Comments on: Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/ The Future Is Here Today...Robotics, Genetics, AI, Longevity, The Brain... Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:22:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.4 By: Top 10 Singularitarians of All Time http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-13007 Top 10 Singularitarians of All Time Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:26:17 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-13007 [...] Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google (singularityhub.com) [...] [...] Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google (singularityhub.com) [...]

]]> By: Kurzweil Takes On Kindle With New E-Reader Platform Blio | Singularity Hub http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-12215 Kurzweil Takes On Kindle With New E-Reader Platform Blio | Singularity Hub Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:13:56 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-12215 [...] in full color. It also takes advantage of knfb’s high quality text to speech capabilities (discussed in this video) and supports animation and video content. You can even synchronize a PDF with an audio book to get [...] [...] in full color. It also takes advantage of knfb’s high quality text to speech capabilities (discussed in this video) and supports animation and video content. You can even synchronize a PDF with an audio book to get [...]

]]> By: Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 5) http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-12211 Dawn of the Kill-Bots: the Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Arming of AI (part 5) Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:29:31 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-12211 [...] Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google (singularityhub.com) [...] [...] Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google (singularityhub.com) [...]

]]> By: Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google | Singularity Hub « edsmiley http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-10743 Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google | Singularity Hub « edsmiley Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:59:01 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-10743 [...] Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google | Singularity Hub. [...] [...] Video of Kurzweil’s Latest Talk at Google | Singularity Hub. [...]

]]> By: gideon http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-8035 gideon Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:50:10 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-8035 AI will come about even if we couldn't understand how to code it directly ourselves because if there is some kind of combination of software code that can become an AI it will be found randomly, just like any other evolutionary process. We all want it right now but that may not happen and the thought frustrates people but if you look at the big picture given hundreds or thousands of years I don't see why that magical combination of code wouldn't be generated eventually given all those processors that continue to build up on the planets surface (brute force methods where every combination that could be run will be tried - similar experiments have been tried but with smaller pieces of code and when the technology gets even more dense whole programs can be tried this way - it'll be just a matter of weeding out the failed trials). Maybe we just have to try everything wrong and the monkeys will bang out Shakespear's brain eventually. In the meantime we might do well enough with automation even if it won't do our thinking for us. AI will come about even if we couldn’t understand how to code it directly ourselves because if there is some kind of combination of software code that can become an AI it will be found randomly, just like any other evolutionary process. We all want it right now but that may not happen and the thought frustrates people but if you look at the big picture given hundreds or thousands of years I don’t see why that magical combination of code wouldn’t be generated eventually given all those processors that continue to build up on the planets surface (brute force methods where every combination that could be run will be tried – similar experiments have been tried but with smaller pieces of code and when the technology gets even more dense whole programs can be tried this way – it’ll be just a matter of weeding out the failed trials). Maybe we just have to try everything wrong and the monkeys will bang out Shakespear’s brain eventually. In the meantime we might do well enough with automation even if it won’t do our thinking for us.

]]> By: gideon http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-31910 gideon Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:50:00 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-31910 AI will come about even if we couldn't understand how to code it directly ourselves because if there is some kind of combination of software code that can become an AI it will be found randomly, just like any other evolutionary process. We all want it right now but that may not happen and the thought frustrates people but if you look at the big picture given hundreds or thousands of years I don't see why that magical combination of code wouldn't be generated eventually given all those processors that continue to build up on the planets surface (brute force methods where every combination that could be run will be tried - similar experiments have been tried but with smaller pieces of code and when the technology gets even more dense whole programs can be tried this way - it'll be just a matter of weeding out the failed trials). Maybe we just have to try everything wrong and the monkeys will bang out Shakespear's brain eventually. In the meantime we might do well enough with automation even if it won't do our thinking for us. AI will come about even if we couldn’t understand how to code it directly ourselves because if there is some kind of combination of software code that can become an AI it will be found randomly, just like any other evolutionary process. We all want it right now but that may not happen and the thought frustrates people but if you look at the big picture given hundreds or thousands of years I don’t see why that magical combination of code wouldn’t be generated eventually given all those processors that continue to build up on the planets surface (brute force methods where every combination that could be run will be tried – similar experiments have been tried but with smaller pieces of code and when the technology gets even more dense whole programs can be tried this way – it’ll be just a matter of weeding out the failed trials). Maybe we just have to try everything wrong and the monkeys will bang out Shakespear’s brain eventually. In the meantime we might do well enough with automation even if it won’t do our thinking for us.

]]> By: Chris Riley http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-8031 Chris Riley Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:07:52 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-8031 The term AI is extremely over used and means nothing. If you are a technologies you should steer from this term as anymore it's only a marketing term. For example in the space that Ray created OCR people love to throw around that OCR uses AI. But it's not intelligent, it's actually a pretty basic analysis of images. But something such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms posses way more intelligence. It's really hard to talk about the future when your point of reference is vague terms such as "AI". What SIAI the singularity institute is dealing with is a far more advanced potential technologies that truely approximate intelligence, vs. a really good way to solve a basic problem. The term AI is extremely over used and means nothing. If you are a technologies you should steer from this term as anymore it’s only a marketing term.

For example in the space that Ray created OCR people love to throw around that OCR uses AI. But it’s not intelligent, it’s actually a pretty basic analysis of images. But something such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms posses way more intelligence.

It’s really hard to talk about the future when your point of reference is vague terms such as “AI”.

What SIAI the singularity institute is dealing with is a far more advanced potential technologies that truely approximate intelligence, vs. a really good way to solve a basic problem.

]]> By: Chris Riley http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-31909 Chris Riley Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:07:00 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-31909 The term AI is extremely over used and means nothing. If you are a technologies you should steer from this term as anymore it's only a marketing term. For example in the space that Ray created OCR people love to throw around that OCR uses AI. But it's not intelligent, it's actually a pretty basic analysis of images. But something such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms posses way more intelligence. It's really hard to talk about the future when your point of reference is vague terms such as "AI". What SIAI the singularity institute is dealing with is a far more advanced potential technologies that truely approximate intelligence, vs. a really good way to solve a basic problem. The term AI is extremely over used and means nothing. If you are a technologies you should steer from this term as anymore it’s only a marketing term.

For example in the space that Ray created OCR people love to throw around that OCR uses AI. But it’s not intelligent, it’s actually a pretty basic analysis of images. But something such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms posses way more intelligence.

It’s really hard to talk about the future when your point of reference is vague terms such as “AI”.

What SIAI the singularity institute is dealing with is a far more advanced potential technologies that truely approximate intelligence, vs. a really good way to solve a basic problem.

]]> By: popay http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-8025 popay Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:02:31 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-8025 I think Kurzweil is missing an important factor. Every growth is based on a driving force, in the case of science and technology the driving force is the capacity and capability of our brain to invent new concepts and principles. And that has a limit. When Kurzweil makes his argument about the exponential development of science and technology he essentially plots two types of graphs, long term graphs spanning centuries/millenia and short term graphs spanning the last 5-6 decades. His long term graphs depict the development of new principles in science which allow the development of technologies to radically change the world, e.g. quantum mechanics paved the way for todays silicon industry and ultimately allowed the coming of the information age. His short term graphs on the other hand plot simply improvement of a technology, e.g. Moor's law about the number of transistors packed on a unit chip area. If we look at the last 50-60 years, there hasn't been much real breakthroughs in science, progress has mostly been just improvement of technology. Most of our current technology is actually based on scientific principles developed during the 18,19 and first half of 20th century, and without scientific breakthroughs technology improvement always hits a wall, e.g. human space flight is virtually at a stand still due to a lack of development of new propulsion principles even though the rest of the space technology has improved dramatically. The same applies to AI, since the 1970ies not much has happened in terms of new principles. Modern AI achievements such as speech recognition and OCR are actually just technology improvements based on information theory developed much earlier. The reason for this lack of development might simply be the inherent limit and incapacity of our brain to grasp such advanced concepts, e.g. our brain has been very well suited by evolution to deal with 3D space, thinking in higher dimensional spaces however is much more problematic. The bottom line is that the human brain may simply be not smart enough to develop AI. We may need to enhance our brains first, but to do that we will need to first understand how the brain works, that is how AI works, which presents a loop, and the only way to break the loop would then be through evolution, and that is known to take thousands if not millions of years. Without AI there will be no singularity. Kurzweil always points out that a computer with the processing power of the human brain will be developed in the next couple of decades, but will the intelligent software to run on that computer be developed any time soon? Even today desktop computers pack significant computational power and still we cannot solve robustly enough problems such as stereo vision and speech recognition, which occupy only small parts of the brain, and scientists have been working on these problems for tens of years. So, it seems we may be heading for a technological and scientific stagnation. Finally, I would like to post a question to Ray Kurzweil if he happens to read this comment: Is he working himself on the development of strong AI? Because if I believed in the possibility and actually predicted its emergence in just a couple of decades, and had his resources, I would be working day and night on making it happen. I think Kurzweil is missing an important factor. Every growth is based on a driving force, in the case of science and technology the driving force is the capacity and capability of our brain to invent new concepts and principles. And that has a limit. When Kurzweil makes his argument about the exponential development of science and technology he essentially plots two types of graphs, long term graphs spanning centuries/millenia and short term graphs spanning the last 5-6 decades. His long term graphs depict the development of new principles in science which allow the development of technologies to radically change the world, e.g. quantum mechanics paved the way for todays silicon industry and ultimately allowed the coming of the information age. His short term graphs on the other hand plot simply improvement of a technology, e.g. Moor’s law about the number of transistors packed on a unit chip area. If we look at the last 50-60 years, there hasn’t been much real breakthroughs in science, progress has mostly been just improvement of technology. Most of our current technology is actually based on scientific principles developed during the 18,19 and first half of 20th century, and without scientific breakthroughs technology improvement always hits a wall, e.g. human space flight is virtually at a stand still due to a lack of development of new propulsion principles even though the rest of the space technology has improved dramatically. The same applies to AI, since the 1970ies not much has happened in terms of new principles. Modern AI achievements such as speech recognition and OCR are actually just technology improvements based on information theory developed much earlier. The reason for this lack of development might simply be the inherent limit and incapacity of our brain to grasp such advanced concepts, e.g. our brain has been very well suited by evolution to deal with 3D space, thinking in higher dimensional spaces however is much more problematic. The bottom line is that the human brain may simply be not smart enough to develop AI. We may need to enhance our brains first, but to do that we will need to first understand how the brain works, that is how AI works, which presents a loop, and the only way to break the loop would then be through evolution, and that is known to take thousands if not millions of years. Without AI there will be no singularity. Kurzweil always points out that a computer with the processing power of the human brain will be developed in the next couple of decades, but will the intelligent software to run on that computer be developed any time soon? Even today desktop computers pack significant computational power and still we cannot solve robustly enough problems such as stereo vision and speech recognition, which occupy only small parts of the brain, and scientists have been working on these problems for tens of years. So, it seems we may be heading for a technological and scientific stagnation. Finally, I would like to post a question to Ray Kurzweil if he happens to read this comment: Is he working himself on the development of strong AI? Because if I believed in the possibility and actually predicted its emergence in just a couple of decades, and had his resources, I would be working day and night on making it happen.

]]> By: popay http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-31908 popay Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:02:00 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-31908 I think Kurzweil is missing an important factor. Every growth is based on a driving force, in the case of science and technology the driving force is the capacity and capability of our brain to invent new concepts and principles. And that has a limit. When Kurzweil makes his argument about the exponential development of science and technology he essentially plots two types of graphs, long term graphs spanning centuries/millenia and short term graphs spanning the last 5-6 decades. His long term graphs depict the development of new principles in science which allow the development of technologies to radically change the world, e.g. quantum mechanics paved the way for todays silicon industry and ultimately allowed the coming of the information age. His short term graphs on the other hand plot simply improvement of a technology, e.g. Moor's law about the number of transistors packed on a unit chip area. If we look at the last 50-60 years, there hasn't been much real breakthroughs in science, progress has mostly been just improvement of technology. Most of our current technology is actually based on scientific principles developed during the 18,19 and first half of 20th century, and without scientific breakthroughs technology improvement always hits a wall, e.g. human space flight is virtually at a stand still due to a lack of development of new propulsion principles even though the rest of the space technology has improved dramatically. The same applies to AI, since the 1970ies not much has happened in terms of new principles. Modern AI achievements such as speech recognition and OCR are actually just technology improvements based on information theory developed much earlier. The reason for this lack of development might simply be the inherent limit and incapacity of our brain to grasp such advanced concepts, e.g. our brain has been very well suited by evolution to deal with 3D space, thinking in higher dimensional spaces however is much more problematic. The bottom line is that the human brain may simply be not smart enough to develop AI. We may need to enhance our brains first, but to do that we will need to first understand how the brain works, that is how AI works, which presents a loop, and the only way to break the loop would then be through evolution, and that is known to take thousands if not millions of years. Without AI there will be no singularity. Kurzweil always points out that a computer with the processing power of the human brain will be developed in the next couple of decades, but will the intelligent software to run on that computer be developed any time soon? Even today desktop computers pack significant computational power and still we cannot solve robustly enough problems such as stereo vision and speech recognition, which occupy only small parts of the brain, and scientists have been working on these problems for tens of years. So, it seems we may be heading for a technological and scientific stagnation. Finally, I would like to post a question to Ray Kurzweil if he happens to read this comment: Is he working himself on the development of strong AI? Because if I believed in the possibility and actually predicted its emergence in just a couple of decades, and had his resources, I would be working day and night on making it happen. I think Kurzweil is missing an important factor. Every growth is based on a driving force, in the case of science and technology the driving force is the capacity and capability of our brain to invent new concepts and principles. And that has a limit. When Kurzweil makes his argument about the exponential development of science and technology he essentially plots two types of graphs, long term graphs spanning centuries/millenia and short term graphs spanning the last 5-6 decades. His long term graphs depict the development of new principles in science which allow the development of technologies to radically change the world, e.g. quantum mechanics paved the way for todays silicon industry and ultimately allowed the coming of the information age. His short term graphs on the other hand plot simply improvement of a technology, e.g. Moor’s law about the number of transistors packed on a unit chip area. If we look at the last 50-60 years, there hasn’t been much real breakthroughs in science, progress has mostly been just improvement of technology. Most of our current technology is actually based on scientific principles developed during the 18,19 and first half of 20th century, and without scientific breakthroughs technology improvement always hits a wall, e.g. human space flight is virtually at a stand still due to a lack of development of new propulsion principles even though the rest of the space technology has improved dramatically. The same applies to AI, since the 1970ies not much has happened in terms of new principles. Modern AI achievements such as speech recognition and OCR are actually just technology improvements based on information theory developed much earlier. The reason for this lack of development might simply be the inherent limit and incapacity of our brain to grasp such advanced concepts, e.g. our brain has been very well suited by evolution to deal with 3D space, thinking in higher dimensional spaces however is much more problematic. The bottom line is that the human brain may simply be not smart enough to develop AI. We may need to enhance our brains first, but to do that we will need to first understand how the brain works, that is how AI works, which presents a loop, and the only way to break the loop would then be through evolution, and that is known to take thousands if not millions of years. Without AI there will be no singularity. Kurzweil always points out that a computer with the processing power of the human brain will be developed in the next couple of decades, but will the intelligent software to run on that computer be developed any time soon? Even today desktop computers pack significant computational power and still we cannot solve robustly enough problems such as stereo vision and speech recognition, which occupy only small parts of the brain, and scientists have been working on these problems for tens of years. So, it seems we may be heading for a technological and scientific stagnation. Finally, I would like to post a question to Ray Kurzweil if he happens to read this comment: Is he working himself on the development of strong AI? Because if I believed in the possibility and actually predicted its emergence in just a couple of decades, and had his resources, I would be working day and night on making it happen.

]]> By: than http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-8019 than Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:15:52 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-8019 I think most technology people don't care about philosophy. Why should we? Want to know the nature of something? Go look; don't guess. To me, it's a rather far reaching and optimistic engineering road map. Organizations use them all the time and no one necessarily sees them as morally bankrupt since they work when used correctly. I think most technology people don’t care about philosophy. Why should we? Want to know the nature of something? Go look; don’t guess.

To me, it’s a rather far reaching and optimistic engineering road map. Organizations use them all the time and no one necessarily sees them as morally bankrupt since they work when used correctly.

]]> By: than http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-31907 than Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:15:00 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-31907 I think most technology people don't care about philosophy. Why should we? Want to know the nature of something? Go look; don't guess. To me, it's a rather far reaching and optimistic engineering road map. Organizations use them all the time and no one necessarily sees them as morally bankrupt since they work when used correctly. I think most technology people don’t care about philosophy. Why should we? Want to know the nature of something? Go look; don’t guess.

To me, it’s a rather far reaching and optimistic engineering road map. Organizations use them all the time and no one necessarily sees them as morally bankrupt since they work when used correctly.

]]> By: Elliot Temple http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-8010 Elliot Temple Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:10:36 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-8010 Isn't his basic thesis historicist? Has he ever addressed Karl Popper's arguments in _The Poverty of Historicism_? Isn’t his basic thesis historicist?

Has he ever addressed Karl Popper’s arguments in _The Poverty of Historicism_?

]]> By: Elliot Temple http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-31906 Elliot Temple Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:10:00 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-31906 Isn't his basic thesis historicist? Has he ever addressed Karl Popper's arguments in _The Poverty of Historicism_? Isn’t his basic thesis historicist?

Has he ever addressed Karl Popper’s arguments in _The Poverty of Historicism_?

]]> By: Simon Dufour http://singularityhub.com/2009/09/10/video-of-kurzweils-latest-talk-at-google/#comment-7998 Simon Dufour Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:10:24 +0000 http://singularityhub.com/?p=7012#comment-7998 I recently started to think about that. I always felt like technology was accelerating. While some of Kurzweil graph are pretty far fetched, some actually represent reality. Personally, I really adhere to Kurzweil line of thinking. We should not add too much bounds to our thinking right now because they'll act just like blinders on an horse. The basic idea is that at some point, we'll be able to eliminate suffering completly. People could be living in simulated reality while their body is being maintained all the time to make them live almost forever. Suffering would end and everybody would live happily ever after. Isn't it the absolute desire of mankind to live happily eternally? Having only good days, having exactly what you want ALL the time, freely. Sure there is probably some evil that could get out of it but I have trouble seeing who would perpetuate evil if they could do it freely and without any consequences in a virtual reality. I recently started to think about that. I always felt like technology was accelerating. While some of Kurzweil graph are pretty far fetched, some actually represent reality.

Personally, I really adhere to Kurzweil line of thinking. We should not add too much bounds to our thinking right now because they’ll act just like blinders on an horse.

The basic idea is that at some point, we’ll be able to eliminate suffering completly. People could be living in simulated reality while their body is being maintained all the time to make them live almost forever. Suffering would end and everybody would live happily ever after. Isn’t it the absolute desire of mankind to live happily eternally? Having only good days, having exactly what you want ALL the time, freely.

Sure there is probably some evil that could get out of it but I have trouble seeing who would perpetuate evil if they could do it freely and without any consequences in a virtual reality.

]]>