Raymond Kurzweil ( KURZ-wyle ; born February 12, 1948 ) is an american inventor and futuristic. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition ( OCR ), text-to-speech synthesis, manner of speaking recognition engineering, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence ( AI ), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public preach for the fantast and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic expectation on animation extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology. Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States ‘ highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. He was the recipient role of the $ 500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for 2001. He was elected a penis of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for the lotion of engineering to improve human-machine communication. In 2002 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has received 21 honorary doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents. The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS ) included Kurzweil as one of 16 “ revolutionaries who made America ” along with other inventors of the by two centuries. Inc. magazine ranked him # 8 among the “ most intrigue ” entrepreneurs in the United States and called him “ Edison ‘s true successor ” .
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Life, inventions, and business career [edit ]
early life [edit ]
Kurzweil grew up in the New York City borough of Queens. He attended NYC Public Education Kingsbury Elementary School PS188. He was born to secular jewish parents who had emigrated from Austria fair before the attack of World War II. He was exposed via unitarian Universalism to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] His unitarian church had the philosophy of many paths to the truth – his religious education consisted of studying a single religion for six months before moving on to the adjacent. [ 3 ] His don, Fredric, was a concert pianist, a celebrated conductor, and a music educator. His mother, Hannah was a ocular artist. He has one sibling, his sister Enid.
Reading: Ray Kurzweil
Kurzweil decided he wanted to be an inventor at the senesce of five. [ 4 ] As a young son, Kurzweil had an stock of parts from assorted structure toys he had been given and old electronic gadgets he ‘d collected from neighbors. In his youth, Kurzweil was an avid proofreader of science fiction literature. At the long time of eight, nine, and ten, he read the entire Tom Swift Jr. series. At the age of seven or eight, he built a robotic puppet field and automatic game. He was involved with computers by the historic period of 12 ( in 1960 ), when merely a twelve computers existed in all of New York City, and built computing devices and statistical programs for the harbinger of Head Start. [ 5 ] At the long time of fourteen, Kurzweil wrote a wallpaper detailing his hypothesis of the neopallium. [ 6 ] His parents were involved with the arts, and he is quoted in the documentary Transcendent Man [ 7 ] as saying that the family constantly produced discussions about the future and technology. Kurzweil attended Martin Van Buren High School. During class, he often held onto his class textbooks to seemingly participate, but rather, focused on his own projects which were hidden behind the ledger. His uncle, an engineer at Bell Labs, taught young Kurzweil the basics of computer skill. [ 8 ] In 1963, at age 15, he wrote his first computer program. [ 9 ] He created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical music composers, and then synthesized its own songs in exchangeable styles. In 1965, he was invited to appear on the CBS television program I’ve Got a Secret, [ 10 ] where he performed a piano patch that was composed by a computer he besides had built. [ 11 ] Later that year, he won inaugural prize in the International Science Fair for the invention ; [ 12 ] Kurzweil ‘s meekness to Westinghouse Talent Search of his first computer broadcast alongside several other projects resulted in him being one of its national winners, which allowed him to be personally congratulated by President Lyndon B. Johnson during a White House ceremony. These activities jointly shanghai upon Kurzweil the belief that about any problem could be overcome. [ 13 ] While in high school, Kurzweil had corresponded with Marvin Minsky and was invited to visit him at MIT, which he did. Kurzweil besides visited Frank Rosenblatt at Cornell. [ 14 ] He obtained a B.S. in computer skill and literature in 1970 at MIT. He went to MIT to study with Marvin Minsky. He took all of the computer programming courses ( eight or nine ) offered at MIT in the first class and a half. In 1968, during his sophomore class at MIT, Kurzweil started a company that used a computer plan to match high school students with colleges. The program, called the Select College Consulting Program, was designed by him and compared thousands of different criteria about each college with questionnaire answers submitted by each scholar applicant. Around this time, he sold the company to Harcourt, Brace & World for $ 100,000 ( roughly $ 748,000 in 2020 dollars ) plus royalties. [ 15 ] In 1974, Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. and led development of the first omni-font optical character recognition system, a calculator program capable of recognizing text written in any convention font. Before that time, scanners had lone been able to read text written in a few fonts. He decided that the best application of this technology would be to create a read car, which would allow blind people to understand written text by having a computer read it to them aloud. however, this device required the invention of two enabling technologies—the CCD flatbed scanner and the text-to-speech synthesist. Development of these technologies was completed at other institutions such as Bell Labs, and on January 13, 1976, the finished product was unveil during a news league headed by him and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind. Called the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the device covered an entire tabletop. Kurzweil ‘s following major clientele guess began in 1978, when Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial translation of the optical character recognition calculator plan. LexisNexis was one of the first customers, and bought the broadcast to upload newspaper legal and newsworthiness documents onto its nascent on-line databases. Kurzweil sold his Kurzweil Computer Products to Xerox, where it was known as Xerox Imaging Systems, later known as Scansoft, and he functioned as a adviser for Xerox until 1995. In 1999, Visioneer, Inc. acquired ScanSoft from Xerox to form a newly populace company with ScanSoft as the new company-wide name. Scansoft merged with Nuance Communications in 2005. Kurzweil ‘s following business venture was in the kingdom of electronic music technology. After a 1982 meet with Stevie Wonder, in which the latter lamented the separate in capabilities and qualities between electronic synthesizers and traditional musical instruments, Kurzweil was inspired to create a modern genesis of music synthesizers adequate to of accurately duplicating the sounds of real number instruments. Kurzweil Music Systems was founded in the like year, and in 1984, the Kurzweil K250 was unveiled. The machine was adequate to of imitating a number of instruments, and in tests musicians were unable to discern the difference between the Kurzweil K250 on piano mode from a normal grand piano. [ 16 ] The record and mixing abilities of the machine, coupled with its abilities to imitate different instruments, made it possible for a single user to compose and play an integral orchestral firearm. Kurzweil Music Systems was sold to south korean musical instrumental role manufacturer Young Chang in 1990. As with Xerox, Kurzweil remained as a adviser for respective years. Hyundai acquired Young Chang in 2006 and in January 2007 appointed Raymond Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems. [ 17 ]
subsequently life [edit ]
coincident with Kurzweil Music Systems, Kurzweil created the company Kurzweil Applied Intelligence ( KAI ) to develop calculator address recognition systems for commercial function. The first merchandise, which debuted in 1987, was an early speech recognition program. Kurzweil started Kurzweil Educational Systems ( KESI ) in 1996 to develop new pattern-recognition-based computer technologies to help people with disabilities such as blindness, dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorderliness ( ADHD ) in school. Products include the Kurzweil 1000 text-to-speech converter software platform, which enables a calculator to read electronic and scanned text loudly to blind or visually mar users, and the Kurzweil 3000 plan, which is a many-sided electronic learning system that helps with recitation, write, and study skills. Kurzweil sold KESI to Lernout & Hauspie. Following the legal and bankruptcy problems of the latter, he and other KESI employees purchased the ship’s company back. KESI was finally sold to Cambium Learning Group, Inc .
During the 1990s, Kurzweil founded the Medical Learning Company. [ 18 ] In 1997, Ray Kurzweil was the electric chair of the dining table of Anthrocon. In 1999, Kurzweil created a hedge fund called “ FatKat ” ( Financial Accelerating Transactions from Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies ), which began trading in 2006. He has stated that the ultimate target is to improve the performance of FatKat ‘s A.I. investing software plan, enhancing its ability to recognize patterns in “ currentness fluctuations and stock-ownership trends. ” [ 19 ] He predicted in his 1999 bible, The Age of Spiritual Machines, that computers will one day prove superior to the best human fiscal minds at making profitable investing decisions. In June 2005, Kurzweil introduced the “ Kurzweil-National federation of the Blind Reader ” ( K-NFB Reader ) —a minor device consist of a digital television camera and calculator whole. Like the Kurzweil Reading Machine of about 30 years earlier, the K-NFB Reader is designed to aid blind people by reading written text aloud. The newer machine is portable and scans text through digital television camera images, while the older machine is big and scans text through flatbed scanning. In December 2012, Kurzweil was hired by Google in a full-time position to “ work on new projects involving machine memorize and language process ”. [ 20 ] He was personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page. [ 21 ] Larry Page and Kurzweil agreed on a one-sentence job description : “ to bring natural speech understanding to Google ”. [ 22 ] He received a Technical Grammy on February 8, 2015, specifically for his invention of the Kurzweil K250. [ 23 ] Kurzweil has joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of his declare death, Kurzweil plans to be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to repair his tissues and revive him. [ 24 ]
personal liveliness [edit ]
Kurzweil is agnostic about the being of a soul. [ 25 ] On the possibility of divine intelligence, Kurzweil has said, “ Does God exist ? I would say, ‘Not however. ‘ ” [ 26 ] Kurzweil married Sonya Rosenwald Kurzweil in 1975 and has two children. [ 27 ] Sonya Kurzweil is a psychologist in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts, working with women, children, parents and families. She holds staff appointments at Harvard Medical School and William James College for Graduate Education in Psychology. Her research interests and publications are in the area of psychotherapy practice. Kurzweil besides serves as an active overseer at Boston Children ‘s Museum. [ 28 ] He has a son, Ethan Kurzweil, who is a venture capitalist, [ 29 ] and a daughter, Amy Kurzweil, a cartoonist. [ 30 ] [ 31 ]
creative approach [edit ]
Kurzweil said “ I realize that most inventions fail not because the R & D department can ’ t get them to work, but because the time is wrong—not all of the enable factors are at play where they are needed. Inventing is a draw like surfing : you have to anticipate and catch the wave at barely the right here and now. ” [ 32 ] [ 33 ] For the past several decades, Kurzweil ‘s most effective and common approach to doing creative work has been conducted during his limpid dreamlike express which immediately precedes his awakening state. He claims to have constructed inventions, solved difficult problems, such as algorithmic, business scheme, organizational, and interpersonal problems, and written speeches in this state. [ 14 ]
Books [edit ]
Kurzweil ‘s beginning book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, was published in 1990. The nonfiction workplace discusses the history of calculator artificial intelligence ( AI ) and forecasts future developments. other experts in the field of AI contribute heavily to the shape in the form of essays. The Association of American Publishers awarded it the status of Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990. [ 34 ] In 1993, Kurzweil published a book on nutriment called The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life. The book ‘s main estimate is that eminent levels of fatness inhalation are the induce of many health disorders park in the U.S., and thus that cutting fat consumption down to 10 % of the full calories consumed would be optimum for most people. In 1999, Kurzweil published The Age of Spiritual Machines, which promote elucidates his theories regarding the future of technology, which themselves stem from his analysis of long-run trends in biological and technological evolution. much stress is on the probably path of AI development, along with the future of calculator architecture. Kurzweil ‘s future book, published in 2004, returned to homo health and nutriment. Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever was co-authored by Terry Grossman, a medical doctor and specialist in alternate medicine. The Singularity Is Near, published in 2005, was made into a movie starring Pauley Perrette from NCIS. In February 2007, Ptolemaic Productions acquired the rights to The Singularity Is Near, The Age of Spiritual Machines, and Fantastic Voyage, including the rights to film Kurzweil ‘s biography and ideas for the documentary film Transcendent Man, [ 7 ] which was directed by Barry Ptolemy. Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, [ 35 ] a follow-up to Fantastic Voyage, was released on April 28, 2009. Kurzweil ‘s book How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, was released on Nov. 13, 2012. [ 36 ] In it Kurzweil describes his form Recognition Theory of Mind, the theory that the neopallium is a hierarchical system of pattern recognizers, and argues that emulating this computer architecture in machines could lead to an artificial superintelligence. [ 37 ] Kurzweil ‘s latest book and foremost fabrication novel, Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, follows a daughter who uses her intelligence and the aid of her friends to tackle real-world problems. It follows a structure akin to the scientific method acting. Chapters are organized as year-by-year episodes from Danielle ‘s childhood and adolescence. [ 38 ] The record comes with companion materials, A Chronicle of Ideas, and How You Can Be a Danielle that provide real-world context. The book was released in April 2019. [ 39 ] In an article on his web site kurzweilai.net, Ray Kurzweil announced his new record The Singularity Is Nearer for spill in 2022. [ 40 ]
Movies [edit ]
In 2010, Kurzweil wrote and co-produced a movie directed by Anthony Waller called The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future, which was based in contribution on his 2005 record The Singularity Is Near. Part fiction, share non-fiction, the film blends interviews with 20 big thinkers ( such as Marvin Minsky ) with a narrative history that illustrates some of his key ideas, including a computer embodiment ( Ramona ) who saves the world from self-replicating microscopic robots. In addition to his movie, an autonomous, feature-length documentary was made about Kurzweil, his life, and his ideas, called Transcendent Man. [ 7 ] In 2010, an mugwump objective film called Plug & Pray premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival, in which Kurzweil and one of his major critics, the late Joseph Weizenbaum, argue about the benefits of ageless life. [ 41 ] The feature-length documentary film The Singularity by independent film maker Doug Wolens ( released at the goal of 2012 ), showcasing Kurzweil, has been acclaimed as “ a large-scale accomplishment in its documentation of futuristic and counter-futurist ideas ” and “ the best documentary on the Singularity to date. ” [ 42 ]
Views [edit ]
The Law of Accelerating Returns [edit ]
In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil proposed “ The Law of Accelerating Returns ”, according to which the rate of change in a broad diverseness of evolutionary systems ( including the growth of technologies ) tends to increase exponentially. [ 43 ] He gave further stress to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled “ The Law of Accelerating Returns ”, which proposed an extension of Moore ‘s jurisprudence to a wide kind of technologies, and used this to argue in prefer of John von Neumann ‘s concept of a technological singularity. [ 44 ]
stance on the future of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics [edit ]
Kurzweil was working with the Army Science Board in 2006 to develop a rapid reply system to deal with the possible mistreat of biotechnology. He suggested that the same technologies that are empowering us to reprogram biology away from cancer and heart disease could be used by a bioterrorist to reprogram a biological virus to be more deadly, catching, and furtive. however, he suggests that we have the scientific tools to successfully defend against these attacks, similar to the way we defend against calculator software viruses. He has testified before Congress on the subject of nanotechnology, advocating that nanotechnology has the likely to solve serious ball-shaped problems such as poverty, disease, and climate change. “ Nanotech Could Give Global Warming a Big Chill ”. [ 45 ]
In media appearances, Kurzweil has stressed the extreme electric potential dangers of nanotechnology [ 11 ] but argues that in practice, build up can not be stopped because that would require a totalitarian system, and any attack to do then would drive dangerous technologies underground and deprive responsible scientists of the tools needed for defense. He suggests that the proper position of rule is to ensure that technical advance proceeds safely and promptly, but does not deprive the global of profound benefits. He stated, “ To avoid dangers such as delirious nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest precedence on the continuing boost of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulative summons, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temp moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of familiarity, tolerance, and respect for cognition and diverseness. ” [ 46 ]
Health and aging [edit ]
Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early shape of type II diabetes ( a major risk factor for heart disease ). Kurzweil then found a doctor ( Terry Grossman, M.D. ) who shares his somewhat unconventional belief to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, bolshevik wine, and diverse early methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil was ingesting “ 250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea “ every day and drink several glasses of red wine a workweek in an feat to “ reprogram ” his biochemistry. [ 47 ] By 2008, he had reduced the count of append pills to 150. [ 25 ] By 2015 Kurzweil further reduced his casual pill regimen down to 100 pills. [ 48 ] Kurzweil asserts that in the future, everyone will live everlastingly. [ 49 ] In a 2013 interview, he said that in 15 years, medical engineering could add more than a year to one ‘s remaining biography anticipation for each year that passes, and we could then “ outrun our own deaths ”. Among other things, he has supported the SENS Research Foundation ‘s approach to finding a way to repair aging damage, and has encouraged the general public to hasten their research by donating. [ 22 ] [ 50 ]
promote futurism and transhumanism [edit ]
Kurzweil ‘s stand as a futurist and transhumanist has led to his involvement in several singularity-themed organizations. In December 2004, Kurzweil joined the advisory dining table of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. [ 51 ] In October 2005, Kurzweil joined the scientific advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation. [ 52 ] On May 13, 2006, Kurzweil was the first speaker at the Singularity Summit at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. [ 53 ] In May 2013, Kurzweil was the keynote speaker at the 2013 go of the Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment ( RISE ) external conference in Seoul. In February 2009, Kurzweil, in collaboration with Google and the NASA Ames Research Center, announced the creation of the Singularity University aim center for corporate executives and government officials. The University ‘s self-described mission is to “ assemble, educate and inspire a cell of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the exploitation of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity ‘s grand piano challenges ”. Using Vernor Vinge ‘s Singularity concept as a foundation, the university offered its first nine-week graduate program to 40 students in 2009 .
Predictions [edit ]
past predictions [edit ]
Kurzweil ‘s first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines, presents his ideas about the future. Written from 1986 to 1989, it was published in 1990. Building on Ithiel de Sola Pool ‘s “ Technologies of Freedom ” ( 1983 ), Kurzweil claims to have forecast the profligacy of the Soviet Union due to new technologies such as cellular phones and fax machines disempowering authoritarian governments by removing state control over the flow of data. [ 54 ] In the book, Kurzweil besides extrapolates trends in improving computer chess software performance, predicting that computers would beat the best human players “ by the class 2000 ”. [ 55 ] In May 1997, IBM ‘s Deep Blue computer defeated chess World Champion Garry Kasparov in a well-publicized chess match. [ 56 ] possibly most significantly, Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet function that began in the 1990s. At the time when The Age of Intelligent Machines was published, there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the global, [ 57 ] and the culture medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and insufficient in content. He besides stated that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in contented adenine well, finally granting users access “ to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services ”. additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly envision that the preferable mode of Internet access would inescapably be through radio systems, and he was besides right to estimate that this exploitation would become hardheaded for widespread use in the early on twenty-first hundred. In October 2010, Kurzweil released his report, “ How My Predictions Are Faring ” in PDF format, [ 58 ] analyzing the predictions he made in his bible The Age of Intelligent Machines ( 1990 ), The Age of Spiritual Machines ( 1999 ) and The Singularity is Near ( 2005 ). Of the 147 predictions, Kurzweil claimed that 115 were “ wholly correct ”, 12 were “ basically decline ”, 17 were “ partially correct ”, and only 3 were “ wrong ”. Combining the “ entirely ” and “ basically ” decline, Kurzweil ‘s claim accuracy pace comes to 86 %. Daniel Lyons, writing in Newsweek cartridge holder, criticized Kurzweil for some of his predictions that turned out to be incorrectly, such as the economy continuing to boom from the 1998 dot-com through 2009, a US company having a market capitalization of more than $ 1 trillion by 2009, a supercomputer achieving 20 petaflops, manner of speaking recognition being in far-flung manipulation and cars that would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways ; all by 2009. [ 59 ] To the bang that a 20 petaflop supercomputer was not produced in the fourth dimension he predicted, Kurzweil responded that he considers Google a giant supercomputer, and that it is indeed capable of 20 petaflops. [ 59 ] Forbes magazine claimed that Kurzweil ‘s predictions for 2009 were by and large inaccurate. For example, Kurzweil predicted, “ The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition. ” This was not the case. [ 60 ]
future predictions [edit ]
In 1999, Kurzweil published a moment bible titled The Age of Spiritual Machines, which goes into more depth explaining his futurist ideas. In it, he states that with radical life extension will come group life enhancement. He says he is confident that within 10 years we will have the option to spend some of our time in 3D virtual environments that appear fair deoxyadenosine monophosphate real as very reality, but these will not so far be made possible via send interaction with our anxious system. He believes that 20 to 25 years from now, we will have millions of blood-cell sized devices, known as nanobots, inside our bodies fighting diseases, and improving our memory and cognitive abilities. Kurzweil claims that a machine will pass the Turing screen by 2029. Kurzweil states that humans will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological intelligence that becomes increasingly dominated by its non-biological component. [ citation needed ] In Transcendent Man Kurzweil states “ We humans are going to start linking with each other and become a metaconnection ; we will all be connected and omnipresent, plugged into a global network that is connected to billions of people and filled with data. ” [ 7 ] In 2008, Kurzweil said in an expert panel in the National Academy of Engineering that solar power will scale up to produce all the department of energy needs of Earth ‘s people in 20 years. According to Kurzweil, we only need to capture 1 separate in 10,000 of the department of energy from the Sun that hits Earth ‘s open to meet all of world ‘s energy needs. [ 61 ]
reception [edit ]
praise [edit ]
Kurzweil was called “ the ultimate think machine ” by Forbes [ 62 ] and a “ restless brilliance ” [ 63 ] by The Wall Street Journal. PBS included Kurzweil as one of 16 “ revolutionaries who made America ” [ 64 ] along with other inventors of the past two centuries. Inc. magazine ranked him Number 8 among the “ most fascinate ” entrepreneurs in the US and called him “ Edison ‘s rightful successor ”. [ 65 ]
criticism [edit ]
Although technological singularity is a popular concept in skill fiction, some authors such as Neal Stephenson [ 66 ] and Bruce Sterling have voiced agnosticism about its real-world plausibility. greatest expressed his views on the singularity scenario in a talk at the Long now Foundation entitled The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole. [ 67 ] [ 68 ] other outstanding AI thinkers and computer scientists such as Daniel Dennett, [ 69 ] Rodney Brooks, [ 70 ] David Gelernter [ 71 ] and Paul Allen [ 72 ] have besides criticized Kurzweil ‘s projections. In the covering article of the December 2010 offspring of IEEE Spectrum, John Rennie criticizes Kurzweil for several predictions that failed to become manifest by the primitively predicted date. “ Therein lie the frustrations of Kurzweil ‘s sword of technical school punditry. On close examen, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or deepness. And most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable. ” [ 73 ] Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, agrees with Kurzweil ‘s timeline of future build up, but thinks that technologies such as AI, nanotechnology and gain biotechnology will create a dystopian world. [ 74 ] Mitch Kapor, the fall through of Lotus Development Corporation, has called the notion of a technical singularity “ intelligent design for the IQ 140 people … This suggestion that we ‘re heading to this point at which everything is going to be barely unimaginably different—it ‘s basically, in my view, driven by a religious caprice. And all of the frantic arm-waving ca n’t obscure that fact for me. ” [ 19 ] Some critics have argued more powerfully against Kurzweil and his ideas. cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter has said of Kurzweil ‘s and Hans Moravec ‘s books : “ It ‘s an cozy mix of rubbish and good ideas, and it ‘s identical hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people ; they ‘re not stupid. ” [ 75 ] Biologist P.Z. Myers has criticized Kurzweil ‘s predictions as being based on “ New Age spirituality ” quite than science and says that Kurzweil does not understand basic biology. [ 76 ] [ 77 ] VR pioneer Jaron Lanier has even described Kurzweil ‘s ideas as “ cybernetic absolutism ” and has outlined his views on the culture surrounding Kurzweil ‘s predictions in an essay for edge.org entitled One Half of a Manifesto. [ 42 ] [ 78 ] Physicist and fantast Theodore Modis claims that Kurzweil ‘s dissertation of a “ technical singularity ” lacks scientific cogency. [ 79 ] british philosopher John Gray argues that contemporary science is what magic was for ancient civilizations. It gives a sense of hope for those who are will to do about anything in decree to achieve endless life. He quotes Kurzweil ‘s Singularity as another example of a course which has about always been deliver in the history of world. [ 80 ] The Brain Makers, a history of artificial intelligence written in 1994 by HP Newquist, noted that “ Born with the same endow for self-promotion that was a character trait of people like P.T. Barnum and Ed Feigenbaum, Kurzweil had no problems talking up his technical foul art … Ray Kurzweil was not noted for his understatement. ” [ 81 ] In a 2015 newspaper, William D. Nordhaus of Yale University takes an economic look at the impacts of an impend technological singularity. He comments, “ There is unusually little writing on Singularity in the mod macroeconomic literature. ” [ 82 ] Nordhaus supposes that the Singularity could arise from either the demand or issue side of a market economy, but for information engineering to proceed at the kind of pace Kurzweil suggests, there would have to be significant productiveness trade-offs. namely, in order to devote more resources to producing extremely computers we must decrease our production of non-information engineering goods. Using a variety show of econometric methods, Nordhaus runs six supply-side tests and one demand-side screen to track the macroeconomic viability of such steep rises in data engineering output signal. Of the seven tests only two indicated that a Singularity was economically possible and both predicted at least 100 years before it would occur .
Awards and honors [edit ]
bibliography [edit ]
fabrication [edit ]
- Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine (2019)
See besides [edit ]
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