We face an exciting future as a species. I wonder how compassionate our species will be once we take the next evolutionary step? We are about to join the brotherhood of the multiverse and share the great mystery of intelligence and consciousness. I hope I can return and see where we are on Earth in 500 years. I have hope for our species. If only we can preserve the planet, her water, her air, her animals, her people, until this happens!
Indeed! I've worked in Silicon Valley for 47 years, getting glimpses into those evolutionary processes. I was once scheduled to meet Robert Noyce as a consultant on a non-computer project that he wanted to start, but he died 2 days before our scheduled meeting; that project has evolved into what you see in the picture on the left.
How clear-sighted. I am totally in awe of Ray's ability to understand anything that is humanly comprehensible. He is a great technocrat, I am very grateful that he has appeared on my life path.
i remember using google in highschool as it was getting a lot of buzz. I graduted in 2001, so i must have been using it at least as early as 2000. I didn't know so many people were so clueless about search engines in the 90s? i guess i didn't notice. i did think it was kinda weird that so many people were saying "google this" "google that" starting around 2002. hopefully youtube gets more popular in the future. I think it is another untapped jewel of the internet, like search engines in the 90s.
I will find it very enjoyable to be immersed into a virtual world, rather than watch youtube videos on a screen. To feel, taste, experience everything in that virtual world and not have to physically fly to an enjoyable destination. The thought of these things is quite intriguing!
Life will become more interesting, not less, postsingularity. Our intelligence will increase a billionfold enabling us to understand all science personally, create wonderful complex artwork and plays and other things we cannot yet imagine. History has shown us that technology makes life more interesting not less. Imagine how dull life would be without the computer, the TV, the book, etc. Theres no reason to assume future technology will be any less interesting.
by the way your son sounds BRILLIANT. i think he is totally correct. All novelty is done. there are no new fundamental inventions in thousands of years. Your song gets it.
As cool as he was in the 1980s, none of his digital prophecies came true.. Yes some cool gadgets here n there (mostly made in China) Now we live a digital surveillance capitalist society that too facing mass extinction.
I suspect that neuroscience research will yield the most useful information for development of AI. The use of fMRI is accelerating our acquisition of knowledge in that realm, but we have a long way to go. It's a fascinating field that will likely expand greatly during my son's career; his research, so far, deals w/ MMI for rehabilitation of stroke victims, a corollary activity.
AMD is building a huge chip manufacturing facility in New York. Maybe some day the fabrication process will change to the point where we can digest silicon and grow / regenerate processing capability. Then we won't have to implant chips because our body will assemble them at a cellular level as we grow.
I have thought about this as well, but the back-up would have to be constantly updated every second. If you create a back-up a week before you die, you have diverged from the back-up in a weeks time. Experiences you have may change your personality and your knowledge. So that would have to mean that the updating process is very secure as well.
Cisco's headquarters is in Silicon Valley. Have you been here? Your training suggest that Cisco could employ you here. Our awesome weather, technology & social climate have attracted liberal, high-tech, well-educated people from all over the US & other countries for decades. I promise, it would be vastly different from Kentucky!
Great question! I'd have to defer to the concept of 'disruptive' technology (the most extreme category) that introduces a new paradigm that is necessary for advancement of technology. Such a new paradigm must confer advancement in efficiency and/or efficacy of attaining results that succeed where all other prior techniques failed.
One could assume that past civilizations also predicted exponential growth, then for various reasons, the systems collapsed. The growth that Kurzweil talks about is heavily reliant on cheap and plentiful energy. If that part of the equation isn't solved the singularity will not happen. We can also look to the animal and insect worlds to see how those systems managed to control growth so it doesn't collapse the system.
his mindset is remarkable, One has to ask however that when more of this comes to pass, then what are people going to do? we'll be walking away from our own capabilites, voiding and abandoning our human bodily mechanisms and functions and in the process they'll deteriorate and collapse, only to be sustained by then modern tech. Good for the economy,
Right on!. Well said. i am a CISCO guy, just finished the CISCO academy and i would sleep in my car and work for kael shakes and veggie burgers just to get out of Kentucky. lol
Yeah, SV is sweet! Remember, with a good education, you can live anywhere in the US. As for the Big Bang & a few other theories, the beauty of science is that scientists are generally ready to debunk or modify theories as relevant evidence accrues. Cosmological theories are especially difficult due to the nature of scale & difficulty of instrumental precision.
I love the theory - sometimes though, he clearly sounds delusional. Like when he believes he's "biologically in his early 40s" because of a quack test, when he simply LOOKS like he's 70. To me that's how his originally superior brain deals with the common fear of death... by drowning common sense in apparently complex analysis. I do hope he lives to see his theory come true.
He deserves to be the first man to be augmented in order to live longer or to preserve his consciousness somehow in a virtual reality space. I bet he would want that too.
Thinking further, if you experience some sort of traumatic (emotional) event and want to go back to the state of mind you had prior, you could. It may also be possible to access your memory like a hard drive and delete certain unwanted memories and their associated content. These deleted memories could then be stored somewhere else, so they are not lost.
35:20: these AI's will be able to be educated with all of human knowledge readily accessible. (sounded like science fiction in 2009) 53:14: we're going to transcend biology (sounds like science fiction in 2023)
What's accomplished by taking the time to prepare a fine meal? What's accomplished by a night at the symphony? If you have to ask the question "What is accomplished by getting stoned?" you're probably incapable of appreciating the answer. Ray is open-minded, imaginative, enthusiastic and passionate. He seems like the type who would partake; he reminds me of another popularist: Carl Sagan, who was a huge stoner. If your life is such that you can't imagine the appeal of altered states, I pity you
MAKE NO MISTAKE!!!We Will Not Compromise! We Will Not Comply! We Will Not Submit! We Will Not Break! We Will Not Roll Over! We Will Not Sit Down! We Will Not Shut Up! We Will Not Go Quietly! We Will Not Give Up! We Will Not Surrender! We Will Stand For Truth! We Will Protect The Innocent! We Will Defend Our Family To The Death! We Love Peace, But We Are A Fierce Enemy! We Will Fight For Christ! We Will Die For Christ! The Army Of GOD ✞
I'm surprised you'd say that. Sure, there are stupefying drugs, but not all drug experiences are necessarily stupefying. To be sure, nothing can compare to a completely lucid, sober conversation that is unclouded by drugs, but come on, do you not see how cannabis would be conducive to an absolutely fascinating conversation with a guy like Kurzweil? Half of the fun of Kurzweil is the outlandishness.
The book is good. Well, it's going well for me. i mean, even the first chart that simply described and explained how we were on an exponential, not linear, rate of growth blew my mind. Can't wait for the Foals album Total Life Forever, the album is inspired by Ray Kurzweil's work and their song "Total Life Forever" is about the Singularity.
Over the years I have watched a lot of futurologists come and go. In hindsight they dissapear from the stage because they are either proved right or wrong. Kurzwiles embracing of the Singularity and more importantly the notion that we can upload our consciousness into a machine is still far enough into the future that he cant be proved wrong or right. This is the only thing that allows him to carry on talking. Personally I believe that the whole deep mind buzz that is going on at the moment will prove to be like all the other AI false alarms over the decades.
Everything in the technology area is owed first to a major discovery that makes its impact known right away, and starts a new field. And the new field goes on for 10 years or 50 years or so, but by then everything that can be done has been done with it. It evolves into the next thing. A good example is the vacuum tube amplifiers. Major inventions like transistor or laser came about by quantum mechanics. So as long as there is new science, it'd open up new things to do.
he was right on the money about solar from 2009 to 2019 according to our world in data it increased 34 times or roughly 5 doublings. if we have another 5 doublings by 2040 itll supply most of the worlds energy.
Very simple, but very good example what exponential growth is. How long would it take for 80,000 seats stadium to fully fill it with water if you start with one water droplet, and you double it every second. The answer:. During the first 47 minutes, the lever of water at the stadium would be at less than 1 meter. During the next 3 minutes, the level of water would fill fully to the top of the stadium.
@deeplaker08 Thanks. I just looked that up, the man was "Rush Holt". That being said, the fact that Watson isn't always right might make him more likely to pass the touring test.
Finally. Something concrete. And of course it's a strawman argument. Neither what I have said nor anything I've heard Kurzweil say(which of course is limited)says we know these things right now, but that we WILL, a very important distinction. He is making (admittedly overoptimistic) PREDICTIONS. It may very well be impossible, but to not think on or attempt it is idiotic. That is the point. That the majority of physicists are taken with string theory, currently NOT TESTABLE, is much the same.
I'm an engineer & scientist. My son is getting a PhD in computer engineering. A major dispute between us is about how many fundamental inventions are being initiated. Years ago, I told him that the rate of invention is growing because every innovation fosters many new ideas. I have to point out PC's, DNA analysis, space travel, GMO's, pharmaceuticals, internet, etc.; all things enveloping inventions made in my lifetime. He states that all fundamental inventions are done. BS!
Ray Kurzweil is full of himself and if he spent half as much time talking about his theories as he does about himself this might be a video worth watching
I'm very interested in singularity, however this question keeps coming up in my mind "At what point am I no longer myself?" I have no problem being more than human, but I don't want to kill my identity in the process. There is one specific transformation that really makes me question if I'd want it, transferring my brain into a computer, or cyberspace. Is what is created in the computer, just a copy of me, am I actually killing myself in the transfer? The new me would never know the difference,
As Kurzweil commented those nanothingies that expand our capacity also allow us to connect to the web, so communication would naturally happen there, also some kind of direct braintobrain link would also be a possibility. And for those awkward moments of realworld communication language could be highly compressed or different combinations of signals could mean different things, even whole sentences. Both parties only need to download the same dictionary to their brains before hand.
i really think this interview should be compulsory watching for all 12 year olds in any school anywhere. the future is destined to rest in intelligent, human hands, whatever the hands may be constructed of, I believe.
We might not know until we are able to create a copy of someone. Immediately after the creation of the copy we could then subject both to a test with the exact same conditions to see if their responses differ.
Explain your vision to an intelligent 12 year old. "Exponential Growth, Information Technology, Paradigm Shifts, Printing Press, Evolutionary Process, Biological Evolution" These 12 year old kids must be getting amazing to understand that. These are terms most adults couldn't understand.
Great interview, since it is nearly ten years old, we can evaluate where Kurzweil was correct, were he was wrong, where he is dated and what developments he missed. All in all he seems to be on the right track even if some technologies have developed somewhat slower then he expected. In my view the most surprising development of the last ten years was the breakthrough in back-propagation artificial intelligence algorithms that took place around 2015. For a large part this was due to a breakthrough in applied mathematics. Early signs are that this development will have far reaching effects.
anyways, i posted my original comment at the beginning of this. I had read the singularity is near and just wanted to see the author in person. After watching this, i just want to say that is pretty cool what his eyes do when he's thinking about how to answer a question.
its truly amazing, like who would have guessed 25 years ago, that in 2011 people would view a video sent in information from super computers on the other side of the world, connect seemingly instantly and use machines that are millions of times more advanced. we just can't imagine the next 25 years :)
Almost 14 years later and these predictions seem more or less on track. Someone else here commented on the solar capacity increase being spot on. I would add that with ChatGPT we are just now approaching the steep part of the exponential curve where AI starts to really close the gap. Since 2009, we have been running out of things to point to and say “only humans can do that”. Does AGI finally happen by 2029? It’s quite likely IMO. Whether it’s off by a year or a decade, whatever, because it’s basically going to be the most important event in history.
Kurzweil has made two points. MU is possible and that it will happen by 2045. Decrying the timeline is fine, if pointless, as it will reveal itself to be true or not at that date. Decrying MU itself is a little trickier, as we don't yet have the data to prove one way or the other. Honestly, MU is the least concerning implication of his predictions. The end of privacy and the power of the individual to effect adverse changes on a wide scale are more worrisome.
wow, why did they put the man in such a hot room for the first 6mins? you can tell that his brain works in a very interesting way by the periodical twitches of the eyes.
He is talking about "mass use" not usage by specialists or persons with a more nuanced knowledge of computer systems in the mid 90s. I don't remember most of my friends - indeed everyone I knew at the time - using search engines commonly and casually as you. Exceptions are not the point, so his point stands.
...minded approach to the possibility of digitally capturing information achieved through extremely well controlled DMT or Ketamine experiences - as the dendrides - synapses & electrical signals behave and are actually internally interracting with more similarity to the strangely vibrating quantic world. If we could, for example, capture the local knowledge of a Shaman's visions digitally, perhaps the positive singularity I think Ray Kurzweil illuminates would yield TRULY useful...
In looking back over the last 50 years, we have seen an incredible advancement in technology. We are only at the beginning of a new age of technology in the future that is far beyond the understanding of most people who living today.
@matThaHatter best term I can think of. Anyway, obviously these are first gen, and still largely based on exissting ideas,but it speaks to the idea of people innovating and trying to stay a step ahead of what we have. It also talks about making sure EVERY1 has access to these..."things" so capable of making unprecedented progress in standard of living.I mean,yeah,like 3/4 Africans have use of cell phones,but your right to worry about the have/have not gap that's still HUGE.i hope we change that
This is a great video. Probably one of the most interesting ones I have watched from ComputerHistory. I do really like there historic ones, but this is great.
@buzznandes Great questions! I actually think I've seen a documentary with the answers. It's called "Star Trek: First Contact", you get this stream on Netflix. Technology absorbing (assimilating) all sorts of existing knowledge and biological life forms, adapting real time: The Borg. Now, here are my questions: - What will be the relationship of Ego and Self, from a Jungian perspective, for someone living in Singularity. - We will be the collective, or the individual?
...that come with that (paradoxically until the brain discards the effects of the psychotropic) is where the technology no matter how well merged or manufactured could ever transcend our perception of the speed of light or mankind becoming 2nd class citizens because the moment of birth is not necessarily the moment of your consciousness - so how could we engineer infinity in that respect? I am on Ray's team all the way - I feel there needs more recognition of more ancient mind expansion kits..
We would be farther along if government didn't exists. It seems like whatever government touches freezes in time. 150 years ago kids sat in rows in front of a chalk board to learn. Now governments forces people to do the exact same thing. What a huge waste of time and resources !
minute one - that is not the nature of an evolutionary process in a natural (or biological) sense - it is not necessarily progressive, much less in an exponential sense, its simply about staying alive
@xXBeach Yeah,that's a good question. Do you know anything about his "Singularity University?" As far as I know(and admittedly, I haven't looked into that much; now I have to), it's centered on preparing for the singularity. While any preparation is better than none, the nature of the singularity idea kinda makes that pointless.The only thing I can say is that while yes,everyone has acces too huge amounts of info,I saw a study saying that people are actually learning LESS when you compare cont.
As he has stated in the past, intuition is linear due to linear perception of reality working well in earlier biological existence. It appears that biological evolution adopted linear understanding long before humans because that type of perception was advantageous and ultimately necessary for functional and operational navigation through reality. Primitive brains could only take in so much! At this point in human history though, it appears that linear perception isn't helping us very much.
actually come to think about it, metacrawler didn't come out till later. in 1995, i was using webcrawler dotcom because it was the best search engine at the time. to my recollection.
@Tolstoievsky Yes, I am for real. I am trying to get a job so I can actually have a place in September, but if not, I will start walking the nation. It seems like it could be an adventure. I always have looked back on the past times, and said that times were good. Even when bad things happened, I can look back and say that was a good time in my life. If this is true, then now is also a good time in my life. Happiness comes from within.
I hope that, if what Mr. Kurzweil says is true, and we end up crossing the three bridges of health and science, that having nanochips mixing with our neurons does not in the long run end up make our true biology dissipate. It would be unfortunate, hundreds of years from now, if there was a possibility of humans transcending without the aid of computer chips in our brains, finding out that we have lost that track by merging with the nano-bots.
not to say anything bad about Ray Kurzweil, great guy. But search engines were around far before 1999. i remember using metacrawler when i was 14 (1995). so they have been around more than 10 years. assuming this video was made in the last year.
Why intuition may be linear ? Mr. Kurzweil may be willong to say : intuition goes about contextualized prediciton of the futur in a linear kind of reflection. The question is : how and why does the output of intuition go linear about describing the futur...
i hope the world understands what he's talking about. and maybe for once the people who control so much of the world will let the acceleration in technology continue... like he said technology has been a double edged sword since the stone age...
People downvoting your posts is clear evidence that people don't agree. But fine. Let's go through your 'point'. Realities of the mind are beyond comprehension. Nonsense in pretty packaging. We understand far more than any point in history. People practice composure in response to inability to understand. I suppose you mean religion, a very simple way of thinking that is continuously being updated by science. Continued do to lack of space...
@crubutt true bt believe it or not, the fact things like friday r getting so many hits is quite amazingly part of the singularity, it is the beginning of a Type I civilization youth culture nd although it may not be important in scientific truths or of real importance, its things like that in which create personal importance as it is important 4 the people, so don't worry cause everywhere u look is even though they the creators of them may not care, they are part of the singularity :D
Thinking about the internet in its present form, it is not something I would want my brain connected to. It would open up possibilities such as telepathy and infinite knowledge access while you think. But, there must be more secure ways of acieving these goals. For example, offline "encyclopedia" and memory upgrades. The idea that a computer virus could turn the circutry you run on off is quite frightening.
I actually think the word 'drugs' is probably wrong - but in terms of synapses/linear thought patterns and thoughts on an infinite (perceived by the user) level, I think the digital & analogue information being linear & brain computation speed is actually the definition of infinity or indeed immmortality itself. Matching, cloning & digitally growing cerebellums is fun & essential but cost & effect can be what distresses joe public & inventors alike.. I think that with a slightly more open...
@xXBeach @xXBeach Dude(if I may call u dude), WHAT TIMING! Iwas just watching some TED(if you're familiar with TED), one about upcoming interface design(John Underkoffler points to the future of UI) and one about new portable devices and their new interfaces)Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology), and both are also aimed at real world app., and new,"outside the box"thinking(it's a big cliche, I know,but it's the cont
Ask kurzweil when we will achieve intergalactic travel and when we will achieve interstellar travel. Why won't the singularity give interstellar travel and give huge technological, advancements.
Honestly, I never cared about sfcx92. What I care about is young people mistaking his "idea" that you shouldn't put thought into something just because it goes against your beliefs for something profound. Religions' claims may be ridiculous, but too many young atheists mock it and its adherents while making the same mistakes. Think. Think often and think critically. And be aware that you are very likely wrong in quite a few areas and don't know it yet. As sfcx92 proves, stupid is universal.
I should point out that I agree with you that believing this singularity to be inevitable is very wrong, but I also disagree that because someone takes that position we should ignore them. Plenty very smart people swear by string theory, despite there being no evidence to back their claims.
I think there's a pretty good chance that this unimaginably intelligent, immortal, mankind-absorbing entity the singularitarians are striving to create will be a very very poor devil, experiencing just infinite boredom and desperation. Wouldn't that be a heartbreaking irony?
@jlm2525 I think anyone that predicted such a sudden demise of the Soviet Union was crazy in the 1980s...but then it happened. This definitely seems to be of a similar case...I can't even fathom it, but he has the thought behind it, and the data. We don't know all the implications, we can't with an information singularity by definition, but it's certainly breathtaking.
You may be correct with this projection of the future, and in some ways this could be great for the human race; however, I am all set with becoming a Borg.
@eza27 Brings up the question of "who" would be alive in a billion year, what is 'mind','self', 'me', 'awareness'. etc. He has talked a little of this but 'who' is 'aware' is still not adequately dealt with in this area...although some are working on this, i.e. Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche...
We face an exciting future as a species. I wonder how compassionate our species will be once we take the next evolutionary step? We are about to join the brotherhood of the multiverse and share the great mystery of intelligence and consciousness. I hope I can return and see where we are on Earth in 500 years. I have hope for our species. If only we can preserve the planet, her water, her air, her animals, her people, until this happens!
hey what are your thoughts now? :)
Excellent stuff!
Indeed! I've worked in Silicon Valley for 47 years, getting glimpses into those evolutionary processes. I was once scheduled to meet Robert Noyce as a consultant on a non-computer project that he wanted to start, but he died 2 days before our scheduled meeting; that project has evolved into what you see in the picture on the left.
a gamble if youre still active, but what is your current excitements considering the rapid pace recently?
How clear-sighted. I am totally in awe of Ray's ability to understand anything that is humanly comprehensible. He is a great technocrat, I am very grateful that he has appeared on my life path.
TRANSHUMANİZM, SNGULARTY...THESE ARE NAZİ STUDİES BUİLT ON DOCTOR MENGELE'S EXPERİMENTS. KURZWEİL İS 4. REİCH. HARARİ İS A KAPO.
i remember using google in highschool as it was getting a lot of buzz. I graduted in 2001, so i must have been using it at least as early as 2000.
I didn't know so many people were so clueless about search engines in the 90s? i guess i didn't notice. i did think it was kinda weird that so many people were saying "google this" "google that" starting around 2002.
hopefully youtube gets more popular in the future. I think it is another untapped jewel of the internet, like search engines in the 90s.
Great Man! I'm agreed to his views & speculations.Mr Ramond do come to Pakistan someday.We wanna listen to you live.Qaseem Siddiqui/Karachi/Pakistan
hey what are your thoughts now? :)
I will find it very enjoyable to be immersed into a virtual world, rather than watch youtube videos on a screen. To feel, taste, experience everything in that virtual world and not have to physically fly to an enjoyable destination. The thought of these things is quite intriguing!
hey what are your thoughts now? :)
Life will become more interesting, not less, postsingularity. Our intelligence will increase a billionfold enabling us to understand all science personally, create wonderful complex artwork and plays and other things we cannot yet imagine.
History has shown us that technology makes life more interesting not less. Imagine how dull life would be without the computer, the TV, the book, etc. Theres no reason to assume future technology will be any less interesting.
Yes and the loneliest generation of all. Good job. You helped created his nightmare. Look at the world you helped turn into a shit hole.
by the way your son sounds BRILLIANT. i think he is totally correct. All novelty is done. there are no new fundamental inventions in thousands of years. Your song gets it.
Ray Kurzweil - Genius, amazing inventor
As cool as he was in the 1980s, none of his digital prophecies came true.. Yes some cool gadgets here n there (mostly made in China)
Now we live a digital surveillance capitalist society that too facing mass extinction.
I suspect that neuroscience research will yield the most useful information for development of AI. The use of fMRI is accelerating our acquisition of knowledge in that realm, but we have a long way to go. It's a fascinating field that will likely expand greatly during my son's career; his research, so far, deals w/ MMI for rehabilitation of stroke victims, a corollary activity.
What a brilliant and eloquently spoken man.
TRANSHUMANİZM, SNGULARTY...THESE ARE NAZİ STUDİES BUİLT ON DOCTOR MENGELE'S EXPERİMENTS. KURZWEİL İS 4. REİCH. HARARİ İS A KAPO.
AMD is building a huge chip manufacturing facility in New York. Maybe some day the fabrication process will change to the point where we can digest silicon and grow / regenerate processing capability. Then we won't have to implant chips because our body will assemble them at a cellular level as we grow.
I have thought about this as well, but the back-up would have to be constantly updated every second. If you create a back-up a week before you die, you have diverged from the back-up in a weeks time. Experiences you have may change your personality and your knowledge. So that would have to mean that the updating process is very secure as well.
Cisco's headquarters is in Silicon Valley. Have you been here? Your training suggest that Cisco could employ you here. Our awesome weather, technology & social climate have attracted liberal, high-tech, well-educated people from all over the US & other countries for decades. I promise, it would be vastly different from Kentucky!
when kurzweil talk, I have to listen and hope to understand
Great question! I'd have to defer to the concept of 'disruptive' technology (the most extreme category) that introduces a new paradigm that is necessary for advancement of technology. Such a new paradigm must confer advancement in efficiency and/or efficacy of attaining results that succeed where all other prior techniques failed.
12 YEAR OLDS LIKE STORYTELLING therefore the 12 year old fell asleep in about 25 seconds at Ray K
One could assume that past civilizations also predicted exponential growth, then for various reasons, the systems collapsed. The growth that Kurzweil talks about is heavily reliant on cheap and plentiful energy. If that part of the equation isn't solved the singularity will not happen. We can also look to the animal and insect worlds to see how those systems managed to control growth so it doesn't collapse the system.
his mindset is remarkable, One has to ask however that when more of this comes to pass, then what are people going to do? we'll be walking away from our own capabilites, voiding and abandoning our human bodily mechanisms and functions and in the process they'll deteriorate and collapse, only to be sustained by then modern tech. Good for the economy,
Right on!. Well said. i am a CISCO guy, just finished the CISCO academy and i would sleep in my car and work for kael shakes and veggie burgers just to get out of Kentucky. lol
Yeah, SV is sweet! Remember, with a good education, you can live anywhere in the US. As for the Big Bang & a few other theories, the beauty of science is that scientists are generally ready to debunk or modify theories as relevant evidence accrues. Cosmological theories are especially difficult due to the nature of scale & difficulty of instrumental precision.
Who in their right mind would want to live 500 years in this world? Only a crazy person.
I love the theory - sometimes though, he clearly sounds delusional. Like when he believes he's "biologically in his early 40s" because of a quack test, when he simply LOOKS like he's 70.
To me that's how his originally superior brain deals with the common fear of death... by drowning common sense in apparently complex analysis.
I do hope he lives to see his theory come true.
10 years later he's still 70
He deserves to be the first man to be augmented in order to live longer or to preserve his consciousness somehow in a virtual reality space. I bet he would want that too.
Thinking further, if you experience some sort of traumatic (emotional) event and want to go back to the state of mind you had prior, you could. It may also be possible to access your memory like a hard drive and delete certain unwanted memories and their associated content. These deleted memories could then be stored somewhere else, so they are not lost.
35:20: these AI's will be able to be educated with all of human knowledge readily accessible. (sounded like science fiction in 2009)
53:14: we're going to transcend biology (sounds like science fiction in 2023)
What's accomplished by taking the time to prepare a fine meal? What's accomplished by a night at the symphony?
If you have to ask the question "What is accomplished by getting stoned?" you're probably incapable of appreciating the answer. Ray is open-minded, imaginative, enthusiastic and passionate. He seems like the type who would partake; he reminds me of another popularist: Carl Sagan, who was a huge stoner. If your life is such that you can't imagine the appeal of altered states, I pity you
MAKE NO MISTAKE!!!We Will Not Compromise! We Will Not Comply! We Will Not Submit! We Will Not Break! We Will Not Roll Over! We Will Not Sit Down! We Will Not Shut Up! We Will Not Go Quietly! We Will Not Give Up! We Will Not Surrender! We Will Stand For Truth! We Will Protect The Innocent! We Will Defend Our Family To The Death! We Love Peace, But We Are A Fierce Enemy! We Will Fight For Christ! We Will Die For Christ! The Army Of GOD ✞
I'm surprised you'd say that. Sure, there are stupefying drugs, but not all drug experiences are necessarily stupefying. To be sure, nothing can compare to a completely lucid, sober conversation that is unclouded by drugs, but come on, do you not see how cannabis would be conducive to an absolutely fascinating conversation with a guy like Kurzweil? Half of the fun of Kurzweil is the outlandishness.
#theEVOLUTIONofTHOUGHT
It is the nature of being human; to extend beyond our boundaries! - Dr. Ray Kurzweil (A very (very) smart human being!)
The book is good. Well, it's going well for me. i mean, even the first chart that simply described and explained how we were on an exponential, not linear, rate of growth blew my mind. Can't wait for the Foals album Total Life Forever, the album is inspired by Ray Kurzweil's work and their song "Total Life Forever" is about the Singularity.
Over the years I have watched a lot of futurologists come and go. In hindsight they dissapear from the stage because they are either proved right or wrong. Kurzwiles embracing of the Singularity and more importantly the notion that we can upload our consciousness into a machine is still far enough into the future that he cant be proved wrong or right. This is the only thing that allows him to carry on talking. Personally I believe that the whole deep mind buzz that is going on at the moment will prove to be like all the other AI false alarms over the decades.
TRANSHUMANİZM, SNGULARTY...THESE ARE NAZİ STUDİES BUİLT ON DOCTOR MENGELE'S EXPERİMENTS. KURZWEİL İS 4. REİCH. HARARİ İS A KAPO.
Everything in the technology area is owed first to a major discovery that makes its impact known right away, and starts a new field. And the new field goes on for 10 years or 50 years or so, but by then everything that can be done has been done with it. It evolves into the next thing. A good example is the vacuum tube amplifiers. Major inventions like transistor or laser came about by quantum mechanics.
So as long as there is new science, it'd open up new things to do.
he was right on the money about solar
from 2009 to 2019 according to our world in data it increased 34 times or roughly 5 doublings.
if we have another 5 doublings by 2040 itll supply most of the worlds energy.
Space travel outside our solar system? Other than non-manned probes, I think a Singularity will happen before we move beyond our solar system.
Very simple, but very good example what exponential growth is.
How long would it take for 80,000 seats stadium to fully fill it with water if you start with one water droplet, and you double it every second.
The answer:. During the first 47 minutes, the lever of water at the stadium would be at less than 1 meter. During the next 3 minutes, the level of water would fill fully to the top of the stadium.
@deeplaker08
Thanks. I just looked that up, the man was "Rush Holt".
That being said, the fact that Watson isn't always right might make him more likely to pass the touring test.
its unfortunate that this video has only 57,000 views and rebecca black is getting over 20 million.
Finally. Something concrete. And of course it's a strawman argument. Neither what I have said nor anything I've heard Kurzweil say(which of course is limited)says we know these things right now, but that we WILL, a very important distinction. He is making (admittedly overoptimistic) PREDICTIONS. It may very well be impossible, but to not think on or attempt it is idiotic. That is the point. That the majority of physicists are taken with string theory, currently NOT TESTABLE, is much the same.
I'm an engineer & scientist. My son is getting a PhD in computer engineering. A major dispute between us is about how many fundamental inventions are being initiated. Years ago, I told him that the rate of invention is growing because every innovation fosters many new ideas. I have to point out PC's, DNA analysis, space travel, GMO's, pharmaceuticals, internet, etc.; all things enveloping inventions made in my lifetime. He states that all fundamental inventions are done. BS!
Ray Kurzweil is full of himself and if he spent half as much time talking about his theories as he does about himself this might be a video worth watching
Oops LOL
Kursweil has invented things in the HERE and now that people use everyday.
I'm very interested in singularity, however this question keeps coming up in my mind "At what point am I no longer myself?" I have no problem being more than human, but I don't want to kill my identity in the process. There is one specific transformation that really makes me question if I'd want it, transferring my brain into a computer, or cyberspace. Is what is created in the computer, just a copy of me, am I actually killing myself in the transfer? The new me would never know the difference,
As Kurzweil commented those nanothingies that expand our capacity also allow us to connect to the web, so communication would naturally happen there, also some kind of direct braintobrain link would also be a possibility. And for those awkward moments of realworld communication language could be highly compressed or different combinations of signals could mean different things, even whole sentences. Both parties only need to download the same dictionary to their brains before hand.
i really think this interview should be compulsory watching for all 12 year olds in any school anywhere. the future is destined to rest in intelligent, human hands, whatever the hands may be constructed of, I believe.
We might not know until we are able to create a copy of someone. Immediately after the creation of the copy we could then subject both to a test with the exact same conditions to see if their responses differ.
Explain your vision to an intelligent 12 year old. "Exponential Growth, Information Technology, Paradigm Shifts, Printing Press, Evolutionary Process, Biological Evolution"
These 12 year old kids must be getting amazing to understand that. These are terms most adults couldn't understand.
Wow! I'm an old fox and and I'm considering how this guy is considering life in the near future. He may be very right!
SBF
That would mean a whole lot more if you hadn't written it on a computer and posted it to the world wide web.
Great interview, since it is nearly ten years old, we can evaluate where Kurzweil was correct, were he was wrong, where he is dated and what developments he missed. All in all he seems to be on the right track even if some technologies have developed somewhat slower then he expected. In my view the most surprising development of the last ten years was the breakthrough in back-propagation artificial intelligence algorithms that took place around 2015. For a large part this was due to a breakthrough in applied mathematics. Early signs are that this development will have far reaching effects.
anyways, i posted my original comment at the beginning of this. I had read the singularity is near and just wanted to see the author in person. After watching this, i just want to say that is pretty cool what his eyes do when he's thinking about how to answer a question.
its truly amazing, like who would have guessed 25 years ago, that in 2011 people would view a video sent in information from super computers on the other side of the world, connect seemingly instantly and use machines that are millions of times more advanced. we just can't imagine the next 25 years :)
Almost 14 years later and these predictions seem more or less on track. Someone else here commented on the solar capacity increase being spot on. I would add that with ChatGPT we are just now approaching the steep part of the exponential curve where AI starts to really close the gap. Since 2009, we have been running out of things to point to and say “only humans can do that”. Does AGI finally happen by 2029? It’s quite likely IMO. Whether it’s off by a year or a decade, whatever, because it’s basically going to be the most important event in history.
I love how he pauses before responding to each question, thinking carefully instead of reeling off whatever comes to mind first.
Cunnilingus lotta thinking just to repeat what he already said
@@abdicolestudios8899TRANSHUMANİZM, SNGULARTY...THESE ARE NAZİ STUDİES BUİLT ON DOCTOR MENGELE'S EXPERİMENTS. KURZWEİL İS 4. REİCH. HARARİ İS A KAPO.
Kurzweil has made two points. MU is possible and that it will happen by 2045. Decrying the timeline is fine, if pointless, as it will reveal itself to be true or not at that date. Decrying MU itself is a little trickier, as we don't yet have the data to prove one way or the other. Honestly, MU is the least concerning implication of his predictions. The end of privacy and the power of the individual to effect adverse changes on a wide scale are more worrisome.
wow, why did they put the man in such a hot room for the first 6mins?
you can tell that his brain works in a very interesting way by the periodical twitches of the eyes.
He is talking about "mass use" not usage by specialists or persons with a more nuanced knowledge of computer systems in the mid 90s. I don't remember most of my friends - indeed everyone I knew at the time - using search engines commonly and casually as you. Exceptions are not the point, so his point stands.
What technology won't we have for 2000 years? What won't the singularity do? What technology can't I expect in 2200-2800
I play a Kurzweil keyboard.
...minded approach to the possibility of digitally capturing information achieved through extremely well controlled DMT or Ketamine experiences - as the dendrides - synapses & electrical signals behave and are actually internally interracting with more similarity to the strangely vibrating quantic world. If we could, for example, capture the local knowledge of a Shaman's visions digitally, perhaps the positive singularity I think Ray Kurzweil illuminates would yield TRULY useful...
In looking back over the last 50 years, we have seen an incredible advancement in technology. We are only at the beginning of a new age of technology in the future that is far beyond the understanding of most people who living today.
@matThaHatter best term I can think of. Anyway, obviously these are first gen, and still largely based on exissting ideas,but it speaks to the idea of people innovating and trying to stay a step ahead of what we have. It also talks about making sure EVERY1 has access to these..."things" so capable of making unprecedented progress in standard of living.I mean,yeah,like 3/4 Africans have use of cell phones,but your right to worry about the have/have not gap that's still HUGE.i hope we change that
If kurzwiel's date is accurate,then we have approximately 12,200 days until the Technological Singularity :D
@ 59:00 he mentions "fosfatidilcoline"
does anyone have any further reading on that?
All I get is Spanish.
thanx
This is a great video. Probably one of the most interesting ones I have watched from ComputerHistory. I do really like there historic ones, but this is great.
@buzznandes Great questions! I actually think I've seen a documentary with the answers. It's called "Star Trek: First Contact", you get this stream on Netflix. Technology absorbing (assimilating) all sorts of existing knowledge and biological life forms, adapting real time: The Borg. Now, here are my questions:
- What will be the relationship of Ego and Self, from a Jungian perspective, for someone living in Singularity.
- We will be the collective, or the individual?
TRANSHUMANİZM, SNGULARTY...THESE ARE NAZİ STUDİES BUİLT ON DOCTOR MENGELE'S EXPERİMENTS. KURZWEİL İS 4. REİCH. HARARİ İS A KAPO.
...that come with that (paradoxically until the brain discards the effects of the psychotropic) is where the technology no matter how well merged or manufactured could ever transcend our perception of the speed of light or mankind becoming 2nd class citizens because the moment of birth is not necessarily the moment of your consciousness - so how could we engineer infinity in that respect? I am on Ray's team all the way - I feel there needs more recognition of more ancient mind expansion kits..
can someone ask ray how he considers the question of choice will b treated when all this tools come to being?
or anyone wants to speculate about it?
We would be farther along if government didn't exists. It seems like whatever government touches freezes in time. 150 years ago kids sat in rows in front of a chalk board to learn. Now governments forces people to do the exact same thing. What a huge waste of time and resources !
He's got an interesting tick. A snort and a eye roll that's pretty wild.
minute one - that is not the nature of an evolutionary process in a natural (or biological) sense - it is not necessarily progressive, much less in an exponential sense, its simply about staying alive
@xXBeach Yeah,that's a good question. Do you know anything about his "Singularity University?" As far as I know(and admittedly, I haven't looked into that much; now I have to), it's centered on preparing for the singularity. While any preparation is better than none, the nature of the singularity idea kinda makes that pointless.The only thing I can say is that while yes,everyone has acces too huge amounts of info,I saw a study saying that people are actually learning LESS when you compare cont.
As he has stated in the past, intuition is linear due to linear perception of reality working well in earlier biological existence. It appears that biological evolution adopted linear understanding long before humans because that type of perception was advantageous and ultimately necessary for functional and operational navigation through reality. Primitive brains could only take in so much! At this point in human history though, it appears that linear perception isn't helping us very much.
actually come to think about it, metacrawler didn't come out till later. in 1995, i was using webcrawler dotcom because it was the best search engine at the time. to my recollection.
@Tolstoievsky
Yes, I am for real. I am trying to get a job so I can actually have a place in September, but if not, I will start walking the nation. It seems like it could be an adventure.
I always have looked back on the past times, and said that times were good. Even when bad things happened, I can look back and say that was a good time in my life. If this is true, then now is also a good time in my life.
Happiness comes from within.
I hope that, if what Mr. Kurzweil says is true, and we end up crossing the three bridges of health and science, that having nanochips mixing with our neurons does not in the long run end up make our true biology dissipate. It would be unfortunate, hundreds of years from now, if there was a possibility of humans transcending without the aid of computer chips in our brains, finding out that we have lost that track by merging with the nano-bots.
hay una version en español
not to say anything bad about Ray Kurzweil, great guy. But search engines were around far before 1999. i remember using metacrawler when i was 14 (1995). so they have been around more than 10 years. assuming this video was made in the last year.
Why intuition may be linear ? Mr. Kurzweil may be willong to say : intuition goes about contextualized prediciton of the futur in a linear kind of reflection. The question is : how and why does the output of intuition go linear about describing the futur...
Wow he did that when he was twelve?, I don't think most of us can't achive what he did at twelve in our life time
i hope the world understands what he's talking about. and maybe for once the people who control so much of the world will let the acceleration in technology continue...
like he said technology has been a double edged sword since the stone age...
People downvoting your posts is clear evidence that people don't agree. But fine. Let's go through your 'point'. Realities of the mind are beyond comprehension. Nonsense in pretty packaging. We understand far more than any point in history. People practice composure in response to inability to understand. I suppose you mean religion, a very simple way of thinking that is continuously being updated by science. Continued do to lack of space...
@crubutt true bt believe it or not, the fact things like friday r getting so many hits is quite amazingly part of the singularity, it is the beginning of a Type I civilization youth culture nd although it may not be important in scientific truths or of real importance, its things like that in which create personal importance as it is important 4 the people, so don't worry cause everywhere u look is even though they the creators of them may not care, they are part of the singularity :D
Thinking about the internet in its present form, it is not something I would want my brain connected to. It would open up possibilities such as telepathy and infinite knowledge access while you think. But, there must be more secure ways of acieving these goals. For example, offline "encyclopedia" and memory upgrades. The idea that a computer virus could turn the circutry you run on off is quite frightening.
@SinX0000 Looking through the brain to find consciousness is like taking apart a radio to find the person who is singing
I actually think the word 'drugs' is probably wrong - but in terms of synapses/linear thought patterns and thoughts on an infinite (perceived by the user) level, I think the digital & analogue information being linear & brain computation speed is actually the definition of infinity or indeed immmortality itself. Matching, cloning & digitally growing cerebellums is fun & essential but cost & effect can be what distresses joe public & inventors alike.. I think that with a slightly more open...
@xXBeach @xXBeach Dude(if I may call u dude), WHAT TIMING! Iwas just watching some TED(if you're familiar with TED), one about upcoming interface design(John Underkoffler points to the future of UI) and one about new portable devices and their new interfaces)Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology), and both are also aimed at real world app., and new,"outside the box"thinking(it's a big cliche, I know,but it's the cont
Anyone else keep thinking "the Matrix" when he talked about virtual reality?
Ask kurzweil when we will achieve intergalactic travel and when we will achieve interstellar travel. Why won't the singularity give interstellar travel and give huge technological, advancements.
@MaximussPoosus
Beacause its not the correct spelling lol!
Correct spellling is: phosphatidylcholine
Honestly, I never cared about sfcx92. What I care about is young people mistaking his "idea" that you shouldn't put thought into something just because it goes against your beliefs for something profound. Religions' claims may be ridiculous, but too many young atheists mock it and its adherents while making the same mistakes. Think. Think often and think critically. And be aware that you are very likely wrong in quite a few areas and don't know it yet. As sfcx92 proves, stupid is universal.
I should point out that I agree with you that believing this singularity to be inevitable is very wrong, but I also disagree that because someone takes that position we should ignore them. Plenty very smart people swear by string theory, despite there being no evidence to back their claims.
When will we begin intergalactic travel?
I think there's a pretty good chance that this unimaginably intelligent, immortal, mankind-absorbing entity the singularitarians are striving to create will be a very very poor devil, experiencing just infinite boredom and desperation.
Wouldn't that be a heartbreaking irony?
In the 34th minute, Kurzweil says that "the World is naturally hierarchical." It is not--it is fractal. COMPLETELY different geometry.
@jlm2525 I think anyone that predicted such a sudden demise of the Soviet Union was crazy in the 1980s...but then it happened. This definitely seems to be of a similar case...I can't even fathom it, but he has the thought behind it, and the data. We don't know all the implications, we can't with an information singularity by definition, but it's certainly breathtaking.
TRANSHUMANİZM, SNGULARTY...THESE ARE NAZİ STUDİES BUİLT ON DOCTOR MENGELE'S EXPERİMENTS. KURZWEİL İS 4. REİCH. HARARİ İS A KAPO.
You may be correct with this projection of the future, and in some ways this could be great for the human race; however, I am all set with becoming a Borg.
What is a fundamental invention?
trying to explain what life will be like after the singularity is like trying to explain what life would be like after the invention of language
@eza27 Brings up the question of "who" would be alive in a billion year, what is 'mind','self', 'me', 'awareness'. etc. He has talked a little of this but 'who' is 'aware' is still not adequately dealt with in this area...although some are working on this, i.e. Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche...