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Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

newyorker.com

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Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#11

Post by jere »

>As Kurzweil fleshes it out, the P.R.T.M. is even more like the Hierarchical Temporary Memory system proposed several years ago by his fellow entrepreneur Jeff Hawkins (who founded PalmPilot). Kurzweil’s weak efforts at differentiating his theory from Hawkins’s—“the most important difference is the set of parameters that I have included for each input … especially the size and size variability parameters”—are likely to convince no one.

Yup. That's what I thought when the book was announced and I said this:

>So is this On Intelligence 2?

I find being an armchair cynic is even easier than being an armchair futurist, since I haven't read either book (the rip off is clear from the synopsis).

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#12

Post by acabal »

Long ago I read Kurzweil's "Spiritual Machines," because people kept saying he was a smart guy, and AI intrigues me. It was the first and last book of his I read. It literally had me laughing out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of his predictions and the pomposity with which he delivered them. I remember thinking to myself, "Everybody thinks this guy is a genius--but he's just writing bad sci-fi! How is he fooling everyone? What's going on here?!"

Looks like his new stuff is more of the same...

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#14

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

NathanKP wrote: post #5
confluence wrote: post #2

Let's get this straight: Ray Kurzweil is just a few ticks off crazy. Outside of Moore's law graphs (which he didn't discover), his predictions quickly veer off course into crazy land, especially in the case of diets and theories on intelligence (which others have routinely criticized him for - see everywhere). But here's the problem I have with Ray Kurzweil and other people like him - you can't just ignore them, you…

I'm curious what it is about Elon Musk in particular you consider to be "off kilter".

I doubt he actually thinks there's anything wrong with Elon Musk, the whole post is just a roundabout fan eulogy.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#15

Post by sarah2079 »

NathanKP wrote: post #5
confluence wrote: post #2

Let's get this straight: Ray Kurzweil is just a few ticks off crazy. Outside of Moore's law graphs (which he didn't discover), his predictions quickly veer off course into crazy land, especially in the case of diets and theories on intelligence (which others have routinely criticized him for - see everywhere). But here's the problem I have with Ray Kurzweil and other people like him - you can't just ignore them, you…

I'm curious what it is about Elon Musk in particular you consider to be "off kilter".

I actually remember reading an article in the New Yorker about Elon Musk a few years ago that portrayed him as a bit crazy. Looking at the plans for Tesla and SpaceX at that time, there seemed to be only a slim chance they would succeed, and if I remember correctly Elon had invested a big fraction of his fortune in these ventures (at least in Tesla maybe?). Today you wouldn't call him off kilter since he has really delivered on his ambitions, but before this happened his portrayal in the media was a bit different. There were definitely some people rolling their eyes and thinking "yeah sure Elon, your going to replace NASA and revolutionize the auto industry."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_... (full article is for subscribers only unfortunately)

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#16

Post by unoti »

I'm not sure why there's so much vitriol about Kurzweil. Maybe it's disappointment that we don't have our brain uploads ready yet, just like we were pissed about no flying cars twenty years ago. He doesn't have to be right all the time to be worth at least considering his ideas without getting so angry.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Maybe the title is too sensationalist. But even something like "A New Kind of Science" may not have been so earth shattering, but it was still a lot of fun to read and play with.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#17

Post by jacquesm »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #8
confluence wrote: post #2

Let's get this straight: Ray Kurzweil is just a few ticks off crazy. Outside of Moore's law graphs (which he didn't discover), his predictions quickly veer off course into crazy land, especially in the case of diets and theories on intelligence (which others have routinely criticized him for - see everywhere). But here's the problem I have with Ray Kurzweil and other people like him - you can't just ignore them, you…

You kinda lost me a little at Kurzweil's diets (which are okay, regardless of whether or not they confer "immortality"), but you irrevocably lost me at Elon Musk. You might have strong opinions, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

Being slightly crazy didn't stop Howard Hughes from multiplying his parents' fortune.

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#18

Post by confluence »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #14
NathanKP wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what it is about Elon Musk in particular you consider to be "off kilter".

I doubt he actually thinks there's anything wrong with Elon Musk, the whole post is just a roundabout fan eulogy.

I agree with your first statement. I disagree with your second statement.

I'm not a fan of Elon Musk - that would be making a fundamental attribution error - and it is a logical fallacy to think that one person is perfect. No body should be respected irrespective of action - and merely by name - that's simply foolhardy and cognitively incoherent.

All I have merely stated is thus:

These people are early warning detection systems for future black swans that can fuck us all, and they come with high number of false positives.

So don't get sucked in with their rhetoric - but don't ignore them either - because if you do, you'll get fucked.

Make sense?

Re: Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind

#19

Post by jaxytee »

Even though Ray's futurist predictions can be looney at times, in his book "Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever" he provides a lot of useful/applicable insights into the state of modern medicine. Like how flawed our "pay per medical service" system is, or how heart disease is preventable in almost all instances (but still kills Americans more than anything else), or how most modern humans in the US have diet's and exercise habits (or lack there of) that are extremely detrimental to our bodies and their pre civilization biological programming. Our bodies firmware is indisputably out of date and no one seems to care or acknowledge this fact. I'd rather have Ray and the likes pointing these facts out and imagining a future in which someone uses technology to change them vs criticizing them for not being able to predict the future on a %100 clip. They may introduce the problems to the minds that come along and solve them one day.
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