You seem to be reading between the lines. Or perhaps just misreading deliberately. Anyway...
Did Kurzweil say that the translating telephone would be commercialized, or simply that the technology would exist? Did he specify a certain word-recognition accuracy rate, or are you adding that part yourself? Did he specify that the exoskeletons would be sold at your corner store, or merely that paraplegics will walk with the aid of powered exoskeletons? Not sure what your objection is to the intelligent answering machine point is, you just quoted part of his prediction... DARPA Grand Challenge started in 2004, and isn't Google Chauffeur installed into a COTS vehicle, or did Google design their own car from the ground up? Not sure what your objection is to the intelligent courseware point is, you just quoted part of his prediction... Did he predict that even subsaharan Africa's production would be largely automated, or are you extending his prediction to the rest of the world all on your own? All drugs are tested in simulations that mimic the human body, and have been for quite some time, so feel free to deny reality all you like. I suppose presence or lack of visible light is not a feature of the environment?
So, in some sense, I agree. His predictions were not very accurate in the same way that the smartest human being ever to have lived was "not very smart". Clearly, potential for much greater intelligence exists, if only theoretically, so that's where we set the bar, right?
you would be better off with a job that cannot be outsourced (building wiring, plumbing, wallboard, etc; those cannot be done 'remotely', and so they are actually safer than tech jobs).
Right, like factory workers, textiles workers, even cashiers.
Automation is sweeping through the economy faster than outsourcing is. I'm sure you mean well, but your advice isn't that great.
If you have kids, tell them to go into politics. Politics, or the armed forces. Why the armed forces? Well, so they're prepared for the inevitable moment when shit really hits the fan here.
The funny part is that it's "about" 30.000 IT workers. So, I guess we're "only" offered numbers accurate to within 1/1000th of a worker, the expectation being even greater precision, since 30.000 is an approximation.
A systems analyst researches problems, plans solutions, recommends software and systems, at least at the functional level, and coordinates development to meet business or other requirements. Although they may be familiar with a variety of programming languages, operating systems, and computer hardware platforms, they do not normally involve themselves in the actual hardware or software development. Because they often write user requests into technical specifications, the systems analysts are the liaisons between vendors and information technology professionals. They may be responsible for developing cost analysis, design considerations, staff impact amelioration, and implementation time-lines.
As I get longer in the tooth, I keep thinking about how I don't want to go into management. I like problem-solving, but I don't want to keep up with the latest fads. Since it's not getting any easier to find jobs coding assembly or C, and my current Java gig getting progressively more frameworky, I know my days as a developer are numbered, but I'm analytically-minded and love critical thinking. Management is not for me; I'd sooner manage a McDonalds than teams of developers. That leaves me with few options, but becoming an analyst is increasingly becoming more appealing. I can still nerd out but don't have to learn what Yeoman is.
But, you see, the economy is not a zero sum game! They'll still have customers: each other! The economy will contract, sure, but so will the population. You didn't think the poor would survive the transition economy, did you?
Amusingly enough, the right-hook-girl ended up marrying one of my close friends. They now have a house and three kids together. I still joke that I'm gonna break his wife's nose one day when she least expects it.
The prevalence and frequence of intimate violence against men is highly disputed, with studies coming to many different conclusions for different nations and many countries simply not having much data.
I myself am frequently punched by my girlfriend. Very frequently, often with bruising. And she especially loves punching my bruises. I don't think I'd class this as violence, nor would I consider reporting it. I'm fine with her punching me, as long as it's below the neck and above the waist. It's just playfulness.
Do situations like that factor into the Straus and Gelles study you cite? Moreover, do you see the reverse of this situation being commonplace? Women thinking it's playful when their men punch them frequently, often resulting in bruising? Thinking that it's neither violence nor something that should be reported, but merely playfulness?
I once took a really solid right hook straight to the jaw (different girl). Not a play-punch, totally uncalled for, caught me by surprise. I still laughed, because, well, it was fucking hilarious. It's not every day you see something so arbitrary. I just can't picture a jocular dynamic of this sort playing out if the genders are reversed.
I've had cops muscle into my apartment after I declined to let them in.
They were claiming that it was an emergency, so they didn't need consent or a warrant.
What was the emergency? They had received a call to 911 from my phone number. Just a call and hang-up. So they needed to investigate.
Of course, I was the only one home, and I don't remember calling the cops on myself.
I've also had cops plant something (I have no idea what it actually was) in my car and then try to get me to confess to "having something". After enduring this comical situation for a while (while my passenger friend was shoved around by several other cops (oh yea of course they ended up swarming four squad cars to the scene)) without cracking, I was sent on my way with little more explanation than "we're investigating a reported shooting from the next town over".
Then perhaps you yourself ought to get some guns. And encourage your not-insane friends to do the same.
I like to think I'm a liberal. I voted for Jill Stein. I own five firearms (in New Jersey nonetheless). I've convinced two of my close friends to also get some guns.
Rights are like muscles. Use 'em or lose 'em. If you believe that a standing army at times of peace affords the executive too much power, or that an armed populace can cause a federal government (or a foreign invader) to think twice about certain things, or that the population of gun owners in America is too homogeneous, you should consider getting a cheap shotgun to help make a statement.
The assumption that women are always the victims is not only sexist, its not always correct either.
Fucking statistics, how do they work?
This type of false feminism is absurd. Women are disproportionately the victims of physical abuse when it comes to domestic violence. Yes, there are exceptions. But they're just that, exceptions. It is reasonable to assume the woman was the victim much like it is reasonable to assume that the sun will rise tomorrow, despite the fact that solar eclipses do happen from time to time.
I was "exposed" to Kurzweil when I was young, and I didn't turn into a Luddite. On the contrary, I went on to intern at NASA and do engineering/development work for the DOD. Although I did grow out some sweet Unabomber-style hair and beard.
I think Kurzweil's "Law of Accelerating Returns" is a great essay that sums up the reasoning behind the singularity. Better than excerpts from a book, I'd imagine.
Yes, when pressed for specifics, I offered them up. And got a tl;dr in return. Yet I'm the one "spewing gospel".
Since you obviously don't read anything I write, I'll waste some more of my time and refer you to the last thing I said in my previous post:
I'm not some singularity nutter, and I don't own any of Kurzeil's published works. I am, however, an empiricist. And based on what I've seen, I have no reason to believe that Kurzweil is wrong on this point, although I'll certainly grant that the possibility exists.
Indeed, that's another approach. Simulated egg, simulated sperm, simulated womb. Press play, fast forward 9 months. Enjoy the virtual baby.
Of course, this leaves you with a simulated human infant in a vacuum. Assuming the simulation is working as expected, and the virtual baby is no different than a real human baby, you'll have a lot of problems keeping it alive, raising it, teaching it, ensuring that it becomes useful. The ethical concerns with such an experiment are considerably more daunting.
As an adult, you're capable of giving consent for your brain to be scanned, and a copy booted up in a simulation. The copy may "wake up" to horrible pain, or, well, who knows. It's not exactly guaranteed to go smoothly. Informed consent is possible. But this virtual baby? They didn't sign up for this shit. How would you like to be born into a virtual world, where you're the only thing that exists?
You know what else is legal? Me fucking your wife. Morality and legality are two different issues. Please don't conflate them. I never suggested that corking fees are (or ought to be) illegal.
Anyway, I think we can both agree that it's entirely reasonable for both a restaurant and a winery to only allow paying customers to lounge about the premises. That's not my point. My point is that charging customers for things unrelated to their primary business is absurd and immoral. A restaurant can legally charge a corking fee, sure. They can also legally charge customers for silverware or napkins. They can also legally charge customers based on their height.
The real estate argument doesn't do it for me. It's not like restaurants that charge corking fees will charge you if you're just hanging out and pretending to drink an imaginary bottle of wine, which would take up just as much of their real estate as if the bottle were real.
Greed is legal, yes. The question is, why do you think it's moral?
Why do you need to define love? Why do you need to ask people anything when you scan them?
Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding. When you photocopy a page of Macbeth, does your Xerox machine need to ask Shakespeare about what betrayal means for a faithful duplicate to be produced? When your LIDAR system scans David for a 3D printer to create a copy, does it need to ask Michelangelo to define what is sublime before a facsimile of an armless dude fills your nostrils with plastic fumes?
You appear to be suggesting that something must be understood before it can be copied. An illiterate retard can use a photocopier to duplicate Macbeth. Neither the illiterate retard, nor the photocopier, nor even the engineers that designed and built the photocopier need to be able to understand Shakespeare.
When AI is created, I don't believe it will be by "defining love" and then trying to write code to simulate love. That's hackish and fundamentally a terrible way to approach something as complex as the human brain. The idea of simulating emotion alone seems intractable. How the fuck do you boil emotion down to code? While I can't really defend my position on this, I do believe this approach is literally impossible.
Instead, a much more reasonable approach, one that has yet to fail us when simulating other things, is the brute-force approach. Everything abides by the laws of physics, from quarks to quasars. There is no reason to suggest that the human brain doesn't. It's logical to suspect that, much like our simulations of proteins, of galaxies, of any physical system, a sufficiently precise simulation of the brain will behave the same way as a real physical one does.
That being said, we currently can't run just such a simulation, for two reasons. We don't know what the brain consists of. Sure, we know a lot about it. But we'd need to know everything about it. Precisely where every cell is. Precisely where every molecule is. Maybe even precisely where every atom is. Perhaps even precisely where every electron is. We're much closer to knowing all of this today than we were a decade or two ago, and medical imaging is advancing at a very rapid pace. It's overwhelmingly likely that we'll be able to scan a whole human brain at the cellular level "any day now". At the molecular level not too long after. That's one problem, on the verge of being solved. Of course, it's possible that advances in medical imaging will come to a full stop, and that we'll never get to the required resolution. It's a possibility.
The other problem is computing power. There's a lot of "moving parts" in the brain, and they all interact in massively parallel ways. That makes for a painfully slow simulation using contemporary (von Neumann) computers. New architectures designed specifically for this purpose are being worked on. Better fabrication processes are being worked on. Going by Moore's law, this hurdle will be cleared (for a reasonable price) in about two decades. Of course, it's possible that advances in computing will come to a full stop, and that we'll never get to the required level of computing efficiency. Also a distinct possibility. So, in about 20 or 30 years, we'll likely be able to simulate a human brain using technology. Likely, but not definitely.
Anyway, when we simulate two massive objects orbiting each other, our simulation behaves the same way two massive objects orbiting each other would in physical reality. When we simulate a human brain, our simulation ought to behave the same way a human brain would in physical reality. I'm not even saying that it will, merely that this is the expectation, and that it will be interesting to see how it pans out. Perhaps it'll just behave like a large mass of wrongly-wired neurons, doing nothing interesting at all, and you'll be able to cheer that all your hatred for Kurzweil was justified. Or perhaps it'll behave just like a real human brain, and will show all the same effects that you'd expect from a healthy human bra
Read this book, Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars. There's a lot of great nuggets about Al-Awlaki.
No, there is no genuine doubt about Al-Awlaki. He was a moderate Muslim man, not associated with terrorism at all. He used his standing in the Muslim community to strongly condemn the 9/11 terrorist attacks as soon as they happened, and continued to do so for some time after. After the US threatened to set up him up on bogus charges and tried turning him into an operative, he got a bit scared and left the country. We clarified that it was an offer he couldn't refuse by blowing him up. And his son too.
So humans decide the laws of physics and the structure of the human brain.
Thank you for ignoring the content of my posts while simultaneously accusing me of the same, despite the fact that the bulk of my previous post specifically addresses your "humans decide the parameters of any simulation" claim.
Thanks for the aggressive tone of voice though. It really furthers the discussion.
- Translating telephones allow people to speak to each other in different languages. Check. Speech recognition, google translate, text-to-speech.
- Machines designed to transcribe speech into computer text allow deaf people to understand spoken words. Check. Speech recognition.
- Exoskeletal, robotic leg prostheses allow the paraplegic to walk. Check. BLEEX, HAL, Ekso-Suit, etc.
- Telephone calls are routinely screened by intelligent answering machines that ask questions to determine the call's nature and priority. Check. Widely deployed, virtually any 800 number you call.
- "Cybernetic chauffeurs" can drive cars for humans and can be retrofitted into existing cars. They work by communicating with other vehicles and with sensors embedded along the roads. Check. DARPA Grand Challenge, Google Chauffeur. The tech is there, but legislation is lagging.
- The classroom is dominated by computers. Intelligent courseware that can tailor itself to each student by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. Media technology allows students to manipulate and interact with virtual depictions of the systems and personalities they are studying. Maybe. The classroom is dominated by computers. The tests are [sometimes] intelligent (take the GRE), but not the courseware, usually. Rich media is there, for sure.
- A small number of highly skilled people dominates the entire production sector. Tailoring of products for individuals is common. Check. Check employment statistics. Production has gone up, employment has gone way, way down. Moto X comes in way too many colors, and Andoid is easy to tailor to an individual.
- Drugs are designed and tested in simulations that mimic the human body. Check. This is how pretty much all new drugs are developed.
- Blind people navigate and read text using machines that can visually recognize features of their environment. Check. Well, we've actually exceeded his expectations on this one; not only do we have exactly what he described, but also synthetic retinal implants are now available. Not very high resolution, but better than something that just reads text out loud for you.
If you don't think his predictions are accurate, why don't you try predicting what 2040 will look like. Then come back to this thread and weep over how much better Kurzweil is at this than anyone else.
You fall for a common fallacy here: We do not understand intelligence at all. If our tools are limited to the physical world (and they are at this time), they cannot identify any non-physical phenomenon. To say because the tools cannot see non-physical effects is hence circular reasoning. The only thing we have as hard fact at this time is that we have failed to model intelligence based on physical effects so far.
I think most of us would be quite content with a strictly physical simulation of intelligence. That is, one that only reproduces only those properties of intelligence that exist in the physical world. Due to this, we're only concerned with the physical world. If there are some non-physical properties of intelligence, we're not really concerned with them, since our tools (eyeballs, ears, etc.) are limited to the physical world, and we have no way of perceiving these non-physical properties anyway. Any simulation that replicates only the physical properties of intelligence will be indistinguishable (to us) from the real thing, and that's really all we care about.
But the brain is an analog computer and every quantum effect has an influence on its workings. The same problem happens with an analog computer: You can never get exactly the same result from two of them, there is always some fuzzyness and deviation.
I mean, sure, yea. Much like playing back some analog audio, it'll be different every time. But is it appreciably different? When I play a record, it sounds exactly the same to me every time, despite the imperceptible differences in analog signal every time. You're suggesting that we need 100% fidelity to successfully reproduce an analog system, but I don't see why that would be the case. Are you suggesting that the tiniest variation from the original will yield a broken virtual brain? Do you really think brains are so fragile? That a cosmic ray hitting your neurons (which will produce effects orders of magnitude more significant than mere quantum phenomena would) is likely to kill you?
People have this tendency to deify the human brain. They like to think that there's something magic responsible for their existence. That it can't just be as simple as what it looks like. I don't see any basis in reality for this type of thought, but we should all be excited about this type of research because it can conclusively demonstrate which side of the argument has merit, which is a huge improvement over the philosophical circle-jerk that we've been a part of for the last few millenia.
Slashdot Mirror
You seem to be reading between the lines. Or perhaps just misreading deliberately. Anyway...
Did Kurzweil say that the translating telephone would be commercialized, or simply that the technology would exist? Did he specify a certain word-recognition accuracy rate, or are you adding that part yourself? Did he specify that the exoskeletons would be sold at your corner store, or merely that paraplegics will walk with the aid of powered exoskeletons? Not sure what your objection is to the intelligent answering machine point is, you just quoted part of his prediction... DARPA Grand Challenge started in 2004, and isn't Google Chauffeur installed into a COTS vehicle, or did Google design their own car from the ground up? Not sure what your objection is to the intelligent courseware point is, you just quoted part of his prediction... Did he predict that even subsaharan Africa's production would be largely automated, or are you extending his prediction to the rest of the world all on your own? All drugs are tested in simulations that mimic the human body, and have been for quite some time, so feel free to deny reality all you like. I suppose presence or lack of visible light is not a feature of the environment?
So, in some sense, I agree. His predictions were not very accurate in the same way that the smartest human being ever to have lived was "not very smart". Clearly, potential for much greater intelligence exists, if only theoretically, so that's where we set the bar, right?
you would be better off with a job that cannot be outsourced (building wiring, plumbing, wallboard, etc; those cannot be done 'remotely', and so they are actually safer than tech jobs).
Right, like factory workers, textiles workers, even cashiers.
Automation is sweeping through the economy faster than outsourcing is. I'm sure you mean well, but your advice isn't that great.
If you have kids, tell them to go into politics. Politics, or the armed forces. Why the armed forces? Well, so they're prepared for the inevitable moment when shit really hits the fan here.
Mod parent +1 Funny.
Don't be disheartened by these assholes thinking you were being serious, they just don't have a sense of humor.
The funny part is that it's "about" 30.000 IT workers. So, I guess we're "only" offered numbers accurate to within 1/1000th of a worker, the expectation being even greater precision, since 30.000 is an approximation.
Denver area?
A systems analyst researches problems, plans solutions, recommends software and systems, at least at the functional level, and coordinates development to meet business or other requirements. Although they may be familiar with a variety of programming languages, operating systems, and computer hardware platforms, they do not normally involve themselves in the actual hardware or software development. Because they often write user requests into technical specifications, the systems analysts are the liaisons between vendors and information technology professionals. They may be responsible for developing cost analysis, design considerations, staff impact amelioration, and implementation time-lines.
As I get longer in the tooth, I keep thinking about how I don't want to go into management. I like problem-solving, but I don't want to keep up with the latest fads. Since it's not getting any easier to find jobs coding assembly or C, and my current Java gig getting progressively more frameworky, I know my days as a developer are numbered, but I'm analytically-minded and love critical thinking. Management is not for me; I'd sooner manage a McDonalds than teams of developers. That leaves me with few options, but becoming an analyst is increasingly becoming more appealing. I can still nerd out but don't have to learn what Yeoman is.
But, you see, the economy is not a zero sum game! They'll still have customers: each other! The economy will contract, sure, but so will the population. You didn't think the poor would survive the transition economy, did you?
</sarcasm>
Amusingly enough, the right-hook-girl ended up marrying one of my close friends. They now have a house and three kids together. I still joke that I'm gonna break his wife's nose one day when she least expects it.
The prevalence and frequence of intimate violence against men is highly disputed, with studies coming to many different conclusions for different nations and many countries simply not having much data.
I myself am frequently punched by my girlfriend. Very frequently, often with bruising. And she especially loves punching my bruises. I don't think I'd class this as violence, nor would I consider reporting it. I'm fine with her punching me, as long as it's below the neck and above the waist. It's just playfulness.
Do situations like that factor into the Straus and Gelles study you cite? Moreover, do you see the reverse of this situation being commonplace? Women thinking it's playful when their men punch them frequently, often resulting in bruising? Thinking that it's neither violence nor something that should be reported, but merely playfulness?
I once took a really solid right hook straight to the jaw (different girl). Not a play-punch, totally uncalled for, caught me by surprise. I still laughed, because, well, it was fucking hilarious. It's not every day you see something so arbitrary. I just can't picture a jocular dynamic of this sort playing out if the genders are reversed.
I've had cops muscle into my apartment after I declined to let them in.
They were claiming that it was an emergency, so they didn't need consent or a warrant.
What was the emergency? They had received a call to 911 from my phone number. Just a call and hang-up. So they needed to investigate.
Of course, I was the only one home, and I don't remember calling the cops on myself.
I've also had cops plant something (I have no idea what it actually was) in my car and then try to get me to confess to "having something". After enduring this comical situation for a while (while my passenger friend was shoved around by several other cops (oh yea of course they ended up swarming four squad cars to the scene)) without cracking, I was sent on my way with little more explanation than "we're investigating a reported shooting from the next town over".
Then perhaps you yourself ought to get some guns. And encourage your not-insane friends to do the same.
I like to think I'm a liberal. I voted for Jill Stein. I own five firearms (in New Jersey nonetheless). I've convinced two of my close friends to also get some guns.
Rights are like muscles. Use 'em or lose 'em. If you believe that a standing army at times of peace affords the executive too much power, or that an armed populace can cause a federal government (or a foreign invader) to think twice about certain things, or that the population of gun owners in America is too homogeneous, you should consider getting a cheap shotgun to help make a statement.
I'm thinking about getting into the whole squatting thing. Do you have any additional information about that particular case?
The assumption that women are always the victims is not only sexist, its not always correct either.
Fucking statistics, how do they work?
This type of false feminism is absurd. Women are disproportionately the victims of physical abuse when it comes to domestic violence. Yes, there are exceptions. But they're just that, exceptions. It is reasonable to assume the woman was the victim much like it is reasonable to assume that the sun will rise tomorrow, despite the fact that solar eclipses do happen from time to time.
I was "exposed" to Kurzweil when I was young, and I didn't turn into a Luddite. On the contrary, I went on to intern at NASA and do engineering/development work for the DOD. Although I did grow out some sweet Unabomber-style hair and beard.
I think Kurzweil's "Law of Accelerating Returns" is a great essay that sums up the reasoning behind the singularity. Better than excerpts from a book, I'd imagine.
Since you obviously don't read anything I write, I'll waste some more of my time and refer you to the last thing I said in my previous post:
I'm not some singularity nutter, and I don't own any of Kurzeil's published works. I am, however, an empiricist. And based on what I've seen, I have no reason to believe that Kurzweil is wrong on this point, although I'll certainly grant that the possibility exists.
Indeed, that's another approach. Simulated egg, simulated sperm, simulated womb. Press play, fast forward 9 months. Enjoy the virtual baby.
Of course, this leaves you with a simulated human infant in a vacuum. Assuming the simulation is working as expected, and the virtual baby is no different than a real human baby, you'll have a lot of problems keeping it alive, raising it, teaching it, ensuring that it becomes useful. The ethical concerns with such an experiment are considerably more daunting.
As an adult, you're capable of giving consent for your brain to be scanned, and a copy booted up in a simulation. The copy may "wake up" to horrible pain, or, well, who knows. It's not exactly guaranteed to go smoothly. Informed consent is possible. But this virtual baby? They didn't sign up for this shit. How would you like to be born into a virtual world, where you're the only thing that exists?
Possible, maybe. Ethical, probably not.
You know what else is legal? Me fucking your wife. Morality and legality are two different issues. Please don't conflate them. I never suggested that corking fees are (or ought to be) illegal.
Anyway, I think we can both agree that it's entirely reasonable for both a restaurant and a winery to only allow paying customers to lounge about the premises. That's not my point. My point is that charging customers for things unrelated to their primary business is absurd and immoral. A restaurant can legally charge a corking fee, sure. They can also legally charge customers for silverware or napkins. They can also legally charge customers based on their height.
The real estate argument doesn't do it for me. It's not like restaurants that charge corking fees will charge you if you're just hanging out and pretending to drink an imaginary bottle of wine, which would take up just as much of their real estate as if the bottle were real.
Greed is legal, yes. The question is, why do you think it's moral?
Why do you need to define love? Why do you need to ask people anything when you scan them?
Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding. When you photocopy a page of Macbeth, does your Xerox machine need to ask Shakespeare about what betrayal means for a faithful duplicate to be produced? When your LIDAR system scans David for a 3D printer to create a copy, does it need to ask Michelangelo to define what is sublime before a facsimile of an armless dude fills your nostrils with plastic fumes?
You appear to be suggesting that something must be understood before it can be copied. An illiterate retard can use a photocopier to duplicate Macbeth. Neither the illiterate retard, nor the photocopier, nor even the engineers that designed and built the photocopier need to be able to understand Shakespeare.
When AI is created, I don't believe it will be by "defining love" and then trying to write code to simulate love. That's hackish and fundamentally a terrible way to approach something as complex as the human brain. The idea of simulating emotion alone seems intractable. How the fuck do you boil emotion down to code? While I can't really defend my position on this, I do believe this approach is literally impossible.
Instead, a much more reasonable approach, one that has yet to fail us when simulating other things, is the brute-force approach. Everything abides by the laws of physics, from quarks to quasars. There is no reason to suggest that the human brain doesn't. It's logical to suspect that, much like our simulations of proteins, of galaxies, of any physical system, a sufficiently precise simulation of the brain will behave the same way as a real physical one does.
That being said, we currently can't run just such a simulation, for two reasons. We don't know what the brain consists of. Sure, we know a lot about it. But we'd need to know everything about it. Precisely where every cell is. Precisely where every molecule is. Maybe even precisely where every atom is. Perhaps even precisely where every electron is. We're much closer to knowing all of this today than we were a decade or two ago, and medical imaging is advancing at a very rapid pace. It's overwhelmingly likely that we'll be able to scan a whole human brain at the cellular level "any day now". At the molecular level not too long after. That's one problem, on the verge of being solved. Of course, it's possible that advances in medical imaging will come to a full stop, and that we'll never get to the required resolution. It's a possibility.
The other problem is computing power. There's a lot of "moving parts" in the brain, and they all interact in massively parallel ways. That makes for a painfully slow simulation using contemporary (von Neumann) computers. New architectures designed specifically for this purpose are being worked on. Better fabrication processes are being worked on. Going by Moore's law, this hurdle will be cleared (for a reasonable price) in about two decades. Of course, it's possible that advances in computing will come to a full stop, and that we'll never get to the required level of computing efficiency. Also a distinct possibility. So, in about 20 or 30 years, we'll likely be able to simulate a human brain using technology. Likely, but not definitely.
Anyway, when we simulate two massive objects orbiting each other, our simulation behaves the same way two massive objects orbiting each other would in physical reality. When we simulate a human brain, our simulation ought to behave the same way a human brain would in physical reality. I'm not even saying that it will, merely that this is the expectation, and that it will be interesting to see how it pans out. Perhaps it'll just behave like a large mass of wrongly-wired neurons, doing nothing interesting at all, and you'll be able to cheer that all your hatred for Kurzweil was justified. Or perhaps it'll behave just like a real human brain, and will show all the same effects that you'd expect from a healthy human bra
Read this book, Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars. There's a lot of great nuggets about Al-Awlaki.
No, there is no genuine doubt about Al-Awlaki. He was a moderate Muslim man, not associated with terrorism at all. He used his standing in the Muslim community to strongly condemn the 9/11 terrorist attacks as soon as they happened, and continued to do so for some time after. After the US threatened to set up him up on bogus charges and tried turning him into an operative, he got a bit scared and left the country. We clarified that it was an offer he couldn't refuse by blowing him up. And his son too.
So humans decide the laws of physics and the structure of the human brain.
Thank you for ignoring the content of my posts while simultaneously accusing me of the same, despite the fact that the bulk of my previous post specifically addresses your "humans decide the parameters of any simulation" claim.
Thanks for the aggressive tone of voice though. It really furthers the discussion.
leftists
I hope one day slashdotists will rise above the level of Youtubists in their discourse.
It will start with abandonment of noun-ism.
Most sad comment of the day.
Why are you even on slashdot?
- Translating telephones allow people to speak to each other in different languages. Check. Speech recognition, google translate, text-to-speech.
- Machines designed to transcribe speech into computer text allow deaf people to understand spoken words. Check. Speech recognition.
- Exoskeletal, robotic leg prostheses allow the paraplegic to walk. Check. BLEEX, HAL, Ekso-Suit, etc.
- Telephone calls are routinely screened by intelligent answering machines that ask questions to determine the call's nature and priority. Check. Widely deployed, virtually any 800 number you call.
- "Cybernetic chauffeurs" can drive cars for humans and can be retrofitted into existing cars. They work by communicating with other vehicles and with sensors embedded along the roads. Check. DARPA Grand Challenge, Google Chauffeur. The tech is there, but legislation is lagging.
- The classroom is dominated by computers. Intelligent courseware that can tailor itself to each student by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. Media technology allows students to manipulate and interact with virtual depictions of the systems and personalities they are studying. Maybe. The classroom is dominated by computers. The tests are [sometimes] intelligent (take the GRE), but not the courseware, usually. Rich media is there, for sure.
- A small number of highly skilled people dominates the entire production sector. Tailoring of products for individuals is common. Check. Check employment statistics. Production has gone up, employment has gone way, way down. Moto X comes in way too many colors, and Andoid is easy to tailor to an individual.
- Drugs are designed and tested in simulations that mimic the human body. Check. This is how pretty much all new drugs are developed.
- Blind people navigate and read text using machines that can visually recognize features of their environment. Check. Well, we've actually exceeded his expectations on this one; not only do we have exactly what he described, but also synthetic retinal implants are now available. Not very high resolution, but better than something that just reads text out loud for you.
If you don't think his predictions are accurate, why don't you try predicting what 2040 will look like. Then come back to this thread and weep over how much better Kurzweil is at this than anyone else.
You fall for a common fallacy here: We do not understand intelligence at all. If our tools are limited to the physical world (and they are at this time), they cannot identify any non-physical phenomenon. To say because the tools cannot see non-physical effects is hence circular reasoning. The only thing we have as hard fact at this time is that we have failed to model intelligence based on physical effects so far.
I think most of us would be quite content with a strictly physical simulation of intelligence. That is, one that only reproduces only those properties of intelligence that exist in the physical world. Due to this, we're only concerned with the physical world. If there are some non-physical properties of intelligence, we're not really concerned with them, since our tools (eyeballs, ears, etc.) are limited to the physical world, and we have no way of perceiving these non-physical properties anyway. Any simulation that replicates only the physical properties of intelligence will be indistinguishable (to us) from the real thing, and that's really all we care about.
But the brain is an analog computer and every quantum effect has an influence on its workings. The same problem happens with an analog computer: You can never get exactly the same result from two of them, there is always some fuzzyness and deviation.
I mean, sure, yea. Much like playing back some analog audio, it'll be different every time. But is it appreciably different? When I play a record, it sounds exactly the same to me every time, despite the imperceptible differences in analog signal every time. You're suggesting that we need 100% fidelity to successfully reproduce an analog system, but I don't see why that would be the case. Are you suggesting that the tiniest variation from the original will yield a broken virtual brain? Do you really think brains are so fragile? That a cosmic ray hitting your neurons (which will produce effects orders of magnitude more significant than mere quantum phenomena would) is likely to kill you?
People have this tendency to deify the human brain. They like to think that there's something magic responsible for their existence. That it can't just be as simple as what it looks like. I don't see any basis in reality for this type of thought, but we should all be excited about this type of research because it can conclusively demonstrate which side of the argument has merit, which is a huge improvement over the philosophical circle-jerk that we've been a part of for the last few millenia.