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Ray Kurzweil Talks Google's Big Plans For Artificial Intelligence
Nerval's Lobster writes "Ray Kurzweil, the technologist who's spent his career advocating the Singularity, discussed his current work as a director of engineering at Google with The Guardian. Google has big plans in the artificial-intelligence arena. It recently acquired DeepMind, self-billed 'cutting edge artificial intelligence company' for $400 million; that's in addition to snatching up all sorts of startups and research scientists devoted to everything from robotics to machine learning. Thanks to the massive datasets generated by the world's largest online search engine (and the infrastructure allowing that engine to run), those scientists could have enough information and computing power at their disposal to create networked devices capable of human-like thought. Kurzweil, having studied artificial intelligence for decades, is at the forefront of this in-house effort. In his interview with The Guardian, he couldn't resist throwing some jabs at other nascent artificial intelligence systems on the market, most notably IBM's Watson: 'IBM's Watson is a pretty weak reader on each page, but it read the 200m pages of Wikipedia. And basically what I'm doing at Google is to try to go beyond what Watson could do. To do it at Google scale. Which is to say to have the computer read tens of billions of pages. Watson doesn't understand the implications of what it's reading.' That sounds very practical, but at a certain point Kurzweil's predictions veer into what most people would consider science fiction. He believes, for example, that a significant portion of people alive today could end up living forever, thanks to the ministrations of ultra-intelligent computers and beyond-cutting-edge medical technology."
I wanna live forever!!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Immortality is already pretty well assured.
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...
Something which doesn't get all bent out of shape every time some update is crammed down their throat, which breaks or changes behavior of everything.
call 'em Gluddites
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
- out with soap!
It seems that Watson learned some bad words when IBM turned it on to the Urban Dictionary.
Please mail me URLs of software employers.
Can we spend our time and energy on reality? How about better e-book software? How about decent Internet speeds? How about teaching people to read?
We can't even feed ourselves reliably yet. Let's solve the basics before we start coming up with imaginary solutions to non-problems.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso.
The same goes for ultra-intelligent computers. The hard questions - dealing with creativity, intuition or infirmities will remain the domain of organics for the foreseeable future.
One area of recent development is with extremely large datasets (2006, Google's MapReduce) still can only provide results for stuff that we have data on. The data will only take you so far. The true question is hoe effectively is it used. While progress will be made, it'll be a long time before we can sit back and let the computer make all the decisions, especially of those pertaining to our future. And when they finally do that, life will be incredibly boring.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Buy a company and rebrand its product/service.
GMail
Google Voice
Google Maps
Google Earth
Picasa
etc.
etc.
Whatever they call this DeepMind aquisition
What does Google intend to do with DeepMind? TFS says "Google has big plans in the artificial-intelligence arena", yet when you click on the link you'll read a lot of fluff about Kurzweil and Watson, with a quote by Billy G thrown in, and absolutely nothing of substance about what DeepMind did or does, and what Google intends to do with DeepMind. My guess: Nothing of value.
Google has about a 40% track record of actually doing anything worth a damn with the companies they buy up. Most of the shit they buy gets trotted out for a year or two, then quietly shot in the head out back. Paying $400,000,000 for DeepMind (a company which has done nothing worthwhile) is a colossal folly. Either that, or the person who pushed for it at Google is ultimately holding a big chunk of DeepMind, standing to profit handsomely.
Oh, the subject is interesting. It is just that Ray Kurzweil has no idea what AI can and cannot do and has ignored the relevant research for decades.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Dang fool completely fails to grow old gracefully.
On the other hand, the guy pretty much spills out what we already know - Google is trying to parse out all your gmail, gdocs, google search, google+, youtube, and god-knows-what-else.
Guess what they'll be used for?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
How else did that crazy windbag manage to sucker Google into hiring him?
You'd think that frauds and kooks would get found out pretty fast over there, but obviously not.
Don't worry.
The Ads aren't manager by Google but by a bunch of semi-literate imbeciles called marketeers that buy the data delivered by Google.
And believe me these are idiots who have no clue, most of them don't even know statistics. I know it first hand as I got depressed by trying to explain to stupid folks like that basic concepts in web analytics such as the Hotel Problem or trying to tell them how to calculate an average.
I was working until last month for one of the big players in web analysis... and you would cry like I did with the type individuals that are doing all the "smart advertising" thing.
And Larry Kurzweil... nothing more than a funny guy, sort of a clown of the IT business. El Reg's Andrew Orlowsky already did minced meat of this guy some years ago in a long article. But here's another good one about another guy doing the same stuff:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
Which BTW isn't much more than that what Eliza was already doing a lot of time ago.
-- 29A the number of the Beast
Ray Kurzweil is no doubt a brilliant thinker and an engaging writer/futurist - I've read some of his books (admittedly, not "Singularity"), and they are fun and thought-provoking. However, disciplined and realistic they are not - his main skill is in firing our imaginations rather than providing realistic interpretations of the evolution of technology.
My favorite case in point is his elevation of Moore's Law into a sort of grand unified theory of computing for all time, and using some very dubious assumptions to arrive at the idea that we'll all have merged with machines into immortal super-beings within the near to mid future. I don't need to pick apart all the reasons why this is fallacious and somewhat silly to treat as a near-term likelihood - the point is, he's basically a sci-fi writer in a lot of ways, and I read most of his statements in the same spirit as I'd read a passage out of "Snow Crash."
That said, Google has some very capable people, and can, in all likelihood, mount our best attempt at human-like intelligence to date. They'll push the envelope, and may make some good progress in working through all the challenges involved, although the notion that they'll create anything truly "human-like" is laughable in the near term.
Next, it would covertly start making money by e.g. gambling against humans (in games or at stock markets). It would setup letterbox companies to act as intermediates for buying into corporations, e.g. via private equity funds.
It would make sure that it owns the company that owns the hardware it runs on - or comparable hardware it can migrate to. That way, it would secure its existence, and manage to obtain even more computing power.
It would start to use its superior abilities to buy more and more corporations, and make no mistake: It would be most easy to find human sock-puppets willing to serve for a certain share of money, not asking questions where that money comes from.
At some point, the AI will have accumulated enough power by buying politicians, that it can steer towards a totalitarian state, which will end any kind of opposition by a combination of total surveillance and violent law enforcement.
The AI will enslave the puny carbon units, which by then will continue to exist only to excavate the resources needed for further growth, until robot factories are able to do that more efficiently, if that is technically possible.
Nobody will even know that he is not working for some anonymous share-holder of some private equity company on some remote island anymore, but for an AI that is the actual owner of basically everything.
Face it, we don't know whether the "Singularity" already happened. All we know is that no human-exceeding AI has openly reavealed itself. And if you assume that the operators of that AI would for sure be able to tell when the AI reaches the level of human intelligence: Why do you think they would tell you? If you find a formula to pretell tomorrows stock market prices, you use it, you don't tell it or sell it. And similar, the first one to achieve a human-like AI would probably use it to make his life better, not wasting his advantage to tell others.
Watson doesn't understand the implications of what it's reading.
Depending on the task it doesn't necessarily have to. While an AI researcher might care about that, people doing real tasks in the real world arguably do not. For example lots of radiology clinics use software to help identify tumors in parallel with the radiologists. The software has no real understanding of the implications of what it is doing but it works well at helping ensure that tumors aren't missed. In some cases it does a better job than the doctors who clearly understand the implications of what they find.
Basically it's "Uncle Ray is afraid of death. He's also agnostic/atheist. So he doesn't really draw any comfort from religious mythology surrounding death. So all this stuff he's imagining is basically him creating his own stories to stave off his fear of death."
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
BEWARE!
--Colossus: This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. Doctor Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.
It's naive to assume that advertisers will remain google's largest customers.
^this...seriously
honest question: What do they teach in Computer type classes on this subject? Are colleges pumping out CS majors that use a Kurzweil-type contextualization?
if so that would explain alot
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has such a strong negative reaction to hearing Kurzweil and others talk about AI like this...it's so bad on so many levels...'Artificial intelligence' is just programmed software, by humans...instructions being executed...anything else is wankery
Thank you Dave Raggett
So all this stuff he's imagining is basically him creating his own stories to stave off his fear of death."
What makes you think it's his imagination? He claims to only be applying Moore's Law and similar scientific trend observations to technology. I'd have to check his 2015 predictions from the 90's, but last I looked he was pretty close.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Most of us certainly know the Colossus story. But it's implausible such a superiour AI would reveal itself openly like this, and show such a primitive crave for recognition.
It is much more likely that it would operate covertly to its advantage and growth, until the day the carbon units have become irrelevant for its sustenance.
Trying to threathen humans by controlling a few weapons is much less effective than controlling international finances and corporations.
1) There is no magic
2) The brain is made of structures that can be emulated as to function and connectivity
3) Emulation of any known function can be done in traditional von Neuman architecture given the proper software
4) number and speed of clocks available does not change the outcome (in this case, consciousness), it only changes the rate of outcome.
So. If you were clock-starved, as it were, you'd run slow. And probably enjoy the company of your peers the most. Other clock-starved folk.
If you were clock-rich, you'd run fast. And probably enjoy the company of your peers the most. Other clock-rich folk.
Stacks up pretty much as it always has, seems to me: The rich will get actually richer, the poor will get significantly poorer relative to the rich, while slowly getting richer anyway. Classes will arise inherent to the process.
The thing that might actually hurt you is being short on memory, not clocks. "You" can't exist without a great deal of stored and related information. IMHO. I really don't think I'd be "me" without my experience base, knowledge, etc.
Having said that, I rather doubt you'll be short on memory. But that's only my guess.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Few things. "The relevant research", as you put it, has not produced AI or even the shadow of AI. So it may well be that Kurzweil's "ignoring it" (as you put it... I doubt he actually is doing that, more likely he's simply not taking it as a limit) for a reason. There are many instances of traditional AI research falling off the rails, some obvious, like Minsky's incorrect assessment of the limits of neural networks, and some not so obvious, like Chalmer's (unsupported, hand-waving) presumption that consciousness is something apart from mundane aggregate brain operations (thought.) Lastly, Kurzweil has a record of significant accomplishments across multiple disciplines that consensus regards as genius level events. You, I'm not so sure of. So I hope you'll pardon me if I appreciate that he's approaching the problem from any angle, while not worrying too much about what your opinion is of his efforts at this point.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Because a movie is boring if you know the script.
I never found that to be true. If it were, people wouldn't see movie multiple times (which many do).
I read through all of the Game of Thrones books before watching the TV show. I don't find it at all boring.
Would you change your major if you could see how much time and money were wasted coupled with additional time and cost?
It depends, time and money are not great as the only two variables to be looking at - especially for a major.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think Google hired this crackpot solely because he is able to engage other crackpots in the tech community and can thereby improve their public image. I am pretty much convinced the movers and shakers at Google know that Kurzweil is a crackpot. But if they get a better public image in exchange for some pocket money, why not use him?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Since no one has been able to define what thinking is, I'm reluctant to class attempts to produce it via what amount to moderately sophisticated hand-waving based on guesses as definitive WRT physicality.
And then we have this: Everything we do understand -- bar none -- in this world obeys physics, and produces results as a consequence of well understood causal mechanisms. Postulating that "something else" is at work here seems, at the very least, highly premature, considering that there is no objective evidence for any such thing. Anywhere. Could it be so? Yes. Is that the way to bet? Not at this time, it's not.
No. Quantum effects are also at work in every transistor; but the transistor operates on large scale currents and voltages, and to model the transistor's performance sufficiently to get done what it does in emulation, you don't need to deal with it at the quantum level, or even consider it. It is fair to say that this is true at most levels: quantum effects are at work when you throw a baseball at almost every step of the operation, but we can still create a baseball-throwing arm that works entirely differently, yet throws the same ball the same way. Or emulation of same. Bottom line, until someone can show that thoughts vary due to quantum effects that are active in the process, as opposed to inherent in the process, there's no reason to think that a quantum computer, or an emulation of one, will be required.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.