Online Chat with Ray Kurzweil and European Schoolnet

November 9, 2005 by Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil introduced 300 secondary-school students across Europe to robotics and AI in an interactive Internet chat set up by Xplora, the European gateway to science education.

Originally published on www.xplora.org. Published on KurzweilAI.net November 9,2005.

Karl Sarnow says:

Welcome to the Xplora scheduled chat with Ray Kurzweil about robots and artificial intelligence.

My name is Karl Sarnow and I am member of the Xplora team, trying to enable teachers of mathematics and science to give fascinating science lessons.

It is a great pleasure and honour to have Ray Kurzweil here in the chat. The topic itself is really fascinating and inspiring. But having one of the early birds of AI applications personally here is nothing more but wonderful.

Cordially welcome Ray.

Ray Kurzweil says:

Hi, glad to be here.

Karl Sarnow says:

We now start with the procedure as discussed in the mail in advance. Ray will start with a short introduction and then the others follow with a short sentence.

Ray Kurzweil says:

Yes, here is something I wrote recently that is a brief introduction to my latest book, The Singularity is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology:

Ray Kurzweil says:

So what is the Singularity?

Within a quarter century, nonbiological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. It will then soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge. Intelligent nanorobots will be deeply integrated in our bodies, our brains, and our environment, overcoming pollution and poverty, providing vastly extended longevity, full-immersion virtual reality incorporating all of the senses (like “The Matrix”), "experience beaming” (like “Being John Malkovich”), and vastly enhanced human intelligence. The result will be an intimate merger between the technology-creating species and the technological evolutionary process it spawned.

And that’s the Singularity?

No, that’s just the precursor. Nonbiological intelligence will have access to its own design and will be able to improve itself in an increasingly rapid redesign cycle. We’ll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it. That will mark the Singularity.

When will that occur?

I set the date for the Singularity—representing a profound and disruptive transformation in human capability—as 2045. The nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today.

Why is this called the Singularity?

The term “Singularity” in my book is comparable to the use of this term by the physics community. Just as we find it hard to see beyond the event horizon of a black hole, we also find it difficult to see beyond the event horizon of the historical Singularity. How can we, with our limited biological brains, imagine what our future civilization, with its intelligence multiplied trillions-fold, be capable of thinking and doing? Nevertheless, just as we can draw conclusions about the nature of black holes through our conceptual thinking, despite never having actually been inside one, our thinking today is powerful enough to have meaningful insights into the implications of the Singularity. That’s what I’ve tried to do in this book.

Okay, let’s break this down. It seems a key part of your thesis is that we will be able to capture the intelligence of our brains in a machine.

Indeed.

So how are we going to achieve that?

We can break this down further into hardware and software requirements. In the book, I show how we need about 10 quadrillion (1016) calculations per second (cps) to provide a functional equivalent to all the regions of the brain. Some estimates are lower than this by a factor of 100. Supercomputers are already at 100 trillion (1014) cps, and will hit 1016 cps around the end of this decade. Several supercomputers with 1 quadrillion cps are already on the drawing board, with two Japanese efforts targeting already on the drawing board, with two Japanese efforts targeting 10 quadrillion cps around the end of the decade. By 2020, 10 quadrillion cps will be available for around $1,000. Achieving the hardware requirement was controversial when my last book on this topic, The Age of Spiritual Machines, came out in 1999, but is now pretty much of a mainstream view among informed observers. Now the controversy is focused on the algorithms.

And how will we recreate the algorithms of human intelligence?

To understand the principles of human intelligence we need to reverse-engineer the human brain. Here, progress is far greater than most people realize. The spatial and temporal (time) resolution of brain scanning is also progressing at an exponential rate, roughly doubling each year, like most everything else having to do with information. Just recently, scanning tools can see individual interneuronal connections, and watch them fire in real time. Already, we have mathematical models and simulations of a couple dozen regions of the brain, including the cerebellum, which comprises more than half the neurons in the brain. IBM is now creating a simulation of about 10,000 cortical neurons, including tens of millions of connections. The first version will simulate the electrical activity, and a future version will also simulate the relevant chemical activity. By the mid 2020s, it’s conservative to conclude that we will have effective models for all of the brain.

So at that point we’ll just copy a human brain into a supercomputer?

I would rather put it this way: At that point, we’ll have a full understanding of the methods of the human brain. One benefit will be a deep understanding of ourselves, but the key implication is that it will expand the toolkit of techniques we can apply to create artificial intelligence. We will then be able to create nonbiological systems that match human intelligence in the ways that humans are now superior, for example, our pattern recognition abilities. These superintelligent computers will be able to do things we are not able to do, such as share knowledge and skills at electronic speeds.

By 2030, a thousand dollars of computation will be about a thousand times more powerful than a human brain. Keep in mind also that computers will not be organized as discrete objects as they are today. There will be a web of computing deeply integrated into the environment, our bodies and brains.

Okay, that should do it. Sorry it had to be cut into a number of pieces.

Karl Sarnow says:

Okay, lets start with an introduction. I propose in the order people appear on the right. So Alexa will be the first one.

Alexa Joyce says:

I’m Alexa Joyce, I’m project manager of Xplora. I’m a biologist originally but now working in technology.

Donelle Batty says:

Hello I’m Tom Steele and I’m a student from Riverside High School from Tasmania. I’m be representing the Pegasus project during this chat

Donelle Batty says:

(sorry I may be abit tired it is 1AM over here)

Karl Sarnow says to Donelle Batty:

Youre welcome Tom. A real student is fine. James now?

Ray Kurzweil says:

Where are you?

James Whipple says:

Hi I’m James, I’m a design student who has been interested in the singularity for several years.

Damon Zucconi says:

Sorry I was reading… I’m Damon Zucconi, a student at Maryland Institute College of Art in Interactive Media.

Karl Sarnow says:

I am a physicist with a PhD in biophysics, teaching mathematics, physics and computer science at a German Gymnasium for about 30 years. Now I am seconded to the European Schoolnet to help setup Xplora.

Matt Neil says:

I’m Matt I am in Australia 2, I work in technology as a IT Architect designing systems for large corporates, the organisation I work for is busy building a grid mesh for global computing. In my last role I was working for a health organising changing the face of radiology from traditional photograpghy to digital and I have a passion for what we are talking about

Ray Kurzweil says:

I’m Ray Kurzweil, an inventor, author, and futurist. Delighted to be with all of you, including all the students "listening" in.

Sally H says:

I am Sally. I am in Loughborough, UK. I work in IT (eLearning) and Home Educate my 15 year old son. He is very interested in robots, the future of computing, as well as computer gaming!

Karl Sarnow says:

Ok, now we know who you are (almost).

Karl Sarnow says:

Now for the questions, only one per person please.

Karl Sarnow says:

(for this round).

Donelle Batty says:

Maybe I should start with a simple one

Karl Sarnow says:

Just go ahead

James Whipple says:

i will ask after Donelle’s question

Donelle Batty says:

Some of the students wish to know what inspired you to create all of the fantastic things you’ve created and they also wish to know what troubles you encountered as they wish to be inventors themselves.

Ray Kurzweil says:

I’ve had the idea of being an inventor since I was 5. What is exciting and inspiring about being an inventor is the link between dry formulas on a black board (the invention) and transformations in people’s lives. As for challenges, the biggest issue is timing. Most inventors get their inventions to "work" but most of the time the timing is wrong, so it fails in the market place. That’s why I got into tracking technology trends over 30 years ago.

Ray Kurzweil says:

One more comment on Donnelle’s question: the most gratifying project I’ve been involved in has been reading machines for the blind. I introduced the first one 30 years ago, and have been involved ever since. We just introduced a print-to-speech reading machine that fits in your pocket&#8212it’s 10,000 times smaller and lighter than the first one.

Donelle Batty says:

Thanks.

Matt Neil says:

Ray my question is around how we are going to transfer/copy/replicate those already higher congnitive functions of the mind, such as ESP that may actually lay dormant in the mind, that we do not understand and from observation may look like garbage as they are not normally activated. Are these functions inherent? And if we copy the code will these extras services come along with it?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Matt’s question, we’re now embarked on a grand project to "reverse-engineer" the human brain. We’re in the early stages but the progress will exponential not linear. So we will ultimately understand in precise terms how the brain performs its functions, including ESP to the extent that it can actually do that. We will routinely have brain-to-brain communication when we have nanobots in our brains that are on the Internet. We already have simulations of 20 regions of the brain that perform well on tests compared to human function, for example, the cerebellum which comprises more than half the neurons in the brain, and 15 regions of the auditory cortext. There are several hundred more regions to go. (end of response to Matt).

Matt Neil says to Ray Kurzweil:

Cheers

James Whipple says:

Will there be room for the human ego in a post-singularity society, or will we be led to less and less individuation as our interconnections grow? How much of the brain’s baggage will we want to take with us as we integrate with machines?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG James’ question, I suppose we’ll have to reconsider what ego means. It’s not always a bad thing if people are driven to perform creative work. Machines can have it both ways&#8212they can be individuals and they can also merge to form one larger intelligence. Humans "merge" also in societies but not with the same ease. We’ll still have ego and conflicting agendas but we’ll have more capability.

James Whipple says:

Interesting, reminds me of Howard Bloom’s "Global Brain" book. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Kurzweil says:

As for the brain’s baggage&#8212we will ultimately have the "source code" for our intelligence&#8212we’ll have a precise description of its algorithms and be able to modify them. We’ll have to proceed with caution, of course, but there will be obvious dysfunctions we’d like to fix. (end of response to James).

Sally H says:

With the known vulnerabilities in current O/S software and computer security still being a nightmare&#8212do you think that this vision of the future could be scarily nightmarish, and can you see a way that this would be countered?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Sally’s question, there are definitively downsides to all 3 overlapping revolutions&#8212G (genetics or biotech), N (nanotech) and R (robotics which really refers to strong AI, AI at the human level). We have the downside of "G" now&#8212the potential for bioengineered biological viruses. I wrote (coauthored with Bill Joy) an op-ed piece in the New York Times recently criticizing the US Goverment for publishing the genome of the 1918 flu virus, for example, as it could aid bioterrorists. WRG software, I actually think we’re doing reasonably well. We have "mission critical" software running intensive care units in hospitals, flying and landing airplanes, running factories, etc., and this software almost nevere fails. We do know how to create reliable software. And with regard to software pathogens (software viruses, etc.), we’re also reasonably keeping pace. Our technological "immune system" responds generally within hours of a new type of attack. (end of response to Sally).

Karl Sarnow says:

You mention “We’ve already created simulations of ~ 20 regions (out of several hundred) of the brain”. Do you mean computer programs, that behave like the brain regions? How can you test that? Is there any interface to living beings?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Karl’s question, yes these are computer programs&#8212computer simulations and yes, these are tested&#8212for example by applying psychoacoustic tests to the simulation and applying the same tests to human auditory perception. It does not prove that the simulations are perfect, and undoubtedly they are not, but it shows we are moving in the right direction.

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG interfacing to living beings, we have of course a variety of neural implants now&#8212cochlear implants, and implants for Parkinson’s patients which replaced diseased brain tissue. The latest generation of the Parkinson’s implant allows you to download new software to your neural implant from outside the patient. There are stroke patients who have an implant that can now communicate to their computer and by extension to the rest of the world and to control their environment. (end)

Alexa Joyce says:

yes exactly I’m rather worried to read about the re-creation of the live virus by bio-engineering too

Karl Sarnow says:

Did everybody have his question?

Matt Neil says to Ray Kurzweil:

Not a question but an interuption&#8212are you using speech to text for todays session?

Jan Kapoun says:

Hi, Ray. I was interested in Martin Rees´ book "Our Final Hour", especially the part about dangers of new technology. Have you read the book? What do you think about it?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Kapound’s question:

Ray Kurzweil says:

I alluded earlier to the downsides&#8212the perils&#8212of GNR. I’m familiar with Rees’ book. He talks about these perils as well as natural ones, like an asteroid hitting Earth. On that last one, this happens infrequently (at least a big one) and I’m confident we’ll have the technology to blast it out of the sky before that happens. The more daunting challenges are the downsides of the self-replicating technology we’re creating. I mentioned bioterrorists creating a modified biological virus. When we have full nanotechnology manufacturing, there will ultimately be the potential for self-replicating nanotechnology. There are strategies for dealing with these issues. The issue for society is one of priorities. We need to put a higher priority on the defenses&#8212I gave testimony to the U.S. Congress on a proposal for a $100 billion program to develop new technologies (like RNA interference) to combat new biological viruses. President Bush recently proposed a $7 billion program for this&#8212it’s a start but not enough. We also need to be smart about not disseminating overtly dangerous information. No one proposes putting the design of an atom bomb on the web, so why put the design of a killer virus there? (end)

Jan Kapoun says:

Thank you. But is it certain that we will avoid a situation, such as the example in Michael Crichton´s Prey?

Ray Kurzweil says:

Now with regard Crichton’s prey.

Ray Kurzweil says:

He was writing about self-replicating nanotech, although he mixed it up with biological viruses and there are some scientifically unrealistic aspects to his novel, but the basic danger of self-replicating nanotech is&#8212or I should say will be&#8212real. The existential danger we face now is with biological viruses, we don’t yet have full molecular nanotechnology assembly. When we do the basic message for society is the same&#8212which is to put more stones on the defensive side of the scale by developing explicitly defensive technologies. I describe some stratgies in Singularity is Near. There are also ethical guidelines that need to be followed by responsible practitioners. The Foresight Institute, founded by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler has articulated a set of these. (end)

Damon Zucconi says:

With technologies such as the Fritz chip coming into play do you think that the fragmentation of THE computer (the Internet) is something that is possible and a legitimate concern for the iminent singularity?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Damon’s question&#8212by fragmentation I assume you mean decentralization. This is a very good trend. Decentralized technologies are more stable. We are moving to a "world wide mesh" in which computing and communications will be distributed among billions of devices in a flexible and self-organizing manner. (end)

Damon Zucconi says:

I think I meant fragmentation more like cut of government controlled networks.

Damon Zucconi says:

cut-off rather

Ray Kurzweil says:

I’m not using speech to text&#8212I type faster.

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Damon’s question&#8212do you mean attempts by the Chinese government to control the web? I think these will fail&#8212they may nominally "control" overt expression of a few sensitive political issues, but people will work around them. There is already an enormous explosion of expression on Chinese web sites including a healthy and exploding blogger community. This is a democratizing force. I wrote in the 1980s that the decentralized communication technologies that would emerge would ultimately destroy the Soviet Union, which it did. That 1991 coup against Gorbachev failed not because of Yeltsin standing on a tank but because of the clandestine network of fax machines and early email using teletype machines. I mentioned this to Gorbachev recently at a lunch I had with him and he heartedly agreed. Of course, anything to put Yeltsin down.

Alexa Joyce says:

Do you think then, by extension of what you say about bio-viruses, in the next few years we’ll see teenage bio-hackers the same way we have young hackers on the Internet now?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Alex’s concern:

Yes, it will ultimately get easier and easier to do this kind of work, so the answer is we need to develop a (very) rapid response system that can combat ANY new biological virus whether natural (like bird flu) or bioengineered. The good news is that the tools to accomplish this are coming into place. RNA interference can turn any gene off&#8212we send pieces of RNA in as a medication, it latches on to the messenger RNA expressing a gene and destroys it.

This has been effective for stopping biological viruses. I described a plan in which we would have a rapid response system that could quickly sequence a virus, create an RNAi medication and gear up production, all in a manner of days. We have the tools to do this but we need to put it in place. There are other protective ideas as well.

Alexa Joyce says:

You mean antisense RNA here to block the genes?

Alexa Joyce says:

This concept of an open source biology community is very intriguing.

Ray Kurzweil says:

Wel first to clarify in response to Joyce&#8212there are two competing technologies that can block the messenger RNA expressing a gene – antisense technology and RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi works very well, antisense technology has been disappointing.

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG Joyces comment&#8212yes there will be open source biology. Everything of importance will ultimately be information. Even manufacturing products. In the 2020s we’ll be able to manufacture almost anything we need/want with our own table top manufacturing devices&#8212and there will be open source versions of designs&#8212sneakers, meals, etc. (end)

Karl Sarnow says:

I have read your PP with great intrest. In slide 56 there are a lot of abbreviations. Is there some information available what these abbreviations mean? Could you give us a pointer?

Ray Kurzweil says:

Which slide was that?

Karl Sarnow says:

It is about reverse engineering the brain and shows a diagramm with many 3-letters abbreviations.

Damon Zucconi says:

Reverse engineering the human brain.

Ray Kurzweil says:

See endnote 96 for chapter 5 of Singularity is Near.

Karl Sarnow says to Ray Kurzweil:

Ok.

Ray Kurzweil says:

Page 546. The main text discussion is on pages 183-185. Chapter 4 is about reverse engineering the brain.

Ray Kurzweil says:

Did I miss a question?

Karl Sarnow says:

I don’t thinks so, what say the others?

Jan Kapoun says:

Your great book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines," celebrated 15 years this year. Would you change something in it now?

Ray Kurzweil says:

I think it actually does track quite well. Obviously some things are off by a few years&#8212I would have said 1997 for a computer taking the world chess championship not 1998. This brings up the issue as to whether or not we can predict the future. The common wisdom is that we cannot. But there are certain measures of information technology&#8212price-performance, capacity, bandwidth, etc.&#8212that are very predictable. And its not just computer devices, but information technology is deeply influencing everything of value. So we can anticipate many scenarios quite accurately. We might wonder how can this be? Specific projects are indeed not predictable. yet the overall impact is predictable. We see a similar phenomenon in thermodynamics&#8212the path of each particle in a gas is unpredictable, yet the overall properties of the gas&#8212made of a vast number of chaotic unpredictable particles&#8212is very predictable according to the laws of thermodynamics, to a high degree of precision. So it is with information technology, also a complex and chaotic system. (end)

Matt Neil says to Ray Kurzweil:

Which companies do you think will get the jump those coming from the bio health side or those coming from the tech molecular computing side.

Ray Kurzweil says:

There’s clearly a role for both. If you look at how biology is done now it is becoming an information technology. It used to be hit and miss&#8212we would just find something that happened to work with no theory of operation, using "drug discovery." Now we’re actually learning the precise information processes underlying biological processes like atherosclerosis (the cause of most heart disease) and also gaining the means to reprogram these processes away from disease. Biochemical simulators are playing a big role. Drug development is already quite specialized with smaller companies doing the "risk removal" of specific treatments, then doing deals with the larger pharma companies. (end)

Karl Sarnow says:

I am not sure about this chat room, but I assume it is kicking us out at exactly 15h00 Brussels time. But I would not be happy to finish the session, before saying a big, big, thank you to Ray. It was very inspiring to read your answers and the questions from all of you. You will be able to read an edited version of the chat on Xplora. Thanks a lot again and I hope to see/read you again at Xplora somehow.

Good bye and thanks.

Karl

James Whipple says:

Thanks!

Alexa Joyce says:

Actually I think we can carry on if Ray is still happy to take a couple more questions…

Ray Kurzweil says:

I’ve got time for one or two more.

Karl Sarnow says:

I just hear that the tool will probably not kick us out, but nobody will be able to get in. So feel free to continue. I will record until the end of the debate.

Jan Kapoun says:

Thanks, Ray! It was a nice experience to chat with you.

James Whipple says:

I’m sure you know about people such as Hugo de Garis’ pessimistic visions of society’s reaction to a technological singularity. How will society react to change it can barely keep track of? How can the transition to be smoothed out?

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG de Garis, as I said before I am concerned with the downsides. Bill Joy’s pessimistic piece in WIRED stemmed from a conversation we had in 1998 and his reading Age of Spiritual Machines. I do think that de Garis particular scenario does not make sense. He envisions a war between the "cosmists" (those who have enhanced themselves by merging with nonbiological intelligence) and the "terrists" (those who have not). It’s kind of absurd – like a war between those who use cell phones and those who don’t, or between the Amish and the armed forces. There are certainly concerns about "strong AI" run amok, but a war between those eschewing technology and those embracing it does not make sense. Such a "war" would be a non starter. (end)

Donelle Batty says:

I was just wondering about the use of nanobots to acheive immortality becasue I. Wouldn’t this create many more problems such as over-populization.

James Whipple says:

I agree!

Matt Neil says to Ray Kurzweil:

Yes and on that how many tablets are you taking a day for longevity&#8212some say its in the hundres!

Ray Kurzweil says:

WRG over population:

Ray Kurzweil says:

That would be a problem if we had radical life extension and NO other changes. But nanotechnology will also enable us to create any physical product we will need from inexpensive raw materials being reorganized by massively parallel computerized processes using table top nanotech fabricators (2020s scenario). We’ll be able to meet the needs of any conceivable size biological population. I describe in Singularity is Near a scenario for energy&#8212by capturing just 3% of 1% of the sunlight that falls on the Earth we can meet the projected energy needs of 2030. We’ll be able to do with nanoengineered solar panels and store the energy in highly decentralized nanoengineered fuel cells. (end)

Ray Kurzweil says:

Finally, last question, wrg supplements:

Ray Kurzweil says:

I do take a lot of supplements (about 250 pills a day) to "reprogram" my biochemistry. I take a lot of tests (50 or 60 blood levels) every few months to see how I’m doing. And I’m doing fine. I had type II diabetes 22 years ago but for 20 years have had no indication of this. My cholesterol many years ago was 280, but its been 130 for a long time. And all my other levels are relatively ideal. And according to biological aging tests, I was biologically 38 when I was chronolically 40. Now that I’m chronologically 57, I come out about 40 biologically. So there may be controversy about the validity of these biological aging tests, but I do a lot of other testing and feel I’m doing well. People may think this is a lot of trouble to go to, but actually I think it’s a lot more trouble to get sick. For young people in their 20s and 30s, they only need to stay reasonably healthy and perhaps take a good multivitamin. But for my contemporaries, people in their 50s and 60s, if they really want to be in good shape when we have these dramatic new technologies from biotech and nanotech, then they need to be aggressive to reprogram their biochemistry now.

Ray Kurzweil says:

Thanks again for chatting&#8212enjoyed it a great deal!

© 2005 xplora. Reprinted with permission.