in printfrom | FuturismRay Kurzweil claims the singularity will happen by 2045.
January 1, 2022
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publication: Futurism
story title: Ray Kurzweil claims the singularity will happen by 2045
deck: Get ready for humanity 2.0
date: October 2017
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the STORY
Ray Kurzweil’s predictions.
Ray Kurzweil, a director of engineering at Google, is a well known futurist with a high-hitting track record for accurate predictions. Of his 147 predictions since the 1990s, Kurzweil claims an 86 percent accuracy rate. Recently he made yet another prediction: the technological singularity will happen sometime in the next 30 years.
Kurzweil said:
The year 2029 is the consistent date I’ve predicted, when an artificial intelligence will pass a valid Turing test — achieving human levels of intelligence. I have also set the year 2045 for singularity — which is when humans will multiply our effective intelligence a billion fold, by merging with the intelligence we have created. By 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence.
Singularity is that point in time when all advances in technology — particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) — will lead to machines that are smarter than human beings.
Kurzweil’s time-table for the singularity is consistent with other predictions. Notably those of Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who predicts that the dawn of super-intelligent machines will happen by 2047. But for Kurzweil, the process towards this singularity has already begun.
Kurzweil said:
That leads to computers having human intelligence, humans putting them inside our brains, connecting them to the cloud, expanding who we are. Today, that’s not just a future scenario. It’s partly here, and it’s going to accelerate.
Ultimately, it will affect everything. We’re going to be able to meet the physical needs of all humans. We’re going to expand our minds and exemplify these artistic qualities that we value.
Kurzweil predicts that during the 2030s some tech will be invented that can go inside your brain and help your memory. He says it will be a future of unparalleled human-machine synthesis.
To fear or not to fear?
Should humanity fear the singularity? Everyone knows that when machines become smarter than human beings, they tend to take over the world. Right? Many of the world’s science + tech bigwigs — like Stephen Hawking PhD, Elon Musk, and even Bill Gates — warn about this kind of future.
Kurzweil doesn’t think so. In fact, he isn’t worried. What science fiction depicts as singularity — when AI enslaves humanity — is fiction, he says. ‘That’s not realistic,’ he said. He says singularity is an opportunity for humans to improve.
Kurzweil said:
What’s actually happening is machines are powering all of us. They’re making us smarter. They may not yet be inside our bodies — but by the 2030s we will connect our neo-cortex, the part of our brain where we do our thinking, to the cloud.
We’re going to get more neo-cortex, we’re going to be funnier, we’re going to be better at music, we’re going to be sexier. We’re really going to exemplify all the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.
He envisions the same tech that will make AIs more intelligent — will give humans a boost as well. This idea is similar to Elon Musk’s controversial ‘neural lace’ — and to X Prize Foundation chairman Peter Diamandis’ meta-intelligence concept. Kurzweil expounded on how this tech could improve human lives.
To those who view this cybernetic society as more fantasy than future, Kurzweil points out that there are people with computers in their brains today — Parkinson’s patients. That’s how cybernetics is just getting its foot in the door, he said.
And — because it’s the nature of tech to improve — Kurzweil predicts that during the 2030s some tech will be invented that can go inside your brain and help your memory. He believes it will be a future of unparalleled human-machine synthesis.
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for reference
from: Wikipedia
profile | Alan Turing
profile | Bill Gates
profile | Elon Musk
profile | Masayoshi Son
profile | Neuralink
profile | Parkinson’s disease
profile | Peter Diamandis MD
profile | SoftBank
profile | Steven Hawking PhD
profile | Turing test
profile | X Prize
select reading
1. |
publication: Futurism
story title: Softbank CEO: The singularity will happen by 2047
deck: So, what do we do then?
read | story
2. |
publication: Futurism
story title: Singularity: explain it to me like I’m 5 years-old
deck: Here’s how to understand the merger of humans + robots.
read | story
3. |
publication: Futurism
story title: Musk is preparing to release ‘brain hacking’ tech — and he’s not alone
deck: Get ready for the next age of humanity.
read | story
4. |
publication: Futurism
story title: Peter Diamandis thinks we’re evolving toward meta-intelligence
deck: Over the next 30 years.
read | read
5. |
publication: Futurism
story title: Are we already living in the age of the cyborg?
deck: Your neighbor could already be part cyborg.
read | story
— notes —
AI = artificial intelligence