The Singularity Is Near

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Ray Kurzweil on CSPAN2

Anybody else watching?





Ray Kurzweil talks about the rapid advancements in technology and the possible implications of this for our future. Mr. Kurzweil also explains how technology evolves and demonstrates how, with this understanding, he has been able to successfully predict things like the worldwide use of the internet decades before most people even knew what it was. Mr. Kurzweil also talks about the potential for nanotechnology and addresses concerns that an increased reliance on technology will be bad for humanity.

[CoffeeCat]

1. Sounds like the message from "2001: A Space Odyssey" (nt)

[megatherium]

9. Of course, 2001 was five years ago,

and the Kurzweil's predictions are not much less speculative than those of Arthur C. Clarke in 1967. While we have some of the technology predicted in that wonderful movie (voice recognition, video telephony or "video chat", and flat panel displays), we don't have other predictions (orbiting hotels, moon bases and of course true machine sentience). I gather the movie was based on wildly optimistic predictions by Marvin Minksky and his group at MIT. The difficulty of machine intelligence is demonstrated by how difficult it has been to arrive at a machine that can simply walk bipedally. Honda's ASIMO robot can finally do this now, convincingly -- but this machine is far from as being sentient and aware as we are.

Biology will provide the keys to understanding consciousness, I expect. We now have the genome sequenced (of chimps and a variety of other animals, as well as humans); these in theory contain all we need to know to "reverse-engineer" the human brain. But this will take a long time to accomplish, decades if not centuries (not the 20-30 year time frame envisioned by Kurzweil).

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. He doesn't live in a shed in the woods and dream of stopping

the inevitable.... does he???

[thefool_wa]

3. No offense to Kurzweil

But ultimately any science fiction wirter from the 40s to the 70s can make some of those claims. "Predicting" technology is a load of crap, there is no such thing as a new idea and all technological advancements are geared towards making us feel like we live in the sci-fi novels of our fantasy.

Besides, the Dark Future is now and we have everything from Corporations running the world to the Net to Datasticks, BUT STILL NO F-ING FLYING CAR! I WANT MY F-ING FLYING CAR!

[punpirate]

5. Uh, before you get what you want...

... you might consider the impact of drunk drivers.... :shrug:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

8. Not Only That, Think Of The Implications If You Run Out Of Fuel.

Shit, My wife does it all the time now.

I would gather she could only do it once with a flying car...

[thefool_wa]

15. Hopefully

Fuel won't be a problem. I figure we won't see a flying car until cars no longer run on gasoline and superconductors are available on a consumer scale for meanigless applications (i.e. hover disks for moving heavy furniture, that type of thing).

One would hope that by then the cars, once out of fuel, will just hover in place.

[thefool_wa]

12. Good point

but I still want a flying car. There has to be a way to safegaurd it. I mean, if we are going to dream here...

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Yeah, I'm with you. Flying cars, dammit.

Implications shrimplications.

Although we did get a link to the guy who has invented a flying scooter a week or two ago around here.

[thefool_wa]

13. oh oh oh, where's the link?

Flying scooter is close, do you still have the link?

[Warren DeMontague]

18. It's not as cool as it sounds

It's not antigravity cool, it's more like parasail and big ass fan cool.

Still, it beats sittin' in traffic, I bet.

Here you go:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=77906

[Liberal In Texas]

16. You mean like this one?...

Moller International's M400 Skycar

Moller International has developed the first and only feasible, personally affordable, personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle the world has ever seen.

You've always known it was just a matter of time before the world demanded some kind of flying machine which would replace the automobile. Of course, this machine would have to be capable of VTOL, be easy to maintain, cost effective and reliable. Well, we at Moller International believe we have come up with the solution. That solution is the volantor named M400 Skycar.


http://www.moller.com/skycar/

[thefool_wa]

17. Seen this

Its cool, but ugly. I want

[Liberal In Texas]

19. It's not so bad...

[thefool_wa]

21. WOW!

That's actually way better, and alot closer to what I posted.

Now all it needs is missile launchers and machine guns :) BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Warren DeMontague]

20. Blade Runner

Damn Straight.

[melody]

4. Oh, I think he's very accurate in this

Singularity study is all over the web. Kurzweil is one of the significant theorists.

It simply makes sense logically and intuitively that, at some point, to poorly paraphrase Wendell Berry, "after more and more clusters of stars, we'll at last reach a place where all is light". In other words, we'll eventually be able to do so much so quickly that our whole psychological architecture will have to be reconfigured to allow for its simple cognition.

[Porcupine]

6. Wishfull thinking wins defeats reality once again

The primary problems with the worlds economies are all old school. How do people get food, clean water, housing. health care and education.

Nano-whatever does not promise any solution to say....preventing feedlot waste from being a stinky, river-killing nightmare. It cannot get you fresher, better fruit in winter. It won't fix your roof or heat your house. At best it might give you a more reliable kitchen faucet.

Yeeha.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. The nanotechnology blows my mind.

:)

[Viva_La_Revolution]

11. Infotechnology will be a major portion of the Economy in 2020

Did I catch that right?

[KakistocracyHater]

14. singularity? already been there

done that

[gristy]

22. yeah, I watched much of it

His predictions of the power of computing are pretty scary. By 2020 or thereabouts, a $1,000 computer will be as "smart" as a human and will be able to pass the Turing test. But what will its political affiliation be? Not to mention its ethics and morals?