Ray Kurzweil 2001-2003 essays Available as a PDF

Futurists... feh by gowen · 2005-07-04 03:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Man, I wish I could get a job making untestable hypotheses, and talking in stunningly vague terms about a vast morass of unrelated ideas.

But I don't want to be a futurist, and I don't have the time to study for the priesthood.

--
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.

Re:Futurists... feh by Irashtar · 2005-07-04 03:05 · Score: 1, Funny

You have to study to be a priest? I thought they just took every relavent scientific debate, and twisted it up.
Re:Futurists... feh by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 04:48 · Score: 0

You know, priests do more than lay people.
Re:Futurists... feh by Dylan+Zimmerman · 2005-07-04 05:49 · Score: 4, Informative

You realize that Kurzweil doesn't really need a job anymore, right? He made the Kurzweil reader (reads books aloud) from which flatbed scanners and omnifont OCR came and the Kurzweil synthesizer (the first to accurately reproduce the sounds of orchestral instruments). He's founded nine companies spanning everything from music and assistive technologies to cybernetic art to financial investment. From his site:

Ray Kurzweil was inducted in 2002 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the nation's largest award in invention and innovation. He also received the 1999 National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. He has also received scores of other national and international awards, including the 1994 Dickson Prize (Carnegie Mellon University's top science prize), Engineer of the Year from Design News, Inventor of the Year from MIT, and the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. He has received twelve honorary Doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. He has received seven national and international film awards. His book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, was named Best Computer Science Book of 1990. His best-selling book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, has been published in nine languages and achieved the #1 best selling book on Amazon.com in the categories of "Science" and "Artificial Intelligence."

So it isn't exactly his job to make these hypotheses, more like his hobby. ;)
Re:Futurists... feh by gowen · 2005-07-04 07:01 · Score: 1

Oh, I'm fully aware that Kurzweil's a smart guy. But can't he find something productive to do with his time like... add a decent OCR program to Linux, for example :)

--
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Re: Futurists... feh by Black+Parrot · 2005-07-04 07:17 · Score: 1

> But I don't want to be a futurist, and I don't have the time to study for the priesthood.

Besides, the Rapture of the Nerds is probably only a few years away anyhow.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:Futurists... feh by LnxAddct · 2005-07-04 08:25 · Score: 1

Except if you've ever read "The age of intelligent machines" or other essays of his from the 80's you'd be amazed at how accurate he is, mostly because he takes part in most of the innovations spawning companies to make them realities and profiting from them. Another more recent book of his, "The age of spiritual machines" also makes quite a few interesting statements, but they are all backed with reasonable logic and if he's only half as accurate as he's previously been, then our future still holds many interesting things in store for us. Ray Kurzweil is no joke, knows exactly what he is talking about and is extremely intelligent. In fact quite a few technology centered corporations have used him as a consultant, the first company off the top of my head is Lockheed Martin.
Regards,
Steve
Re:Futurists... feh by danila · 2005-07-04 08:30 · Score: 1

Go read his site. Ascension and transcendence of humans is more important than OCR software for Linux. You are so terribly shortsighted that I pity you. How comes you have the wonderful Internet full of information in front of you and still you are clueless as a brick?

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:Futurists... feh by gowen · 2005-07-04 09:14 · Score: 1

Ascension and transcendence of humans
Oh, please. We've been a distinct species for millions of years, and it's ridiculous hubris to modern humanity is the golden generation that will achieve godhead through technology.

To Newton, the renaissance would look like a singularity. To Da Vinci, the 19th century would look like an unimaginable technological tornado. To Watt, or Stephenson, the inventions of the 1950s would have a been, to quote a popular phrase, "indistinguishable from magic." Turing would've looked at the incredible microchip technology driving web in marvel (plus : plenty of gay porn. Bonus).

Now, if you're suggesting a unprecedented evolutionary breakthrough, and our eventual transcedence, I'd suggest that nobody's transcending anywhere while there are still millions of people dying on the other side of the world from your comfortable futurologists apartment.

--
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Re:Futurists... feh by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 09:18 · Score: 1, Funny

Stunningly vague notions that look irrational, far fetched, crazy, insane, off the wall -- you don't like them?

What if rather than being 0 intelligence, their value approached infinity? -- yes, what if you need fuzzy to approach infinite intelligence?

fuzzy notions allow us to trace our singular history through billions of years.

the pathetic abilities of the intellect give us a little bit of room to navigate in time and space, sure, but try modeling the next greater thing, something 5 dimensional like intentionality and you fall flat on your face.

hey, i'm neither a futurist nor a priest, but i'm smart enough to realize that the world and universe has not ripped itself apart, that there's no urgent need to patch short-sighted messes, that basically the entire thing is disinterestedly benevolent and of infinite intelligence.

uh, and that we have almost no clue about how it works.

and no, i'm not taking sides in the cosmology debates either; but you are.

polarized to the what? 300 books you've read and mastered you believe that you know sh*? that you have something special with a few hundred points of IQ/EQ...

good for you. perhaps next time you wind up with your head handed to you by life you pause to ponder if the magnitides of complexity from which you're trashing cr*p outside of or invisible to you is really just 0 intelligence.

There's more unconscious to us than there is conscious. Based on this insight (which you must deny and visciously attack right now should you want your tiny brain to not explode!) its safe to say that we're on the stupid end of the stick.

but hey, if to your microbrain the ideas of some other man look like a vast morass of unrelated ideas .. might it be possible that you're just not smart enough to spy connections?

if you think you're god's gift of brains to the world and someone else is integrating and corellating ideas for fun; doing things that you can not possibly track because you lack all ability to calmly reason with bit ideas....

then yeah, you can amuse the rest of the monkeys.

but human, you're not. you're acting like a sub-human degenerate who shows no appreciation of art or of the values generated by dreamers and seekers of that intellectual vastness.

I mod you +1 for extinction.

Sure, your self-righteousness will probably see to it that you have arms and a willingness to kill, but so what.

Its the folks that can mentally cope with crazy untestable hypotheses that enabled you to trash and deride them to begin with. Like they cared for small minds. They might even think nicely of you; I'll just mod your ilk for extinction if that's ok by you.

anyhow... remember that kurzweils cr*p s about approaching infinite intelligence.

Of course its safer for you to call that all deluded mystic/religious/fuzzy bullsh*t and go on your merry way.

As denial's easier than dealing with dilettantes, Kurzweil would probably approve of how you defend and self-define your self into the bucket of retrograde intellects marked for extinction.

But sorry, I'm repeating myself. This is probably not news to you either. All around you there are smarts-limited bright people agreeing with you and for the moment you have the safety of numbers.

Heh, but watch what happens when you face life in the raw. without the veneer of rationality, you will eventually come to wish you had cultivated good relations with the irrational vastness of the infinite intelligence bounding your little bubble.

Some of us actually help pathetic lost ones like you. Find us.

Cheers Monkey. You can go back to rolling in sh*t and trashing people that have minds capable of dealing with subtlety.
Re:Futurists... feh by danila · 2005-07-04 10:08 · Score: 1

If you make the effort to think logically and rationally, you should realise that advanced nanotechnology and artificial intelligence will be unprecedented revolutionary breakthroughs. Whether or not these can be achieved in 30-50 years can be debated, but the informed consensus is that they can.

As for the millions of people dying from hunger and illnesses, this is the most unfortunate, but the beauty of nanotech and AI is that they can overcome the despotism and evilness of the modern western capitalism. If you think rationally and calmly, without dismissing these ideas outright, you should realise that 1) socio-political factors cause these unnecessary deaths and 2) nanotechnology and AI, once developed, can work on a large scale despite these factors.

This isn't hubris, this is simple rational thought. All that is necessary to understand the inevitability of this transcendence is to learn a lot about modern science and technology without succumbing to some dangerous memes (e.g. religion, mysticism, environmentalism, etc.) before. Once you have a decent understanding of genetics, neurophysiology, chemistry, physics and a few other areas, you can realise why nanotech and AI will happen relatively soon, why they are inevitable (unless something really bad happens) and why they will lead us into divinity.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:Futurists... feh by Dylan+Zimmerman · 2005-07-04 10:40 · Score: 1

I guessed that you were saying that initial comment jokingly, I just thought that it bore pointing out that he's one of the greatest minds in technology in general. After all, a disturbing number of slashdotters seem to have never heard of him.

As for the singularity and ascension and all that, I remember reading some article by him where he discussed how, like a black hole's event horizon, "the singularity" is something that we cannot actually reach. Rather, it's something beyond which our models are no longer effective and we cannot make any sort of educated guess at what will happen. Newton indeed could not have predicted the discoveries beyond the renaissance, so to him, it would be a singularity.

Fairly often, discussions of "the singularity" involve technological change, but there are also social singularities. For example, a fairly short while ago, no westerners could imagine women owning their own property. After all, they were the property of their husbands. Now, we've got women not only owning property, but running huge corporations.

Really, I like it as a description of innovation and change. It's a wonderful idea.

Plus, it isn't every day that I get to discuss a N:S ratio of predictions relative to time being (-1/(t-q)) where 'q' is the "distance" from now to the singularity. </geek="math">
Re:Futurists... feh by tyrione · 2005-07-04 16:19 · Score: 1

Right, because Raja Yoga is too demanding for 99% of the Human Population, and most can't handle the levels of chemical reactions certain hallucinogenic drugs induce, yet they can imagine a future with AI as if that will be their only chance at Godhead.

Of course they don't grasp the mystic arts and the necessary inward transcendence it takes with all its pitfalls--easier to denounce than to explore. Pity really, because they would sooner discover their own mental and transcendental limitations which would put more caution to their aspirations of AI transcendence.
Re:Futurists... feh by chowder_001 · 2005-07-05 03:48 · Score: 1

This is perhaps the most foolish thing I've ever read. If I'm wrong tell me, but are you saying that AI and nanotech will solve all the worlds' problems? How many times have we heard that in the history of man (Medical advancements e.g. penicillin etc...). We could solve world hunger now if we so desired, we choose not to, that's just the reality of it. Call it selfish, or what ever you like but it's not technology that is going to "save us". If fact that kind of statement scare me a little. I'm really not sure what your point is but to state that technology will solve all our problems is pure and simply naive.
Re:Futurists... feh by danila · 2005-07-05 04:54 · Score: 1

You may think this is a foolish thing, but I suspect the truth is that you simply don't know much about the subject (i.e. the history of science and technology, the history of socio-economic changes, political economy, nanotech and AI, the underlying sciences, etc.). Instead of making rational conclusions (since you don't have a solid basis to start with) you rely on cliches that you were subjected to.

Your argument that "technology can't solve the world problems" is a result of the trust crisis that science faced in the second half of the 20th century, as a result of the irrational "nuclear fear" (which was itself a result of deliberate mind manipulation by the US government and media), the new knowledge about nature and ecology (which led to irrational environmentalism) and the assault of irrational and mystic beliefs imported from India and elsewhere. People were persuaded that science is dangerous and not very important (which frankly, isn't true) and taught not to trust it. There is no substance behind your argument. It should be ignored and you smacked hard for even bringing that up.

Anyway, since you asked, I will explain why you are indeed wrong. First, you do not make a distinction between "solving a problem" and "completely solving a problem". Throughout history technology solved a lot of problems and if we look at the big picture, it was most definitely the most important factor in solving the variety of problems that humanity faced. No other factor solved as many problems as science and technology did.

Second, are you claiming that someone promised that penicillin would solve all world's problems? I think you just invented a ridiculous lie that doesn't stand even the superficial scrutiny. Noone made such a claim. However, penicillin did in fact solve a very big problem, the problem of medicine being unable to treat bacterial infections at all. To me this is a great example of technology's ability to solve serious real world problems. If you believe that it's actually a counter-example to that - you are a moron (sorry, then). And don't bring up the resistance of mutant bacteria to antibiotics - it's not the fault of technology that it is unable to solve the problem completely, and it's not the fault of the scientists, since they never claimed it would.

Third, nanotechnology and AI are different from most older technologies in that they are, by nature, great equalisers (Internet is very similar in this regard) and that their very nature prevents strict control over their use and distribution. At a sufficiently advanced stage, nanoassemblers and nanoreplicators can be used to distribute the productive ability to every human on the planet. Similarly, copies of AI programs can be distributed to every human. There will be no logistical problems preventing the distributions, such as currently exist for distributing food and medicines to poor countries. There will be no ways to effectively control the distribution, as exist today for advanced technologies.

Fourth, of course, it won't be just the technologies that will spread themselves (though in the case of AI it can be) - it will most likely be people. But it's not hard to find a bunch of altruistic people that can break the barriers, laws and restrictions in order to facilitate free distribution of information (and both nanotech and AI are essentially information). We call them pirates and I have no doubt that there will be enormous prestige associated with releasing the plans for the first nanoassembler and the first human-level AI (unless we are lucky and the scientists who develop them will be able to release them by themselves without government or corporate restrictions).

Your reaction is easily explained by the fact that you didn't develop your beliefs yourself in a rational and logical way, but acquired them from TV, newspapers, snippets of radio, etc. When you make the effort to think independently, starting from the basics (that you can confirm using a textbook or a scientific paper), you should inevitably come to the same or similar conclusions as I described above.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:Futurists... feh by chowder_001 · 2005-07-05 07:23 · Score: 1

I crossed the line with the "simply naive" comment and now I feel like a jackass and it's well deserved. If you believe that I think technology isn't one of the most predominant factors, if not the most predominant factor, in solving or helping to solve "problems" (which we might want to define) then your mistaken. I agree hole heartedly. I have not been "persuaded that science is dangerous and not very important and taught not to trust it". In fact the exact opposite. Your second comment. Your right and I'm backing down, should have used a valid example. Your third and fourth comments are exactly what I wanted to hear. I just wonder how much influence a mostly free market "west" will have on this type of technology. You mention the Internet as something similar, and look what that's turned into (pornography and advertisements). Not to say that the internet hasn't help mankind in many ways, but it has also given criminals new avenues to explore. The point is nanotech and AI will bring about some fantastic changes, but I don't believe it will be all good. As an example, which I'm sure you've argued before, consider what would happen if the life expectance of everyone on the planet was increased to 100 years. Could the planet sustain that? Do we take the attitude of "By the time it becomes a problem we will be able to fix it." That attitude drives me crazy from the small scale (office settings) to the large (government). What are your thoughts? Do we just proceed into the future without abandon or regulation?
Re:Futurists... feh by danila · 2005-07-05 08:55 · Score: 1

First things first. :) You ask "Do we just proceed into the future without abandon or regulation?" Yes, by all means yes.

You point out porn and ads as if those were caused by Internet. Far from it - they are simply things that we humans wanted (or, in case of ads, corporations wanted) and that were made easier by the Internet. But when you present that as a problem somehow related to the Internet, you make a logical mistake. You presume that our ultimate goal is to prevent any and all bad things from happening and if we allow just one instance of something bad, we lost. You may not realise that, but this is the assumption behind your concerns.

Once you realise that we should not strive to eliminate all "bad things", but simple increase the human happiness overall, it becomes extremely easy to judge the Internet and nanotech. Will these technologies bring more good than bad? Is it possible to avoid the most horrible consequences? Then lets invent and adopt these amazing new technologies.

Nanotech and AI will be used for bad, but I believe that humanity will cope with it. Overall nanotech and AI will empower the people and this is a good thing. The society will evolve some defences and will prevent the biggest abuses. The minor problems will be dealt with after they happen. There are only two possible outcomes - we work everything out and these technologies do solve all our problems, or something goes terribly wrong and humanity goes extinct. Yes, the worst outcome is really bad, but we have no choice but to proceed. Without these advanced technologies we can't get immortality and omnipotence. And if we can't get that, what's the point?

In regards to your concern about sustainability, this is a totally bogus example too. When we have nanotech and AI, it will become trivial to produce everything a modern human needs using just solar (fusion) power and air (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen). Nanoassemblers can produce almost everything we will need. Powerful computers will run virtual reality, where we will be able to get everything else. And AI will take care of running things.

Of course, this is a simplistic "proof-of-concept" model, but it is still useful. It shows that we should have little to no concerns about long-term sustainability, long-term climate changes and long-term ecological damage. Once we have advanced nanotech and AI, fixing these problems becomes trivial, almost like using a cheat code in a computer game.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't be worried about consequences. If possible, we need to proceed carefully and thoughtfully. But when the choice is between proceeding into the future with abandon and delaying or stopping the progress, I'd say that the promises of the progress are too great to stop or slow down.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.

Memes? by delta_avi_delta · 2005-07-04 03:05 · Score: 5, Informative

Meme is definately not synonymous with "theme", meme being defined as a piece of information passed on through the generations. I wouldn't say "How to build a brain" is a very memetic idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Re:Memes? by Soybean47 · 2005-07-04 04:30 · Score: 1

Ah, but "theme" wasn't a buzzword during the period these essays were written. ;)
Re:Memes? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:15 · Score: 0

Is there anything more hilarious than people trying to use hip and popular buzzwords but getting the context utterly, utterly wrong?

'Look at me, I'm cool!'

No, you're not cool, just plain moronic. You fail at being a geek by being unable to write properly, and you fail and being in the 'cool crowd' because they can actually choose and follow their trendy memes (heh) correctly (however crass they may be). So what exactly are you?
Re:Memes? by mortebass+(+) · 2005-07-04 05:48 · Score: 1

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Of course I just edited this page so it now says "A meme is just like a theme. All your meme are belong to Mortebass."
Re:Memes? by HiThere · 2005-07-04 07:22 · Score: 2, Informative

Sorry, but Wikipedia is the wrong source here. You should instead look at the (final?) chapter of Richard Dawkins "The Selfish Gene".

He coined the word meme on the analog of the word gene, and the intention was that it should mean a *SMALL* piece of information that reproduced itself. It's not a meromosome, it's a meme. It's typically the size of an ad jingle...the really obnoxious kind that you can't forget, no matter how you try. One of his points is that it isn't necessarily true or beneficial to it's host.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Memes? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 13:56 · Score: 0

"meme" is only used 'round these parts because nerds with their massive egos can't be seen using a word such as "trend" (which really is what is meant when using "meme")

"trend" has hip and cool connotations, whereas "meme" has an air of elitism suitable for the nerd (or blogger) set. the fact that you (and others) feel the need to go out and justify its existance with some abstract tomfoolery such as "datum distributed via cognitive facility" only proves the point. your elitism is as hollow and empty and devoid of meaning as slashdot itself.

the masses always decide the direction language will take. in a fit of irony, the masses have already decided the fate of "meme." they choose the precise opposite of "information" itself: noise.

Ray Whatnow? by stevens · 2005-07-04 03:05 · Score: 1

I didn't know either, but he seems like an inventor of sorts.

clicky.

Kurzweil by dnoyeb · 2005-07-04 03:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

I always get confused by Kurzweil reader. My mother who is blind had a device that would scan and read books for her years ago. It was called a Kurzweil. So when I hear Kurzweil reader...

I wonder if there is a pun in there somewhere? I'll have to read some of this stuff and find out.

Re:Kurzweil by Rapsey · 2005-07-04 03:14 · Score: 1, Redundant

Its the same kurzweil, he invented the reader.
Re:Kurzweil by davesag · 2005-07-04 03:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Ray Kurzweil invented the Kurzweil Reader and loads of other cool things. The first true piano synth too - the Kurzweil Keyboard. He's got laurels as long as your arm.

--
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it

Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by ReformedExCon · 2005-07-04 03:06 · Score: 2, Informative

Of the little I've read of Raymond Kurzweil, he seems like a pure genius. From his ability to program computers at only 12 years old, to his AI and nanobot research, he is a modern day "Renaissance man" with his hand in many different aspects of technology.

His immortality stuff is a little out-there, but we all have our little quirks :-)

I can't wait to read some of these essays.

--
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.

Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Universal+Indicator · 2005-07-04 03:11 · Score: 1

Programming a computer at 12 does not require genious. I was programming my first TRS-80 when I was 8. I would not consider myself a genious.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Kurzweil was 12 in 1960. I hardly think programming your modern TRS-80 is quite the same as programming a behemoth from 1960.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by bobintetley · 2005-07-04 03:14 · Score: 0

From his ability to program computers at only 12 years old

That really isn't anything special - I was programming games in Z80 and 6502 at 9 years old and I'm sure I'm not exceptional by Slashdot standards.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by gihan_ripper · 2005-07-04 03:18 · Score: 0

Dude, is your comment meant as a joke? I started programming at 10 and have a wide range of interests (including being a professional number theorist), but certainly do not consider myself a "pure genius". Also, one would have to be working in more than just technology to be considered a Renaisssance man. Does he have any artistic achievements to speak of?

--
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Chess_the_cat · 2005-07-04 03:22 · Score: 1

I hardly think programming your modern TRS-80 is quite the same as programming a behemoth from 1960.
Because the size of the computer is proportional to the difficulty in programming it.

--
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by masklinn · 2005-07-04 03:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

How about reading what the AC said two posts above yours and 5mn earlier?

--
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by agraupe · 2005-07-04 03:24 · Score: 3, Funny

Not to mention that you spelled "genius" with one o too many. I think that pretty much disqualifies you.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by masklinn · 2005-07-04 03:25 · Score: 1

Because the size of the computer is proportional to the difficulty in programming it.
It's not about size here, it's about usability.
computers of the 60s didn't have any kind of screens and keyboards, no languages as high level as *basic* (or anything even remotely close), you were punching cards into the sucker and trying to fit whatever you could into the few avaible bytes and cycles avaible.

So yes, a '60s computer was a magnitude harder to program than a TRS-80.

--
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:39 · Score: 0

I started programming my Commodore 128 when I was six years old ... and now I'm a patent lawyer. Go figure.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:41 · Score: 0

he is a modern day "Renaissance man"
I imagine he also suffers some "under discomfort" from the amount of attention his ringpiece seems to be getting.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:46 · Score: 0

Some 1960 computers had keyboards and teletypes. 12 year olds (and younger) quite happily programmed TRS-80s in machine code.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:49 · Score: 0

It's not about size here, it's about usability.
computers of the 60s didn't have any kind of screens and keyboards, no languages as high level as *basic* (or anything even remotely close), you were punching cards into the sucker and trying to fit whatever you could into the few avaible bytes and cycles avaible.

So yes, a '60s computer was a magnitude harder to program than a TRS-80.

However, Harder in this sense does not have anything to do with smartness or genius. I drive a stick shift, does that make me a genius? I argue that the comparison is similar. A TRS-80 at its core operates fundamentally the same way as a computer that preceded it by 20 years. So what if one has to learn how to use punch card machinery and a teleprinter? A few years prior to the TRS-80, many kids were interfacing with a computer with nothing more than a switchboard interface. I knew one kid that actually coded out a substansial program and switched in over a period of several. This person, although sharp, is probably not a genius. Certainly I would not consider him smart just because he can clock in a k-byte from a switch board.
THe fact is that there were a lot of kids that were learning the fundamentals of machine operation (machine code and the fundamental load/store/operation of microprocessors) before they were 12. Some of them are probably geniuses, most are not.

Today we have color high res displays, and hile it has certainly made interfacing more convenient, it hasn't made computer programming as a whole any easier. There is quite a bit of complexity and rigor in painting that GUI to your screen (that a lot of app programmers are insulated from).

Also, you are wrong about the timeframe of high level languages. Read about the history of BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN before you completely convince us all that you are an idiot.

If you are young you apparently just have an over-romanticized view of history and a fanboy devotion to Kurzweil. If you are older, than you are just an ignorant moron.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 04:03 · Score: 0

More to the point, he started moderately successful companies in speech recognition and music synthesizers in the '70s, way ahead of the curve. He's a successful businessman as well as a scientist and futurist.

About ten years ago he turned his attention to the human diet and wrote a book called "The 10 percent solution" (10 percent fat in your diet, and he talked about restricting total caloric intake as well). Someday I just might implement his suggestions... umm, but today being the Fourth of July, I'm sure some bratwurst slathered with mustard and sauerkraut will go down quite well.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Jose-S · 2005-07-04 04:28 · Score: 1

It does require being a geek. I was programming BASIC at about 12 or so too.

--
XML UI Browser/Platform
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:03 · Score: 0

I was programming C at 10, and yes, I am a genius
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 06:39 · Score: 0

I was programming when I was 8 or 10. I think it's unusual. Certainly, nobody else in my town did so at my age. The whole town knows me as the local computer expert. :P But it's very common on Slashdot, of course. This place is huge! Kinda hard to be unique in a place that's actually one big place for unique people to hang out in.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by rbarreira · 2005-07-04 06:53 · Score: 1

I think most of us were :)

--

The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by FleaPlus · 2005-07-04 07:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

From his ability to program computers at only 12 years old

In response to all the slashdotters saying "That's lame, I started programming way before that," I guess that in itself isn't too impressive. Heck, I started programming when I was 8 myself. However, keep in mind that Kurzweil was born in 1948, which would mean that he started learning to program with the computers of 1960. I find that a little more impressive, although there's undoubtedly also slashdotters who learned to program at a similar age and time. I find them impressive too.

To get an idea of what computers were like in 1960:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_ hardware#Second_generation_--_late_1950s_and_early _1960s

The next major step in the history of computing was the invention of the transistor in 1947. This replaced the fragile and power hungry valves with a much smaller and more reliable component. Transistorized computers are normally referred to as 'Second Generation' and dominated the late 1950s and early 1960s. By using transistors and printed circuits a significant decrease in size and power consumption was achieved, along with an increase in reliability. For example, the vacuum tube based IBM 650 of 1954 weighed over 900 kg, the attached power supply weighed around 1350 kg and both were held in separate cabinets of roughly 1.5 meters by 0.9 meters by 1.8 meters. It cost $500,000 or could be leased for $3,500 a month. (Its drum memory was originally only 2000 ten-digit words, and required arcane programming for efficient computing. This type of hardware limitation was to dominate programming for decades afterward, until the evolution of a programming model which was more sympathetic to software development.) By contrast, the transistorized IBM 1620, which replaced the 650, was the size of an office desk. Second generation computers were still expensive and were primarily used by universities, governments, and large corporations.

In 1959 IBM shipped the transistor-based IBM 7090 mainframe and medium scale IBM 1401. The latter was designed around punch card input and proved a popular general purpose computer. Some 12,000 were shipped, making it the most successful machine in computer history at the time. It used a magnetic core memory of 4000 characters (later expanded to 16,000 characters). Many aspects of its design were based on the desire to replace punched card machines which were in wide use from the 1920s through the early 1970s.

In 1960 IBM shipped the smaller, transistor-based IBM 1620, originally with only punched paper tape, but soon upgraded to punch cards. It proved a popular scientific computer and about 2,000 were shipped. It used a magnetic core memory of up to 60,000 decimal digits.

Also in 1960, DEC launched the PDP-1 their first machine intended for use by technical staff in laboratories and for research.
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by PenGun · 2005-07-04 07:20 · Score: 0

That is just plain dumb. Try about 25% fat as a percentage of your calories, just use butter etc and avoid any manufactured fats. Try 30% protein and the rest carbohydrates.

Restricting calories a _lot_ gives some life extension in mice, really skinny mice;).

PenGun
Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !
Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by StikyPad · 2005-07-04 09:51 · Score: 1

Considering immortality seems to mean little more than preventing or repairing damage to DNA, I don't think it's all that far "out-there." I'm sure there will be other hurdles, such as lifetime accumulation of toxic substances (heavy metals, radioactive substances), and other degenerative diseases, but I certainly don't think it's unsolvable. Whether or not we, or our children, or our children's children will be around to see it is another question altogether.

The idea of immortality was much more fantastical when our ideas of aging were equally fantastical. When real causes are identified and real problems are tackled, it becomes much less a question of if than when.

--
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Tech by DanielMarkham · 2005-07-04 03:08 · Score: 4, Informative

Ray has got it nailed. It's interesting how much agreement there is anymore on future technology predictions. Only a few decades ago, predictions were all over the place: flying cars, nuclear power plants in every home, etc. But lately it seems that most people agree on the basics: man and machine will merge in some fashion, biotech will begin to cure aging, etc. The details are still very fuzzy, but it's interesting that Ray can bring these pieces together in a way that is not that far away from mainstream thought.

What's the Other Slashdot Effect?

ramona ! by maharg · 2005-07-04 03:09 · Score: 2, Funny

Me: hi - your website appears to have been slashdotted

Ramona: <silence>

--

$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.

Reminds me of a game I just played... by ShyGuy91284 · 2005-07-04 03:20 · Score: 1

It shall rename nameless for now so those that do not want to play it will not get spoilers. But in it, the world of the game was later revealed to be a virtual world/"other dimension" in which the level of complexity had created billions of virtual characters, that technical details aside, were the same in existence as those that created the game. It brought up an intersting moral question. If they ever did create a game in which we just watched the lives of "virtual people" play out while we threw situations at them, and their minds and actions had grew to rival our own in complexity and nature (Like the Sims I guess, but if they were like us), would they count as a sentient being? Would people really feel it would be allright to pull the plug on them? Kinda like the "living robot" situation, but a lot more likely.

--
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.

Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by Quizo69 · 2005-07-04 04:29 · Score: 1

Watch "The Thirteenth Floor" for a very similar scenario and ethical questions.

--
Visceral Psyche Films
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by kiwibird · 2005-07-04 05:57 · Score: 1

Would you PM me the title? Please?
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by cahiha · 2005-07-04 08:39 · Score: 1

Look on IMDB for "13th floor".
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by ShyGuy91284 · 2005-07-04 08:49 · Score: 1

I did, I plan on giving it a shot.

--
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by ShyGuy91284 · 2005-07-04 08:57 · Score: 1

I would if I knew how to PM (I feel noobish, which I am not....) Never even knew that was a feature, since slashdot isn't the typical BBS system.

--
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by kiwibird · 2005-07-04 16:02 · Score: 1

Eh. Ditto. Whatever.
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by ShyGuy91284 · 2005-07-05 14:00 · Score: 1

*SPOILER!!!!* Old enough thread, so I'll tell the name. Star Ocean 3. Although a warning, knowing this ruins a good part of the game, because you def. don't see it coming.

--
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Re:Reminds me of a game I just played... by kiwibird · 2005-07-06 01:47 · Score: 1

Ah. Square Enix. That explains a lot =D

RIP? by kabdib · 2005-07-04 03:32 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Ray Kurzweil is dead at age 2?

--
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.

Re:RIP? by Kohath · 2005-07-04 03:39 · Score: 1

And, amazingly enough, he published essays. Quite remarkable.

Re:Crackpot by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:43 · Score: 0

Yeah, read this instead if you're into science and philosophy:
http://home.online.no/~s-de-la/frontpage.htm

Unfortunately, the rest of the site is in norwegian but I can assure you that it is all very interesting...

Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by torpor · 2005-07-04 03:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've never been impressed with the militant technologism of Kurzweil.

To me, there is little between the ideologized mind/computer monstrosity and '"God is Dead" is my Co-Pilot'.

Can someone explain to me why his sort of thinking is safe to have going on in this world? Do we really want future generations of fascist to be raised on and inspired by such militant technologism as trans-humanism?

No thanks. If there is a future for fascism, its going to come from the makers of machines.

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --

Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by Shihar · 2005-07-04 05:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

You are entirely misunderstanding Kurtzweil if you think him a militant or a fascist. Kurtzweil talks about inevitability. Humans advance knowledge. Nothing short of some sort of anti-technology fascism is going to halt humans from advancing knowledge. Certain societies might choose to abstain in fear of a 'trans human' era, but unless those societies are willing to wipe out societies that choose not to abstain, there is an inevitability to Kurtzweil's line of reasoning.

Kurtzweil's line of reasoning is simple. As we amass more knowledge, the speed at which we amass knowledge grows greater. Further, he says we will come to a time when we build something that can begin to produce its own knowledge, and that this thing will create a singularity. That is to say that once we have machines that can amass knowledge and improve on themselves with that knowledge, technology will explode so rapidly compared to today that you can't even begin to comprehend life in this post singularity world. Such a technological singularity could appear so quickly that it might be that no one knows it happened until after the fact.

A lot of futurists believe all of the above. They argue against a human centric world as seen in most sci-fi. The idea of a crew of a few thousand running a ship as seen in Star Trek is silly to them because they argue AI will one day be able to do it better. I personally tend to agree.

What might be rankling you is Kurtzweil's take on whether or not having humanity eclipsed is a bad thing. Kurtzweil argues that humanity's eclipse is all but inevitable, but not necessarily a bad thing. People tend to take a dim view at having one's species wiped out, or at least rendered inconsequential. Kurtzweil argues that perhaps this eclipsing won't be such a bad thing. While having humans wiped out might be one possibility, a Garden of Eden created by appreciative creations might be another, as could the possibility of merging/joining with said creations.

A Garden of Eden to play in for as long as I desire or transcending to a higher plane of existence doesn't sound all that bad in my eyes.

Kurtzweil isn't a militant technologist. He is an optimist. Could you argue his optimism is naive? Sure. I personally take it as a welcome change. We have a morbid view of the future some times, especially in a future where humans have been eclipsed. It seems like everyone argues for a Terminator/Matrix style future where it has to be man Vs machine. Kurtzweil just offers up a little optimism that the future might not be all that bad and that it might be man with machine, or man carrying on merrily while machine goes off and does whatever.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by disposable60 · 2005-07-04 06:24 · Score: 1

If there is a future for fascism, its going to come from the makers of machines.

Be specific - it will come from the makers of voting machines.

--
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by Planesdragon · 2005-07-04 08:40 · Score: 1

Oh, damn, you mean this guy is the moron who thought up the damn "Singularity?"

Let me sum up my objection simply: I doubt that we're going to be able to make a quantum-state realtime adaptive intelligence that's significantly better than the one between your ears.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by jpop32 · 2005-07-04 08:57 · Score: 1

I've never been impressed with the militant technologism of Kurzweil.

I believe you're confusing Ray for a Futurist.

If there is a future for fascism, its going to come from the makers of machines.

Futurists philosophically paved the way for fascism, but that all played out about a century ago. And, yeah, it didn't work all that well.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 09:08 · Score: 0

It just needs to be slightly better than a human. It then knows how it was built and would be able to improve itself eg make itself faster. It can then come up with new ways to make it better, and so the advance continues.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by Shihar · 2005-07-04 09:11 · Score: 1

I agree with parent. What is next? Is some ass hole going to suggest that we are going to build a flying machine humans can use better then what nature has built in birds? This is just stupid. Humans can't fly and will never beat out evolution. The suggestion that humans could some how improve upon a few million years of trial and error is just totally inane. Next they will tell us they have thinkin'-gadets that can beat a chess master at chest. /scaracsim

Simply put, never is a very long time. If you think humans have found the best and only way to do intelligence via evolution, well that is pretty fucking naive. The human mind is a product of trial and error working with a very limited materials and a very limited testing method. Not that I am implying I am ungrateful for my evolved mind, but I am not so full of myself to think that an intelligence that is working deliberately to build intelligence using materials never used in nature will be utterly incapable of beating the original.

Nature has done a lot of stuff that humans have not been able to reproduce - yet. However, there are many things that came about from millions of years of evolution that humans have handily superseded. I would take tank, or even a lightly armed marine, to over the best of what nature has to offer in terms of predatory adaptations. I would take the Hubble telescope over nature's best adapted eyes. I would rather fly a jet half way around the world then use nature's best adaptations to traveling. To think that humans will not out do evolution in terms of creating intelligence in the face of all the other things humans have handily beat evolution in, is simply too naïve for words.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by torpor · 2005-07-04 09:22 · Score: 1

I believe you're confusing Ray for a Futurist.

nope, i put him in the 'millitant technologist' realm. he'd be far more interesting if he gave it all up and raised sheep.

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by torpor · 2005-07-04 09:47 · Score: 1

Nothing short of some sort of anti-technology fascism is going to halt humans from advancing knowledge.

Kurzweil Ignores Religion At His Own Peril.

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by KaptNKrunchy · 2005-07-04 11:51 · Score: 1

Alternatly, we could just make the one between our ears better. We've already done it in rats. And if regular people could make themselves smarter then the new smarter people would be able to make themselves that much smarter still, and so on.
And yes I think it is enevitable, with the one exeption that humanity might destroy ourselves before we get that far. Hopefully at least a remnant will be able to survive though if it gets to that point.
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by samantha · 2005-07-05 10:27 · Score: 1

Do we want a future dominated by technophobes who would condemn all humans to hideous decrepitude and death after a mere 70ish years? I don't think so. Kurzweil's vision is highly benign and has no fascism or borg-like parts at all. The poster's slur is beneath contempt. What could be more fascist than the poster's implied wish to outlaw thoughts the poster finds uncomfortable?
Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by torpor · 2005-07-05 20:46 · Score: 1

oooh ... reactionary. never expected that.

i'm not 'calling for thought oughtlaw', nor am i saying we should abandon technology. i am saying, however, that technologists with no ethics sense are the new source of fascism, and your post proves it ..

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --

Re: Extremely geeky Pink Floyd reference by joebutton · 2005-07-04 03:50 · Score: 3, Informative

If you saw Pink Floyd's rather marvellous performance at Live 8 the other day, you'll have seen Rick Wright playing a Kurzweil keyboard. That's the same Kurzweil too.

--
http://savingiceland.org

Genius ?= Idiot by Vagary · 2005-07-04 03:53 · Score: 1

If by "genius" you mean "twit", I'm right there with you. Inventions aside, Kurzweil seems very disconnected from reality, and most of his futurism seems so naive that I don't understand why it gets any attention whatsoever. The Age of Spiritual Machines is one of the most useless books I have ever read.

Futurists Are Funny by Vagary · 2005-07-04 03:57 · Score: 4, Funny

Futurists are just like science fiction writers, except instead of being entertaining by combining prognostication with insight into the human condition (cyberpunk) or appealing to our mythological archetypes (space opera), futurism is entertaining by making you laugh in either pity or amazement at their naivete. So they're all doing their part to make the world a better place...unlike priests.

Re:Futurists Are Funny by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:37 · Score: 0

except instead of being entertaining by combining prognostication with insight into the human condition (cyberpunk)

You misspelled "pure sci-fi." It doesn't start with a C.
Re:Futurists Are Funny by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:50 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Futurists, I have to say, are total and utter wankers.

This is counter-groupthink here on slashdot, but technology is neutral, it is how you use it that counts.

But people love to lap up the idea that technology somehow *does* something. Just witness the collective ho-ha over the PS3 and Xbox2 specs: was anyone asking "will there be an opensource game engine? will we be able to run linux? what type of DRM?"

Some where. And those are the *important* questions.

"Futurists" are frauds, everything they do is opposed to proper philosophical practice. They are totally opposed to philosophers who consider new technology as it comes along like for example, bio-ethics. They are just cheerleaders of tech and their position within a capitalistic system is suspect, as is their position when many of them are consultants to companies for advertising purposes etc.

You have to ask, what romantic vision of technology these guys have, where did it come from. Why are they saying what they are saying.

Give me the comments of the neutral university professor of philosophy in the employ of the public (albeit indirectly) ANY day of the week over the opinion of a shady futurist pimping their shiny covered books and consulting with corporations for the cult of consumption.
Re:Futurists Are Funny by HiThere · 2005-07-04 07:11 · Score: 1

Well, one guy who considers himself a futurist goes by the name Robert Anton Wilson. If he's ever had a contract as an advertising consultant, I don't know about it. (FWIW, he did work for Playboy for a decade or so...which is where he got some of his ideas.)

Krutzweil, OTOH, owns his own companies, and has made decent amounts of money as a tech based inventor. I don't know his current financial status.

These two are both futurists, but they seem to come in at opposite ends of the "capitalist system" criteria.

Perhaps you should re-think either your stance, or the evidence that allowed you to decide what a "futurist" was.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

No mirrors?! by fabs64 · 2005-07-04 03:58 · Score: 1

Everyone who follows the link will be trying to download a 4.4mb pdf from one single server.

Did NOBODY think a few mirrors would be apropriate before putting it up on /.??

Re:No mirrors?! by same_old_story · 2005-07-04 04:18 · Score: 1

ah, come on!

it's not like anyone is really gona read TFA. they will just :
a) bash this 'kurtzweil' character. who the f**k does this dude thinks he is?
b) complain about the pdf format...

if the futue depends on /.ers... gee...
Re:No mirrors?! by fabs64 · 2005-07-04 04:20 · Score: 1

heh, I suppose you're right, i'm just annoyed because I'm actually interested and can't manage to download anything >:(
Re:No mirrors?! by Golias · 2005-07-04 05:49 · Score: 1

So you're posting as part of group "b" then. :)

--
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:No mirrors?! by KaptNKrunchy · 2005-07-04 08:31 · Score: 1

the only reason i got this far down in the posts anyway, was looking for a mirror. It's /.ed as far as i can tell.

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 03:59 · Score: 0

Does this mean that I won't be getting my long overdue flying car any time soon?

years old by daithimacseoin · 2005-07-04 04:01 · Score: 1

Somebody called "pietrocco" called the reader a "great collection" on 07/11/2003 5:52 PM.

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by ogma · 2005-07-04 04:04 · Score: 1

Just because it's mainstream doesn't mean it's actually correct.

Thinking that biotech-curing-aging and man-merging-with-machine- will happen before flying cars or table-top fusion is more a by-product of where the 'hot' topics are (and therefore the media attention), rather than which is actually more probable.

Which, I guess, could just be another definition of mainstream.

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by Bodrius · 2005-07-04 04:22 · Score: 0

It's interesting how much agreement there was a few decades ago on future technology predictions.

Before that, they were all over the place: alien invasions, giant mutant plants and insects, space pirates flying in rockets to other planets.

But then most people started agreeing on the basics: flying cars, nuclear power in every home, giant monolithic computers controlling the government, with potential interruptions by nuclear winters from WWIII.

The details were fuzzy, but with this consensus clearly we were onto something.

--
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...

Militant? by NoImNotNineVolt · 2005-07-04 04:23 · Score: 1

How exactly is Kurzweil's technologism militant?

--
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.

Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 07:24 · Score: 1

How exactly is Kurzweil's technologism militant?

Kurzweil wraps his predictions with certainty-inducing conjecture, as if things have to be this way, as if there is no doubt of the Singularity, that there are simply no choices but to have nano-bots infecting your bloodstream in order to keep your new perfect self alive longer than 'ever before in humanity'. Kurzweil is militant in his organization of his approach to 'solving human mortality', as if only the ordered ranks of science are capable of doing this.

(There are certain European nations' whose trans-humanism has gotten them into an awful, awful, amount of trouble.)

Trans-humanism and the Singularity.

As a technologist with an undying firm faith in The Infinite, I believe that technologists generally have a non-rational addiction to the effort of always throwing curves off the bleeding edge in order to 'do something new'. The Infinite Owns You. Get Over It.

And I believe that technological progress is a bad religion, but a religion nevertheless. White lab-coat scientists speaking in gobbledy-gook to produce miracles, or priests incurring the wrath of the Gods, either way its a crappy way to make a living.. but I do, while laboring under the understanding that there will always be a New God, born with every new Science.

Most technologists fail to see the utter danger of their dogma that 'the world needs more and better tech'.

Nano-bots which work as well as Kurzweil predicts, neigh pines for, are impossible now simply because we, as humans, haven't discovered and agreed on ways to make them exist yet. But we will.

Before we do things like that, perhaps we ought to take a closer look at what makes people disagree with each other, and what makes people use technology to fight wars; its the total lack of this aspect of progress in Kurzweils material, an absence of a sound moral position which accounts for the possibility of mis-use, which I find uncomfortable.

I do not believe technologists should continue dreaming apace new inventions to save the world while the rest of humanity is incapable of settling peace, and the reason for this is that every single technology ever invented, has been used for War. Many technologists seem to understand this; to me, Kurzweil ignores it in favour of rather extreme views of humanity.

To propose that we humans should, or rather have to produce technology which requires us to live forever .. I'm not sure I agree with his positioning within his own society. Kurzweil is pitching trans-humanism in ways which make it difficult to disagree with him, or corporate profit from such thinking; I'd feel more comfortable talking about the technology of the ininite in the Defense-Tech realms of Kurzweils peers if I'd seen Kurzweil defeat his own arguments once or twice.. it is a thing Fascists rarely do.

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by FleaPlus · 2005-07-04 07:49 · Score: 1

(There are certain European nations' whose trans-humanism has gotten them into an awful, awful, amount of trouble.)

Example?
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 07:57 · Score: 1

Germany.

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by NoImNotNineVolt · 2005-07-04 08:55 · Score: 1

I'm an avid fan of Kurzweil, so I may be biased here. You bring up some potentially valid points. While Kurzweil does occasionally present brief mention of potential ethical implications of technological advances, this is far from the focus of his work and is never adequately addressed. However, this has no negative bearing on the merit of his conclusions and predictions, which is probably one of the reasons why he sees nothing wrong with it. But the question still remains, how is he in any way being militant? Not addressing the ethical implications of technology as a consequence of limiting the scope of one's work somehow equates to militance? Fascism even? What?

--
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Re:Militant? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 09:20 · Score: 0

That wasn't transhumanism, that was eugenics and genocide.
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 09:36 · Score: 1

I'm an avid fan of Kurzweil, so I may be biased here.

its okay, i don't mind admitting to earning flame points and after all lets be honest, this is slashdot. i'm not expecting intelligent conversation, so hopefully neither do you..

but i do mean militant:

You bring up some potentially valid points. While Kurzweil does occasionally present brief mention of potential ethical implications of technological advances, this is far from the focus of his work and is never adequately addressed. However, this has no negative bearing on the merit of his conclusions and predictions

'negative bearing'? i consider (Infinite Reality > Singularity) a bearing, negative or not. what argument ignores bearing? .. which is probably one of the reasons why he sees nothing wrong with it. But the question still remains, how is he in any way being militant? Not addressing the ethical implications of technology as a consequence of limiting the scope of one's work somehow equates to militance? Fascism even? What?

militant, 1. Fighting or warring.

you can't get a more sinister representation of mans desire to enact "War on All" than the design of nanites to do 'Gods Housekeeping', just so a privileged few can live forever while the seething masses starve.

for just once, i'd like to see science embrace death, and abandon all technology which kills more than it feeds.

don't give me a faster computer or a smaller one, or a new electric RFID cattleprod for my colon, give me instead a musical instrument that'll last 10,000 years that i can give to my son..

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 09:42 · Score: 2

umm .. yeah.

sex programs to improve the breeding stock and remove pollutants from the genepool so as to produce 'healthier future germans' were couched in just as comfy terms as the trans-humanists are proposing..

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by FleaPlus · 2005-07-04 10:24 · Score: 1

sex programs to improve the breeding stock and remove pollutants from the genepool so as to produce 'healthier future germans' were couched in just as comfy terms as the trans-humanists are proposing..

In the case of the Nazis, those were all enforced at gunpoint. Are you seriously equating voluntary applications of technology to Nazi concentration camps and genocide?
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 11:37 · Score: 1

Are you really saying that you think the only difference between whether something is evil or not is whether people were forced into doing it against their own will?

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by FleaPlus · 2005-07-04 11:46 · Score: 1

Are you really saying that you think the only difference between whether something is evil or not is whether people were forced into doing it against their own will?

In many cases, yes.
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 12:01 · Score: 1

So you know what boiled frog tastes like, then?

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by UnapprovedThought · 2005-07-04 12:07 · Score: 1

This smells like a troll, but I'll bite, because you have come up with a criticism that may be valid.

[Kurzweil has] an absence of a sound moral position which accounts for the possibility of mis-use, which I find uncomfortable.

Keep in mind, first of all, that a lack of a moral compass and militancy are two different things. A militant technologist usually is trying to get you to buy something or remember a brand name, whereas an morally-neutral futurist may have no such goal, other than simply wanting to explore what the future may bring so as to begin to determine what may be good or bad.

It isn't always possible, except through hindsight, to determine what will turn out to be good or bad in the long run. What is bad today may be good tomorrow, in terms of technology, or vice-versa. So, morally speaking, it is somewhat democratic to share dreams and aspirations with the public, so that fewer people can be surprised by it when it arrives, and a moral consensus can build more quickly when it is necessary.

If you would rather that people remain ignorant about future possibilities, then I would argue that you are more militant than he is.
Re:Militant? by NoImNotNineVolt · 2005-07-04 12:36 · Score: 1

And you're sure that these are things that Ray Kurzweil advocates? Are we talking about the same Ray? I don't see how any of the crap you mention logically follows from anything he discusses. It -could-, potentially, which is something he -doesn't- address, so I don't see how he's "Fighting or warring" in any way.

--
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Re:Militant? by FleaPlus · 2005-07-04 18:12 · Score: 1

So you know what boiled frog tastes like, then?

Huh? I suspect I'm missing a subtlety here...
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-04 20:26 · Score: 1

how to boil a frog.

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Militant? by Wardish · 2005-07-05 03:10 · Score: 1

Interesting thread.

I believe you are equating his belief in a path that may support such militarism as militant. For Kurzweil to be militant he would have to be "fighting or warring" to enforce his belief on other people.

The concept of a singularity is interesting but although I've no reason to say such couldn't happen, I've also no reason to belive it will. Prognosticating is inheriently filled with misdirections due to the complexity of making assumptions that in the real world don't go according to what I believe is the more reasonable path. Anyone out there who believed in Betamax because it was a better technological standard...

The only prediction I will make is that the next 50 years will be "interesting". My personal belief is that the human race has only a 50/50 chance of existing at the end of that time. I also believe that if it does, then it will in some form exist for many millions of years.

I base that on the pace of technology in robotics, infotech, nanotech, and genetics. The conbination will enable individuals and/or small groups to have the potential to distroy the race. I believe this potential will exist during a small window of time which will close when the technologies advance to the point where all people have "built in" defenses. There will of course always be a minor risk to individuals but the risk to intellegence itself should be shortlived.

Interestingly enough I believe this window will be extended or even greatly extended by governments attempting to limit or halt study in these technologies. This is the reasoning behind the 50/50 odds.

Once again, interesting thread.

--
Ward

. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
Re:Militant? by torpor · 2005-07-05 06:46 · Score: 1

I believe you are equating his belief in a path that may support such militarism as militant. For Kurzweil to be militant he would have to be "fighting or warring" to enforce his belief on other people.

i believe you are missing the point that i said 'militant technologism'; ray is saying "no matter what, humanity will evolve technology which produces the singularity, and then it will take over and rule us all". so, we would be being a kind of lets-just-say- ''God'' to one of our products, and it, eventually, our Enslaved Entity, would have to turn around and kill us because of who we are to it.

As 'we did to God', in the 20th Century.

The point is, where's the enslavement? Well, if you don't know a slave by how many cell phones/pagers he's burning oil to support, then maybe we should talk about cars and cities .. the whole damn world is enslaved. To the Technologists.

Seriously.

We killed God, now do nothing but dastardly deals with technology, and yet in the end, no matter what, we will all face a slippery spinning barrel to bend over on the Last Day of Our Lives .. I don't see Ray truly accounting for the un-knowable in his predictions, nor the un-un-knowable, either, etc. &8tc.

To put it on a familiar context, let me wax silly and ask this question: What if in fact, "Every man faces God at Death", were a 'true' statement, and our human 'evolvement' of this fact of God as a higher power is a reflection, not a result. As in, we only know about God from "Dead People". And that our incessant yanking-out-of-asses of new technology, over and over, is a consequence of our relationship with "God, the Infinite All", not, in fact, a result of a few random bags of veggies left in the sun for too long ..

Look, all I'm saying is, I think Kurzweil, in wanting to 'kill religion', has overlooked it in his grand spanking arguments .. and I think he gets paid to do it that way (to the masses), or at least has developed a habit of doing that (well), lockstep like, by promoting the grandeur of 'forward thinking'.

I'm not actually a religious person, and am quite a techno-nerd in my own way, but I do believe in a higher power (concept)

i could put [(void *)(void *)();] on a t-shirt one of these days..

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --

Kurzweil is not just a computer scientist... by SenorCitizen · 2005-07-04 04:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

Most keyboard players hold his old Kurzweil Music Systems products in high esteem. The K250 (introduced in 1984) was one of the first affordable samplers that was actually any good (no, the E-mu Emulator wasn't all that good)...

From Vintage Synth Explorer's Kurzweil K250 page:

One of the first keyboard samplers, it was great then and still good today. It has an adjustable sample rate of 5kHz to 50kHz which means 100 to 10 seconds of sampling time, respectively. Its sampler was also 16-bit. Many other samplers of this time had much more limited sampling/digital audio specs which made this synth a very prominent keyboard. By todays standards, however, this synth has many limitations such as samples are stored directly on Apple Mac disks only. But it had extremely modern features that make this synth easy to use and quite versatile.
It has a 12-track sequencer, chorus, transpose, tune, 36 ROM sounds, 96 pristine quality acoustic instruments, 341 presets, 12 voice polyphony, 2 LFO's per voice, variable sampling rate, truncation, looping, velocity crossfading, full 88 weighted keyboard, MIDI and more! Of course the newer K2000 series is supposed to be better, but the K250 still seems like a major contender even in todays modern synthesizer era. It was also available in keyboardless Expander (pictured above) or as a rackmount module.

It has been used by Stevie Wonder, Sean Hopper, Richard Wright, Patrick Moraz, Paul Shaffer, Lorin Hollander, Michael Kamen, Kitaro, and John Carpenter.

Check out the rest of the range: http://www.vintagesynth.com/kurzweil/

Re:Kurzweil is not just a computer scientist... by Obispus · 2005-07-04 06:52 · Score: 0

Yes, but do their knobs go all the way up to 11?
Re:Kurzweil is not just a computer scientist... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 09:32 · Score: 0

Sadly not! I think K's Knobs barely make it to 9.

The adherance to Kurzweil kit has always baffled me somewhat.

It sounds good, but sorta feeble.

Give me a Korg Tri* or one of the more beefy Roland keyboards and I can play along all day.

Kurzweil is just expensive and feeble IMHO. Good E'Piano but lacking guts in most other areas.
Re:Kurzweil is not just a computer scientist... by ZosX · 2005-07-04 10:05 · Score: 1

Give me a Korg Tri* or one of the more beefy Roland keyboards and I can play along all day.

These are newer keyboards. VAST was designed in the early 90s. Of course they are going to sound better than some 10+ year old technology. That being said, the K2000 is still one of my favorite keyboards of all time. Truly amazing for its time!

--
zosxavius photography

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:11 · Score: 0

I will note that man machine interfaces and curing aging are already to a point already in prototyping and engineering. This is one of the reasons it is so mainstream. This isn't just thought up of by futurists thus, there are already specific research trends with also already some minor tangible results from it. They are basically only assuming these current developments reach there, I suppose, somewhat logical ends.

Crackpot with CA$H by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:19 · Score: 0

If that drunk has as much cash as Kurzweil, I'd be glad to host his website and the whores of slashdot will certainly send the world to visit.

Re:This is news? by Hogwash+McFly · 2005-07-04 05:21 · Score: 1

Your name is quite apt on this occasion.

Money for nothin', and your clicks for free

--
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?

Re:This is news? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:22 · Score: 0

And people pay thousands of dollars for Tom Cruise's used chewing gum, do you think anyone out there would pay for a wad of yours?

Torrent by n01 · 2005-07-04 05:37 · Score: 0

Can anybody who managed to download the file make it available elsewhere or put up a torrent? I'm currently getting 200 B/s

Regards, Florian

No mirrors, at least try Coral: by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:38 · Score: 0

http://www.kurzweilai.net.nyud.net:8090/meme/frame .html?main=/articles/art0588.html Use Coral, at least that'll speed things up a little I don't know if it'll work on the pdf, but at least the page loads.

Amen! by Grendel+Drago · 2005-07-04 05:39 · Score: 1

I haven't seen anyone come up with a compelling reason to use the word "meme" as opposed to "idea", or in this case, "category".

1999 called, they want their starry-eyed Wired-wank back...

--grendel drago

--
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca

Re:Amen! by HiThere · 2005-07-04 07:15 · Score: 1

When Dawkins defined the term, he didn't mean that which has become it's common meaning. He was thinking more of certain songs, the ones that get stuck in your mind, and that you can't seem to get rid of.

It's a quite different idea from categoyr or idea. That said, this sure isn't one.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Amen! by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · 2005-07-04 08:16 · Score: 1

It's not a definition thing, it's a connotation thing. Memes are basically the same thing as ideas. Using the word makes it clear (at least it used to) that you're talking about ideas w.r.t to their survival. The interesting ideas are the ones that have uses, that lead to other ideas, the good ideas, so to speak, and so on. The interesting memes are the ones that survive, even if they are bad ideas (relative to some value system).
I generally keep my head out of popular science writing and haven't read Wired in a decade, so my idea of what 'meme' means might be pretty old. And I might have missed a decade of the word being worn to a bright shiny cliche.

--
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Re:Amen! by danila · 2005-07-04 08:44 · Score: 2

Isn't that ironic that people are arguing over the exact and unchanging meaning of meme? Of course, the meaning changed -the old "catchy song" was not very useful and so not very fit. The more general "modern meme" mutation was much more successful for a variety of reasons, primarily because it's more useful. The idea of the meme itself is a meme and it changes to ensure its propagation in human culture.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:Amen! by HiThere · 2005-07-04 18:52 · Score: 1

Sorry, but that WAS the useful meaning. We don't need another synonym for idea.

(OTOH, it's worth considering that the word meme is, itself, a meme. I.e., it reproduces itself [as best it can] without respect to context. The meaning may have turned into garbage, but it keeps reproducing anyway...looks like a genuine meme to me.)

One of Dawkin's points was that this kind of thing isn't interested in whether it's useful to you, it's merely interested in reproducing. So this useage of meme qualifies as an authentic meme. (I.e., the word qualifies, separated from it's meaning.)

But the current meaning, as a synonym for idea or theme, I find useless. If I mean idea, I say idea. If I mean theme, I say theme. If you say meme, and I don't know what you mean (that's a pretty fuzzy definition that is offered), it's not nearly as useful for communicating as if you had said either idea or theme (depending on which you actually meant, if either).

For an analogy str.trim() means one thing, and str.chomp() means something else, but if you say str.cleanItUp(), then you better have a definition out where I can see it, or I'll either think it's an error, or at minimum not know what you're talking about. And if you just say that cleanItUp means trim or chomp, I'll be thinking you're quite confused. Most languages won't LET you or strings together, and I don't know of any that let you or functions. This is the kind of confusion I find myself in when you say that when you say meme you mean theme or idea. What you say? I hear the words, but the meaning doesn't come through. Do you mean "a theme or an idea"(inclusive)? As in it might be either or both? Or are you saying that those two words mean the same thing? (In which case I disagree.)

Ironic? I find it ironic that presumptive programmers would use language so sloppily. (If sloppy usage isn't the root here, then I'm really confused.)

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by JChung2006 · 2005-07-04 05:43 · Score: 1

It is premature to say Ray is right, considering nothing he predicted has come to fruition yet. Futurists don't have to "nail" it; the whole point of the exercise is to provoke thought and ideas, not to be correct or mainstream.

42 by joepeg · 2005-07-04 05:46 · Score: 1

But then we would have a build a bunch of machines to ask the right questions.

--

ZEN is a prime number in base-36

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by Rapsey · 2005-07-04 05:52 · Score: 1

For the predictions from age of intelligent machines every one of them came true.
For the predictions from age of spiritual machines we are right on course.

Ray/Ramona by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:56 · Score: 3, Interesting

This is the same guy that does "live" performances as "Ramona", his virtual 22-year old female rock star alter-ego, complete with motion-tracking and voice-transformation. And he doesn't think that there is anything weird about that. In fact, he says that in the future, everyone will do that kind of thing.

I'm just saying, grains of salt....

PDF?! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 05:57 · Score: 0

Do we love him for making his writings free or do we hate him for using the bloated PDF format? Quick, I can't locate the nearest mob mentality server!

Re:No mirrors, at least try Coral... the PDF by pdkrocul · 2005-07-04 06:08 · Score: 2, Informative

http://www.kurzweilai.net.nyud.net:8090/RayKurzwei lReader.pdf

Re:No mirrors, at least try archive.org... the PDF by pdkrocul · 2005-07-04 06:21 · Score: 4, Informative

Good thing the essays are 2yrs old: http://web.archive.org/web/20031002224057/http://w ww.kurzweilai.net/RayKurzweilReader.pdf

Re:No mirrors, at least try Coral... the PDF by pdkrocul · 2005-07-04 06:27 · Score: 1

http://web.archive.org.nyud.net:8090/web/200308050 84516/http://www.kurzweilai.net/RayKurzweilReader. pdf

Mirror by dimator · 2005-07-04 06:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Via the wayback machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041010162025/http://w ww.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/a rt0588.html

--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"

Mirrors by prisonblues · 2005-07-04 06:52 · Score: 1

Seems like their server is cooking... http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_015/Ray _Kurzweil_Reader.zip.nyud.net:8090> http://www.kurzweilai.net/RayKurzweilReader.pdf.ny ud.net:8090>

Re:Mirrors by prisonblues · 2005-07-04 07:03 · Score: 2, Informative

Hmm, "Use the preview button! Check those urls!"

http://www.greylodge.org.nyud.net:8090/occultrevie w/glor_015/Ray_Kurzweil_Reader.zip http://www.kurzweilai.net.nyud.net:8090/RayKurzwei lReader.pdf
Re:MIRRORS by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 08:16 · Score: 0

It's already overloaded.
Here's a mirror.

http://www.mirrorx2.com/Non_frames/Inventory%20pag es/Large%20Frames/56_2.html
Re:Mirrors by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 09:41 · Score: 0

Thank you!!!

worth every penny by a137035 · 2005-07-04 06:54 · Score: 0, Troll

you pay for them...

Re: This is news? by Black+Parrot · 2005-07-04 07:09 · Score: 2, Funny

> Is it news when somebody takes a bunch of existing documents and creates a PDF out of them?

It's a step toward the technological singularity...

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade

Re: Extremely geeky Pink Floyd reference by KaptNKrunchy · 2005-07-04 07:23 · Score: 1

no i fucking missed it, now i gotta go find the vid somewhere.

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by gad_zuki! · 2005-07-04 08:29 · Score: 1

> Only a few decades ago, predictions were all over the place: flying cars, nuclear power plants in every home, etc.

Seems to me a lot of people got out of the futurist business becuause, well, its mostly groundless speculation and self-promotion. I'm not surprised that the remaining self-styled futurists agree, seemingly, more than usual. If anything the singularity crap and super-amazing just around the corner nanomachines/genetic engineering are memes in themselves and the remaining futurists are just hosts to these very appealing ideas.

Sometimes the writing is clearly on the wall. Heavier than air flight wasnt really a question of "if possible" as much as "when." Or electric light or electric music.

In fact I'd say futurism is a bit harmful, maybe even useless. People who keep up with technology dont need to be told "there will be gradual advances and perhaps a breakthrough" and those who are oblivious to it all read a Kuzweil quote and think the military has a wintermute-type AI device in the works or that the government will force everyone to have a chip in their heads.

Re:A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Te by danila · 2005-07-04 08:41 · Score: 1

The problem that still exists is that conventional "futurists" (they don't do futurology anymore, they do technology foresight) don't look farther than 2030 (in Japan). This is time where you can largely ignore the cumulative effect of technologies and concentrate on obvious and immediate implications. Kurzweil and other transhumanist thinkers concentrate on what happens in a slightly longer term - the technological singularity (2030-2050). But the first group largely ignores the inspired visions of the second group. And we don't have a coherent picture of how, for example, man and machine will merge. We can imagine the obvious stuff (that you can read in many tech stories), but it doesn't go very far. For example, we can envision bionic legs, but they are already here. We rarely talk seriously (outside of the science-fiction movies) about further developments. For example, people don't discuss seriously giving an artificial body to Stephen Hawkings (outsides of the realm of bad Slashdot jokes), even though it's almost inevitable, assuming he doesn't die very soon.

We still have major journals, such as Science, are glossing over the possibility^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hinevitability of immortality, arguing disingenuously that anti-ageing therapies will have "profound social effects... [such as] upsetting actuarial tables and retirement plans".

So in a sense we do have this agreement over the future. But in reality only a tiny minority of thinkers agree (or have the courage to speak openly about this future), the rest still entertain their delusional ideas that future is not a big deal.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.

Positive Anymore by Nasarius · 2005-07-04 08:41 · Score: 1

It's interesting how much agreement there is anymore on future technology predictions.

Argh. You've just committed a terrible crime against English and made my head hurt. The word "anymore". Look at it. It's really two English words stuck together. Any and more. As in "any more", or "any longer".

For example:
I don't like Slashdot anymore.
I don't like Slashdot any longer.

Compared to:
I like Slashdot anymore.
I like Slashdot any longer.

It doesn't mean a god damn thing. It's nonsense. It leaves the reader wondering, what the heck is a "Slashdot anymore"? For the love of god, stop it. Use "nowadays" or "these days" instead, and you won't look like an idiot to those who don't use your totally illogical regionalisms.

And it's called soda, not "pop". Kids these days...

--
LOAD "SIG",8,1

Re:Positive Anymore by Shaklee39 · 2005-07-04 10:00 · Score: 1

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anymore

Waste of time. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 08:47 · Score: 0

The subject says it all.

Slashdot moderators must die! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 08:52 · Score: 0

They just don't seem to have any sense of humor or any life experience at all.

"-1 OFFTOPIC" they cry.

What a bunch of jerks!

Re: Extremely geeky Pink Floyd reference by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 08:56 · Score: 0

There are lots of versions of Kurzweil keyboards, model K2661 is the latest i think, before that, K2600, K2500, K2000, etc. Perhaps K250 was the first to make great orchestral sounds.

http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/

Epitaph - Ray Kurzweil 2001 - 2003 by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 09:13 · Score: 0

After a short yet full life, in which he considered the possibility and implications of itelligent machines, Ray Kurzweil died today, aged 22 months.

Ray gained his doctorate in cybernetics at Stamford when he was barely out of his mother's womb and went on to dominate the accademic research field of cybernetics and disposable diapers.

His writings from 2001 - 2003 will surely be a worthy epitaph to this highly creative and original-thinking toddler.

Ray never married.

Re:Epitaph - Ray Kurzweil 2001 - 2003 by ZosX · 2005-07-04 10:09 · Score: 1

You forgot the "truly an american icon" part.

--
zosxavius photography

HERE'S A 30-DAY MIRROR! by GuyMannDude · 2005-07-04 09:41 · Score: 4, Informative

With all the free web servies out there, I don't understand why nobody bothered to upload this PDF to one of them. I've uploaded it to rapidshare. Follow the directions:

Click on this link
Click on the "Free" button at the bottom of the screen
Wait for the "download ticket" counter to reach zero. When it does, you'll be presented with a link that you can right-click and save to your hard drive.

That should be good for at least 30 days.

GMD

--
watch this

RE: A book to check out... by Sabathius · 2005-07-04 09:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm not trying to sell this guy's books for him, but...

If you want to read a book that will blow your f-ing mind, check out "The Age of Spiritual Machines", by Ray Kurzweil. I went around for a month with my head smoking after that one.

He's Doing What Now? by Vagary · 2005-07-04 10:37 · Score: 1

So you're saying he's making a major contribution to the "ascension and transcendence of humans" by saying it's inevitable? Is that some kind of second-order self-fulfilling prophecy?

I'm betting the faster my computer can read dead trees, the faster it will singularity my ass.

Re:He's Doing What Now? by danila · 2005-07-04 11:06 · Score: 1

The biggest problem today is not reaching the Singularity (it will happen, whether we want it or not) - it's doing it the right way. And in order to approach the Singularity from the best possible angle we need to think about it, we need to discuss it. So what Kurzweil's doing is actually rather important.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.

The Futurism Singularity by Vagary · 2005-07-04 10:48 · Score: 1

As someone else commented on this story, The Singularity is a rather blatantly Rapture for science/geeks. This kind of futurism has become indistinguishable from religion. But what's really bad is that universal craving for The Good Word discourages dissen from The Singularity, marginalising all conservative futurists.

So, to mix metaphors, The Singularity meme has eaten all the other futurist memes and now we're left with stupid goo.

Re:The Futurism Singularity by steve_bryan · 2005-07-05 06:14 · Score: 1

The Singularity is a rather blatantly Rapture for science/geeks

That comment is complete BS. Whereas Rapture is a fabrication created out of essentially nothing, the singularity is an attempted explanation for what we observe (or more accurately what we don't observe). It is an elaboration of the Fermi paradox.

There is a strong inclination to assume we are not unique and that there must have been others like us at different places and times. But given the 5+ billion years and the immense number of potential planets if we are not unique then the numbers are likely to be huge. The paradox that Enrico Fermi observed is the lack of unambiguous evidence for all those advanced civilizations. The technical means are there and we have been scanning for them. Given the pace of change and our own extrapolated potential it is difficult to conceive how no civilization has spread through the galaxy. The Singularity is a rational attempt to keep the hypothesis that we are not utterly unique.

If some sort of fundamental change occurs as DNA based self replicating nanomachines attain consciousness and technical achievements that we see around the corner, then that might account for the continuing negative results of SETI. If you don't posit our galactic uniqueness I don't see how else you can account for how empty we find the world (or more specifically our galaxy). Just to throw in two random examples of time scale we have gone from no ability to fly (other than plumetting) to shooting a probe into a comet in less than a century and from the abacus to quantum computing (RSN) in less than a century. Compare that to billions of years. It is just too damn quiet out there.

Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by FleaPlus · 2005-07-04 11:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

On the topic of downloadable literature about rapidly-accelerating technology, Charlie Stross's newest novel is available for free download. Here's the relevant info (from another one of my slashdot submission attempts):

Programmer-novelist and Hugo nominee Charles Stross has gotten permission from his publishers to make his newest novel, Accelerando, available as a free download in several formats. As described by one reviewer: 'Accelerando fast forwards a not-so-average family through three generations and into a future in which humans seem far more alien than any critters from outer space. With heart, humor and extreme technophilia, Stross embarks on a voyage that unwires humanity and rewires readers to experience the Singularity. As the novel can be somewhat dense in novel technical ideas, I've started a Technical Companion on wikibooks to help provide more information on the relevant concepts.

Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by KlomDark · 2005-07-05 03:15 · Score: 1

I must have been living under a rock, but I'd never head of this Charles Stross guy until this weekend. Happened to pick up a copy of Singularity Sky this weekend, very impressive. Not done yet (Just past the part where they picked up the message beacon with the damaged disks) but very cool. Good hard scifi, a lot like vintage Niven, but then again completely different from Known Space.

Thanks for the download info!
Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by KlomDark · 2005-07-05 03:49 · Score: 1

Wow, from reading the Wiki about him, it looks like I've been familiar with his other work for over 20 years: He created the Githyanki (On the cover of the AD&D Field Folio) (!!!), the Slaad, and the Death Knights from Dragonlance. Small world!
Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by KlomDark · 2005-07-05 09:58 · Score: 1

Wow, is that book not designed for the slashdot crowd?

"Just then, a bandwidth load as heavy as a pregnant elephant sits down on Manfred's head and sends clumps of humongous pixilation flickering across his sensorium: Around the world, five million or so geeks are bouncing on his home site, a digital flash crowd alerted by a posting from the other side of the bar. Manfred winces. "I really came here to talk about the economic exploitation of space travel, but I've just been slashdotted. Mind if I just sit and drink until it wears off?"

I guess Charles must hang out here, is it you?
Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by FleaPlus · 2005-07-05 10:05 · Score: 1

Yeah, I was greatly amused by that part as well. :)

I'm not Charlie, but I suspect he may be 'antipope' on slashdot.
Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by charlie · 2005-07-09 09:50 · Score: 1

Guess again -- I'm 'charlie' on slashdot. This should tell you how long I've been hanging out here. (Just discovered this thread. Late as always ...)
Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by KlomDark · 2005-07-14 02:30 · Score: 1

Very cool. I've been hanging out here almost as long, but just recently discovered your stuff (Although I have my old Field Folio with your Githyanki on the cover. :) ), I'm always late too. :)

Thanks for the great books! :)
Re:Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by KlomDark · 2005-07-14 02:34 · Score: 1

Fiend Folio, not Field Folio :)

Nano/biotech will solve those presistant problems by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-04 11:35 · Score: 0

People have allways said about the problem that our pollitical and economic systems cannot solve: the problem of people who are paid next to nothing and live in stavation etc. To solve these problems we will need to develop nanotech by which there are no more rich people because everyone can make their own stuff (house, food, internet connection, solar cells on the roof, solar cells on the trees, brain interface, immortallity medical nanotech and connect all of these up to the intenet line that grew just past your yard the other day. So now we have a world where no one controls the manufacture of any item or software (goodby microsoft!!!), there are no more uses for the cappittalist system, your medical nanobots keep you forever young and we can now populate space, the moon, mars, mine the asteriod belt etc. So now, we can also get rid of that annoying "what about all the poor people" and get on to reading slashdot for the latest really cool nerd nanotech app or the recently discovered aliens (we can use nanotech to grow really big optical/radio/gravitaional seti sensors). I remember growing up in the 70's where we did not have pc's, most people did not have a clue what was comming down the road and the best deffece they could have against paradigm shift was: what about all the poor people, we should not do any cool tech stuff before solving all these polliticaly induced dense idiotic problems here on earth, meanwhile, trilliosn of dollars got wasted on the cold war, we didn't get any insight into the power of the computer, the psossibility of biotech (geneom project), the applications of nano/bio to fix every cell in your body and make you younger, after all, the cell is just another information processing machine, it just has also the cool capability of growing itself and, to a point ficing itself, it just needs more of our future bio-engineering-hacker mentality to go into the cell and use small remote-controlled nanobot to clean out the gunk form old cells, fix DNA/RNA problems, add some new DNA/RNA mods to keep the cell fixed up like when the cell was fist made, whalla!!!, you have reversed your old age bskv to being young again, come bakc in 5 years for a tune up again!!
It will take us nerds to be able to explain this ti all the ordinairy people out there whe don't know a for-loop if it hit them over the head etc.
There are sooo maqny rich, millionair/billionairs and orht rich, older types of people who don't have a clue that we are within 25 years of fixing aging permanently (this is like being back at 1974, when the PC revolution started). Once most of the powerfull people in the world realize by starting a crash course on nano/bio, we could cure aging, it will be impossible to stop the massive manhattan style programs demanded to cure aging....in fact, president bushes science advisors allready knwo this, but they don't want this type of work to go ahead becuase of their judo-christian belief structures. So go support the methuzalah mouse prize www.mprize.org today (I sent them $10US last month, it's like the X-prize for longevity research!, I plan to send $10US every now and then)

Really? Cool! by Vagary · 2005-07-05 06:15 · Score: 1

What are Kurzweil's contributions to Friendliness Theory, anyway? Because personally, as someone with CompSci & Philosophy degrees (but without emphasis in AI or ethics), it strikes me as being a very hard problem.

Re:Really? Cool! by danila · 2005-07-05 08:26 · Score: 1

It definitely is a hard problem. But most people don't even realise that such a problem exists. Kurzweil does what he can increasing the awareness of the problem. If enough people read his books, read articles on his site and listen to his speeches, may be there will be enough programmers, AI researchers, ethicists, etc. working on this to solve it.

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.

The Singularity Eats Aliens? by Vagary · 2005-07-05 06:48 · Score: 1

Let me get this straight: the reason we don't see any aliens is that their civilizations reached The Singularity and therefore they stopped doing things which would make us notice them? Okay, assuming that the enraptured humans are having enough fun they don't worry about the possibility of ET anymore, shouldn't the AIs still be sending out signals or whatever? Or if The Singularity involves non-friendly AIs, then why haven't they come to Earth to eat us yet?

Re:The Singularity Eats Aliens? by steve_bryan · 2005-07-05 07:14 · Score: 1

their civilizations reached The Singularity and therefore they stopped doing things which would make us notice them?

Yep, that is a fair way to paraphrase what I wrote. Another would be that something fundamental changes rather than continuing incremental change. My own unpopular inclination is that we really are unique (or possibly first) in the galaxy. That allows me to assume that if there is a singularity event in our future it will not be as profound as it would otherwise have to be.

Another possibility to be considered is the alien RIAA/MPAA factor. After a fairly short interval (~50 years) all transmissions are encrypted and appear to be random noise because we have not paid our galactic cable/satellite bill. So we only get a narrow 50 year window to eavesdrop on galactic neighbors who develop transmission capabilities. But if quantum computers really are in our near term future that adds another factor (followed by quantum cryptography and so forth).

AIs Dream of Space Sheep by Vagary · 2005-07-05 07:48 · Score: 1

Is there any theoretical evidence that a world run by friendly or unfriendly AIs would do less SETI activity than one run by humans? Besides, the encryption, of course, which is a cool idea.

Planet Mirror Mirror by zorog · 2005-07-05 13:39 · Score: 1

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/kurzweilai/RayK urzweilReader.pdf

Mirror site now used for the original link by Anonymous Coward · 2005-07-06 04:36 · Score: 0

Nothing like feeling the power of Slashdot.
The link in the article is now pointing to a sister site (http://rayandterry.com/),which has become the new home of the Ray Kurzweil Reader PDF.
Happy Reading,
Kurzweilai.net

download by greeen · 2005-07-07 10:07 · Score: 1

have any of you guys been able to download this? now it's gone, can any of you send me a copy if it's not too much trouble? thanks.

Re: Extremely geeky Pink Floyd reference by Belfegor · 2005-07-09 16:56 · Score: 1

Crooks and Liars has 4 songs (Quicktime). Scroll down about half way down the page.

Re: A book to check out... by Rxke · 2005-07-14 21:36 · Score: 1

Amen to that.

It's not an understatement to say this book changed my view on the world, hence my life. Talk about far reaching consequences to today's givens, like Moore's Law, this book is a real eye-opener in that respect.

Required reading.

Slashdot Mirror

Ray Kurzweil 2001-2003 essays Available as a PDF

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