Comments on: Kurzweil Defends Predictions for 2009, Says He is 102 for 108.

By: Mr. Locke’s Classroom » Prosperity Gospel and the Singularity

Mr. Locke’s Classroom » Prosperity Gospel and the Singularity — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:49:20 +0000

[...] outset that I take my cues unapologetically from Ray Kurzweil, and I believe his record of accuracy speaks for itself. You can disagree with me, but please don’t label my views of the future as unrealistic [...]

By: Kurzweil Defends His Predictions Again: Was He 86% Correct? | Singularity Hub

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:27:15 +0000

[...] about Kurzweil’s predictive prowess as a whole. This is a problem I came across when reviewing Michael Anissimov’s critique of Kurweil a year ago. When there is this much picking and choosing to be done I think that the debate simply devolves [...]

By: Hvorfor jeg gleder meg til fremtiden (første utkast) « HowIsEarth.com

Hvorfor jeg gleder meg til fremtiden (første utkast) « HowIsEarth.com — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:43:33 +0000

[...] Det var også i 1997 han skrev boken The Age of Spiritual Machines, hvor han hadde 108 forutsigelser for 2009. 89 av disse forutsigelsene har vist seg å være helt riktige. For eksempel spådde han ubemannede bombefly og små datamaskiner i form av mini MP3-spillere. 13 av dem har vist seg å være ”essensielt riktige” og 3 av dem var delvis riktige. For eksempel anslo han at det ville bli bygd superdatamaskiner som kan utføre en billiard kalkulasjoner i sekundet i 2009. Dette har ikke vært tilfellet, men flere datamaskiner med en slik kapasitet er under konstruksjon. Bare 3 av de 108 forutsigelsene har vist seg å være feil. Les mer om Kurzweils anntagelser om fremtiden og hvor riktige de har vist seg å være hittil her og her. [...]

By: Kurzweil Predictions on Wikipedia – The Future Anyone Can Edit | Singularity Hub

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:11:07 +0000

[...] technology that will arise in the next few years, and for many years thereafter. Not so long ago we covered the online debate between Ray Kurzweil and Michael Annissimov about whether or not Kurzwe…. Kurzweil claims he’s 102 for 108. Annissimov wanted greater accountability and critical [...]

By: Four Great Science Fiction Authors Weigh In on the Singularity (video) | Singularity Hub

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:28:21 +0000

[...] that the discussion touched upon the same themes often espoused by professional futurists like Ray Kurzweil and James Canton. Panelists discuss the nature of intelligence, how to possible define the [...]

By: dbharris1964

dbharris1964 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:39:00 +0000

Regarding Kurzweil's so called “fail” on #7, intelligent roads that will allow us to sit back and let our cars drive themselves, please check out this website's own story about Stanford and Audi's latest autonomous driving progress. According to the article, not only do they have cars that drive themselves in real world environments, but now they plan to race an Audi TT up Pike's Peak at full speed. This will require the car to drift and skid under control without flying off the mountain. Check out the video of the car in the desert during a test to see it in action on level ground. If we are at the stage of having sports cars drive themselves up mountains then it is not too much of a stretch to think we will have high end cars driving themselves around at least part time (ex. highway cruising) within 5 years. Self driving cars seem to be coming gradually with incremental changes. First there was cruise control, then adaptive cruise control, then self parking Lexuses and other luxury cars, then lane drift correction (Mercedes) when the driver nods off. The next big feature will have to be some kind of limited highway self driving, like a super cruise control. Think about it, how much brain power does it really take to drive a car down a sparsely populated highway for hours and hours. This new feature would allow people to literally take their hands off the wheel for long periods of time when driving on long highway trips. I think the biggest hurdle will be getting regulatory approval from the DOT to allow this and people's instinctive fear of cars driving out of control crashing into other cars. I'm guessing the opposite will be true, with self driving cars eventually having better driving records over time than human driven cars. The transition will be challenging with some computer driven cars mixing with more erratic human driven cars. Once all cars are computer controlled we will really see almost a complete elimination of “accidents”. During the transition we will probably see human driven cars crashing into computer controlled ones more so than the opposite. Just my two cents.

By: MakeMake

MakeMake — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:29:33 +0000

"The question here is whether he is accurate in the 90% range or in the 50% range."

Well, since you haven't been able to convincingly argue that it is the latter, why would you pull that number out of your hat?

Seems like it is the former.

Excuse, but this is really silly stuff here. 90% accuracy is astounding. It seems churlish for the sake of being churlish to raise objections to such a record.

By: MakeMake

MakeMake — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:25:39 +0000

"When defending his predictions, he loses this starry-eyed, the-singularity-is-coming feel, and we're suddenly talking nuts and bolts of real technology that you or I can buy (sometimes)"

The miraculous becomes commonplace through familiarity. I'm sure the Singularity will quickly become "nuts and bolts of real technology" to those living during it.

If you showed someone a Flip camera or an iPod Touch 25 years ago, they would be very much impressed.

By: adsaenz

adsaenz — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:28:27 +0000

@Branstorm...
Yes, I see the importance in being very strict towards those who claim 90% accuracy. At that level they are basically saying you can bank on their predictions. And that would certainly lead to disaster and dangerous speculation in some cases.

Still, I wonder what constitutes a "reasonable standard". Kurzweil points out that being off by a few years is totally fine by him. And he has a pretty loose idea of what is "common". Others want a very strict interpretation. It's all too subjective for me.

Again, it may be better to evaluate what these predictions have actually accomplished rather than how accurate they were.

By: Branstrom

Branstrom — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 06:40:10 +0000

That's not a distinction that Michael made. He was simply saying that 50% accuracy is great, so already at that level Kurzweil would be a great futurist, but 90% is just crazy, superb, and an outrageous claim to make if your serious predictions actually don't hold to a reasonable standard in 9 out of 10 cases.

By: adsaenz

adsaenz — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:53:31 +0000

@Anissimov
I would hope we could both agree that we are applying a metric (agreement with real events) to judge Kurzweil's work. I think the application of that metric is essentially asking "Is Kurzweil a good futurist" because I think accuracy in predictions is the biggest part of being a good futurist. If being a futurist to you is more about concern, inspiration, interest, or just general focus on the future then I can see how my opening statement would be inflammatory.
Still, I think we're talking about the same thing here: Is Kurzweil accurate? How accurate is he? And perhaps more importantly: does his accuracy translate to any real meaningful improvements (in his life, ours, the world's, etc.)
You and I (in our respective articles/ways) focused a lot on the first two questions. We analyzed his predictions one by one and tried to make judgment calls on what was "common" what was "essentially correct", etc. Even Kurzweil's own response was focusing on accuracy, and defending his point of view of what constituted "common" ,"correct", etc.
After reading over the entire series again, however, I'm inclined to worry that we've all missed addressing the last question in a satisfactory manner. What does Kurzweil's accuracy, his "great futurism" really buy us. I mention briefly it may help leaders prepare against good/bad possible futures. Etc, etc. I think you made the point that Kurzweil's accuracy or lack thereof can help direct us to be more responsible towards predictions in general. I agree that this is an important lesson to be learned, and thus something his work "buys" us.
But there's probably more to think about here. Has Kurzweil, or any futurist, ever really provided a shift in the way the future unfolded? Economic disasters averted, technological breakthroughs accelerated, peace of mind increased. Those are the sort of impacts that, if we could measure and track down, would be the really important metric for this entire conversation.
If Kurzweil was only 10% accurate, but that 10% was enough to evoke a major improvement...I hope we could agree that would be a good thing.
If Kurzweil was 100% accurate, but his predictions had 0 impact...again, I hope we could agree that would be a shame.

Perhaps we need to think less about accuracy (50 vs 90%), and more about benefits (has anything really changed?).

Thoughts?

By: Michael Anissimov

Michael Anissimov — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:23:07 +0000

“How accurately must you predict the future before you can call yourself a futurist? That’s the central question in a bit of online controversy regarding Ray Kurzweil.”

Absolutely not. I think that Kurzweil is a great futurist. The question here is whether he is accurate in the 90% range or in the 50% range. Because Kurzweil is such a great futurist, it is especially important to analyze whether he is right on-target or slightly off.

By: vessenes

vessenes — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:59:10 +0000

One thing I was pondering reading Kurzweil's response is the sort of starry-eyed future factor when reading futurists in general. My thought reading Ray's self-defense is that he's technically right that many of those disputed claims are coming, are in development,or are arguably in a pedantic sense happening.

On the other hand, I was reminded just how normal and human we feel in the face of this significant change in the last 20 years, and that's where I think Ray is being either disingenuous or just missing the point a little.

Honestly, robot drone armies, personal networks and retina-scanning glasses just sort of sounded cooler when he wrote his predictions. When defending his predictions, he loses this starry-eyed, the-singularity-is-coming feel, and we're suddenly talking nuts and bolts of real technology that you or I can buy (sometimes), plus hard stats on what's been developed or not.

So, the future, you know, it isn't all it's cracked up to be. But, that's not Ray's fault.

My AI professor Leslie Kaelbling once said that a tongue-in-cheek definition of AI is whatever computers can't do yet. "Oh, AI is if a computer could read text off a printed page. No, wait, AI is if it can beat you at, like, chess. No, wait, AI is if a computer can recognize what kind of thing you drew and give you the name of it back in written text, and then show you pictures of other things like it..." Once those technologies exist, it's like "Oh, well that's not AI, that's an edge-detection algorithm drilled down to a bunch of eigenvectors and compared to blah-blah-blah."

The debate over these predictions feels the same to me. "Well, the singularity is supposed to be unknowable and give us all an incredible spiritual connection with our robot overlords. All I see is my Nexus One offering me more software at a reduced rate.."

So points to Ray, but he misses the real point: futurists peddle hopes and dreams. When we arrive, say in 2010, we no longer fantasize about it. We've assimilated what we've got, and at the end of it, we're still just people with problems that real people have, even if Touchscreen computers can talk to us, tell us where to go, and only cost $400.

By: leonoel49

leonoel49 — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:25:58 +0000

Sure, no prob, is always nice to have a healthy debate, internet is too full of people with terrible ideas for a discussion. Keep up the good work, I am a big fan of your posts. First time I comment though.

By: adsaenz

adsaenz — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:11:50 +0000

@Leonoel49
Yes the Vuzix glasses are linked mainly because they are cool and only slightly because they're relevant to the topic at hand. Mea culpa.

As you'll notice in the article, I agree with Anissimov that #7 is basically a fail. It could turn around in a few years, but I think the time table is closer to 5-10+ years. Though it is still a likely phenomenon. Check out our latest post on the subject by Steve Wasick:
http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/20/stanfords-...
Robot cars are getting much better.

And thanks for all the comments.