Source: The Build Network — April 2012 | Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson
The effects of Moore’s Law add up faster than you think. (Seriously. Let us show you.) Which explains why computers and ‘big data’ are about to transform your competitive landscape.
“It comes from an ancient story about math made relevant to the present by the innovator and futurist Ray Kurzweil. In one version of the story, the inventor of the game of chess shows his creation to… read more
Source: Sam Snyder Blog — November 6, 2012 | Sam Snyder
Kurzweil represents the best aspects of America: entrepreneurship, invention, scientific research, helping others, and sharing knowledge. Kurzweil makes predictions and then assesses the accuracy of those predictions.
He has an accuracy rate which far surpasses other predictors. He incorporates new scientific evidence to change his worldview, as he did between his books The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life and Transcend…
One of Kurzweil’s messages is… read more
Source: The New York Times — December 27, 2010 | Ray Kurzweil
Thirty years ago, I realized that timing was the key to success as an inventor. Most inventions fail because the timing is wrong — the innovation needs to make sense for the world that will exist when the project is finished.
Consider how quickly the world changes; just a few years ago, most people didn’t use social networks, wikis or blogs. As an engineer, I gathered a lot of… read more
Source: Mother Jones — May 13, 2013 | Kevin Drum
Robots! That’s the topic of my latest piece in the current issue of the magazine. I’ve blogged on this subject a fair amount, but this is the first time I’ve tried to put everything together and explain what I really think robotics is likely to mean over the next few decades.
Some of you are going to nod right along, some of you are going to think I’m… read more
Source: BBC News — August 12, 2009 | Iain Mackenzie
Critics of transhumanism say it will lead to a world where the wealthy have access to life extending and enhancing innovations, while the poor languish with unmodified, “Mark 1″ human bodies….Technology is affordable only by the wealthy when it doesn’t work very well,” counters Ray Kurzweil. “By the time it is perfected it ends up being extremely inexpensive.
Consider mobile phones; only the wealthy could afford them when they… read more
Source: Singularity Hub — August 19, 2010 | Aaron Saenz
10 years? 20 years? 100 years? Never? There are about as many predictions for when artificial intelligence will match human intellect as there are AI researchers.
More, really, when you figure in all the people who simply read about AI research and decide to make their own decisions (I’m in that boat myself). Processing power has been increasing exponentially for years, and few doubt that it… read more
Source: Rolling Stone — Feb 19, 2009 | David Kushner
Over the past four decades, Ray Kurzweil has established himself as one of the world’s most prolific and influential inventors. His specialty is pattern recognition — teaching machines to classify data and learn. He created the first program to enable computers to read text — the basis of modern scanning — as well as the first program to translate text into speech.… read more
Source: The Wall Street Journal — February 17, 2011 | Ray Kurzweil
Over the past three days,the TV show Jeopardy! featured a showdown between a clever IBM computer system called Watson and the two greatest Jeopardy! champions. Watson won handily. It won the preliminary practice round, tied Monday’s opening round, and won by large margins on Tuesday and Wednesday. The point has been made: Watson can compete at the championship level—and is making it more difficult for anyone to argue that there… read more
Source: SmartPlanet — November 19, 2012 | Reena Jana
What happens when non-biological implants in our bodies — along the lines of cochlear implants to improve hearing in the deaf — include brain-related devices that might enhance our memories? Will we still be “us”? Will we be more of a cyborg than we were if, say, we had another type of implant? And for those who believe we would not be, at what point do we… read more
Source: Motherboard — February 19, 2011 | Alex Pasternack, Sean Yeaton
Is anyone really surprised that IBM’s Watson won Jeopardy? Our guess is no, and that most people are still more impressed with Xbox Kinect or being able to watch Netflix on their iPhones. At any rate, a machine has exercised its power over two of Earth’s brightest humans and ultimately it sort of depends on how elastic your imagination is whether or not you think this kind of thing is terrifying… read more
Related:
Motherboard