slow. Which is why wading through a voice mail system is such a pain in the butt.

Another example is the "VR web" that was fairly prominent in 90's sci fi (Snow Crash, Johnny Mnemonic) - it might be fun - but if all you want is movie times or a news article, way more bother than just pulling it up in a web browser. Just because we can doesn't mean we will - or even will want to.

And that's actually where the biotech and life extension kind of tech shines. It's not just that it could be possible... it's that it could be possible, and it answers a dream humanity has had for thousands of years. Therefore, once the "could be possible" message gets out faster, I expect development would proceed fairly quickly.

"Fairly quickly" being a relative term, of course.

Edited by KalaBeth, 02 January 2010 - 09:36 PM.

[atp]

KalaBeth, on Jan 2 2010, 10:35 PM, said:

Quote

And that's actually where the biotech and life extension kind of tech shines. It's not just that it could be possible... it's that it could be possible, and it answers a dream humanity has had for thousands of years. Therefore, once the "could be possible" message gets out faster, I expect development would proceed fairly quickly.

"Fairly quickly" being a relative term, of course.

the "could be possible message" is not enough for more activity in life extension research.
people must understand the message that diseases like cancer and heart stroke depend strongly on aging and that aging itself is a disease which is responsible for death.

as i have claimed:
only if we have solved the problems to bring median life expactancy towards maximum lifespan we will use time, money and personal resources to increase maximum lifespan in order to continue the desired increase in median life expectancy.


we will continue to fight against cancer and other diseases but it will take an awful long time until the pressure for more fundamental progress is strong enough to obtain technology for rejuvenation.

Quote

Centenarians
The number of centenarians is increasing at 7% per year.[citation needed] Japan has the highest ratio of centenarians. In Okinawa, there are 34.7 centenarians for every 100,000 inhabitants [6].
In the United States, the number of centenarians grew from 15,000 in 1980 to 77,000 in 2000.

http://en.wikipedia....Life_expectancy

factor 5,13 increase of centenarians within 20 years in the usa.
if this rate is stable then we can expect 53 million centenarians in the usa within 70 years from now

from this i would expect the public pressure to increase maximum lifespan will arise at least in 60 to 80 years.

this is in my opinion nearly the worst cast scenario for life extension progress.

Edited by atp, 02 January 2010 - 10:40 PM.

[mentatpsi]

i have a memory device in my cloth, a flash drive in my pocket... har har.

[mentatpsi]

Actually, let me post something made known to me through my facebook:

Edited by mentatpsi, 04 January 2010 - 09:27 PM.

[Anthony]

I don't know of any futurists who are currently as bold in attempting to predict future events.  However, going back in time, Alvin Toffler's 'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave' books from the late 1970s and early 1980s made some prescient predictions about the technology and information revolutions, especially as they related to economic developments.  

I agree with some other posters on here in asserting that Kurzweil's accuracy with regards to the future will depend on whether his main hypotheses are valid.  If he is correct in his assessment of technological trend lines, the singularity, etc., it doesn't matter if his specific predictions are on the mark.  As a case in point, Toffler erroneously believed that people would be living in aqua cities in the early part of the 21st century; however, that does not detract from his larger thesis.

Personally, I do not think that society will develop some of the technologies that Kurzweil mentions in his book because there is not (and never will be) a market for these items.

Anthony

[brokenportal]

When I see questions like this topic I think of things like two people in a conoe, the front one rowing saying that we can get there, and the one in the back not rowing saying that they are too optimistic while they go in circles. The predictions cancel each other out, which reminds me of the quote, "Whether you think you can or you cant you are right." And these are just predictions. I could be wrong, but I dont think he said these things are definitely going to happen like this. You have to have goals to shoot for, to dream about, think about, plan for, expect. It seems like its best to have them, even if you dont reach them. If you can conceive it and beleive it then you can acheive it. How can we hope to acheive anything that we cant even conceive? Kurzweil is a brilliant, thoughtful, critical thinking, pioneering thinker. I beleive in what Kurzweil conceives.

[atp]

atp, on Jan 2 2010, 08:45 PM, said:

from a biological point of view, we already have a biological singularity which means that there is a lifeform, which is able to correct its own genes. we do this:

http://abcnews.go.co...tory?id=8908584

it will be the same with technological singularity. suddenly it will be there. and there will be a machine which is able to to understand its own construction and will enhance its own software.

this video shows that i am right with biological singularity. it happens now!

the evolution of life in 60 seconds

Edited by atp, 06 January 2010 - 12:07 AM.