Ray Kurzweil

[Bikewer]

Relating to the "singularity" post below, Mr. Kurzweil has been on the talk-show circuit lately plugging his new book on that and related subjects:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/06...103-8445205-2939034?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Kurzweil is an author, inventor, futurist, etc. I listened to him both on Ira Flatow's Science Friday and on Diane Rehm within the last month.

He makes a number of assertions, including that regarding the "singularity" moment when manufactured intelligence will equal or exceed the human brain. (he says about 40-50 years).
Also, he predicts breakthroughs in medical technology occurring at about 15 years which will greatly extend life and result in the easy treatment of most deadly diseases and syndromes.
Kurzweil evidently extrapolates from current technology and does seem to be pretty much on top of what's going on in various fields. I just read an overview of current nanotechnology research, and he seemed to be well aware of these developments. One of the computer-related items he spoke of should be hitting commercial applications pretty shortly-processors based on carbon nanotubes. Another advance that we may see this year is 3-d media storage, with several 3-d "DVD" formats to be released.

I'm not entirely sold on Kurzweil; he also claims to have relieved himself of adult-onset diabetes and high cholesterol though diet and taking some 200 supplements a day. (he also has a book on improving your health by these means...)
I've not heard of this gentleman previously, and I don't know if he has any traction amongst the skeptical or not.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Kurzweil is an interesting fellow. My dyslexic son uses one of his software products at school. He's been on top of technology for a long time.

Just a feeling, though: He may be approaching that "I'm so clever I'm infallible" cliff. Stay tuned.

200 supplements? Yow!

http://www.kurzweiltech.com/raycv.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11564-2004Oct6.html

http://www.rayandterry.com/OurPhilosophy.htm

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So I have to take "appropriate supplements," yet I can just buy an off-the-shelf product?

~~ Paul

 

[LarsLuthor]

It's only in his mind!!

Folks
Have been around this technology game for a long time as well, something like.. oh my god.. 30 years!! I have worked mostly R&D in several major technologies and Fortune 100 companies. That being said I have seen what is on the R&D road maps versus what the Technolgy Forecasters proclaim. Bottom line is that the actual introduction rate of "jump the shark" technologies is very slow! Example: In 1984 there was a 3 company consortium called Trilogy, DEC, IBM, HP decided they individually did not have the technology horsepower to create/solve the silicon on silicon technology needed for the new high horsepower CPU's/big main frame supercomputers the world was going to need! so you can see already where this is going, or rather where it didn't! The company leaders were swayed by an outside technology consulting group, long story short the rate of technology adaptation is hugely slower than what is perceived and written about! so let's fast forward today, 21 years later...and guess what.. first of all there is or was no silicon on silicon main frame supercomputers ever marketed, second the silicon on silicon idea is still being bantered about, heck just this past year the CPU company I work for has it on the R&D roadmap again!! just in case. But wait if you really want to see technology in action or the lack of it just take a look at the new chip sets called Stacked chip, for all the new technology out there in the electronics world, all your new capability cell phones etc are built on these new stacked chip design molded packages. The silicon is thinned down to 100 micorns and stacked one on top of another.. up to 5 or 6 chips... and they are all WIRE BONDED to the substrate! Wire bonded using a technology that is about 50 years old. The whole set of wirebonded chips is then overmolded with the standard old glass filled epoxy stuff you have seen for dozens of years on electronics components! and the whole package is only 1.2mm's thick, and maybe up to 14mm's sq or so! but has a cpu, Sram, RF, A-D, etc all in one small thin profile using standard old proven technolgies! All the while there is all kinds of super dooper ultra nanotube this and that capability! Heck we even have several MEMS and Nano technology projects, they can't figure out what to do with it!! they certainly can't displace current technologies, cost is the bottom line, proven volume technolgies that have zero depreciation in the cost model will beat any technology every time!! it is simple business. Take the 3d memory that has been on the drawing boards of various memory companies, optical to magnetic, for dozens of years but never makes it to production. Evolutionary development beats out revolutionary every time! But it is more fun and hopeful to read about the revolutionary stuff!! No one pays much attention to small incremental linear changes!! But that is the model in business. Then there are the young kids fresh out of school, this is what they have written and read about. They arrive at their first day of work for a fortune 100 company ready to work on nano this, or laser that! Without first knowing how change really takes place or the technolgies that really drive the business!
The rate of infusion of new earth shaking radical technolgies is simply not reality! the reasons are numerous but these reasons are constant because at the root are Humans! Second is business, capitalist type businesses! So anything this guy proclaims is just an opinion and just like all human who have an ******* they also have an opinion, nothing more!
My prediction, he will die and see none of these radical new ideas come to fruition... heck even his kinds won't see them! People do not like to change, worse they hate to change in radical large unusual ways! Fix that and maybe he will have something to write about! In the meantime I pay his type no heed nor devote any time to read his dribble
DS

 

[Bikewer]

I havn't read the man's book, only listened to a couple of interviews, but he does posit that we build progressively on earlier technology, and the accumulated knowledge grows expoentially. Breakthroughs in computer CPU power may come from several different avenues, of course; the carbon nanotube is just one being explored.

Alvin Toffler, the futurist, made a point many years ago that there is a segment of the population that is strongly against change, another segment that is enthused and eager about change, and a much larger group than either extreme who are rather indifferent.
Some things just take off, of course. Look at the now-ubiquitous cell phone.

 

[LarsLuthor]

Aj but remember the 1960 World's Fair??

Bikewr
Yup cell phones have exploded.. in the europen and more so 3rd world countries..where most had nothing to start with for phonse service because they had no infrastructure! The funny thing is that in those old world's fairs lik eth 1960 or was it 1962? the picture phone was the big thing... heck they have been touting the picture phone for many dozens of years...but who has one? it is a reality to be had.. many have tried to market it.. but I don't see any.. heck I work for the largest CPU manufacturer in the world.. and we don't use half the available technology out there! I left DEC in 1990 after 10 years.. to go to Intel... at DEC we had the internet, we had VAX architecture, we had repositories of information to search and use in our work. I get to Intel in 1991 ish.. and no internet!! what!! no email for everyone in the company.. only selected techies and high management who rarely used it because they did not know how etc!! They were easily 10 years behind everyone else.. and they were the leader in CPU design and manufacture!! I was stunned... it took another 4 years for them to come up to where DEC was in 1986!! Some enterprising MBA student could make a great study/dissertation on this resistance to incorporate technological change.... that the company was in the forefront of making it possibel technologically!! There is resistance to change at the personal level.. and then there is an even more bizarre set of rules for adaptation to change in corporate america!, it is the latter that worries me most as we head into the future competiting against rapidly developing 3 rd world countries!

 

[Xeriar]

Lars... paragraphs and thought organization will make for more responses to your posts.

 

[Dr. Imago]

Also, he predicts breakthroughs in medical technology occurring at about 15 years which will greatly extend life and result in the easy treatment of most deadly diseases and syndromes.

What he doesn't account for is the inherent "bureacratic delay" of these technologies (bench to publication to approval to adoption). This is often on the order of several years. So, in essence, much of this "breathrough" technology should already have been dreamt up and in process. I'm not hearing any buzz...

...he also claims to have relieved himself of adult-onset diabetes and high cholesterol though diet and taking some 200 supplements a day. (he also has a book on improving your health by these means...)

For many people, diet, exercise, and weightloss alone will fix these things, for which you don't need superfluously add "200 supplements a day" to accomplish such a goal. Problem is, most people aren't motivated to lose the weight until it's far too late. I suspect that he is one of the more highly functioning people who, through reflection and insight (traits he most certainly possesses and, likewise, many others do not), was able to see the absurdity of his problem, likely secondary to being overweight, but subsequently and unfortunately (partially) came to the wrong conclusions as to the true cause/effect when he accomplished his goal. If he stopped the supplements and kept the weight where it is at, then my educated guess is the Type II diabetes won't come back. If I'm wrong, he should publish.

Just a feeling, though: He may be approaching that "I'm so clever I'm infallible" cliff.

You may be correct.

-Dr. Imago