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Ray Kurzweil 2001-2003 essays Available as a PDF

Posted by Hemos on from the a-little-something-to-read-on-the-holiday-weekend dept.

prostoalex writes "The Ray Kurzweil Reader is a collection of essays by Ray Kurzweil on virtual reality, artificial intelligence, radical life extension, conscious machines, the promise and peril of technology, and other aspects of our future world. These essays, all published on KurzweilAI.net from 2001 to 2003, are now available as a PDF document for convenient downloading and offline reading. The 30 essays, organized in seven memes (such as "How to Build a Brain"), cover subjects ranging from a review of Matrix Reloaded to "The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine" and "Human Body Version 2.0.""

29 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Futurists... feh by gowen · · 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.
    1. Re:Futurists... feh by Dylan+Zimmerman · · 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. ;)
  2. Memes? by delta_avi_delta · · 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

    1. Re:Memes? by HiThere · · 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.
  3. Kurzweil by dnoyeb · · 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.

    1. Re:Kurzweil by davesag · · 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
  4. Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by ReformedExCon · · 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.
    1. Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    2. Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by masklinn · · 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
    3. Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by agraupe · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not to mention that you spelled "genius" with one o too many. I think that pretty much disqualifies you.

    4. Re:Kurzweil is one of those geniuses by FleaPlus · · 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.

  5. A Must Read For Anybody Interested In Future Tech by DanielMarkham · · 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?

  6. ramona ! by maharg · · 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.
  7. Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by torpor · · 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. --
    1. Re:Kurzweil, Borg of the Now. by Shihar · · 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.

  8. Re: Extremely geeky Pink Floyd reference by joebutton · · 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
  9. Futurists Are Funny by Vagary · · 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.

  10. Kurzweil is not just a computer scientist... by SenorCitizen · · 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/

  11. Ray/Ramona by Anonymous Coward · · 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....

  12. Re:No mirrors, at least try Coral... the PDF by pdkrocul · · Score: 2, Informative

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

  13. Re:No mirrors, at least try archive.org... the PDF by pdkrocul · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  14. Mirror by dimator · · 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))"
  15. Re:Mirrors by prisonblues · · 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

  16. Re: This is news? by Black+Parrot · · 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
  17. Re:Amen! by danila · · 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.
  18. HERE'S A 30-DAY MIRROR! by GuyMannDude · · 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:

    1. Click on this link
    2. Click on the "Free" button at the bottom of the screen
    3. 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
  19. Re:Militant? by torpor · · 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. --
  20. RE: A book to check out... by Sabathius · · 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.

  21. Charlie Stross's Accelerando also downloadable by FleaPlus · · 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.