"The Singularity Is Near" by Ray Kurzweil, How Close?? - Page 11

Here you go.

I was responding to the argument of survivorship bias. Posting his predictions that have proven correct wouldn't exactly argue against it.

Yeah, except his grading of his predictions is delusionally awful. It might be worth checking that he's actually correct, instead of just him saying he's actually correct. And I'm certainly not giving him money at this point, directly or indirectly, so link to free content.

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08-05-2010 , 06:21 PM

#252

Subfallen

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TomCowley -

Out of curiosity, do you have an opinion on how probable it is that human-level AI exists by 2050? (Assume no civilization-ending catastrophe occurs.)

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08-05-2010 , 06:29 PM

#253

ZeeJustin

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Originally Posted by Max Raker

Right, there are things I can do in a second with a computer that would have took lifetimes in the 1800s. There are also things I still cannot do.

Having enough energy to power these computers (or whatever problems people in the future are trying to solve) could take 10^100 people 10^100 years

Even if you are super conservative, and are thinking linearly instead of exponentially, this is a completely ridiculous view.

There is no reason to think that computing purchasing power (price of calculations per second) won't increase dramatically over the next 20 years.

Once human level AI is created, it will be trivially cheap/easy/efficient to simulate millions of years worth of thought in a fraction of a day.

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08-05-2010 , 06:35 PM

#254

JayTee

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"Despite occasional corrections, the ten years leading up to 2009 have seen continuous economic expansion and prosperity due to the dominance of the knowledge content of products and services. The greatest gains continue to be
in the value of the stock market."

http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=...Q:.IXIC&ntsp=0

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08-05-2010 , 06:43 PM

#255

chezlaw

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ZeeJustin

Absolutely, the only reason it could possibly not happen is lack of demand.

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Once human level AI is created, it will be trivially cheap/easy/efficient to simulate millions of years worth of thought in a fraction of a day.

The importance of this may be far less than it seems, to get from X to Y may require lots of development cycles in technology, experiment etc and that still takes 'real' time.

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08-05-2010 , 06:45 PM

#256

TomCowley

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Subfallen

TomCowley -

Out of curiosity, do you have an opinion on how probable it is that human-level AI exists by 2050? (Assume no civilization-ending catastrophe occurs.)

No.

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08-05-2010 , 07:51 PM

#257

VPIP100

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Im with durkadurka here, RK had me fooled for some time too but then I started reading and we don't know **** about life and consciousness yet, he makes some pretty big claims with tons of unknown problems ahead.

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08-05-2010 , 08:02 PM

#258

chezlaw

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Originally Posted by VPIP100

but we don't need to solve that problem, we have life and intelligence and we know we can use it.

people focus far too much on the specific when the specific matters not a jot.

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08-05-2010 , 08:48 PM

#259

vixticator

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Originally Posted by chezlaw

Kurzweil is irrelevent. The idea is good or it is not idependently of him. Makes no sense to believe it or not based on Kurzweil's track record. the only relevence of his track record is whether we bother to read about his ideas in the first place. Clearly he has passed that hurdle.

I agree. Talking about mostly wrong things itt.

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08-05-2010 , 09:25 PM

#260

ZeeJustin

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Originally Posted by vixticator

I agree. Talking about mostly wrong things itt.

Agreed (even though I'm guilty of it)

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08-05-2010 , 10:21 PM

#261

jb9

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Quote:

Originally Posted by TomCowley

so link to free content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predict...y_Ray_Kurzweil

I'm hoping this one comes true:

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2014

* Automatic house cleaning robots will have become common.

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08-05-2010 , 10:26 PM

#262

chezlaw

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^^^ My sister and my mum both have robot hoovers and are very impressed.

Again its demand more than anything else that's the problem and cleaners are cheap.

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08-05-2010 , 10:31 PM

#263

durkadurka33

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There's a big difference between a Roomba and someone who can clean everything from toilets and mop floors to windows and etc. etc.

Also, the key to being a successful futurist is being somewhat vague. What constitutes that prediction coming true?

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08-05-2010 , 10:34 PM

#264

chezlaw

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Originally Posted by durkadurka33

There's a big difference between a Roomba and someone who can clean everything from toilets and mop floors to windows and etc. etc.

Yes but we already have those. The field would be far more advamnced if it was something we really wanted like TVs or computers. domestic robots wont really take off until we can **** them, fight them or play games with them.

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Also, the key to being a successful futurist is being somewhat vague. What constitutes that prediction coming true?

That can be a cop out but its also a problem for the people with brains when it comes to predictions. People demand specific when its irrelevent, you need to appreciate the flavour.

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08-05-2010 , 10:45 PM

#265

durkadurka33

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They've been predicting cleaning robots since at least the 50s!

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08-05-2010 , 10:47 PM

#266

chezlaw

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Quote:

Originally Posted by durkadurka33

They've been predicting cleaning robots since at least the 50s!

yes its sort of a holy grail but its a bad predicition for economic not technological reasons.

For people to buy it it needs to do the job as well as a human and be cheap.

That's an impossible starting point for anything humans are good at like cleaning houses.

So it can only arise as a byproduct of something else.

The general mistake made is thinking it would be nice to have and it will be possible therefore it will be produced. It doesn't work that way.

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08-05-2010 , 11:30 PM

#267

Subfallen

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chezlaw is right imo. Here is an interview with Henry Markham, director of the Blue Brain project. He predicts that, if funding is available, we can have a full (molecular resolution) simulation of the human brain within a decade.

Some people itt seem to feel qualified to dismiss any and every prediction they deem over-ambitious...but...Henry f'ing Markham guys. C'mon.

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08-05-2010 , 11:36 PM

#268

plaaynde

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Quote:

Originally Posted by durkadurka33

They've been predicting cleaning robots since at least the 50s!

I think cleaning is a quite advanced task. We do have the self-moving vacuum cleaners already (lol). To really do cleaning and fixing things up in the home I think (super) human intellect could be of use. The robot should basically know what the human is interested in having cleaned and fixed up, and how. The human should preferably be able to directly ask about where everything is of the robot. The robot has to be very advanced in knowing when, what and how to clean, stay out of the way, and so on.

Maybe we could have some primitive ones in 10-20 years from now. The more advanced and wide spread? Maybe in 30-40 years? I mean, for real this time (!)

Last edited by plaaynde; 08-05-2010 at 11:47 PM.

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08-05-2010 , 11:56 PM

#269

durkadurka33

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We're on our way to a robot that can fold a load of laundry in less than a day!

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08-06-2010 , 12:00 AM

#270

vixticator

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Subfallen

That doesn't seem to support RK or Strong AI the least bit, Markham explicitly says...

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Blue Brain adopts a philosophy that is pretty much 180 degrees opposite to the philosophy in AI. In my view, AI is an extreme form of engineering and applied math where you try to come up with a God formula to create magical human powers. If you want to go into AI, I think you have to realize you are making the assumption that your formula will have to capture 11 billion years of evolutionary intelligence. In most cases, AI researches do not even know what a neuron is, let alone how the brain works, but then they don’t need to because they are searching for something else. I don’t blame them for trying because, if you want to build clever devices today, it is much easier to ignore the brain - it is just too complex to harvest the technology of the brain. Look at speech recognition today – the best ones out there don’t use neural principles. Having said that, we all know how inadequate the current devices are and that is just because AI can’t even come close to what the brain can do. Blue Brain is not trying to build clever devices, it is a biological project that will reveal systematically the secret formulas operating, but Blue Brain models and simpler derivative models will gradually replace all of AI.

And nothing in the interview has to do with supplanting human brains with computers, or transhumanism, or anything to do with the singularity, as far as I can tell. The problem is there are hundreds of definitions of 'the singularity', so it would help itt to define wtf it is first.

Also Markham very clearly states that they are simulating and not emulating the brain.

So, what am I missing?

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08-06-2010 , 12:09 AM

#271

Subfallen

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Sorry, I was chasing a much smaller rabbit: human-level AI. (For whatever reason I thought the conversation had shifted toward that scale. Not really paying attention.)

Yeah, obv Markham doesn't agree with Kurzweil.

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08-06-2010 , 12:25 AM

#272

ctyri

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Originally Posted by Subfallen

Sorry, I was chasing a much smaller rabbit: human-level AI. (For whatever reason I thought the conversation had shifted toward that scale. Not really paying attention.)

Yeah, obv Markham doesn't agree with Kurzweil.

From your link:

The Blue Brain Project is not an AI project...

[rather it is]...a facility to explore hypotheses of disease for specific patients, pharmaceutical companies to carry out virtual drug development, technology companies to design the next generation technologies, and for schools and institutions of higher education to take students for virtual tours into the brain’s of different animals to see and learn how the brain is designed and
function, and how it evolved, develops and then ages, and what can go wrong in different diseases.

It isn't about creating an intelligent machine, it would seem.

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08-06-2010 , 12:31 AM

#273

Subfallen

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Ok, I don't even want to try to defend myself here. Lol.

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08-06-2010 , 01:49 AM

#274

ChoicestHops

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http://www.futuretimeline.net/index.htm

I found this website that is loosely based on Singularity. It's basically a website where they predict future events such as the emergence of thoughtcrime, full immersion virtual reality, nanotech fabrics, and etc. If you don't take it too seriously it's really, really interesting/entertaining. 2020-2029 is where it starts to get really good.

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08-06-2010 , 02:16 AM

#275

ZeeJustin

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Originally Posted by ChoicestHops

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2090

Traditional religions are fading from European culture

In some European nations, the number of people considering themselves to be non-religious has increased from around 30% in 1980, to over 90% now.*

YESSSSS! We did it! High fives all around!

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The USA still lags far behind Europe in terms of atheistic belief, however.

Crap