Slashdot | Interviews: Ask Ray Kurzweil about the future of mankind and technology
January 28, 2013
Source: Slashdot — January 28, 2013
The recipient of nineteen honorary doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents, Ray Kurzweil’s accolades are almost too many to list. A prolific inventor, Kurzweil created the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, and the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments.
His book, The Singularity Is Near, was a New York Times best seller. and is considered one of the best books about futurism and transhumanism ever written.
Mr. Kurzweil was hired by Google in December as Director of Engineering to “work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing.” He has agreed to take a short break from creating and predicting the future in order to answer your questions.
Comments (17)
by Cybernettr
Mr. Kurzweil, You have predicted that in 10 – 15 years we will be adding one year to the average lifespan for every year that passes. This puts this event some time in the 2020′s.
My question is, what will the world look like in the years immediately before this happens? Aubrey De Grey has said that he hopes that by this time the general public will at least realize that this is about to happen.
Will this be achieved by conquering major diseases like cancer and heart disease, or will it come about more gradually by just adding more time to the average lifespan in general through overall better health? What diseases do you see as being conquered first?
by Harvey Lane
Hi Ray,
You were recently interviewed in the January issue of Musician’s Friend. At one point, during the discussion of computer generated art, you said that by the year 2029, computers would be able to match the human capacity to convey emotion. With all due respect, I think you are wrong. Conveying emotion means that the conveyor (human or computer) has the ability to communicate the emotion felt by the conveyor to an observer or listener. Emotion, by definition, requires consciousness to exist.
Computers can certainly mimic human logic. That’s what programming is. We don’t really understand what consciousness is, but it is highly unlikely that it can be spontaneously generated by increasingly complex electrical pathways. Consciousness is a qualitatively different thing and no amount of computer evolution will ever lead to a conscious machine. The best a computer will be able to do is to evoke emotions in an observer or listener. This is not that difficult and is already being done. Research into which combinations of stimuli cause particular human emotional reactions can be incorporated into programming by which the computer can produce a “work of art” which will evoke specific emotions in the observer/listener. This is not the conveyance of emotion because that emotion does not originate in the computer. It is only the back end of the process.
Respectfully,
Harvey Lane
by freddy bausley
what are your predictions for thought controlled computing like interaxon’s MUSE? any objective social impacts of this technology in the near future
by freddy bausley
what are your predictions for thought controlled computing like interaxon’s MUSE? any objective social impacts of this technology in the near future?
by Sultan
What are your thoughts on How should the government handle the coming world of abundance (in terms of basic human needs) in the next coming decades?
by Gabriel
Dear Ray
Although I share your optimism for the future, I feel not enough is being said about the societal impacts that will increasingly follow; the job issues, while a big dilemma now, is only one…what can low-skilled workers do when robotics take away work? and when the niche of creative output, or whatever work that humans can still do, increasingly becomes smaller? One could argue that we move into a resource-based economy or a type of new system that reflects the new changes happening around us, but this is easier said then done. I know you have your views that we will augment and merge with machines, but it seems that such changes won’t happen for decades, and people need food to eat right now.
It’s not just that, there is more…not to long ago, their was a chain mail spread around about a mandatory implant that would be a part of Obamacare…it was obviously a hoax, but on a deeper level, it made me think about what it would be like when the man/machine divide becomes more and more blurred – when people with very rigid worldviews find these technological advances completely impeding and going against their views. An overwhelming number of people in this country subscribe to the belief that the earth is less then ten thousand years old, and while they are free to do so, it raises questions of how that be contended when advances appear that go against everything they believe in. If such a fuss can be drawn over this little chip, how will people react when greater technological advances appear?
I’m aware these are many questions, but I feel the message is the same: what can more can be done to alleviate the economic and societal changes happening right now and yet to come? I feel their simply is an overwhelming amount of people who, besides being unable to adapt, simply are not aware of what is going on and this is a real issue. It seems like we are in the middle of a period of transition which will be ongoing with bigger and bigger implications, and the period of adaptation to what is happening will grow even smaller. It seems like proactive education and public awareness is what needs to be done in order to help alleviate these issues, but the government doesn’t seem to be reacting all that much.
by Whittaker
What is the most productive thing to do for the unemployed people (in the 20s) in order to contribute to Singularity?
by Bri
I’m having trouble conceptualizing how humans will be able to compete with AI and robotics. You have on many occasions stated that we will upgrade our mental capabilities and retain upper level high paying jobs. There are so many reasons that I feel that would fail. Just the fact that we need leisure time would put us at a competitive disadvantage. Can you flesh out in greater detail how you envision this transformation? In my eyes this is the most pressing challenge that we as a society face. In the span of a couple of decades, robots and AI could render obsolete the jobs base that feeds consumerism.
by Adriana Petersen
Is biological teleportation a real possibility and if so, when do you estimate this would happen by?
by Matthew J Price
Ray, I’m concerned about the gap between when employment reaches dangerously low levels (early 20s) and the time when technological abundance makes income unnecessary (mid 30s). With dramaticallly fewer jobs available/required due to robotics and AI, what policy would you suggest to compensate for that?
by Whittaker
We need many “civilization arks/vaults” that can survive the possible coming World War of the 2020s, when technology-caused unemployment spark massive unrests and war.
Preferably these vaults are electronically connected so AI research may go on during the dark age.
The Lifeboat Foundation have some itneresting ideas, but their website look a little bit pretentious.
by Ed Shields
Will we be able to leverage the massive distributed resources of the internet to create a revolutionary AI?
by Whittaker
We already have that. Cyc (a very early project) and OpenCog (ran by Ben Goertzel, also a contributor on this website) are great projects to participate.
by Editor
… or a way to block a dangerous revolutionary AI?
by ZeitGeistMovement
Hello Ray. Have you heard the term “Resorce Based Economy” which is an open source system for everything and system where there is no ownership,competition,money,politics,governments,armies,wars,territories and all of the other atavisms left to us from our troubled ancestors.and competition, a system where everythings is shared and where everyone has “Free Access” to all of the life sustaining resources such as Food,Shelter,,Transportation,Energy,Education,Medicine,Information etc. Rather than todays “Monetary Based system” where every person Must Earn his living to life and a system where selected few so called “Elites” and Wealthy,Powerful have conspired to control and play this “Monetary Game” as they wish. Do you agree that todays Monetary System is making us miserable and keeping us fighting and competing with each other rather than collaborating to Solve todays million problems such as Earning a living,food,shelter,Medicine? Have u also heard about The Zeitgeist Movement and its goals of Informing all of us the Absolute Necessity to transit into Resource Based Economy? Here is the website to know more: http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
by Spencer Cooley
How will longer life spans affect population growth patterns?
by Americo Guerra Biffi
What can we do to accelerate this process governments for the benefit of people who have less?
Thanks.