THE WORLDS GREATEST INVENTOR ?

[Rush Limbaugh]

This is the guy everyone else including Bill Gates bounces their new ideas off of. Any one else ever heard of him?

Ray Kurzweil: How technology's accelerating power will transform us

Ray Kurzweil Im watching him on tv now saying by 2029 we will be Human computer hybrids with all sort of tiny computers in our blood streams and that we will all be connected to the net and have all the knowledge of the world at our beck and call . He is even predicting we may become immortal. So far almost all of his predictions have come to pass right on schedule.

[Ky Colonel (not of KFC)]

Never heard of him, but he looks familiar. Sounds like humanity is on it's way to a transcendence. At least if our machines don't kill us first.

That would be kind of creepy to experience someone else's emotions though. I'm thinking The Matrix... But then there will always be people that would reject any sort of merger with machines that are capable of that kind of manipulation. So I don't think any great world wide conspiracy will be happening.

[Rush Limbaugh]

About time someone answered this thread. Its kind of spooky letting them put computers in your body? Who knows what they will put in there. Can they be trusted?

[Simetrical]

Ray Kurzweil is hardly the world's greatest inventor. He's apparently done no more than some AI programming, although I'm in no position to gauge its importance. Supposedly some of his predictions have come true, but people claim that about Nostradamus, too. He's kind of a crackpot, frankly.

[Rush Limbaugh]

He's apparently done no more than some AI programming, although I'm in no position to gauge its importance. Supposedly some of his predictions have come true, but people claim that about Nostradamus, too. He's kind of a crackpot, frankly.

Business 2.0 (January, 1999)
"Soul of a New Machine: Ray Kurzweil ranks as one of the most luminous minds in modern technology. Famous for such brain extenders as advanced speech-recognition systems, the first reading machine for the blind, and the first computer music keyboard capable of accurately reproducing the sounds of the grand piano, Kurzweil, 50, continues to push and create frontiers with The Age of Spiritual Machines (Viking, Jan. '99). The book is an ambitious blueprint for the future, mapping out the next century of technological evolution and exploring the moment when PCs will attain and then surpass the capabilities of the human brain." - James Daly

Forbes (November 30, 1998)
"Ray Kurzweil's book is a real stunner. He predicts that in the fairly near future people will be half-human, half-machine... Kurzweil, 50, is not just a dreamer. Over the past 25 years, he has built and sold four companies." - Daniel Lyons

unday Boston Globe Book Review Section (Cover Review on December 27, 1998)
"The machine of a new soul: Ray Kurzweil has a better record than most at foreseeing the digital future. His 1990 book, ''The Age of Intelligent Machines,'' anticipated with uncanny accuracy most of the key computer developments that unfolded during the '90s.

Kurzweil's credentials as computer guru are impeccable. He is inventor of the first commercially marketed speech-recognition system, the first computer music keyboard capable of accurately reproducing the sounds of real orchestra instruments, the first system that can recognize all forms of alphabetic characters, the first system for text-to-synthesized-speech, and other key developments in making machines behave more like us.

When his earlier book was published, Kurzweil's predictions seemed boldly futuristic, pushing the envelope of science fiction. But if anything, his prognostications were conservative...

In his new book, ''The Age of Spiritual Machines,'' Kurzweil now predicts that computers will pass the Turing test within 20 years, although the outcome of the test will for a time be controversial. Within 30 years he believes machines will claim to be conscious, and that these claims will be widely accepted. Further, he believes that late in the next century machines will far surpass human intelligence...

His predictions are based on a well-established trend and on a strategy for developing artificial intelligence... $1,000 worth of machine will achieve the computing power of the human brain by the year 2020, and exceed the computing power of all humans on the planet by 2060.

Kurzweil paints a tantalizing - and sometimes terrifying - portrait of a world where the line between humans and machines has become thoroughly blurred.

All of which challenges one of our most earnestly held beliefs, about the uniqueness and transcendence of the human soul.

Kurzweil's new book, like its predecessor, is a welcome challenge to beliefs we hold dear. Welcome, because we can shape the future only if we correctly anticipate where we are going. If we stumble into the future willy-nilly, guided only by economic forces, then the Age of Spiritual Machines is - in Kurzweil's view - inevitable, for better or worse.

And I happen to think that he is right." - Chet Raymo

[Simetrical]

Yes, he knows about computers. He's also a not-too-unsuccessful entrepreneur. Amazing. That doesn't make him the world's greatest inventor or anything close (I think I'd rank, say, Vint Cerf or Bob Kahn above him, in computing), and doesn't mean he's right about his more extravagant predictions. It also doesn't make him not a borderline nutjob. Richard Stallman is also a computer guru, but he's fairly nutty by most people's standards.

[roy34543]

Computer chips in our brain have already been tested about 2 years ago to move robotic arms and legs. Its a science advancing quite well

[Rush Limbaugh]

The whole thing is the expodential growth of computers. Its an amazing snow ball effect.

[christof139]

Archimedes or the black fellow that worked for Edison that I believe invented modern air conditioning.

Chris

[Rush Limbaugh]

This sint a quiz. I just said that to draw attention

Lets speak on the topic of computers being hybrid with humans as thats what he is saying is coming and indeed it is. But the to an extent I never imagined. Im going to have to read this book. It could lead to a fantastic science fiction novel or movie.

[Maverick]

What a crackpot, by 2029 I will have already conquered most of the world and under my regime all the best and brightest minds will concentrate their efforts exclusively on male enhancement.

Anyways, even if we do discover a way to extend life indefinitely as this guy suggests I still don't think there will be a cure for a good old fashioned decapitation, ala highlander. I also think we need to distinguish between "intelligence" and "computing power". I don't understand the theory behind a thinking computer but even if this is possible, how will the computer think? Like most people but with the totality of human experience at its disposal? He says computers will "far surpass human intelligence", does he mean the average human, who isn't very intelligent at all or the extraordinary human that is almost like a different species from the rest of us and can think abstractly and outside experience? So far computers are very good in contrived environments like industry or even playing chess but the real world is without rules and limitations--a different beast entirely and I just don't buy that computers will ever be intelligent, despite their computing power.

[Rush Limbaugh]

Remember this?

[christof139]

Can you have sex being a hybrid or being in a hybrid mode??

Chris

[Rush Limbaugh]

I guess you could just order up an erection and some computer will release some viagra

[christof139]

Intersting. Sounds like Barbarella or Lost in Space with a twist of the imagination or whatever.

Chris

[Rush Limbaugh]

Nasty girl youve broken the orgasmitron

[christof139]

Saw the movie once in Jr. High or thereabouts and once afterward, so I don't remember much, but I did watch the clip just now.

I think the first time saw it with my class I was oogling some girl and/or shooting spitballs or doing something or other unrelated to watching the long movie.

Chris

[Ky Colonel (not of KFC)]

Let's just make sure we don't give the new HAL a reason to kill us. Maybe we should give something to the emerging AI to do to keep itself occupied so it wont want to kill us. Maybe give it access to a life simulator like the Sims to see how it would treat humanity first, before we let it have access to large chunks of our own lives.

What I find most amazing about his claims though is the steady advancement of computers despite economic fluctuations. I would love to see someone apply a genetic algorithm to determine the perfect economy. Since computers are so smart let's see what they could come up with.

Going to go make a sacrifice to appease my Mac now.

[Mythos]

Let's just make sure we don't give the new HAL a reason to kill us. Maybe we should give something to the emerging AI to do to keep itself occupied so it wont want to kill us. Maybe give it access to a life simulator like the Sims to see how it would treat humanity first, before we let it have access to large chunks of our own lives.

Actually he makes the point that by that time the human-machine connection would be so strong and interwined that it will be a whole new species, therefore unlikely to lead in the destruction of either humans or machines.

[Rush Limbaugh]

Anyone here ever read the foundation series?