12 Comments

1. 

   cymast

    /  October 10, 2008

   Looks accurate to me. In the future we will be cartoons:

   http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1

2. 

   acilius

    /  October 10, 2008

   That’s an interesting article, but I have many reservations. Just to give four examples:

   1) the argument of the first half rests on the idea of a “rate of technological progress.” This is supposed to be a single quantity. I see no reason to subsume all cases of technological innovation under a single number in this way.

   2) I’m sure that if Kurzweil were writing today he would have taken a different approach in the section called “The economic growth of the 1990’s was no bubble.” Not only have the events of the last seven years (especially the events of the last seven days) disproved many of his predictions, but they have exposed a problem similar to that in #1. Kurzweil complains that GDP does not adequately express new forms of value. An even more serious problem for Kurzweil’s enterprise is that no one figure can express all the forms of value relevant to the fuctioning of an economy. Even if one variable suits Kurzweil’s interests by following an exponential rate of growth, other variables must also be considered.

   3) The closing graph is supposed to illustrate exponential growth in human life expectancy and to support a prediction that such a rate of growth will continue indefinitely. Leaving aside any questions about the accuracy of this graph, it is clear that the growth that has in fact occurred in human life expectancy has come primarily from improvements in sanitation and basic medical care. Virtually all of the increase in human life expectancy in the last 40 years has come in India and China, virtually none from societies that were already highly industrialized in 1970. The numbers Kurzweil offers do not provide any reason to expect human life expectancy to increase in the dramatic fashion he predicts.

   4) Kurzweil’s idea about “smart matter” remaking the universe sounds like the sort of thing that might be true, but his description of “smart matter” consists mainly of the word “exquisite.” “Exquisitely intelligent” matter will embody personality that will operate through “exquisite and vast technology,” etc.

3. 

   cymast

    /  October 10, 2008

   1) Average rate of technological progress.

   2) “Kurzweil complains that GDP does not adequately express new forms of value.” Exactly.

   3) 40 years is such a brief timeframe to expect a smooth graph segment.

   4) It’s quite a trick to see beyond the event horizon.

4. 

   acilius

    /  October 10, 2008

   1) I just don’t see any reason to assimilate “technological progress” to a single quantity like a “rate.” Technology looks like many things to me, not like one thing subject to one measurement.

   3) It certainly is, and the very fact that Kurzweil presents such tidy trendlines should raise red flags.

   4) No doubt about it. That kind of prediction may well come true some day, but it’s hard to take it as seriously as Kurzweil apparently wants us to.

5. 

   cymast

    /  October 10, 2008

   1) Perhaps “technology” has too complex a meaning.

   3) Visionary.

6. 

   acilius

    /  October 10, 2008

   I’d say that the word “technology” definitely has a meaning too complex to be reduced to a single graph line. We may think we know what it means to say that technology is developing at a particular rate if we believe that certain technologies are fated to appear (like “the Singularity”) and we are trying to figure out how long it will take to get from here to there. Take away such assumptions about what the future may hold, and asking “At what rate is technology likely to develop?” is just as nonsensical a question as “At what rate is our political system likely to develop?” or “At what rate is ukulele music likely to develop?”

7. 

   cymast

    /  October 10, 2008

   I don’t think Kurzweil was working backward from a preconceived notion of the future when he first conceptualized the Singularity. The “At what rate . . ” questions are theoretical, and it’s fun to play with theories.

8. 

   acilius

    /  October 10, 2008

   Here’s what it reminds me of. One day I was writing a study guide for a textbook. The textbook had a section about the development of the Greek polis, a form of social/ political organization that existed in ancient times. The word “polis” (in the plural, “poleis”) is sometimes translated “city-state.” After pointing out that the hundreds of poleis that existed in ancient Greece differed from each other in many ways, there was a rather vague paragraph about the development of the polis over time. “There was no chronological uniformity” in the development of the polis, the book says. The only question I could come up with to cover that paragraph was “Did all Greek poleis develop at the same rate of speed?” That question puzzled the students. “Rate of speed”? How can a social system be said to develop at a particular “rate”? The class protested that the question was meaningless, as of course it was.

   So. At what rate of speed is technology likely to develop in the years ahead? Well, we can talk about how many operations per second the most powerful computers will be able to perform, how precise a genetic manipulation can be, etc, but what is there to unify all of the countless activities, institutions, objects, and ideas that we refer to when we say “technology” into a single entity that can be thought of as moving at some “rate”? That’s why I say that the two questions at the end of comment #6 above are equally nonsensical.

9. 

   cymast

    /  October 10, 2008

   I suppose one could postulate a comparative rate of development for a specific variable within a defined field, as measured by the same variable found in a separate defined field. Of course one would not be postulating for the fields themselves, but the single variable.

10. 

    acilius

     /  October 13, 2008

    That would certainly be a rate…

    Anyway, I wanted to praise your original comment. “In the future we will be cartoons”- that seems to me to be a pretty fair summary of Kurzweil’s prediction.

11. 

    cymast

     /  October 13, 2008

    Oh thanks.

    Perhaps I am more sympathetic to Kurzweil’s prediction because I find in most of the jobs I’ve had- especially my job now- I am assumed to be a cartoon, so I oblige. It facilitates the monetary transaction. I consider this a symptom of the beginning of the end of reality as we know it.

12. 

    acilius

     /  October 13, 2008

    You know, most of the people I encounter in a working day would like for me to be a cartoon. I used to resist that, but now I just run with it.