The goal of reverse-engineering the brain is the same as for any other biological or nonbiological system – to understand its principles of operation. We can then implement these methods using other substrates other than a biochemical system that sends messages at speeds that are a million times slower than contemporary electronics. The goal of engineering is to leverage and focus the powers of principles of operation that are understood, just as we have leveraged the power of Bernoulli’s principle to create the entire world of aviation.
As for the time frame, some of my critics claim that I underestimate the complexity of the problem. I have studied these issues for over four decades, so I believe I have a good appreciation for the level of challenge. What I would say is that my critics underestimate the power of the exponential growth of information technology.
Halfway through the genome project, the project’s original critics were still going strong, pointing out that we were halfway through the 15 year project and only 1 percent of the genome had been identified. The project was declared a failure by many skeptics at this point. But the project had been doubling in price-performance and capacity every year, and at one percent it was only seven doublings (at one year per doubling) away from completion. It was indeed completed seven years later. Similarly, my projection of a worldwide communication network tying together tens and ultimately hundreds of millions of people, emerging in the mid to late 1990s, was scoffed at in the 1980s, when the entire U.S. Defense Budget could only tie together a few thousand scientists with the ARPANET. But it happened as I predicted, and again this resulted from the power of exponential growth.
Linear thinking about the future is hardwired into our brains. Linear predictions of the future were quite sufficient when our brains were evolving. At that time, our most pressing problem was figuring out where that animal running after us was going to be in 20 seconds. Linear projections worked quite well thousands of years ago and became hardwired. But exponential growth is the reality of information technology.
We’ve seen smooth exponential growth in the price-performance and capacity of computing devices since the 1890 U.S. census, in the capacity of wireless data networks for over 100 years, and in biological technologies since before the genome project. There are dozens of other examples. This exponential progress applies to every aspect of the effort to reverse-engineer the brain.
Kurzweil knows nothing about how the brain works. It’s design is not encoded in the genome: what’s in the genome is a collection of molecular tools wrapped up in bits of conditional logic, the regulatory part of the genome, that makes cells responsive to interactions with a complex environment. The brain unfolds during development, by means of essential cell:cell interactions, of which we understand only a tiny fraction. The end result is a brain that is much, much more than simply the sum of the nucleotides that encode a few thousand proteins. He has to simulate all of development from his codebase in order to generate a brain simulator, and he isn’t even aware of the magnitude of that problem. We cannot derive the brain from the protein sequences underlying it; the sequences are insufficient, as well, because the nature of their expression is dependent on the environment and the history of a few hundred billion cells, each plugging along interdependently. We haven’t even solved the sequence-to-protein-folding problem, which is an essential first step to executing Kurzweil’s clueless algorithm. And we have absolutely no way to calculate in principle all the possible interactions and functions of a single protein with the tens of thousands of other proteins in the cell! Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain ☀
Fifteen years ago, you had to be wealthy to have a mobile phone. When somebody took out a mobile phone at a movie, that was a signal that this person was powerful and a member of the wealthy elite. They actually didn’t work very well. It took 10 years to put up the first billion cell phones, and three years to put up the second billion, and 14 months to put up the third billion. We’re now at 5 billion cell phones for 6 billion people. A third of the individuals in Africa have cell phones. According to industry projections that they will all be smart phones within two or three years. So everybody in the world is going to have access to the Internet from these extremely inexpensive mobile devices. The reason for that is that the law of accelerating returns applies approximately a 50 percent deflation rate for information technology. It’s true of every form of information technology, whether it’s genetic data, DNA, brain data, bits of computing, bits of memory, bits of communication. Every year the cost comes down by about half. Ultimately, by the time these technologies work well, they’re extremely inexpensive. Ray Kurzweil ☀
Ever since we picked up and fashioned a stick to reach a higher branch, we have always used our tools to extend our reach, first physically and now mentally. The computer in my pocket makes me smarter in that I can access virtually all of human knowledge with a few keystrokes. As we master the software of human intelligence, and put intelligent computers in our bodies and brains to make us more durable and more intelligent, this will be a continuation of this trend to extend our reach with our tools. It is not an alien invasion of intelligent machines from outer space; it is something our civilization is creating to extend ourselves. That is what is unique about human beings: We change ourselves to overcome limitations. In my view, we will transcend our biology and its limitations but we will remain human because changing ourselves is what being human is all about. Movies tend to emphasize the dystopian implications of technology, but the reality is that technology is a double-edged sword, intertwining both promise and peril. Overall we are better off. It is only the exponential growing power of information technology that will provide the scale to address the major challenges of humanity such as cleaning up the environment, providing energy, water, food and housing for a growing biological population, overcoming poverty, providing high-quality education, and so on. We need to reap these benefits while we manage the perils. The best thing one can do to prepare him or herself is to find out where you have talent and where you have passion, because every field has something to contribute. Ray Kurzweil ☀
There’s Amazon.com’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iPad and a bevy of iPad and Kindle clones. Still, Ray Kurzweil, the famed inventor, thinks people deserve yet another option when it comes to reading books and magazines with an electronic device.
And so, Mr. Kurzweil presents Blio, a software package that can run on everything from PCs to hand-held devices. It displays colorful images and varying fonts with formatting similar to what people find in physical texts.
The Blio free software should become more widely available to consumers over the next two months, Mr. Kurzweil said, as large PC makers and retailers like Walmart begin to offer it on their own devices.
“Walmart is very excited,” Mr. Kurzweil said. (Melissa O’Brien, Walmart spokeswoman, said, “We speak to manufacturers and suppliers all the time regarding new products, so as a general rule we simply do not comment on speculation about what may be coming to Walmart or Walmart products until plans are absolute.”)
Mr. Kurzweil argued that the existing e-readers and tablets have limitations in the text formats they support and the way they handle the original images and layouts in printed texts. Blio preservers the original formatting, making it particularly attractive to publishers of things like cookbooks, how-to guides, schoolbooks, travel guides and children’s books.
As far back as the 1950s, John von Neumann, the mathematician, is said to have talked about a “singularity” — an event in which the always-accelerating pace of technology would alter the course of human affairs. And, in 1993, Vernor Vinge, a science fiction writer, computer scientist and math professor, wrote a research paper called “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.”
“Within 30 years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence,” Mr. Vinge wrote. “Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”
In “The Singularity Is Near,” Mr. Kurzweil posits that technological progress in this century will be 1,000 times greater than that of the last century. He writes about humans trumping biology by filling their bodies with nanoscale creatures that can repair cells and by allowing their minds to tap into super-intelligent computers.
Mr. Kurzweil writes: “Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in the human brain (this has already started with computerized neural implants), the machine intelligence in our brains will grow exponentially (as it has been doing all along), at least doubling in power each year.
“Ultimately, the entire universe will become saturated with our intelligence,” he continues. “This is the destiny of the universe.”
The underlying premise of the Singularity responds to people’s insecurity about the speed of social and technological change in the computer era. Mr. Kurzweil posits that the computer and the Internet have changed society much faster than electricity, phones or television, and that the next great leap will occur when industries like medicine and energy start moving at the same exponential pace as I.T.
He believes that this latter stage will occur when we learn to manipulate DNA more effectively and arrange atoms and have readily available computers that surpass the human brain.
In 1970, well before the era of nanobot doctors, Mr. Kurzweil’s father, Fredric, died of a heart attack at his home in Queens. Fredric was 58, and Ray was 22. Since then, Mr. Kurzweil has filled a storage space with his father’s effects — photographs, letters, bills and newspaper clippings. In a world where computers and humans merge, Mr. Kurzweil expects that these documents can be combined with memories harvested from his own brain, and then possibly with Fredric’s DNA, to effect a partial resurrection of his father.
By the 2030s, most people will be able to achieve mental immortality by similarly backing up their brains, Mr. Kurzweil predicts, as the Singularity starts to come into full flower.
Ray Kurzweil, a prolific inventor who is best known for his prediction that machine intelligence will surpass that of humans around 2045, still has a few things to offer carbon-based life forms. Kurzweil has introduced new e-reader software, called Blio, that approaches e-reading from a completely different angle than the current E Ink-based devices like the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Reader.
Blio is not a device. Rather, it is a “platform” that could run on any device, but would be most obviously at home on a tablet. The software is free and available currently for PCs, iPod Touch and iPhone.
No, the software is not available currently for PCs, iPod Touch and iPhone. A simple internet search (and App Store search) doesn’t even bring up a product home page. And the article is bereft of original source linkage.
This is a fine example of why mainstream journalism is now in #epicfail mode. Serving up PR hype for vaporware, or at best, potentially useful software. Nothing but pure puffery and shameless shilling.
Scientist Ray Kurzweil claims humans could become immortal in as little as 20 years’ time through nanotechnology and an increased understanding of how the body works.
Lyons dismisses my accurate prediction (written in the mid to late 1980s) of a world web of computing and communications ubiquitously tying together people with each other and with vast information resources. He writes “But hold on a minute. Who didn’t think the Internet was going to catch on?” The answer is virtually everyone. I wrote this when the entire U.S. defense budget could only tie together a few thousand scientists with the Arpanet. My prediction was considered very radical at the time that I made it just as many of my predictions are regarded today. It is typical that when my predictions become true, people write that they were always obvious. Ray Kurzweil ☀
Kurzweil’s most ambitious plan for life after the Singularity, however, is also his most personal: Using technology, he plans to bring his dead father back to life. Kurzweil reveals this to me near the end of our conversation. It’s a bright, clear afternoon, and we can see the river that runs behind the trees outside his wide office windows. The portrait of his father looks down over him. In a soft voice, he explains how the resurrection will work. “We can find some of his DNA around his grave site - that’s a lot of information right there,” he says. “The AI will send down some nanobots and get some bone or teeth and extract some DNA and put it all together. Then they’Il get some information from my brain and anyone else who still remembers him.”
When I ask how exactly they’Il extract the knowledge from his brain, Kurzweil bristles, as if the answer should be obvious: “Just send nanobots into my brain and reconstruct my recollections and memories.” The machines will capture everything: the piggyback ride to a grocery store, the bedtime reading of Tom Swift, the moment he and his father rejoiced when the letter of acceptance from MIT arrived. To provide the nanobots with even more information, Kurzweil is safeguarding the boxes of his dad’s mementos, so the artificial intelligence has as much data as possibie from which to reconstruct him. Father 2.0 could take many forms, he says, from a virtual reality avatar to a fully functioning robot.
Ultimately artificial intelligence is going to be able to do everything humans do… [It] will operate at the best human levels and do so tirelessly but… there’s in fact a larger number of jobs today than there was 100 years ago and they pay eight times as much in constant currency as a century ago and they’re more complex and actually more satisfying - and we’ve also invested a lot more in education as a result… So these trends are going to continue, work is going to become more and more intellectual. I’d say that already half the population contributes to creating information or intellectual content of one kind or another - none of these jobs existed 50 years ago. Ray Kurzweil ☀
Are you depressed by the prospect of dying? Well, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy will keep rising every year faster than you’re aging. And then, before the century is even half over, you can be around for the Singularity, that revolutionary transition when humans and/or machines start evolving into immortal beings with ever-improving software. Futurist Ray Kurzweil Sees a Revolution Fueled by Information Technology ☀
Ultimate invention: Virtual displays using devices in our eyeglasses that beam images directly to the retina. Prototypes of these already exist. So my vision of computing and communicating in the future includes retina-mounted devices that can create stationary virtual displays even as we move our heads, and full-immersion visual-auditory virtual reality and augmented real reality. We’ll be online all the time with very high-bandwidth wireless communication. Computing and communication will be a self-organizing mesh of nodes, so if you need a million computers for a second, it will be available to you. We’ll live in a blend of real and virtual reality, and it won’t always be clear where one stops and the other begins. Ray Kurzweil ☀
An Interview with Newsweek's Steven Levy ☀
- UBIQUITY: What is your next book going to be about?
- LEVY: Well, I haven't really figured that one out yet. There's a couple ideas I'm exploring, since I haven't committed to any of them I'm really not ready to talk about them.
- UBIQUITY: Why don't you do one on Ray Kurzweil and his group?
- LEVY: Interesting. I mean, I've met him a few times and he's a fascinating guy. Well, maybe if Ray helps me live forever, I'll certainly get around to doing a book about him.
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