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Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

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Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#41

Post by rgc1 »

_debug_ wrote: post #35

I have only a vague idea of the concept of the Singularity (and it is that artifical intelligence will one day eclipse human intelligence), but does anyone know if Dr. Kurzweil & Co. have considered the possibility that by that time, genetic engineering will almost certainly have given humans the ability to boost their children's intelligence to astronomic levels? An Einstein in every household, literally. Thus, the…

Ray has no doctorate. Please don't disrespect the many who actually achieved that by giving one to him.

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#42

Post by aneth »

Ray is smart and very insightful. His predictions are informed and often durable. I find his self promotional tone, constantly referring to "my" theory and what "I" did, grating and difficult to take seriously. I haven't read much of Kurzweil, but I did meet Aubrey de Gray, who I find to be a similarly toned snake-oil hawking hyper-intellectual self-proclaimed messiah of this new technological religion.

I do find these guys thought provoking and informative, but how they seem to take some sort of credit for advances in technologies simply for predicting their impacts, with self-promotional gibberish, is irritating to say the least.

This article is similarly interesting, but it comes as an attempt to defend his legacy rather than add to the debate. While he makes some strong points that his critics are often ill informed, overall my respect for him has been damaged by his willingness to bend his past words. How can I trust anything he writes in the future?

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#43

Post by henrikschroder »

berntb wrote: post #31
henrikschroder wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I've read through all of his predictions, this is part of a larger trend among them. He calls his predictions a success when the technology problem has been solved, and he is completely ignoring that forces that decide if that technology becomes common or not. He is very bad at thinking about the human factors, and optimistically calls success for things that saw a brief life in the market, and then was push…

Point. Not even Steve Jobs can make accurate predictions about what will/won't work without usability testing. Futurists should make distinctions about capabilities and how they are implemented. Some thing just stop in development, waiting for a break through to be better than the alternatives. Virtual reality, chording one handed keyboards and screens in eye glasses seems to be examples. I've been waiting a long tim…

I wouldn't hold my breath for virtual reality, however augmented reality came out of nowhere and is looking like it's going to be very important. I saw that iphone app, Word Lens the other day, it's absolutely fantastic. It transforms your iphone into a magic looking-glass, I think the possibilities for technologies in that direction are endless. If/when we get good retina displays, this is what they're going to be used for, to change our view of reality, to add things to it that helps us in our lives.

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#44

Post by Someone »

listic wrote: post #30
ghshephard wrote: post #14

Interesting - The paper is dated "October, 2010", but on page 10, he talks about the "$4.99 Word Lens iPhone App". Just how clairvoyant is Ray Kurzwell anyways... :-)

It looks like the paper was (and maybe still is) under constant revision, which isn't reflected in the publishing date. For example, on page 7 he mentions TSV 3D DDR3 memory by Samsung, which was announced on December,7 2010 ( http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/newsVie... ), and it says December in the paper. Though I'm really happy to discover that Kurzweil is keeping in touch with the latest devel…

It is a gradual difference: 'Commonly used' is when you are no longer surprised to see someone use a new technology, 'ubiquitous' (literally: everywhere-ish) is when you would be surprised seeing someone still using an older technology it replaced.

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#45

Post by _debug_ »

rgc1 wrote: post #41
_debug_ wrote: post #35

I have only a vague idea of the concept of the Singularity (and it is that artifical intelligence will one day eclipse human intelligence), but does anyone know if Dr. Kurzweil & Co. have considered the possibility that by that time, genetic engineering will almost certainly have given humans the ability to boost their children's intelligence to astronomic levels? An Einstein in every household, literally. Thus, the…

Ray has no doctorate. Please don't disrespect the many who actually achieved that by giving one to him.

Sorry, mistaken assumption on my part.

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#46

Post by berntb »

henrikschroder wrote: post #43
berntb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point. Not even Steve Jobs can make accurate predictions about what will/won't work without usability testing. Futurists should make distinctions about capabilities and how they are implemented. Some thing just stop in development, waiting for a break through to be better than the alternatives. Virtual reality, chording one handed keyboards and screens in eye glasses seems to be examples. I've been waiting a long tim…

I wouldn't hold my breath for virtual reality, however augmented reality came out of nowhere and is looking like it's going to be very important. I saw that iphone app, Word Lens the other day, it's absolutely fantastic. It transforms your iphone into a magic looking-glass, I think the possibilities for technologies in that direction are endless. If/when we get good retina displays, this is what they're going to be u…

Check what Steve Mann, which I refenced, did re augmented reality. Really cool, long ago. (His work with cameras and different exposures to handle dark/light picture parts has gotten analogies in modern cameras the last few years.)

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#47

Post by berntb »

berntb wrote: post #46
henrikschroder wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't hold my breath for virtual reality, however augmented reality came out of nowhere and is looking like it's going to be very important. I saw that iphone app, Word Lens the other day, it's absolutely fantastic. It transforms your iphone into a magic looking-glass, I think the possibilities for technologies in that direction are endless. If/when we get good retina displays, this is what they're going to be u…

Check what Steve Mann, which I refenced, did re augmented reality. Really cool, long ago. (His work with cameras and different exposures to handle dark/light picture parts has gotten analogies in modern cameras the last few years.)

I got an itch from writing a comment (no one will see) without adding a link as a reference. :-)

See "Comparametric Equations, 1993" here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann#Ideas_and_inventions

Re: Ray Kurzweil: How My Predictions Are Faring (2010)

#48

Post by _debug_ »

dstein wrote: post #38
_debug_ wrote: post #35

I have only a vague idea of the concept of the Singularity (and it is that artifical intelligence will one day eclipse human intelligence), but does anyone know if Dr. Kurzweil & Co. have considered the possibility that by that time, genetic engineering will almost certainly have given humans the ability to boost their children's intelligence to astronomic levels? An Einstein in every household, literally. Thus, the…

The "transhumanist" movement advocates that in order to keep up with technological progress in the future (and stay ahead of a singularity) we'll have to augment our brains with cybernetics. And when that happens the lines between human and machine start to blur. I'm convinced that this future, good or bad, may be inevitable.

Thank you, I didn't know about transhumanists/ism before this.
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