Notwithstanding Kurzweil's certainty, many people are unpersuaded by his ideas—particularly in some of the medical and technical fields that he says will soon be transformed, and even among thinkers who respect him otherwise. As Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remarks on camera, "What Ray does consistently is to take a whole bunch of steps that everybody agrees on and take principles for extrapolating that everybody agrees on and show they lead to things that nobody agrees on," because "they just seem crazy."
As seen in the film, Kurzweil's response to those who don't share his perspective on technologically enhanced transcendence, particularly on the life-extension topic, is not unkind but patronizing. He realizes, he says, that people feel "threatened" by these ideas but that they will eventually accept the incremental realizations of that progress. He never seems to credit that well-informed people might disagree or disapprove of his views for reasons that have nothing to do with their own fallibility or weakness—but rather that they might be right and he might be wrong.
Similarly, Kurzweil views his own rejection of death as the only appropriate response. People who say they have learned to accept mortality are fooling themselves, he tells the camera; society numbly glorifies death because it has surrendered to it. The possibility that Kurzweil's stubborn disdain for death might spring from neurotic denial rather than from intellectual independence is apparently absurd to him.
Indeed, Kurzweil's attitude toward the idea of his own fallibility was on display in the question-and-answer session after the New York City screening of Transcendent Man. An audience member asked him about what he had gotten wrong over the years. Kurzweil mentioned that he had recently written a 150-page review of his predictions to date and concluded that about 86 percent of them were correct. (Disclosure: having taken my own look at his predictions, I have a rather different assessment—see here, here and here.) Pressed to name something he had gotten wrong, Kurzweil mentioned that he had predicted self-piloting cars to be common by now. But he hastened to point to out Google had recently tested its own autonomous vehicles that had driven themselves over 225,000 kilometers on busy roads, which meant that such vehicles would indeed be coming, just not for a few more years.
That is Kurzweil's view of his failures in a nutshell: to him, his errors are simply predictions for which essential correctness has not yet been demonstrated.
Kurzweil's manner—undemonstrative, measured, confidently detached—can seem cold, especially when he talks so matter-of-factly about shucking off the human condition as we know it. With good reason, the filmmakers work to find the warmer, quirkier soul inside Kurzweil—and to some degree they succeed. They reveal the inventor and futurist as a loving family man who has worn a Mickey Mouse watch for 30 years and lives in a beautiful house adorned with hundreds of awards and honors, a poster of Alanis Morissette and roughly 300 cat figurines. He is someone who declared early in life that he would transform the lives of the blind and deaf with his inventions, and the warm receptions that he receives from groups with those disabilities prove he made good on that promise.
Still, at times the film may work to make Kurzweil more relatable than he is. After the New York screening an audience member asked Kurzweil why it was hurtful when people called him a "crackpot." "On what basis do you think it bothers me?" Kurzweil replied. The viewer pointed out that it happened in the film during a radio call-in show, and the camera seemed to freeze on his sad expression. "The film didn't show my actual reaction," Kurzweil said. Ptolemy, who was also on stage, did not comment.
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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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