Technology Seems Faster For Primitive Creatures
From IEEE Singularity Issue
The trouble begins with the singularitarians’ assumption that technological advances have
accelerated. I’d argue that I have seen less technological progress than my parents did, let
alone my grandparents. Born in 1956, I can testify primarily to the development of the
information age, fueled by the doubling of computing power every 18 to 24 months, as
described by Moore’s Law. The birth-control pill and other reproductive technologies have had
an equally profound impact, on the culture if not the economy, but they are not developing at
an accelerating speed. Beyond that, I saw men walk on the moon, with little to come of it, and
I am surrounded by bio- and nanotechnologies that so far haven’t affected my life at all.
Medical research has developed treatments that make a difference in our lives, particularly at
the end of them. But despite daily announcements of one breakthrough or another, morbidity
and mortality from cancer and stroke continue practically unabated, even in developed
countries.
It might be possible to create a thinking, empathetic machine, Dr. Ramachandran said, but it
might prove too difficult to reverse-engineer the brain's circuitry because it evolved so
haphazardly.
"My colleague Francis Crick used to say that God is a hacker, not an engineer," Dr.
Ramachandran said. "You can do reverse engineering, but you can't do reverse hacking."
Dr. Kurzweil's predictions come under intense scrutiny in the engineering magazine IEEE
Spectrum, which devotes its current issue to the Singularity. Some of the experts writing in
the issue endorse Dr. Kurzweil's belief that conscious, intelligent beings can be created, but
most think it will take more than a few decades.
He is accustomed to this sort of pessimism and readily acknowledges how complicated the
brain is. But if experts in neurology and artificial intelligence (or solar energy or medicine)
don't buy his optimistic predictions, he says, that's because exponential upward curves are so
deceptively gradual at first.
"Scientists imagine they'll keep working at the present pace," he told me after his speech.
"They make linear extrapolations from the past. When it took years to sequence the first 1
percent of the human genome, they worried they'd never finish, but they were right on
schedule for an exponential curve. If you reach 1 percent and keep doubling your growth
every year, you'll hit 100 percent in just seven years."
Dr. Kurzweil is so confident in these curves that he has made a $10,000 bet with Mitch Kapor,
the creator of Lotus software. By 2029, Dr. Kurzweil wagers, a computer will pass the Turing
Test by carrying on a conversation that is indistinguishable from a human's.
I'm not as confident those graphs are going to hold up for fields besides computer science, so
I'd be leery of betting on a date. But if I had to take sides in the 2029 wager, I'd put my money
on Dr.
Kurzweil. He could be right once again about a revolution coming sooner than expected. And
I'd hate to bet against the chance to be around for this one.
From IEEE Singularity Issue
The trouble begins with the singularitarians’ assumption that technological advances have
accelerated. I’d argue that I have seen less technological progress than my parents did, let
alone my grandparents. Born in 1956, I can testify primarily to the development of the
information age, fueled by the doubling of computing power every 18 to 24 months, as
described by Moore’s Law. The birth-control pill and other reproductive technologies have had
an equally profound impact, on the culture if not the economy, but they are not developing at
an accelerating speed. Beyond that, I saw men walk on the moon, with little to come of it, and
I am surrounded by bio- and nanotechnologies that so far haven’t affected my life at all.
Medical research has developed treatments that make a difference in our lives, particularly at
the end of them. But despite daily announcements of one breakthrough or another, morbidity
and mortality from cancer and stroke continue practically unabated, even in developed
countries.
It might be possible to create a thinking, empathetic machine, Dr. Ramachandran said, but it
might prove too difficult to reverse-engineer the brain's circuitry because it evolved so
haphazardly.
"My colleague Francis Crick used to say that God is a hacker, not an engineer," Dr.
Ramachandran said. "You can do reverse engineering, but you can't do reverse hacking."
Dr. Kurzweil's predictions come under intense scrutiny in the engineering magazine IEEE
Spectrum, which devotes its current issue to the Singularity. Some of the experts writing in
the issue endorse Dr. Kurzweil's belief that conscious, intelligent beings can be created, but
most think it will take more than a few decades.
He is accustomed to this sort of pessimism and readily acknowledges how complicated the
brain is. But if experts in neurology and artificial intelligence (or solar energy or medicine)
don't buy his optimistic predictions, he says, that's because exponential upward curves are so
deceptively gradual at first.
"Scientists imagine they'll keep working at the present pace," he told me after his speech.
"They make linear extrapolations from the past. When it took years to sequence the first 1
percent of the human genome, they worried they'd never finish, but they were right on
schedule for an exponential curve. If you reach 1 percent and keep doubling your growth
every year, you'll hit 100 percent in just seven years."
Dr. Kurzweil is so confident in these curves that he has made a $10,000 bet with Mitch Kapor,
the creator of Lotus software. By 2029, Dr. Kurzweil wagers, a computer will pass the Turing
Test by carrying on a conversation that is indistinguishable from a human's.
I'm not as confident those graphs are going to hold up for fields besides computer science, so
I'd be leery of betting on a date. But if I had to take sides in the 2029 wager, I'd put my money
on Dr.
Kurzweil. He could be right once again about a revolution coming sooner than expected. And
I'd hate to bet against the chance to be around for this one.
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