I'd really hate to belong to last mortal human generation.
Depends what happens after death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUc_kATGgg
I dedicate to you the 4-th verse of this song.
Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#32Too ambitious? I'm thinking 2020 will look pretty much like 2010 which looks pretty much like 2000 :-(
I was just picking through a copy of The Singularity is Near today. Kurzweil makes several specific predictions in his "2010 scenario":
* Computers will become invisible and invade our environment -- woven into our clothing, embedded in our furniture, and so forth.
* We'll have very high-bandwidth, wireless connections to the Internet at all times.
* Displays will be embedded into our eyeglasses and contact lenses, and images will be projected directly onto our retinas.
* Similar tiny devices will project auditory environments.
* "Beams" of audio that only a specific person can hear will be projected from a distance.
* We'll have augmented reality devices that can recognize a person and remind us of his name.
* Real-time translation of foreign languages (subtitles on the world) will exist.
* Virtual assistants will step forward when they see us struggling to find a piece of information. Kurzweil's example has us struggling find "that actress ... who played the princess, or was it the queen ... in that movie with the robot." Your virtual assistant then whispers in your ear that it was "Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala in Stars Wars, episodes 1, 2, and 3."
I'll give him the "pervasive, invisible computers" point. Though they're not yet woven into our clothing, Kurzweil has pointed out in recent talks that smartphones such as the iPhone fulfill the same role. Ditto on high-bandwidth, permanent connections to the Internet -- the 3G connectivity of smartphones meets this criterion. Augmented reality applications, such as New York Nearest Subway, are available in a nascent form on smartphones. Real-time translation of foreign languages is also becoming a reality: consider Google's recently-announced automated transcription of subtitles for YouTube videos, along with their automated translation into foreign languages. Shakier are his claims regarding displays embedded into eyewear, "personal beams" of audio, and intelligent virtual assistants. One can point to experimental implementations of each, but none have been widely adopted.
I think Kurzweil's ideas generally have merit, even if the man himself comes off as overly optimistic. The technological singularity argument essentially boils down to the question of whether humanity will create an intelligence that far exceeds its own. To do so, we must possess both the desire and the means to create such an entity. I think we have both -- our desire is unquestionable, for the applications of an artificial general intelligence are far too great across all aspects of human existence for us to turn away; the means to do so will also exist, as hardware and software are both progressing at a phenomenal rate, and they must eventually cross the threshold necessary for intelligence. Whether we will realize such an intelligence on Kurzweil's aggressive schedule is less certain. Given that his predictions for 2010 made five years ago are substantially inaccurate, I am less inclined to believe his claim that we will achieve a "technological singularity" in exactly (or even around) 2029. Other ideas freely expressed by Kurzweil, such as the belief that he'll be able to resurrect a simulacrum of his dead father once this technology singularity is reached, make him sound, well, nuts. Still, murky as the details and timeline may be, I think Kurzweil's general vision of humanity's future is compelling.
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#33I don't know what the world will look like in 2020, but I know what Kurzweil will be up to: still trying to turn a buck hustling bizarre 'life-extension' supplements. That is, if the 100+ pills he takes daily or the weekly transfusions don't kill him first.
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, what's the difference between the average human lifespan in 2000 and the average human lifespan in 2010? The Internet is very different than it was (though more in form than in function), various industries have risen or fallen, and so on, and - probably what the parent post was talking about - that all fits very tidily into the normal pattern of human history. No-one can meaningfully predict what technologies…
The average human lifespan in the United States has been increasing linearly by about 2 months per year since 1980. In 1990 average life expectancy was 75.5 in 2000 it was 77 and 2010 will be 78.5 http://www94.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+unite...
That's life expectancy at birth. The increase of life expectancy at birth may be due to reduced infant mortality. I'm more interested in the life expectancy of people born in the 1980s. Is that increasing?
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you mention doesn't apply to 10 years ago. Maybe 20-50 years ago.
10 years ago there was no iPod. Even mp3 was not that popular. It was when Napster started. 10 years ago there was NO way you could have video on the internet. Real streaming was a joke. 10 years ago, people were still using Altavista and getting internet access through AOL CDs. 10 years ago, Yahoo! Mail offered 2MB of space. 10 years ago, there was no genome sequencing complete. 10 years ago, cell phones were small,…
For a decade of advancement, your examples are very weak. Compare 1970->1980 or 1980->1990 for the change in everyday technology!
I had an mp3 player in 2000. Creative released a 6GB hard drive based player in 2000 with which you'd still do fine today. It was Napster's heyday. I had a cable connection very capable of delivering video on the internet. Sure, the majority of streaming was porn sites, but the capability was there. I was using Google then, like I am now. The Startac was released in 1996. By 2000 there were many LCD phones, and the BlackBerry was available.
I don't see how a tech-savvy person could not have lived a very similar life in 2000. Look at 1990 with no graphical internet (for instance) and qualitatively less computer capability, and there really isn't any comparison in rate of change.
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could have had that energy revolution decades ago, but we threw it away. :) Hopefully there will be no such mistake made with solar, et al.
Are you referring to nuclear power? We didn't throw it away. Indeed, the very question of waste which can't be simply thrown away has hampered widespread nuclear plant deployment. Nuclear is off the table until we figure out what to do with the waste.
We know what to do with the waste: burn it up in nuclear reactors. Much of what's called "waste" is really just partially-processed fuel, and the only two reasons it isn't viewed that way are, first, proliferation fear and, second, it was convenient for all the major groups involved to spread FUD about the terrible dangers of nuclear waste.
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#37Too ambitious? I'm thinking 2020 will look pretty much like 2010 which looks pretty much like 2000 :-(
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you referring to nuclear power? We didn't throw it away. Indeed, the very question of waste which can't be simply thrown away has hampered widespread nuclear plant deployment. Nuclear is off the table until we figure out what to do with the waste.
We know what to do with the waste: burn it up in nuclear reactors. Much of what's called "waste" is really just partially-processed fuel, and the only two reasons it isn't viewed that way are, first, proliferation fear and, second, it was convenient for all the major groups involved to spread FUD about the terrible dangers of nuclear waste.
Agreed, France has an excellent nuclear power program.
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#39Crack pot? Yes. Accurate? Probably not.
Re: Ray Kurzweil predicts how technology will change humanity by 2020
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
10 years ago there was no iPod. Even mp3 was not that popular. It was when Napster started. 10 years ago there was NO way you could have video on the internet. Real streaming was a joke. 10 years ago, people were still using Altavista and getting internet access through AOL CDs. 10 years ago, Yahoo! Mail offered 2MB of space. 10 years ago, there was no genome sequencing complete. 10 years ago, cell phones were small,…
For a decade of advancement, your examples are very weak. Compare 1970->1980 or 1980->1990 for the change in everyday technology! I had an mp3 player in 2000. Creative released a 6GB hard drive based player in 2000 with which you'd still do fine today. It was Napster's heyday. I had a cable connection very capable of delivering video on the internet. Sure, the majority of streaming was porn sites, but the capability…
Tech-savy, sure. But not the rest. People didn't use all that in 2000, now they do, whether or not they are tech-savy. That counts for change.