Posted on 06/06/2008 11:19:43 PM PDT by ckilmer
At the recent World Science Festival in New York City, Ray Kurzweil outlined why he is certain that the future isn’t as dreary as it’s been painted, and why we are closer to the incredible than we think: Exponential upward curves can be deceptively gradual in the beginning. But when things start happening, they happen fast. Here are a selection of his predicted trajectories for these “miracles” based on his educated assessment of where science and technology is at in the present.
· Within 5 years the exponential progress in nanoengineering will make Solar power cost-competitive with fossil fuels
· Within 10 years we will have a pill that allows us all to eat whatever we feel like and never gain any unwanted weight
· In 15 years, life expectancies will start rising faster than we age
· In about 20 years 100% of our energy will come from clean and renewable sources, and a computer will pass the Turing Test by carrying on a conversation that is indistinguishable from a human’s.
Commenting on the validity of Kurzweil’s predictions, John Tierney notes in the New York Times that Kurzweil has been uncannily accurate in the past:
“It may sound too good to be true, but even his critics acknowledge he’s not your ordinary sci-fi fantasist. He is a futurist with a track record and enough credibility for the National Academy of Engineering to publish his sunny forecast for solar energy. He makes his predictions using what he calls the Law of Accelerating Returns, a concept he illustrated at the festival with a history of his own inventions for the blind.
In 1976, when he pioneered a device that could scan books and read them aloud, it was the size of a washing machine. Two decades ago he predicted that “early in the 21st century” blind people would be able to read anything anywhere using a handheld device. In 2002 he narrowed the arrival date to 2008. On Thursday night at the festival, he pulled out a new gadget the size of a cellphone, and when he pointed it at the brochure for the science festival, it had no trouble reading the text aloud. This invention, Dr. Kurzweil said, was no harder to anticipate than some of the predictions he made in the late 1980s, like the explosive growth of the Internet in the 1990s and a computer chess champion by 1998.”
Kurzweil backed up his claims at the conference with charts and graphs that showed some of the exponential advancements of the past. One graph showed how computing power started with the first electromechanical machines over a century ago. Initially they doubled every three years. At mid-century, they began to double every two years, which was the rate that inspired Moore’s Law. It now takes only a year. Another graph showed technological changes going back millions of starting with stone tools working its way up to modern computers.
“Certain aspects of technology follow amazingly predictable trajectories,” Kurzweil noted. Hopefully, the popular sci-fi plot where uncontrolled science and technology dooms mankind has gotten it backwards. If Kurzweil is right, the future isn’t as bleak as many claim, and science may well turn out to be our savior.
Trouble is, we as a nation are loosing freedom every day, the very freedom that got us to where we are. Meanwhile, other nations are moving towards freedom. Unless we reverse this trend and get our own house in order, China and India, particularly India, will pass us by in terms of technological advances. It also has a whole lot to do with the value that is placed on education. Our publik education system is and has been in the toilet for a long time.....
Two key things will continue to hold back China and India:
China - the continued presence of Communism
India - Hinduism
If both became Christian countries and lived, governed under principles of God’s laws as we originally structured in this country, they’d be unstoppable.
Yes, I’m perfectly serious.
Someone sent me this a month ago:
"How can you tell if an Asian broke into your house?"
"Nothing is missing and your kid's Algebra homework is done."
This is true to some extent, however India places a much, much higher value on education than we currently do. By my observation a lot of school aged kids in this country somehow seem to thing it's cool to be ignorant. I see that a lot in the rural area where I live. China I'm not as concerned about because they are such copycats. They don't seem to have the intellectual capacity currently to be that much of a threat in terms of passing the USA by in technological advances. Eventually, the market economy and the Chinese people's desire to have modern lifestyles will overcome the Chicom's ability to hold power at the top. India is a much, much bigger threat in the short term, regardless of any constraints that might be brought by Hinduism. Go to any hospital in this country and you are very likely to see resident physicians that are Indians. The same is true in software and many other high tech fields.
Tell me about it. Russia and China are embracing free markets. Russia has a flat tax in place. We’re still running at top speed down the slippery slope to a socialist nanny state.
Look for countries to compete for businesses by removing the corporate tax completely. I doubt the USA will be leading this trend.
At least he didn’t predict domed cities and flying cars. Otherwise, same old stuff.
I've been telling people this for years and they pretty much assume that I am insane. We'll see.
Kurzweil has been on this kick for a very long time. History tells us (well tells me anyway) that some areas progress faster than expected but in some progress is far slower than expected. Sure, computer and electronics do amazing things in certain applicatons. But changing the basic laws of biology? That seems to be an exercise in wishful thinking. There are also those pesky laws of thermodynamics or physics that invariably get in the way of the car that runs on water, or the energy from cold fusion. His argument has always seemed to be to cite some common examples of technological progress and then to say “and it’s not too much of a stretch to think blah blah blah”.
“Within 5 years the exponential progress in nanoengineering will make Solar power cost-competitive with fossil fuels”
The last time I considered solar cells the cost was prohibitive - about $25,000 for the initial investment.
I won’t mention the time needed for constant maintenance or the inability of solar to deal with snow falling on the collectors. It would’ve been a second full-time job with no pay.
Solar might be okay where the sun shines, but in the northern states it will never work.
Yet Americans think they have some God-given birthright to be more prosperous than others, even if they let their education, work ethic, and creativity slide. They demand higher wages, as if we’re still back in a time when other countries were far behind us technologically, etc.
ping
A gift for you - - one of the funniest things I ever saw in my life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-qRJM5750A
It’s about 8 minutes long. Enjoy!
bump
Still waiting on my jet pack...
Both China and Russia are corrupt all the way to the top.
That causes massive misallocation of resources.
Until that changes, don't expect a lot of innovation or real economic strength. Take oil and gas out of the Russian economy and it would be in the trashcan - literally.
A scary concept of this guy is the “singularity”, which he predicts for 2045. That’s the point at which the systems that civilization depends on are so advanced that only a computer (that is smarter than people) can understand and maintain them. In other words, machines rule.
By 2050 he predicts for $1000 you can get a computer that will have the intelligence of “all human brains.”
Good article at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/14/100008848/index.htm
Daniel 12:4 “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
I’ve met Ray before. I couldn’t get past the evolutionary babble in his books though.
All any school or university does is teach people how to do what has already been created. Education stifles creativity by trying to force every student into a balanced educational system. Creative people are never balanced. They are driven by the problem they want to solve and could care less about any other thing.
If Education is so great why was the light bulb, phonograph and movie camera and projector invented by a man who never finished the first grade...Thomas Alva Edison. And why was the worlds first super corporation created by a man who barely finished the 8th grade. Where were the Harvard and MIT guys when Henry was doing the Ford Motor company.
And then why was the PC computer invented by Wozniak and Jobs. Did they finish College?
And then how did Bill Gates, a college drop out, beat the hell out of all the IBM Ph D's at doing the operating systems for PCs.
College educated engineers and scientists are taught to work from the bottom up. If you asked them to create artificial light they would study the nature of light. Its frequency, its waveform, its intensity and develop equations to describe every facet of light. After 20 years and 100 billion dollars they might come up with the fluorescent bulb.
Edison on the other hand noted that a wire when placed across a battery got hot gave off light and then burned in two. So he figured that if he put it in a glass bulb and evacuated the air, it could not burn. But when he tried it the wire melted. So he tried 6,000 things until he found a substance that could get hot give off light and yet not melt in two.
No School teaches creativity. Freedom causes creativity. Our socialized education system suppresses creativity. That is why it has always been the rebellious ones who create.
Back in the 1950s, I worked in a research lab that would not hire a bachelors degree applicant if they could find one with a masters. And they would not hire a masters if they could find a PhD. And they hired the applicants with the highest grade point average they could find.
After a few years and about 150 million dollars the return was near zero. Someone suggested a study of grade point vs patents. And the results blew their mind. The number of patents issued vs grade point was a bell curve around a 2.5 average. By the time you got to 4.0 the number of patents issued approached zero.
It takes freedom to rebel against the status quo to create things that have never been done.
Japan and China demand student conformity. And that reduces their chances of creating much of anything. They can make stuff, but they can't create it, and neither can the Cal Tech grad with a 3.85 grade point.
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