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Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

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Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#41

Post by earthboundkid »

Hexstream wrote: post #27
david927 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm channeling a pharmacist friend here. Either a pill has no effect (such as Vitamin-C) and just gives you expensive urine, or it has an effect. And if it has an effect, it has a side effect(s). No pharmacist in the world knows what would happen if you mix that many pills, whatever they are, and so, unless most of them are herbal non-drugs, he's taking a big chance, which is exactly what he's trying to avoid. Thus t…

Vitamin C has no effect?! That's not what mommy told me :( Any references?

Linus Pauling died.

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#42

Post by byrneseyeview »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #18

I've got a better plan for my future: I'm going to grow old and die . (Unless, of course, fate intervenes and I don't grow old. But I intend to keep planning to grow old right up until the last minute!) It's a classic plan, and well tested. Lots of prior art. Lots of examples to learn from, and a lot of infrastructure and literature. You folks can find fault with my plan if you want. But here's the thing: You're goin…

Really? So if you lived in a post-Singularity world, in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right, you would periodically get your face wrinkled, inject yourself with bone-brittling nanobots, induce dementia, and then wither away?

If you tried to inflict that fate on anyone else, it would be a terrible crime. If you wanted that for yourself, it would be evidence of mental illness. If you consider it anything but the status quo or an inevitability, it's indefensible to desire it.

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#43

Post by dbreunig »

aswanson wrote: post #35
dbreunig wrote: post #25

Anyone seen one of his talks or ppts? Anyone else get those creepy cult feelings? Anyone?

Yes. I've laid out my objections to his timetables here before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=142175 I like what his books do in terms of sparking the imagination, but take his claims with the same level of skepticism as I do an infomercial. Another thing is the repitition; if you've read Age of Intelligent Machines you've read Age of Spiritual Machines as well as Singularity is Near . Some of the predictions o…

Thanks much for the much better articulation!

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#45

Post by xlnt »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #42
mechanical_fish wrote: post #18

I've got a better plan for my future: I'm going to grow old and die . (Unless, of course, fate intervenes and I don't grow old. But I intend to keep planning to grow old right up until the last minute!) It's a classic plan, and well tested. Lots of prior art. Lots of examples to learn from, and a lot of infrastructure and literature. You folks can find fault with my plan if you want. But here's the thing: You're goin…

Really? So if you lived in a post-Singularity world, in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right, you would periodically get your face wrinkled, inject yourself with bone-brittling nanobots, induce dementia, and then wither away? If you tried to inflict that fate on anyone else, it would be a terrible crime. If you wanted that for yourself, it would be evidence of mental illness. If you consider it…

it's no more a mental illness than being a luddite

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#46

Post by Panoramix »

ericb wrote: post #29
mynameishere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we will use the term AI instead of robot I use the term "robot" because these things need a physical component, especially if they are going to be manufacturing other physical components that contain themselves. AI is attached to atoms no matter what. Atoms are expensive. As soon as expense is involved, economic scarcity is involved. As soon as scarcity is involved, competition is involved. the only thing that matter…

> A newborn baby, I strongly suspect, contains very few algorithms. I would say "very few" is going way too far. There is essentially language recognition (Broca and Wernicke's areas), pattern recognition, and a large body of instincts and social skills (via pre-programmed behaviors and mirror neurons) built-in already.

But it contains millions at the cellular level.

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#47

Post by qwph »

omouse wrote: post #14
AnotherUser wrote: post #11

To address the points raised in these comments: 1. We do NOT have "the equivalent computing power of a kitten's brain." That's like saying that because we have apples we have the equivalent taste of an orange. The only real way to translate current silicon processor-based computing into a biological brain-based form is to ask how http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19767/ ">many neurons can we model on current ha…

>Homeopathic medicines usually have very little side effects. Yes, because they don't do anything . They are based on a false idea that can never work. There is no scientific and clinic evidence to show that it does work. It is ridiculous to even mention it as an alternative.

Homeopathy is based on the idea of taking a solution of some chemical, then diluting it so much that no molecules of the original solution can remain. The BBC did a documentary on it a few years back, and they found that lo and behold, under laboratory conditions, homeopathic solutions behaved indistinguishably from water.

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#48

Post by Panoramix »

earthboundkid wrote: post #41
Hexstream wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vitamin C has no effect?! That's not what mommy told me :( Any references?

Linus Pauling died.

He's not the best example as he died at age 93.

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#49

Post by byrneseyeview »

xlnt wrote: post #45
byrneseyeview wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? So if you lived in a post-Singularity world, in which clinical immortality was an unquestioned human right, you would periodically get your face wrinkled, inject yourself with bone-brittling nanobots, induce dementia, and then wither away? If you tried to inflict that fate on anyone else, it would be a terrible crime. If you wanted that for yourself, it would be evidence of mental illness. If you consider it…

it's no more a mental illness than being a luddite

It's possible to wish that things were different, or to want to have a closer connection to the results of one's labor by avoiding automation and seceding from impersonal organizations. But I don't think Luddites advocate smallpox or other debilitating, disfiguring, fatal diseases. Aging is a disfiguring, debilitating, fatal disease, and so as far as the scope of this discussion is concerned, the difference between it and smallpox is that it's not contagious and it's taken longer to cure.

Re: Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity

#50

Post by ovi256 »

david927 wrote: post #8
mynameishere wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we don't have is the software that can recognize a dog without having ever seen one before. Sure we do. ................... Anyway, there is a problem with the notion of super-intelligent robots. Without getting too much into it, suffice to say that robots will be forced to subscribe to the same survival-of-the-fittest constraints that humans have. When you observe the human species, it might seem strange that t…

Sure we do. Really? And we have software that can recognize a cat from a dog (as that kitten can do)? And my face from yours even if I cover my ears (as the kitten will be able to do once it imprints)? I'd like to see that software! The truth is Kurzweil and others are fooling themselves if they think this is a hardware issue.

>can recognize a cat from a dog (as that kitten can do)

The kitten did not recognize the dog as a dog. Just as a threat. Anything alive, moving, new and bigger is automatically labeled a threat until some clues (chemical = familiar smell, elapse of time without attack) teach the kitten otherwise. So there you have it.

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