
Google’s Ray Kurzweil predicts how the world will change - hrb1979
http://slumz.boxden.com/f244/google-s-ray-kurzweil-predicts-how-world-will-change-2023326/
======
fit2rule
I think Kurzweil is a total blow-hard, along with the Mathematica guy. All
these great 'predictions' don't take a lot of intellectual depth to make, to
be fair .. all you had to do was read a bit of sci-fi in the 60's and 70's,
and try to understand that your fellow engineers were reading the same (mostly
Vernor Vinge) stories, on the basis of a few top-10 lists .. and oila: you can
see what is going to happen.

Big Sci-Fi has been driving technology - and thus, our modern culture - for
decades now. There's not a single advance in our modern lives that wasn't
speculated first, by some sci-fi author.

So I don't really think that 'this guy makes amazing predictions' is such a
new-worthy article. All this is doing is promoting the Kurzweil brand, and by
proxy, the Google brand.

What _does_ get me more interested, is the general reaction to cultists like
Kurzweil and Wolfram; because these reactions are a far greater predictor of
the future than the original subject. If the industry says "hmm.. Kurzweil is
a genius, lets listen to what he has to say" \- well then, its a self-
fulfilling prophecy.

tl;dr - postulate what will happen, then MAKE IT SO. This is the mantra of any
and all technologists - not just those with the wherewithal to spend their
idle time pimping themselves, as both Kurzweil and Wolfram do.

~~~
joosters
You can only judge these people if you have a big list of _all_ the
predictions that they make. Highlighting the ones that came true is of no use
if they made 1000s of other predictions that turned out to be rubbish.

Also, beware of all the predictions that don't have good timelines. Predicting
a stock market crash is easy; there's bound to be one at some point or other.
Predicting _when_ the next crash might be is much much harder.

~~~
pessimizer
>Predicting when the next crash might be is much much harder.

Predicting _when_ is just a stunt. Predicting _why_ is more important.
Predicting _why_ can end up giving you _when_ if the event is contingent on a
few things falling into place that are being observed falling into place.

~~~
joosters
Rubbish, imo. We can't agree on the _why_ of past crashes, let alone make good
predictions about future ones. How can such a prediction ever be proved right
or wrong?

------
danso
Before you actually click on this link, here's what you'll be seeing:

[http://i.imgur.com/7oDm4Ax.png](http://i.imgur.com/7oDm4Ax.png)

Here is apparently the original source:
[http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article3961130.ece](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/article3961130.ece)

C'mon, has the art of detecting blogspam been lost?

~~~
lae
You can't read the entire article without a subscription, though.

------
ben1040
>wrote his first computer program in 1963 aged 15, went on to study at the
_Ma##achusetts_ Institute of Technology

Scunthorpe bug in the CMS?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem)

~~~
pre
Indeed, it makes them read very potty-mouthed! "Personal A##istant search
engine" is way ruder than a personal assistant.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
I see that they mention Google Gla##. Huh. The rise of strap-on computing.

------
simonh
1960s Herbert Simmons predicts "Machines will be capable, within 20 years, of
doing any work a man can do."

1993 - Vernor Vinge predicts super-intelligent AIs 'within 30 years'.

2011 ray Kurzweil predicts the singularity (enabled by super-intelligent AIs)
will occur by 2045, 34 years after the prediction was made.

So the distance into the future before we achieve strong AI and hence the
singularity is, according to it's most optimistic proponents, receding by more
than 1 year per year. So I predict that when we get to 2045 strong AI will be
on the slate to be achieved by about 2090.

~~~
pessimizer
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051088)

------
Zigurd
> _2033: 100 per cent of our energy from solar_

If he means solar becomes economically competitive for general purpose
household and industrial power generation in most places on Earth by 2033, ok,
but that's just the starting line for an incredible amount of capex needed to
replace fossil fuels.

~~~
a-priori
I don't understand why 100% solar would be a good thing. Sure, it could
hypothetically meet our daytime demands, but what about night time? There's
only two options there: import power from another time zone where the sun
shines, or store the energy during the day.

The first is very lossy: HVDC is the most efficient way to transport bulk
electricity, and it loses 3.5% per 1000km. You would need to transport
electricity about half the way around the earth of the earth's circumference,
or about 20,000km, meaning you would lose about 50% in transit. So this would
depend on a drastically more efficient way of transporting power
(superconducting power lines?).

The second is not possible with current battery technology.

And that still doesn't answer why this arrangement would be better than a
nuclear (base load) + solar (daytime variable load) + natural gas
(nighttime/cloudy conditions variable load) mix.

~~~
pilom
Storage on this scale is almost never done with batteries. Today its done with
pumping water up to a reservoir while we have power and then letting it flow
back down through generators when we don't have power. This is know as "Pumped
Storage." Current best efficiencies are around 75% (you get out 75% of the
energy you put in). The problem is that there are only so many places on earth
where you can build these dual reservoirs on the scale required because of
geography. Good discussion on this:
[http://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_189.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_189.shtml)

~~~
a-priori
I didn't include pumped storage because I figured the scale of the facilities
required to store one night's power demands for the continental US (for
example) would be infeasible.

I just did a quick calculation in Wolfram Alpha and found that (assuming
perfect efficiency), to store enough energy to power the United States for
half a day would take 713km^3 of water raised 1km. That's about half the
volume of Lake Ontario pumped up one kilometre during the day, and down again
at night.

I guess that's theoretically possible but it would be a hell of a megaproject,
and for what?

~~~
kamaal
>>it would be a hell of a megaproject, and for what?

Imagine some one using an oil lamp in the pre-electricity era saying this.
Would it even make any sense at all to replace a perfectly working oil
lamp/candle with a light bulb at the expense of century worth mining of
copper, putting down massive infrastructure, setting up dams for just glowing
this small time bulb?

The widespread use of electricity or trains or airplanes or dams or any major
paradigm changing invention in human history requires mega engineering
projects for a very simple reason. You have to deliver at scale.

If one can go totally without fossil fuels chasing such projects makes all the
sense in the world.

~~~
a-priori
_The widespread use of electricity or trains or airplanes or dams or any major
paradigm changing invention in human history requires mega engineering
projects for a very simple reason. You have to deliver at scale._

I disagree there. All the examples you stated developed gradually starting
small and expanding. The first railways appeared in Europe in the 14th century
and didn't really take off until the 18th century with the development of the
steam engine.

Even air travel, which went from the first heavier-than-air flight to first
commercial flight in a remarkably short period of time of about 27 years,
piggybacked off of earlier lighter-than-air travel that had existed for
centuries. In the Napoleonic Wars, balloons were used for surveilling the
battle field, and airships appeared in the mid 19th century. People already
knew that air travel was commercially viable and militarily useful. Heavier-
than-air machines were a major improvement on the concept, not something
entirely new.

This is a common theme in technology: a primitive form of the technology
exists for a long period of time in niches. Then, after a period of time,
there's a key invention -- the steam engine for rail travel, the dynamo for
electricity, the airplane for air travel, the transistor for computers -- that
causes the technology to explode in a short period of time.

That key invention is the last piece in the puzzle, not the first. The earlier
developments prove the viability of the concept, build up the infrastructure
to support it, and justify large investments in developing the key invention.
But if you don't look at the history _before_ the key invention, you'd think
that computers and electric generators and railroads and aircraft appeared
suddenly and had large amounts of capital suddenly invested in them.

And that brings us back to my original point: all those technologies had clear
advantages over their predecessors. What advantage does an all-solar future
have over a mix of sources? Simply getting rid of fossil fuels is not good
enough.

------
ams6110
It's fine to cherry-pick the predictions that he got right, but how many was
he wrong about? I confess I don't follow Kurzweil, and don't put much stock in
"futurists" generally, because a lot of the things that are "predicted"
correctly seem like pretty safe bets to me.

~~~
Houshalter
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/gbi/assessing_kurzweil_the_results/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gbi/assessing_kurzweil_the_results/)

------
angersock
Gah, some of this is worded so poorly:

"Thanks to the Human Genome Project, medicine is now information technology,
and we’re learning how to reprogram this outdated software of our bodies
exponentially."

What does this even mean?

"We’ll be able to send little devices, nanobots, into the brain and
capillaries, and they’ll provide additional sensory signals, as if they were
coming from your real senses."

Yes, the magic of -~=nanomachines=~-!

Some of it is not unreasonable, some of it is tame (VR), and some of it is
hogwash.

~~~
Spearchucker
_What does this even mean?_

Is this a common/standard way of disagreeing with how something is phrased, is
it derogatory, or are you really not able to parse the meaning of that
sentence?

Sincere question. I saw this same phrase used a while ago by someone else, and
while the sentence it referred to was as poorly worded as the one you refer
to, parsing the meaning is easy. Isn't it?

~~~
angersock
So, if I were to say, "what does this mean?" I am usually asking either a
question or posing a question I immediately intend to answer.

The addition of the "even" intensifier usually signals exasperation or annoyed
bewilderment.

------
syncerr
> 2023: Full-immersion virtual realities .... We’ll be able to send little
> devices, nanobots, into the brain and capillaries, and they’ll provide
> additional sensory signals, as if they were coming from your real senses.

Great, a new source for PTSD.

------
nswanberg
Reading optimistic future predictions is a lot of fun. And it's also fun to
read those from the past because they help to point out eternal human
motivations as well as trends of the time. Here are a series of postcards
created by some artists at the end of the 19th century that imagined the year
2000 in France: [https://www.google.com/search?q=Jean-
Marc+Côté&source=lnms&t...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Jean-
Marc+Côté&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&biw=1264&bih=1320)

For context, the industrial revolutions, both the first and second, were by
this point old news, so the notion of creating a machine to accomplish a task
was familiar. There isn't much in these postcards to delight cynics and
pessimists, though, since World War I, when people turned these machines on
each other, had not yet happened.

------
VLM
"check out the glaciers for the last time"

No need to wait until 2040 as per the article, people do this right now at
Glacier National Park in Montana. (edited: I understand now, the reason the
article listed 2040 and the alps instead of GNP, is the latest estimate for
GNP is its last glacier will melt around 2020-2030 timeframe, figure in the
next decade, so by 2040 you'll be going to the alps to see a glacier not
GNP...)

Some of the comments are amusing, mostly unintentionally. The general public
is much less educated and intelligent than HN. If you think we're
uncomfortable with self driving cars and digital womens fashion, imagine how
those clowns are going to feel.

~~~
chillingeffect
> Some of the comments are amusing, mostly unintentionally.

> Vinegar is set to become the non-alcoholic drink of choice,

brb guise, investing in vinegar.

~~~
sp332
Boutique vinegar is hardly new, it's just not mainstream yet. Alton Brown
predicted this in 2005 (Good Eats season 9 episode 8 "Good Wine Gone Bad")

------
namelezz
These are not Ray Kurzweil's predicts. These are mankind's dreams.

------
mmastrac
There's an odd typo in this post: "Ma##achusetts Institute of Technology". Or
is that some sort of weird inside joke?

~~~
chillingeffect
No, that's the brilliance of artificial intelligence, don't you know?

> artificial intelligence to be able to a##ess what’s going on in their
> environment.

~~~
VMG
> a##istant

> Google Gla##

> cla##mate

genius

------
edward
Better: [http://jimidisu.com/?p=6013](http://jimidisu.com/?p=6013)

------
higherpurpose
I was watching The World in 2030 speech by Michio Kaku in 2009, and I was
thinking "wow, Larry Page definitely saw this a few times", because some of
Google's objectives since then seem to have been born from this talk:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY)

------
michaelochurch
After my mother died in early 2013, this "technology will solve death" fantasy
lost all appeal to me. I finally accepted that there are losses in this world
that can never be reversed. If there's something on the other side, then I
look forward to seeing it. Joining the 120 billion people who have already
died can't be the worst thing. If there's nothing on the other side, and death
is the end of existence, then there's nothing to fear in it. I know this is an
unpopular opinion here, but a total end seems unlikely. I don't believe in
religion or gods in the anthropomorphic sense of "god" but whatever causes
brought me to exist in a world can occur again.

As with religion, this _idea_ of a perfect future (heaven?) in the Singularity
can become a dangerous distraction from the real problem. It's not death that
is a hard problem. It's life. Economic scarcity is the real enemy. That is
what we should be fighting with all our force. We should fight first to make
life better, and second to prolong it.

If we "solve death" and still have to live with scarcity and inequality, then
we've just failed in a way that lasts much longer.

(On practical grounds, of course, I'm all for life-saving medical advances and
research that reduces or eliminates costly illnesses. In fact, if rejuvenation
were an option, I'd probably take it. I'm OK with death, but I hate getting
sick. My point is that the _real_ purpose of technology should be to kill
_scarcity_ first, and then aim for immortality second.)

Ok, done ranting.

~~~
Houshalter
These are not mutually exclusive goals. A singularity would fix scarcity as
well.

~~~
michaelochurch
_These are not mutually exclusive goals. A singularity would fix scarcity as
well._

Could, not would.

My point is that if it doesn't, it's not worth having. There are dystopian but
plausible future scenarios in which (some or all) people live forever but
scarcity still exists. My point is that those are extremely undesirable. Life
under scarcity is only tolerable because it ends, and because the embittering,
emotional irritation of economic scarcity is minuscule in comparison to the
much greater natural scarcity of time imposed by nature ( _memento mori_ ).

If we had eternal life, or (more relevantly) the billion-year lifespans
possible were we to solve aging and accidents, would the sorts of people who
hold power and (left unchecked) enslave the world, do so? Or would they,
recognizing their (near-)infinitude of time, lighten up and hold back a bit?
The big unknown is human nature, and that I could fill pages on that, only to
conclude: I don't know.

~~~
kamaal
According to Singularity guys, some point of time in the future one could
download his whole brain as-is as a file. Then if you are old enough, they
could just kill your body. Upload your file to a super computer hosting many
such files. Or a VM running on a super computer. Each file gets it own VM.

Inside that VM they can possibly simulate a paradise. Since its happening
inside a computer. Resources are hardly a problem. They can retain the best
parts about us. They kill all negative traits inside humans(disease, boredom,
violence etc etc) and just let the VM run as long as it possibly can.

The point is Ray Kurzweil thinks, we would no longer need a biological body to
stay alive.

~~~
krapp
But... the servers, while not _biological_ , are still physical constructs
requiring energy and maintenance which are, themselves, subject to entropy and
eventual breakdown or simply being shut off. You're just trading bio-rot for
bit-rot but it's essentially the same thing.

