About this title: Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, the author of THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES, provocatively argues that we are rapidly approaching the Singularity, a point in history in which advances in artificial intelligence, brain scanning, and nanotechnology will blur the division between humans and machines. When we are no longer limited by our current ...
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Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780670033843ISBN:0670033847
Description: Very Good+ with no dust jacket. 0670033847. No dust jacket. Minor hint of shelf wear, else a perfect copy. Text is clean; binding tight. Evolution. Pasadena's finest independent new and used bookstore.; 2.2 x 9.3 x 6.5 Inches; 672 pages. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: GERALD DUCKWORTH & CO LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780715635612ISBN:0715635611
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 683 pages. (683 pages) examines the next step in the evolutionary process of the union of human and machine. this title offers a view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny. 67 tables and graphs (Paperback) read more
Description: Very Good. 0670033847 light shelf wear / edge wear cover / pages very good condition//"Buy with Confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Customer Service Makes All the Difference. " read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 9/22/2005
ISBN-13:9780670033843ISBN:0670033847
Description: Very Good. 0670033847 Pages are not marked-We provide prompt shipping and delivery tracking information-All items are guaranteed. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Viking Adult
Date Published: 2005-09-22
ISBN-13:9780670033843ISBN:0670033847
Description: Very Good Text. Very Good-Dust Jacket. Very good hardcover with very good-dust jacket. DJ is price-clipped. Text, boards, and binding in very good condition. Shelfwear is very light. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780143037880ISBN:0143037889
Description: New. In his latest, thrilling foray into the future, a great inventor and futurist envisions an event--the "singularity"--in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that human bodies and brains will merge with machines. read more
"Pretty exciting and somewhat enlightening to know what the science community is going for. Basically, computers are accelerating at their rate of advance that within the next few decades we'll be able to create an intelligence bigger than human intelligence. Once we do that, the singularity is here, because that intelligence will be a non-biological (or bio mixed with non-bio) and will also be capable of creating a more intelligent being than itself, and the process will keep happening and at a very fast rate that machines will suddenly be getting MUCH MUCH MUCH more intelligent very quickly. The author's view is that humans will merge with this intelligence so that machines will be human - maybe even more human than even we are.
Those are the author's views, not mine. I see a much bigger possibility, where people seem more godly but never attain godliness."
"I haven't taken the time to study the critical reaction to this book. My intuition is the public (the few who bother to think about the Singularity at all) are probably split into a couple of dozen factions:
1) Kurzweil is loony 2) Kurzweil is visionary 3) Kurzweil is smart, but wrong 4) Kurzweil is supplanting God 5) Kurzweil is scary etc. etc. etc.
I'm unable to offer a practical assessment of any of the technologies Kurzweil ticks off in the first 400 pages of Singularity - genetics, nanotechnology, robotics (for simplicity GNR). I think it's risky to ascribe a high degree of authority to his (in my perception) 'lay' assessment of the state of neuroscience, string theory, molecular physics, etc. He's a smart guy, but really should not try to get down to brass tacks on the current state of all human thought. That's a mistake English teachers are supposed to beat out of you in Junior High.
I suppose we could just take Kurzweil at his word and accept his premise that all the developments he cites are credible evidence of the increasing pace of technological advancement. Alternatively, we could forget the first 400 pages of speculation in Singularity and focus on his broader thesis. I'd summarize it thusly:
1. Evolution produces increasing complexity 2. Technological development is the extension of biological evolution. 3. Technology is evolving at an ever increasing rate. 4. Humans will transcend biological limitations as a result of the rapid technological evolution occuring in the next 20-30 years. 5. By the end of this century, super-human intelligence will have permeated the universe, which is (in fact) a giant computer waiting to be harnessed by us.
As I read the Singularity, I recalled Joseph Campbell's Four Functions of Mythology. The Singularity is probably bigger than this deconstruction - but it's late and I'm bored so I'll offer one perspective on Kurzweil's work through the lense of Joseph Campbell (apologies to whichever website I swipped the bullet headings from):
Campbell: 1) Metaphysical Function of Mythology - to awaken us to the mystery and wonder of creation
Kurzweil: Where some see a divine hand, others see our own hands --namely, the anthropic principle, which holds that only in a universe that allowed our own evolution would we be here to ask such questions.
Campbell: 2) Cosmological Function of Mythology is to describe the "shape" of the cosmos, the universe, our total world, so that the cosmos and all contained within it become vivid and alive for us, infused with meaning and significance
Kurzweil - We can trace our origins to a state that represents information in its basic structures: patterns of matter and energy. Recent theories of quantum gravity hold that time and space are broken down into discrete quanta, essentially fragments of information. There is conroversy as to whether matter and energy are ultimately digital or analog in nature...
Kurzweil - To gain some further insight into the nature of complexity, consider the complexity of a rock. If we were to characterize all of the properties (precise location, angular momentum, spin, velocity, and so on) of every atom in the rock, we would have a vast amount of information.
Campbell: 3) Sociological Function of Mythology is to pass down "the law," the moral and ethical codes for people of that culture to follow, and which help define that culture and its prevailing social structure
Kurzweil - The issue of who or what is conscious and the nature of subjective experiences of others are fundamental to our concepts of ethics, moraility, and law...my point is that we cannot safely dismiss the question of consciousness as merely a polite philosophical concern. It is at the core of society's legal and moral foundation. The debate will change when a machine --nonbiological intelligence - can persuasively argue on its own that it/he/she has feelings that need to be respected.
Campbell: 4) Pedagogical Function of Mythology is to lead us through particular rites of passage that define the various significant stages of our lives-from dependency to maturity to old age, and finally, to our deaths, the final passage
Kurzweil - A primary role of traditional religion is deathist rationalization - that is, rationalizing the tragedy of death as good thing...the explosion of art, science, and other forms of knowledge that the Signularity will bring will make life...truly meaningful.
I seek to deconstruct Kurzweil using Campbell's functions of mythology not to diminish the importance of his work, or suggest that on the basic points Kurzweil is wrong, but merely to posit that Kurzweil is creating his own mythology for the 21st Century, with his own gods and priests, and rituals. Mythology is metaphor, Campbell reminds us. Kurzweil's mythology is a metaphor for control over one's own ultimate destiny - death itself. It's an interesting dream, but a dream and a myth all the same.
Unfortunately, I can't leave it there becuase I think Kurzweil presents some risks for today's thinkers that deserve some special attention:
1) By investing our faith in a near-term (Kurzweil thinks 20 years from now) technological event horizon, we rationalize and put aside the suffering experienced today by millions due to war, famine, starvation, disease.
2) Surrendering to the irresitable progress of technology without thinking critically about its implications because technology advancement is something we can't control (it's something that just happens to us)
3) Casting aside social institutions developed over the millenia because they're inconvenient, outmoded, limiting - without working to understand and preserve the aspects of those institutions that continue to elevate and inspite human beings.
The central challenge, as I think about technological advancement in general, is for modern societies to develop institutions capable of wrestling with the kinds of questions new technological advancements will inevitably raise. If Kurzweil only gets ten pecent right, the moral, ethical, and legal dillemas brought about by new technologies will still require the adaptable insights of traditional cultural, political, religious, economic, and academic institutions. We should all be concerned that these institutions are prepared for the challenges tomorrow will bring - individuals, alone and unaided, will react to Kurzweil's technological revolution irrationally - out of fear, anxiety, self-interest, anger, and frustration (and many important progressive advancements will be discarded as a result while others may be accepted at great risk). We need these institutions to guide technologists and the societies they serve through the core judgments about which technology to embrace and which to put aside."
"The singularity is a technological phenomenon when computers become smart enough to start designing and building themselves. In short, a computer would design a better computer, which would design an even better computer and continue on ad infitum. This book explores the basis for this idea and the implications. Technology begets more complicated technological advances. The basis is pretty straight forward, the timeline he puts forward for the "singularity" (20 years) may be optimistic but the implications are the most interesting. Ray Kurzweil is a futurist and it is interesting to hear his take on things. It changed my perspective on the growth of technology."
(If you loved "Future Shock", and "The Celestine Prophecy" changed your life, this is the book for you)
But, wait! All those 5-star reviews gotta count for something, right? Well, let's take a look.
"We will have the requisite hardware to emulate human intelligence with supercomputers by the end of this decade."
Really, Ray. How's that coming along? You've still got a year, two if we're charitable. But, even despite the spectacular vagueness of the claim, things are hardly looking good.
"For information technologies, there is a second level of exponential growth: that is, exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth".
A breathtakingly audacious claim. Without a scintilla of evidence provided to justify it. Graphs where the future has been conveniently 'filled in' according to the author's highly selective worldview do not count as evidence, and are nothing more than an embarrassment. But then, most of the graphs in this book do not bear up under close scrutiny - their function is more cartoon-like. Even Kurzweil's more apparently reasonable claim - that of exponential growth at a constant rate - rests on a pretty selective framing of the question and interpretation of existing data.
"Two machines - or one million machines - can join together to become one and then become separate again. Multiple machines can do both at the same time: become one and separate simultaneously. Humans call this falling in love, but our biological ability to do this is fleeting and unreliable."
Say what now?
From a technical standpoint, as far as biotechnology is concerned (which is the area I am most competent to judge), there's hardly a statement that Kurzweil makes that is not either laughably naive or grossly inaccurate. Assuming that, indeed, drug delivery via nanobots and the engineering of replacement tissue/organs will at some point become reality, Kurzweil's estimate of the relevant timeframe is ludicrously optimistic. A relevant example is the 20 years it took to derive clinical benefit from monoclonal antibodies -- the rate-limiting steps had little to do with computational complexity. So the notion that, in the future, completely real biological, physiological, and ethical constraints will simply melt under the blaze of increased computing power is fundamentally misguided.
From a statistical point of view, things are no great shakes either. His account of biological modeling is such a ridiculous oversimplification it defies credulity. I'd elaborate, but frankly, the whole sorry mess is just starting to irritate me.
Given the density of meaningless, unsubstantiated, and demonstrably false statements in the first few chapters, it's hard to see the point in continuing. If one actually reads carefully what he's saying, and assumes that he is assigning standard, agreed-upon, meaning to the words he uses, then several possible reactions seem warranted:
* that sinking feeling that one inhabits a universe that is completely orthogonal to those who gave this a 5-star rating * heightened skepticism and aversion to Kool-Aid * bemusement at the gap between Kurzweil's perception of reality and one's own - in particular, the evident moral vacuum in which he "operates", as well as apparent ignorance or indifference to the lot of the vast majority of the planet's inhabitants * wonder at the sheer monomaniacal gall of the man
Grandiose predictions of the future, the more outlandish the better, appear to have an undiminished appeal for Homo sapiens. For the life of me, I have never been able to figure out why."
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