independent.co.uk — Should, by some terrible misfortune, Ray Kurzweil shuffle off his mortal coil tomorrow, the obituaries would record an inventor of rare and visionary talent. In 1976, he created the first machine capable of reading books to the blind, and less than a decade later he built the K250: the first music synthesizer to nigh-on perfectly duplicate the...
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boomwavSep 28, 2009
<a class="user" href="http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13974188" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/display ...</a>
boomwavSep 28, 2009
Weird site. They predict that a good sized asteroid will impact earth in the next 10 years. Weird science to me.I'd really like if they provided some facts you know.. like link to studies or books from where they base their predictions. Or at least, a name of someone with credibility that back up the claims. Kurzweil has plenty of credibility around the world. That's why I'd rather believe him than a random website. However, I think the site you linked is a great compendium that list various future tech.
wjfox2008Sep 28, 2009
Actually, that's my own personal site. And you've misread the asteroid prediction - if you look again, I didn't say it will happen "in the next 10 years", but at some point between 2010 and 2129.<a class="user" href="http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2010-2019.htm#asteroid" rel="nofollow">http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2010-201 ...</a>I take your point about Kurzweil though. I don't think I'm quite as respected as him :-)
napierttSep 29, 2009
It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake...
echelonistSep 29, 2009
skc0der, I highly agree that Kurzweil is someone worth listening to, but the 16 PhDs you are talking about are "Honorary Doctorate". Not exactly like actually have 16 PhDs.
smurfsahoySep 29, 2009
@anthropodeus,Because if you are a software brain, it's not an issue of tool-usage skill, anymore. Your logic only holds if you assume that the representation itself of the person's mind is going to be kept separate and isolated, and merely interacts with external tools.But there's no reason for that to be the case. Once it is software, and once we know how it works exactly, we can go in and trivially change any person's mind to MAKE them smarter and better able to use tools, grasp concepts, remember things better, draw connections, and innovate. That's not a tool - it's an upgrade that will then allow you to use fantastic tools as a result. Two extreeemely different things.Also, this is all assuming that we would even be individual people anyway. If everything is online, why not just merge people's consciousnesses together for massively powerful parallel processing and almost infinite perspective/wisdom? Rather than smart people and dumb people, you could easily have ONE person who is thousands or millions of times smarter, so to speak, than even the smartest single person was before...
frostekSep 29, 2009
It won't work.
smurfsahoySep 30, 2009
Frostek,IF consciousness is continuous at all (see my previous post), then the problem you cite can be dealt with by simply gradually replacing little bits of your brain with electronic components.And to make things even easier... your brain has no pain nerves in it, so brain surgery can be done without anesthesia. With advanced surgical robots (invented by the first wave of AI), you could probably have the entire procedure done in one sitting without ever losing consciousness, and you would indeed YOURSELF be virtually immortal. Not just a separate copy of you (although you might want a few of those lying dormant too just for kicks)
Closed AccountOct 1, 2009
I'm a huge fan of Kurzweil and look forward to "The Singularity Is Near".Back in 2000, Sun Microsystem's Cheif Technologist wrote a poignant rebuttal to Kurzweil's claims stating that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies — robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech — are threatening to make humans an endangered species."<a class="user" href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html</a>I love computers. I love technology. I sincerely buy into all the star trek crap and believe that technological advances will eventually solve the world's problems. Yet this seemingly inevitable march towards progress leaves me feeling a bit uneasy... and almost a bit of a luddite...What if the future doesn't need us?
funkywoodOct 3, 2009
How many people would really buy a robot butler if they did exist?
nikokunDec 1, 2009
Slowly replace every brain cell with nanobots designed to do the same function. One at a time, they simply latch onto and take over for the brain cells. Now once the conversion is complete, then there must be a way to transfer.