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I wonder if this will be a wake up call for some of the people who think his predictions of super-human AI are a joke. I mean even if you don't believe in the Singularity, you must believe in Google, right?
This makes "the singularity" sound very much like a religion.
I wonder if this will be a wake up call for some of the people who think his predictions of super-human AI are a joke. I mean even if you don't believe in the Singularity, you must believe in Google, right?
>even if you don't believe in the Singularity This makes "the singularity" sound very much like a religion.
I think what most people mean is, "even if you don't believe that anything other than squishy brains can ever recursively do what the brain does".
Read between the lines - "next decade’s ‘unrealistic’ visions" - is likely nothing less than brain computer interfaces with the end goal of extending life by storing the entire human mind on a machine. Certainly not far off from Kurweil's timelines on Law of Accelerating Returns. I can understand why the PR does not say this, but it seems clear this is where Kurzweil would want to invest his time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>even if you don't believe in the Singularity This makes "the singularity" sound very much like a religion.
> This makes "the singularity" sound very much like a religion. I think what most people mean is, "even if you don't believe that anything other than squishy brains can ever recursively do what the brain does".
Saw him give a talk promoting his latest book last month, was heavily disappointed. Ideas are presented in a way to fit nicely together, but ultimately lack any depth or critical insights. I recall someone calling it "creationism for people with an IQ over 140"; it's a fair description. It's a shame, he's brought many great contributions to our field, but I fear he has jumped the shark a while ago. Maybe going to Goo…
Really? Because if so, then they stole that quote almost verbatim from Mitch Kapor when he was discussing the singularity in 2007. And it seems to have a lot less relevance to a book about how the brain works than it does to an imagined singularity.
>Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for the IQ 140 people...This proposition that we're heading to this point at which everything is going to be just unimaginably different—it's fundamentally, in my view, driven by a religious impulse. And all of the frantic arm-waving can't obscure that fact for me."
I wonder if this will be a wake up call for some of the people who think his predictions of super-human AI are a joke. I mean even if you don't believe in the Singularity, you must believe in Google, right?
>even if you don't believe in the Singularity This makes "the singularity" sound very much like a religion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This makes "the singularity" sound very much like a religion. I think what most people mean is, "even if you don't believe that anything other than squishy brains can ever recursively do what the brain does".
It's better to distinguish the singularity (semi-infinite rapid change caused by recursively self-improving AI) from AI.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
His tendency to handwave rather than retreat to data? What the heck are you talking about? Have you seen how many graphs he puts in his presentations? You think he's a theorist rather than an experimentalist? How can you possibly get that idea with all of his game-changing inventions?
So he gave a tech-talk at Google, around 2008, and yes he had lots of graphs and such but during the Q&A session he kept retreating into generalized ideas rather than data. I recall the question about how he came up with his numbers for machines to hold a consciousness as one such exchange. The impression I certainly got was that his approach is to theorize about something, then design experiments to test out his the…
There's nothing wrong with this, as you've written it. (There might be a problem with his implementation.) All else being equal, I trust a theory which has made ten accurate predictions over a theory which merely explains ten previous observations.
Joining Google gives him ready access to data sets of almost unimaginable size, as well as unparalleled infrastructure and skills for handling such large data sets, putting him in an ideal position to connect researchers in academic and corporate settings with the data, infrastructure, and data management skills they need to make their visions a reality.
According to the MIT Technology Review[1], he will be working with Peter Norvig, who is not just Google's Director of Research, but a well-known figure in AI.
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[1] http://www.technologyreview.com/view/508896/what-google-sees...
Saw him give a talk promoting his latest book last month, was heavily disappointed. Ideas are presented in a way to fit nicely together, but ultimately lack any depth or critical insights. I recall someone calling it "creationism for people with an IQ over 140"; it's a fair description. It's a shame, he's brought many great contributions to our field, but I fear he has jumped the shark a while ago. Maybe going to Goo…
>I recall someone calling it "creationism for people with an IQ over 140"; it's a fair description. Really? Because if so, then they stole that quote almost verbatim from Mitch Kapor when he was discussing the singularity in 2007. And it seems to have a lot less relevance to a book about how the brain works than it does to an imagined singularity. >Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, has called…