Image: Reprint with permission, Transcendent Man, Copyright 2011
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Against a swirling montage of cosmic birth and destruction, and newsreel-style stills from his personal history, the celebrated inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil sits in silhouette, contemplating death. He broods over mortality's toll in waste and pain, and the hopelessness and loss that people must experience in their last moments of life. "It's such a profoundly sad, lonely feeling that I really can't bear it," he admits.
Then, cheerfully, he adds, "So I go back to thinking about how I'm not going to die."
That opening sequence of Transcendent Man, the new documentary by director Barry Ptolemy that profiles Kurzweil and his ideas, neatly distills the sometimes jarring predictions and preoccupations of its subject. The film is about Kurzweil's belief that within just a few decades technology will allow human beings to transcend the physical and intellectual limitations of their biology. It also paints Kurzweil as a brilliant man who has personally always risen above the skepticism and misunderstanding of his doubters.
Cleverly edited and entertaining, Transcendent Man is unfortunately also too starstruck and reverent toward Kurzweil for its own good. It wants in part to be a movie about ideas, but frustratingly, it refuses to truly challenge any of those it raises—whether supportive or critical of him. Given that the film's theme is the salvation or destruction of the human race, its lack of commitment to a perspective other than innocent wonder is unsatisfying.
Kurzweil has always been propelled by powerful ideas, as the film makes clear. A recipient of the National Medal of Technology, he has been a pioneer in optical character recognition, speech recognition and other technologies, starting with his invention of a computer that composed music when he was just 17. His study of innovation in the 1980s convinced him that what he calls a "law of accelerating returns" governs progress, meaning that technology advances at an exponentially increasing rate. (The doubling of transistors on computer chips every 18 months, widely known as Moore's law, is one example of such an increase.)
Kurzweil popularized the concept of accelerating returns in his books The Age of Intelligent Machines (MIT Press, 1990) and The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (Viking, 1999), in which he predicted what the consequences of that rate of progress would be in the decades to come. He revisited and doubled down on that thesis in 2005 with The Singularity Is Near (Viking), a manifesto arguing that by mid-century history would reach a "technological singularity": an inflection point when artificial and enhanced intelligences would take control of further progress and usher in a kind of earthly nirvana. Genetics, nanotechnology and robotics would put immortality, infinite resources and boundless intelligence at the disposal of humanity and its sentient creations.
Dizzying as this vision can be, Transcendent Man does a good job of introducing viewers to it through well-chosen visuals and sound bites. Director Barry Ptolemy says that when he read The Singularity Is Near, he was convinced that it was one of the most profound books ever written and that he had to make a film about it. With Kurzweil's cooperation, Ptolemy spent two years following the futurist across five continents as he went about his multiple businesses and preached the creed of exponential progress.
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18 Comments
Add CommentImmodest or prescient only time will tell. Personally I think he's at best wildly optimistic, but the history of prognosticating the course of human society is almost singularly barren of success. The reasonable conclusion is that whatever we predict, we're all wrong in profound ways. Futurists have always been rather optimistic about the advances of technology though, so Kurzweil is certainly likely to be in good company there. Go back and watch 2001 A Space Oddesy and contemplate that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "futurist" FM-2030, whom I knew slightly, predicted in 1981 that we'd all have "indefinite" life expectancies by that mysterious, far-future 2010. We know how that prediction turned out:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scribd.com/doc/10948503/Up-Wing-Priorities
Kurzweil is attempting to forge a modern religion. He is about little else. I appreciate the accurate words John Rennie has provided us here. I also recommend any readers of SA to pay no attention to Kurzweil unless you are in search of a religion. On second thought, those looking for religion might be better served by declaring yourselves agnostic or ignostic than by following Kurzweil. You can at least be certain an ignostic won't ignore scientific evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@tharter:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"the history of prognosticating the course of human society is almost singularly barren of success."
That hasn't stopped scientists from advocating radical transformations of human society based on forecasts of climate change. They don't reject apocalyptic thinking as such; they just have a theory of the apocalypse different from Kurzweil's.
People like Kurzweil remind me the character Tom Hanks played in "Cast Away",who builds an attachment with Wilson, a ball. Human beings need a meaningful relationship in order to stay alive, some find this in books and some in technology if they cannot find it in others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate change is science. It is a set of theories and hypotheses with supporting evidence which can be validated or falsified.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFuturists aren't engaged in any sort of scientific enterprise at all. There is no scientific theory of what the future holds for human society or how we will shape it. We can speculate about what might be possible, but guessing as to what will actually happen, and when, is almost futile. Perhaps we can dimly see some of the possibilities in the relatively near term.
Stew, almost all demographers out there predict human population will peak in just a few decades and then begin steadily declining, due to falling birthrates. Malthusian ideas about population bombs and dieoffs have been overwhelmingly debunked again and again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as Kurzweil goes, I think he has some interesting ideas. It is indeed true that the RATE of technological acceleration is going up in some areas. Of course, that's only in some areas. I think he overestimates the impact acceleration will have on us; processing power doesn't affect everything. Regardless, a person shouldn't just sit on their backside waiting to be saved by the Singularity.
If one is truly interested in adding decades of healthy years onto one's life, research is being carried out by nonprofit orgs like the Methuselah Fdn and SENS Fdn that may make that possible.
I feel a lot better now knowing that "almost all demographers out there predict human population will peak in just a few decades", since there's no evidence that this planet can reliably support a population half the current size. If we can only make it until then.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow it's presumed that the primary inhibitor for a person to live forever would be money, correct? I wonder what that will do to appease the growing crowd of dissatisfied underprivileged? C'mon, everyone demands social justice - immortality for everyone! Surely we can keep the birth rate down to 'reasonable' levels - we are 'reasonable' people, aren't we?
Again, these doom and gloom ideas have been around for centuries and have never panned out. See the UN's Popluation in 2300 Report where some the best demographers in the world back up what I'm saying. Birthrate is the main thing affecting pop growth, not longevity. Regardless, humans always find a way to adapt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as resources go, the percentage of people starving is lower today than it has ever been, even though we have many more people, and even the poor have a higher standard of living than ever before as well. See: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_at_state.html
Any argument made against extending life (in any way) could also be made against curing cancer. (only the rich can use the cure at first, there would be more people, it's natural, etc.)
You and everyone on this board is already living A LOT longer than we would have without technology. Drawing a line at what is good technology and what is bad is 100% arbitrary.
Oy, vey. Kurzweil knows biology like my aunt Hattie knows computer science. He says this because he hasn't got a clue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the self-assuredness that everything will turn out alright in life that has allowed us all to ignore overpopulation as an enormous risk factor for the survival of humanity. Can you reasonably argue that modern population growth increases demands on the Earth's natural resources and increases our impact on its ability to meet those demands? Does the U.N. conclude that there's nothing to be worried about in the current trends?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I was born in 1950 the population of the U.S. was half what it is now. The global population will have tripled by the end of this decade.
U.S. Population (thousands)
1950 . . . 151,868
1970 . . . 203,984
2000 . . . 282,172
2011 . . . 310,791
World Population (thousands)
1500 est. . . . 425,000
1910 est. . . 1,750,000
Current . . . 6,899,009
source: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/
I've said nothing to suggest that medical improvements should not be pursued, but achieving immortality is simply a self-centered, greedy objective. No one who desires it wishes it for everyone. After all, that wouldn't be feasible.
As for myself, I would have died more than a decade ago if it weren't for the expensive medications I have to take indefinitely. I'm not longer productive, and even with this medication I could not survive if I had to rely on my current abilities.
I only hope that my current and future grandchildren can survive the potentially disastrous conditions that are like to affect billions of people - yes, even in the civilized world. My poor father had to grow up during the depression years of the 1930s. How many would suffer if similar conditions prevail in 2050? Nothing to worry about, right?
2001: A Space Odyssey is a great reference point. Consider that on this very day, in 2011, we witness some impressive AI on Jeopardy. Not the HAL9000 strong AI, but to deny that Watson is an intermediate step is, I believe, too pessimistic. Kurzweil is an optimist, and there are some philosophical holes in his wildest claims, but even as a skeptic, it seems reasonable to expect many of his predictions will come to pass, if not exactly in 2045. There is no evidence that Kurzweil is "trying to forge a religion."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"... for the times they are [exponentially] a-changin' "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe precise path of the current exponential advances and convergences of many scientific disciplines is likely very difficult to accurately predict. Methinks it is best to have an open and curious mind about such things. http://www.RetirementSingularity.com
I haven't checked, or even watched the show, but I expect that the Watson computer system includes highly optimized software and perhaps even hardware specifically designed to play the Jeopardy game, or some set of games, perhaps while seeming to be intelligent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Watson software were dynamically adaptable enough to perform some significant fraction of the myriad tasks continuously required of human intellect I'd be much more impressed. If I recall HAL was supposed to be capable of performing psychological evaluations of the spacecraft's crew in addition to monitoring spacecraft operations and playing chess.
I've been periodically reading about "intermediate steps" in computer and AI technical journals since the 1980s. I wonder when a system might be capable of learning a brand new game through English language instruction - you know, like an intelligent person.
I'd personally be much more impressed with a system that tracked and fully evaluated the success rate of futurists' predictions - that might be truly useful!
Kurzweil plans to clone his Dad, and thinks that will incorporate him in every respect. And it will, because two things as complicated as humans, when they are biologically identical, are the same thing printed out twice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis begs the question of why Ray doesn't trust that solution to reincarnate himself. He should, because the topic is unexamined and is as important as any he has raised otherwise.
Deep Blue defeated then world champion Kasparov in a chess tournament. Man vs. machine. Machine won. But that is not AI. True AI is passing the Turing test. No machine had ever done that and we are far from it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sobering realization in 60 yrs. of AI research is playing games is child's play. Moving around without bumping into objects around you is a much more intellectually difficult task.
Today's most 'intelligent' machines are less smarter than a cockroach in terms of mobility and adaptation to changing environment.
Transcendent Man is now available to watch online in an embeddable video player for blogs and websites for anyone interested:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://transcendentman.com/watch-now/
While Rennie makes some developed points regarding the bias views in favor of Kurzweil, he find himself constantly dwelling on the prediction that he himself will be alive for the singulartiy. Less emphasis on whether he'll be alive and more emphasis on the predictions that matter. Kurzweil's optimism may very well shape the future as we know it. We have the ability to shape the future through technology, we need more positive futurist like Ray Kurzweil to help us visualize the path.
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