Information age to "Hybrid Age"

[Crazy Eddie]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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I don't think any kind of utopia is particularly imaginative.

Fantasy is often imaginative, even if it can never be real. Scifi writers play with FTL travel and forehead aliens too, and both of those are just as likely as a post-singularity utopia.

In any case, even if we were to consider a Singularity-based civilization a utopia, that came out of the imagination of one person, or perhaps a handful of people. Those individuals get the credit for being imaginative. The thousands of others who blindly parrot it as inevitable, however, do not.

Fair point.

[sojourner]

The thing about the Singularity is, I don't even particularly not believe something like that could happen. I just think that -

A) It will take place much further in the future than is worth worrying about.
B) It will cause just as many problems as it solves.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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Fantasy is often imaginative, even if it can never be real.

Not necessarily.

This Singularity nonsense and "Ancient Aliens" both fail imaginatively in a similar way. The believers in ancient astronauts understand so little about history and archaeology that they cannot imagine how "primitive" people could be as inventive and creative as they were. The Singularity evangelists see the world constantly and rapidly changing and they can't imagine this as an ongoing process over long periods of time into the future with no fixed end result, so they do what those filled with anxiety and doubt about the future have always done: they resort to apocalyptic thinking.

Kurzweil doesn't want to die. Guess what - very few people do. Denial takes many forms.

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

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The thing about the Singularity is, I don't even particularly not believe something like that could happen. I just think that -

A) It will take place much further in the future than is worth worrying about.
B) It will cause just as many problems as it solves.

I think this is the key to the change in paradigm...EVERYONE thinks things will advance slowly but surely over time OR disaster and we'll destroy ourselves. This misses the actual facts we can learn from history and the present...what we normally perceive in our limited way is not what is actually happening...this is where the implications for a more rapid accelerated change come into play.

Even if a Singularity creates a society that is post scarcity and and extremely advanced, I'd always hesitate to use the word "utopia". Would it be more positive than most people think, yes my opinion is it would be. If you ask for perfection, even if you could define it I'd have to say no.

RAMA

[RAMA]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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Not necessarily.

This Singularity nonsense and "Ancient Aliens" both fail imaginatively in a similar way. The believers in ancient astronauts understand so little about history and archaeology that they cannot imagine how "primitive" people could be as inventive and creative as they were. The Singularity evangelists see the world constantly and rapidly changing and they can't imagine this as an ongoing process over long periods of time into the future with no fixed end result, so they do what those filled with anxiety and doubt about the future have always done: they resort to apocalyptic thinking.

Kurzweil doesn't want to die. Guess what - very few people do. Denial takes many forms.

As usual I think you preconceptions are way off, or generally inaccurate.

"Singularity" type predictions pre-date Kurzweil. Kurzweil popularized it because of his resume' and convincing work, as well as accurate predictions. A Singularity event does not need human-like behavior from an AI but human level AI although that is likely to happen also. A Singularity event does not need Kurzweil to tell us it will take place in his lifetime. We have math for that. Marovec already predicted an AI "event" well before Kurzweil's recent popularity.

Ancient astronauts: Not an iota of proof. Singularity: based on science and mathematical models. Still a possibility (or probability) but a good one with many extent technologies in development. They are not even remotely related.

For the 1000th time, a Singularity does not have to be a dystopia or apocalypse.

RAMA

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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I think this is the key to the change in paradigm...EVERYONE thinks things will advance slowly but surely over time OR disaster and we'll destroy ourselves.

First of all, people think this because even a cursory look at history shows this is exactly what has always happened throughout history. The advent of the bronze age saw an explosion in metallurgical technology and military, social, political and architectural innovations made possible by new tools, weapons, techniques and infrastructure. Yet after an initial burst of innovation lasting some 300 years, further progress slowed to a crawl and new innovations became either subtle variations on what had been done before, or novel uses of old technology in slightly new ways, hundreds of years after the fact. The same thing happened in Iron Age, and again in the age of sail. Arguably it is also true of the mini-paradigm surrounding the invention of gunpowder and firearms, but these too are subject to larger patterns like the Industrial Era, of which the computer revolution is just one small part.

Second of all, you keep using the word "paradigm" or "paradigm shift" incorrectly. It isn't a magic word for "Change I'd like to see," but describes an existing set of patterns and conventions that most people adhere to. The CURRENT paradigm is industrialization and computerization. Were that paradigm to shift, all the industrial and scientific effort that goes into industrial uses for computers and software would be directed in an entirely different direction.

Even if a Singularity creates a society that is post scarcity and and extremely advanced, I'd always hesitate to use the word "utopia".

Good, because the singularity -- if it happens at all -- is unlikely to create anything of the kind.

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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Kurzweil popularized it because of his resume' and convincing work, as well as accurate predictions.

Kurzweil's predictions were many things, but accurate is not one of them.

Marovec already predicted an AI "event" well before Kurzweil's recent popularity.

And Marovec, IIRC, predicted it would occur some time in the mid 1990s; he was ALSO wrong, because like Kurzweil, he utterly failed to take into account the fact that technology is developed by PEOPLE, and that its development can be constrained, slowed, or halted altogether by the same kinds of liabilities facing the people who develop them.

For the 1000th time, a Singularity does not have to be a dystopia or apocalypse.

Strictly speaking, a dystopia and an apocalypse are two different things. Christians believe that the apocalypse will bring about the millennial reign of Christ and heaven on Earth for all mankind. Singularitans believe something similar about the reign of AI.

[RAMA]

newtype_alpha wrote:

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Kurzweil's predictions were many things, but accurate is not one of them.

And Marovec, IIRC, predicted it would occur some time in the mid 1990s; he was ALSO wrong, because like Kurzweil, he utterly failed to take into account the fact that technology is developed by PEOPLE, and that its development can be constrained, slowed, or halted altogether by the same kinds of liabilities facing the people who develop them.

Strictly speaking, a dystopia and an apocalypse are two different things. Christians believe that the apocalypse will bring about the millennial reign of Christ and heaven on Earth for all mankind. Singularitans believe something similar about the reign of AI.

Almost everything you wrote is innacurate actually. I can certainly cite proof, but I think you could find the facts yourself at this point.

RAMA

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

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Almost everything you wrote is innacurate actually. I can certainly cite proof

No, you certainly cannot.

I wasn't going to do this, but let's get straight to the point:

From "The Age of Intelligent Machines"
Early 2000s

• Translating telephones allow people to speak to each other in different languages. - FAIL: Technology undeveloped
• Machines designed to transcribe speech into computer text allow deaf people to understand spoken words. - PARTIAL FAIL: Market never materialized
• Exoskeletal, robotic leg prostheses allow the paraplegic to walk. - FAIL: Still experimental in 2012
• Telephone calls are routinely screened by intelligent answering machines that ask questions to determine the call's nature and priority. - FAIL: Technology developed in 2010s and is only used by call centers.
• "Cybernetic chauffeurs" can drive cars for humans and can be retrofitted into existing cars. They work by communicating with other vehicles and with sensors embedded along the roads. - EPIC FAIL
• The classroom is dominated by computers. Intelligent courseware that can tailor itself to each student by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. Media technology allows students to manipulate and interact with virtual depictions of the systems and personalities they are studying. - FAIL
• A small number of highly skilled people dominates the entire production sector. Tailoring of products for individuals is common. - FAIL
• Drugs are designed and tested in simulations that mimic the human body. - FAIL
• Blind people navigate and read text using machines that can visually recognize features of their environment. - FAIL
• PCs are capable of answering queries by accessing information wirelessly via the Internet. - PARTIAL WIN, see SIRI.

2020–2050

• Phone calls entail three-dimensional holographic images of both people. - IMMANENT FAIL: Video chat isn't even that popular.
• By 2020, there will be a new World government. - IMMANENT EPIC FAIL

To be fair, that was Kurzweil in 1990, projecting on trends that seemed obvious in the late 1980s. Surely he learned and wisened a bit with his old age, so he should be more accurate with his 1999 predictions... right?

In "The Age of Spiritual Machines", Kurzweil predicts that by 2009:

• Most books will be read on screens rather than paper. - FAIL: Not even half
• Most text will be created using speech recognition technology. - FAIL
• Intelligent roads and driverless cars will be in use, mostly on highways. - EPIC FAIL
• People use personal computers the size of rings, pins, credit cards and books. - PARTIAL FAIL: some tablets are the size of books
• Personal worn computers provide monitoring of body functions, automated identity and directions for navigation. - PARTIAL FAIL: Smartphones do this, but are not "wearable computers"
• Cables are disappearing. Computer peripheries use wireless communication. - PARTIAL FAIL: Wireless devices exist alongside wired ones.
  
• People can talk to their computer to give commands. - PARTIAL FAIL: People CAN, but nobody wants to
• Computer displays built into eyeglasses for augmented reality are used. - FAIL
• Computers can recognize their owner's face from a picture or video. - FAIL
• Three-dimensional chips are commonly used. - FAIL
• Sound producing speakers are being replaced with very small chip-based devices that can place high resolution sound anywhere in three-dimensional space. - FAIL
• A 1000 dollar pc can perform about a trillion calculations per second. - FAIL: most high-end PCs currently peak at around 20 billion
• There is increasing interest in massively parallel neural nets, genetic algorithms and other forms of "chaotic" or complexity theory computing. - UNSURPRISING FAIL
• Research has been initiated on reverse engineering the brain through both destructive and non-invasive scans. - FAIL
• Autonomous nanoengineered machines have been demonstrated and include their own computational controls.- FAIL

Most of Kurzweil's last round of predictions haven't lapsed yet, but already his perennial predictions of "wearable computers" has still failed to materialize, mainly because imbedding computers in your clothing is the kind of idea that sounds really cool until you try to sell it to someone and realize what a stupid idea it really is.

In fact, MOST of Kurzweil's predictions have this feature: the SOUND cool, until someone tries to SELL those ideas and is jarred by the reality that they are either totally impractical or technologically infeasible.

Ray Kurzweil is at best average in making near-term projections about technology that he is intimately familiar with (e.g. speech recognition and computerized language support) but has been wrong on literally every other subject he has offered a prediction for. His predictions are therefore about as reliable as the premise for "2001: a Space Odyssey."