Ray Kurzweil, Cyberprophet or Crack-Pot?

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

JoeStrout
Site Admin
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:40 pm
Location: Fort Collins, CO, USA
Contact:

Post by JoeStrout »

Jeff Peachman wrote:But if he is right about it being feasible, then I'm having trouble accepting that 'the masses' will allow the singularity to happen as he imagines it. If almost half the country is against abortion today, imagine the outcry over mind uploading!
Maybe, but I doubt it. Many people objected to heart transplants... but only briefly, because when it came right down to it, those given the choice preferred not to die. Uploading will be the same thing — there will be arguments and debates and opposition right up to the point where it is available; and then, people facing the choice will overwhelmingly ignore all that and choose not to die. (And the few Luddites who do prefer death to uploading will get their wish sooner or later — a self-correcting problem if there ever was one.)
This is a level of future shock that is going to blow people away. I don't think society will let it happen that quickly.
Well, most thinkers about the Singularity reason that, by its very nature, it happens so quickly that most people don't even realize it's imminent until it's already happened. Even ignoring the possibility of superhuman AI, already progress is made by billions of small advances in hundreds of different fields, such that nobody has a complete picture of how it all adds up (though this is what futurists attempt). And as you approach the Singularity, this total progress advances faster and faster, until things are changing so quickly that you can't predict what tomorrow will bring. (Though there are alternative visions of how it might play out, as nicely explored in a talk by Vernor Vinge.)

But even if many people find that disturbing, how are they going to stop it? Stop what, exactly? There won't be any one lab in particular causing the Singularity; it'll just be labs and universities and business going about their daily work as they've always done, just getting better and better at it (again as they always have). Who are you going to point to and say "stop that?"

Even mind uploading will not be a sudden event — it'll be a series of quite reasonable steps (see next post), until it can be applied to save the terminally ill or injured. And at that point, if someone were to say, "hey, I object to that procedure, I think you should die instead" — well, you can imagine how that will be received.

Best,
- Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

JoeStrout
Site Admin
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:40 pm
Location: Fort Collins, CO, USA
Contact:

Post by JoeStrout »

BSPhysics wrote:When will complete mind uploading occur? Technically speaking it already is. My ideas in this forum are being recorded indefinitely as I write.
No, technically speaking it is not, and recording of ideas has nothing to do with it. Mind uploading (still speaking technically) is the copying of a specific brain pattern into an emulator, resulting in a functional equivalent of the original. If you want to think of writing stuff down as some metaphorical shadow of mind uploading, I guess that's fine, but I'd prefer not to confuse things by diluting the terminology.
BSPhysics wrote:There will not be a sudden "uploading" moment when prior to there is zero capability and then, BAM, massive worldwide mind duplication. The public will gradually buy into this technology in baby steps until it matures to sci -fi capability.
Well, yes and no. Uploading is already being attempting in some neuroscience labs on the level of individual neurons or small networks of neurons, but it hardly qualifies, because the simulations are not (yet) functionally equivalent to the original. However, at the rate things are going, it looks like we'll have true uploading (of a handful of neurons in a dish) in a few years. That's not useful and won't make much news outside of neuroscience and tech circles. But the next step will be uploading complete circuits from real brains, and applying them to artificial devices — the visual system of a fly, the auditory system of a bat, the behavior circuits of ants or bees, etc., will all have applications in robotics (and probably elsewhere).

At the same time, neuroscience researchers will be pushing the envelope to model entire brains of small model animals, like rodents, not for any immediate market application but rather to explore pure science questions, like the nature of consciousness and disease. There will always be the concern that the animal results do not generalize will to humans, which will drive a push toward primates. These uploaded animals will be either run in entirely artificial environments inside of computers, or given robotic bodies, depending on the state of robotics technology.

At that point, it will become obvious to many that this technology could save countless lives, if it could be applied to humans. The media of the time will be running clips of some macaque that died a week ago, was disassembled and buried, and now lives on as a robo-macaque that recognizes its owners, plays with blocks, and hoards jelly beans exactly as it did before.

So that's when the general public will finally get involved, arguing for or against, but on the whole the push will be to polish off the last order of magnitude needed to upload human brains, and prove that it works.

And then, after this three or four decades of gradual progress, there really will be a clear moment for the history books — when the first human is uploaded. You can't partially upload somebody; you upload them, and they live, or you don't and they die. (Or you do it incorrectly, and they are mentally damaged, but that's still not the same as doing it partially.) So, somebody is going to be first, and some research lab is going to do it first. The decades of work before that will soon be forgotten as industry cranks into high gear, developing the capacity to keep up with all the millions of people who die every day.

Best,
- Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

djolds1
Posts: 1296
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:03 am

Post by djolds1 »

kurt9 wrote:I work in the semiconductor industry.

Conventional fabrication technology will reach its limits somewhere in the 10nm to 20nm design regime. Various materials and fabrication technologies are being developed so as to carry beyond the 10nm limit. Some of these include stuff like carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets, protein-based self-assembly molecular electronics. One or more of these technologies will come on line around 2020 and will reach the molecular level around 2030.

I believe the molecular limit (reached around 2030) represents an absolute limit for electronics. I do not see anyway of going beyond the molecular level (multiple bits per atom?) although I could be wrong. Thus, Moore's Law will end around 2030. The projections that Kurzweil makes beyond this point do not make much sense to me.
Can Quantum Computing or something else break past that, or are we brushing up against the Bremmerman Limit on "the maximum computational speed of a self-contained system in the material universe?"
kurt9 wrote:Sentient A.I. is another issue. We will soon have computers that exceed the computational capability of the human brain. We may already have them. However, their architecture is totally different from that of our brains. It is not clear if we will change the design of future computers to make them more like our brains. It is even less likely that there would be any benefit in doing so.
IMO Hawkins' "On Intelligence" is the best definition of AI to date. Raw computational and inferential trans-human intelligence (neocortex function) without emotive motivation/desire. No emotive motivation = no existential threat to human dominance. Of course, the idiot who builds an artificial hippocampus/reptile brain has just created a Skynet scenario.
kurt9 wrote:Kurzweil's other prediction concerns nanotech. I believe that "wet" nanotech (biotech, synthetic biology, etc.) is possible and will most certainly be developed. By "wet" nanotech, I mean a nanotechnology based on solution phase chemistry and recognizable principles of molecular biology. Kurzweil, on the other hand, believes in the possibility of "dry" nanotech, which is "machine phase chemistry carried out in vacuum environment. There is a researcher in the U.K. who has recently received funds to verify if this possible. I, personally, do not believe this is possible, although I would like to be proven wrong.
Might be possible. But per reports out of institutions like MIT and the National Labs, it does not appear that "dry" nanotech is something that will be available in the near term. It also appears that "purpose built" molecular scale tech will be produced by a relatively large capital plant, not on the fly redesigned items via cellular scale assemblers.

Duane
Vae Victis

djolds1
Posts: 1296
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:03 am

Post by djolds1 »

JoeStrout wrote:At the same time, neuroscience researchers will be pushing the envelope to model entire brains of small model animals, like rodents, not for any immediate market application but rather to explore pure science questions, like the nature of consciousness and disease. There will always be the concern that the animal results do not generalize will to humans, which will drive a push toward primates. These uploaded animals will be either run in entirely artificial environments inside of computers, or given robotic bodies, depending on the state of robotics technology.

At that point, it will become obvious to many that this technology could save countless lives, if it could be applied to humans. The media of the time will be running clips of some macaque that died a week ago, was disassembled and buried, and now lives on as a robo-macaque that recognizes its owners, plays with blocks, and hoards jelly beans exactly as it did before.
Agreed that knowledge in the neuroscience/neurotechnology field is poised to take off like a bat, if it hasn't already done so. One of the unstated potentials however is the ability to totally edit and/or rebuild an individual's personality. A totalitarian's fantasia, but also a guarantee that deviant criminals such as rapists can be rendered utterly safe, socially productive and nonviolent via "therapy." Of course, once proven effective on adult offenders, the question becomes why not apply these techniques preventatively to children, which brings us full circle to the totalitarian's conniptions of joy.

Duane
Vae Victis

TDPerk
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:55 pm
Location: Northern Shen. Valley, VA
Contact:

The Singularity

Post by TDPerk »

From the moment of realizing the nature of the character, reading Chalker, and hearing Kurzwiel speak of the Singularity--I've thought the future was a inevitably going to be more like Jack L. Chalker's dystopias then I was comfortable with.

Unless the first emotive AI is like Daniel K. Moran's "Ring."
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

Post by Betruger »

Of course, once proven effective on adult offenders, the question becomes why not apply these techniques preventatively to children, which brings us full circle to the totalitarian's conniptions of joy.
Let the kids choose for themselves.. Maybe with some buffer time like we have with legal drugs and sex today.

Jeff Peachman
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:47 pm

Post by Jeff Peachman »

If anyones interested, I'd like to recommend a pretty good sci-fi book that I read called The Golden Age by John Wright. Its set in a post-singularity solar system, which is why I felt it related to this thread.
- Jeff Peachman

gblaze42
Posts: 227
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:04 pm

Post by gblaze42 »

2edfe9 wrote:One of the most interesting arguments on the software side is that we don't have to understand how intelligence works. All we have to do is run a simulation of the human brain on a powerful enough computer. You don't have to understand something in order to copy it.

Ray K has published some estimates that medical imaging technology should by 2020 (i think that was the date) reach the point where they can image the brain in enough detail that we can produce such a simulation. The scans would give us the high level structure and topography, and we already have a pretty good picture of how neurons behave at the cellular level. Put those together, and wire the result into a virtual computer generated environment, and you <MIGHT> just have your mindseed.
Here's one thing, IMHO I do not believe intelligence, either Artificial or real is solely based on software or the brain. The only intelligence we know of, us, has a brain that is tightly connected to the environment by our senses. And our senses are tightly tied to our emotions. All of these together create our intelligence. The brain is the central hub for all the sensory inputs.

djolds1
Posts: 1296
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:03 am

Post by djolds1 »

Betruger wrote:
Of course, once proven effective on adult offenders, the question becomes why not apply these techniques preventatively to children, which brings us full circle to the totalitarian's conniptions of joy.
Let the kids choose for themselves.. Maybe with some buffer time like we have with legal drugs and sex today.
Not how "education policy" works.

Duane
Vae Victis

JoeStrout
Site Admin
Posts: 284
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:40 pm
Location: Fort Collins, CO, USA
Contact:

Post by JoeStrout »

gblaze42 wrote:Here's one thing, IMHO I do not believe intelligence, either Artificial or real is solely based on software or the brain. The only intelligence we know of, us, has a brain that is tightly connected to the environment by our senses. And our senses are tightly tied to our emotions. All of these together create our intelligence. The brain is the central hub for all the sensory inputs.
Sure, but artificial senses are easy. It's doing something intelligent with all that data that is hard.

Best,
- Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

JoeStrout wrote:
gblaze42 wrote:Here's one thing, IMHO I do not believe intelligence, either Artificial or real is solely based on software or the brain. The only intelligence we know of, us, has a brain that is tightly connected to the environment by our senses. And our senses are tightly tied to our emotions. All of these together create our intelligence. The brain is the central hub for all the sensory inputs.
Sure, but artificial senses are easy. It's doing something intelligent with all that data that is hard.

Best,
- Joe
Joe, you left out emotion which seems to be tied in to intelligence. People without emotion can't make decisions. It is in the literature.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

gblaze42
Posts: 227
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:04 pm

Post by gblaze42 »

JoeStrout wrote:
Sure, but artificial senses are easy. It's doing something intelligent with all that data that is hard.

Best,
- Joe
I agree, at the moment nothing comes close to the speed of how we sensory feedback loop that we (humans) have. This is still why i don't think we have the hardware speed we need.. For example look at the optical cortex, it has the processing speed alone of several teraflops.

gblaze42
Posts: 227
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:04 pm

Post by gblaze42 »

MSimon wrote:
Joe, you left out emotion which seems to be tied in to intelligence. People without emotion can't make decisions. It is in the literature.
My point exactly! My wife works with children with sensory integration issues (SID) and autism, both are directly tide to our senses and emotions. Their intelligence isn't in question but b ecuase of their issues they cannot learn as well or work as well as they could.

djolds1
Posts: 1296
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:03 am

Post by djolds1 »

gblaze42 wrote:
JoeStrout wrote:
Sure, but artificial senses are easy. It's doing something intelligent with all that data that is hard.

Best,
- Joe
I agree, at the moment nothing comes close to the speed of how we sensory feedback loop that we (humans) have. This is still why i don't think we have the hardware speed we need.. For example look at the optical cortex, it has the processing speed alone of several teraflops.
Actual AI is different than scifi imagines. It does not require emotional impetus as commonly described. It can easily function as pure intellect without any form of ambition.

Current hardware speed is more than good enough. The problem is architecture. The cortex and midbrain are simply not wired like high speed computer chips, and trying to shove cortex modeling programs through those chips is doing it the hard way around. Trying to shove "AI decision tree programs" through those chips is useless. Decision tree programs may be tolerable expert systems, but they will never be AI.

The brain is designed in a very generalized fashion. At best only 3000 genes control its design, far fewer than assumed in the pre-Venter "genes uber alles" period. Regions of cortex reliably functionalize because sensory nerves terminate there and those regions adapt to interpret those electrical signals. Regions interconnect via random "small world" degree of separation connections. If anything, the genes probably control the structure of the midbrain and hindbrain more than the cortex. Far less generalized than the cortex.

Raise a child in total darkness for its first few years and it will never see. Its brain is "trained up" lacking a visual center. No incoming electrical signals from the optic nerves and other regions take over those parts of the brain. They will never recover and become optic association areas. An artificial intelligence would need to be "trained up" as well. You don't get to mass produce them. But by giving it VERY different input senses the "world" it inhabits will be very different from our own.

Cortex "thinks" via analogy. We compare present experience to vague templates of past experience, and form judgments based on that. Thoroughly learned information becomes pared down, abstracted to the minimum possible template, and moved up through the cortical hierarchy, opening up the lower layers for fresh learning. This is why any child intelligence - canine, human, or AI, needs to grow up. Building the complex web of analogy associations and templates in the cortex, associations and templates that make up an adult mind, takes TIME.

Without the midbrain thalmus the cortex can make rich analogy associations based on constantly incoming sensory data, and output those analogy associations, but it does not have motivation or desire. It could however far surpass any human in its designed area of competence. For example, you could plug 100,000+ globally placed climate sensors into an artificial cortex to create CLIMIND (Climate Mind). After CLIMIND was trained up it could probably predict weather weeks to months out, and might be able to create actual long term climate predictions, not the politically motivated ones seen today.

But not giving AI emotional appetite would be wise. AI with it is an existential threat to the human species. I'm all in favor of capable tools. Becoming pets or vermin to SAI (Sapient AI) is another thing.

Duane
Last edited by djolds1 on Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Vae Victis

djolds1
Posts: 1296
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:03 am

Post by djolds1 »

gblaze42 wrote:
MSimon wrote:
Joe, you left out emotion which seems to be tied in to intelligence. People without emotion can't make decisions. It is in the literature.
My point exactly! My wife works with children with sensory integration issues (SID) and autism, both are directly tide to our senses and emotions. Their intelligence isn't in question but b ecuase of their issues they cannot learn as well or work as well as they could.
The social skills and ability to desire things above the basic (food, shelter, warmth) by the autistic are almost totally shot, but tasks of pure intellect are often mindblowing. I know one autistic man who has memorized the entire road map of the US. And he is not a savant. He gave me driving directions once, without a doubt the shortest and most direct route from my starting point to the destination. Downside was speed limits do not interest him. :) Much slower trip, as I learned.

Duane
Vae Victis

Post Reply