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How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

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Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#41

Post by eavc »

coldtea wrote: post #34
sixQuarks wrote: post #26

Is it just me, or does Ray Kurzweil seem to be getting younger? I remember seeing a speech of his a few years ago, he had a nervous tick where he was blinking his eyes constantly. He also looked a lot older. Now, he doesn't have that tick, seems to have more hair, etc. I know he takes like 100 pills every day

People can look older and younger at different times, depending on weight gain or loss, stress or depression, choice of clothing, plastic surgery (duh!), more or less workout, etc. Him getting 100 pills every day: I don't think is very relevant. Mostly delusional. If that worked, pharmaceutical companies would have made it into one mega-pill, and sold it for a fortune to rich people years ago.

Something as simple as lighting could also play into it depending on what opportunities you have for seeing someone at different times.

As for your argument against 100 pills, that only holds if it's well-known or well-established that it works and works safely.

Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#42

Post by lukeschlather »

coldtea wrote: post #32
ot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that you could say the exact same thing about Douglas Hofstadter himself.

Really? I don't think so. For one, Kurzweill DOES have "grand" ideas. Extravagant visions of a future with technological immortality, singularity, etc. Hofstadter does not. He merely examines some things, like cognition, and proposes some theories about their workings. Like, you know, every scientist. Kurzweill comes out as grandioze, obsessive and deluded, Hofstadter like a normal writer, no more or less strange tha…

How could anyone hope to accomplish anything halfway great without being grandiose, obsessive and deluded?

Kurzweil has already done enough to prove he's not simply deluded. It seems like every week there's an article that comes across HN about how all great innovators have a capacity for self-delusion. Kurzweil has consistently shown himself to be a great innovator, and yet people dismiss him as a crank because he has the gall to continue to reach for "impossible" goals.

Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#44

Post by kashrr »

Kurzweil has grand ideas, thinks out of the box enough for people to call him crazy. I would guess some of those are the kind of grand / crazy ideas larry and company want to pursue too. So i think it is a good fit. For more information on the man and what motivates him. See the documentary the Transcendent Man, http://www.amazon.com/Transcendent-Man/dp/B0051Y6NQA

Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#47

Post by IvyMike »

youngerdryas wrote: post #4

>Kurzweil eventually wants to help create a “cybernetic friend” that knows what you want before you do I am not sure I want that. At least not as much as Google does. Kurzweil is going to help me click on more ads. Shreds any sense of him being a visionary.

The phrase 'cybernetic friend' brings back nightmares of Clippy and Rover the search dog.

Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#48

Post by coldtea »

lukeschlather wrote: post #42
coldtea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I don't think so. For one, Kurzweill DOES have "grand" ideas. Extravagant visions of a future with technological immortality, singularity, etc. Hofstadter does not. He merely examines some things, like cognition, and proposes some theories about their workings. Like, you know, every scientist. Kurzweill comes out as grandioze, obsessive and deluded, Hofstadter like a normal writer, no more or less strange tha…

How could anyone hope to accomplish anything halfway great without being grandiose, obsessive and deluded? Kurzweil has already done enough to prove he's not simply deluded. It seems like every week there's an article that comes across HN about how all great innovators have a capacity for self-delusion. Kurzweil has consistently shown himself to be a great innovator, and yet people dismiss him as a crank because he h…

>How could anyone hope to accomplish anything halfway great without being grandiose, obsessive and deluded?

That's a Hollywood cliched idea of creativity. The "mad scientist" idea.

People have created great things without being "grandiose, obsessive and deluded". Genius and/or hard work will do.

Einstein wasn't either grandiose, obsessive or deluded. Maxwell too. Feynman was mostly playful and humble. Turing. The list goes on.

Great scientists and inventors are not necessarily of the Emmett "Doc" Brown type.

Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#49

Post by coldtea »

esahione wrote: post #37
coldtea wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I don't think so. For one, Kurzweill DOES have "grand" ideas. Extravagant visions of a future with technological immortality, singularity, etc. Hofstadter does not. He merely examines some things, like cognition, and proposes some theories about their workings. Like, you know, every scientist. Kurzweill comes out as grandioze, obsessive and deluded, Hofstadter like a normal writer, no more or less strange tha…

Except that Hofstadter, other than writing about his ideas and theories, has accomplished jack shit. Pragmatically speaking, Kurzweil is miles ahead of Hofstadter in terms of putting his theories and ideas to practice. It's very easy to criticize visionaries, until they achieve something. Then nobody holds the critics accountable for their negative attitudes towards the visions, and the critics probably would claim t…

>Except that Hofstadter, other than writing about his ideas and theories, has accomplished jack shit.

Why would he have to accomplish anything else? He is not an inventor, he is a writer.

>Pragmatically speaking, Kurzweil is miles ahead of Hofstadter in terms of putting his theories and ideas to practice.

I don't think so. He merely invented some low hanging fruit in early computer science, like OCR and text recognition. Things on which other people worked and had results too.

And things that, even now, 3 and 4 decades after his inventions, are miles BEHIND of his expectations of them, and somewhat of a disappointment still.

>It's very easy to criticize visionaries, until they achieve something.

And it's equally easy to be a "visionary", if you don't have to also achieve those visions. Visionaries are a dime a dozen, especially in California.

Re: How Ray Kurzweil Plans To Revolutionize Search At Google

#50

Post by coldtea »

eavc wrote: post #41
coldtea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can look older and younger at different times, depending on weight gain or loss, stress or depression, choice of clothing, plastic surgery (duh!), more or less workout, etc. Him getting 100 pills every day: I don't think is very relevant. Mostly delusional. If that worked, pharmaceutical companies would have made it into one mega-pill, and sold it for a fortune to rich people years ago.

Something as simple as lighting could also play into it depending on what opportunities you have for seeing someone at different times. As for your argument against 100 pills, that only holds if it's well-known or well-established that it works and works safely.

>As for your argument against 100 pills, that only holds if it's well-known or well-established that it works and works safely.

Or semi-safely. The rich are also "early adopters". Also see tragically failed plastic surgeries and BS like cryogenics.

But still, that it's not "well-established that it works and works safely", is exactly my point about his use of the pills. Mostly wishful-thinking on his part.

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