Posted on 05/05/2002 12:57:54 PM PDT by inquest
I just started reading this book by Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines, and I'm finding it a little disturbing. It doesn't really tell me anything I don't already know, or that anyone else shouldn't already know; but seeing it in authoritative form (Kurzweil is himself an entrepreneur in the IT field) certainly had a discomfiting effect on me. Basically, the book tells of what to expect in the coming decades. Quoting from the online table of contents, his predictions are summed up as follows (all emphasis mine):
2009: "A $1,000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second. Computers are imbedded in clothing and jewelry. Most routine business transactions take place between a human and a virtual personality. Translating telephones are commonly used. Human musicians routinely jam with cybernetic musicians. The neo-Luddite movement is growing."
2019: "A $1,000 computing device is now approximately equal to the computational ability of the human brain. Computers are now largely invisible and are embedded everywhere. Three-dimensional virtual-reality displays, embedded in glasses and contact lenses, provide the primary interface for communication with other persons, the Web, and virtual reality. Most interaction with computing is through gestures and two-way natural-language spoken communication. Realistic all-encompassing visual, auditory, and tactile environments enable people to do virtually anything with anybody, regardless of physical proximity. People are beginning to have relationships with automated personalities as companions, teachers, caretakers, and lovers.
2029: "A $1,000 unit of computation has the computing capacity of approximately one thousand human brains. Direct neural pathways have been perfected for high-bandwidth connection to the human brain. A range of neural implants is becoming available to enhance visual and auditory perception and interpretation, memory, and reasoning. Computers have read all available human- and machine-generated literature and multimedia material. There is growing discussion about the legal rights of computers and what constitutes being human. Machines claim to be conscious and these claims are largely accepted.
And 2099: "There is a strong trend toward a merger of human thinking with the world of machine intelligence that the human species initially created. There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers. Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence. Machine-based intelligences derived from extended models of human intelligence claim to be human. Most of these intelligences are not tied to a specific computational processing unit. The number of software-based humans vastly exceeds those still using native neuron-cell-based computation. Even among those human intelligences still using carbon-based neurons, there is ubiquitous use of neural-implant technology that provides enormous augmentation of human perceptual and cognitive abilities. Humans who do not utilize such implants are unable to meaningfully participate in dialogues with those who do. Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings."
Kurzweil's book is suffused with the language of mathematical inevitability: prominently figured throughout is his "Law of Accelerating Returns", which basically states that new innovations will accelerate newer innovations, and the whole thing will proceed along an exponential curve. He relates to us the (proverbial) story of the inventor of chess and the Emperor of China. The Emperor is so pleased with the invention that he offers the inventor whatever he names. The inventor states that he would like one bushel of grain for the first square on the chessboard, two for the second, four for the third, doubled with each square for the entire 64 squares. By the time they get to 32 squares, it's certainly a large sum (equivalent to about one especially large field of grain), but not enough to cost the emperor his domain. It's when they get to the second half of the chessboard - what Kurzweil calls the knee of the curve - that things really start getting wild. He says we're at that point now. There've been about 32 doublings of processing capability since the first mechanical computers were invented, and like the emperor, we're starting to really notice, but it hasn't completely changed us. But we're now going into the second half of the chessboard, he says, and nothing about us will be the same.
Kurzweil doesn't seem terribly concerned by all of this. I am. He believes this will all be inevitable. I do not. To those who truly believe it will be a good thing for technology to metastasize to such levels, I don't intend to argue with you here. I'm writing this to those who don't like the idea, but somehow believe that there is nothing that can be done about it, that resistance is futile. It is not. Kurzweil predicts the rise of a "neo-Luddite" movement, which is primarily concerned with the "skill ladder" that would leave some laborers behind; but I'm advocating a much more principled objection. For far too long we've told ourselves this myth that "progress" must continue, and that we can't stand in its way. What started out as something humans consciously did in order to improve their lives, has taken on an occult quality akin to the ancient Greek Fate myths. Kurzweil, like many others, says it's simply an inevitable cosmic progression (citing biological evolution as justification). It's sad that I should have to issue this reminder, but we're human beings, dammit! We're not just another part of some "process". Nowhere is it written that we have to be victims of unseen forces that we created. Technology is fine when it works for us, but when it doesn't we have every right to say no. It gives me pleasure to now quote from a much more enlightened writer, G.K. Chesterton, who had this to say about this mentality (and I do apologize for the length of the quote, but it simply must be done):
"We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.
There is another proverb, "As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it"; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore."
It's unfortunate that Chesterton's common sense is still sorely lacking nearly a hundred years later. But it's needed now more than ever. I'm not advocating being blindly anti-technology any more than I'm advocating being blindly devoted to it. I say that technology was invented to serve us, and we must claim the independence of thought necessary to keep it that way. I guess I've ranted long enough. Time to open the floor to comments.
Thanks for the link!
That may be true, but then again, all it may do is cause the powers-that-be to placate people by simply regulating (or pretending to regulate) the specific kinds of technology that would be used to invade privacy. In either case, I just thought I'd do a little "fuelling" of my own, just to get a little head start. This sort of thing like this affects me on a visceral level, and so I'm not quite content to assume that others will take care of it, particularly given the all-too-prevalent complacency on the part of the public.
I was in your same position about two years ago. I was scared to death of this "prophecy." But the more I learned about rhetoric and argumentation, not to mention biology, I began to realize that Mr. Kursweil has way too many holes in his thesis for me to take it seriously. However, in 100 or so years from now...who knows. Then again, I believe that genetic engineering offers both more potential rewards (both socially and economically) and dangers.
What the author means is that computers will interpret (the correct term) in real time between two people speaking different languages.
2009 is only seven years off. As a conference interpreter, then, should I be worried? No. Machines aren't going to put me out of business, not in seven years and not in seven hundred (if I could live that long).
The Artificial Intelligence people have been promising us the equivalent of a Star Trek tricorder for decades, and they never run out of suckers willing to pony up grant money. It's always "real soon now", but that's what they said in 1948.
Simultaneous interpretation is not chess. Unlike chess, communication between people cannot be reduced to diagrams or solved as equations.
When I work in the booth, I constantly make myriads of decisions that are based on intuition, judgment, personality, experience, in short human qualities and not quantities of processing power. It is an imprecise analogy, but think of intuition as the "software" and of neurons and synapses as "hardware". At a clock speed of 2 billion processing steps per second, modern personal computers already vastly outstrip the processing power of the human brain. However, there is no program, robot or android that could pass as human in an extended conversation ranging over a broad range of topics. And if the "conversation" is conducted not by keyboard but by voice, it won't take more than a few seconds to find out. That is because advances in computer softweare technology have not kept up with advances in hardware engineering. While Moore's law (approximate doubling in processing speed every 18 months) holds true for microcomputers, software does not progress exponentially. And a computer without a program is just a chunk of silicon and copper - useless!
I cannot speak from personal knowledge on Kurzweil's other predictions, but if they are as mistaken as his prediction about "translating telephones", then you and your great-great-grandchildren need not worry about being supplanted by computers.
I don't think so- while the individual neurons are much much slower than the individual gates on an CPU, there are a lot more of them.
"2001: a nuclear-powered spaceship the size of an aircraft carrier leaves Earth for a mission to Jupiter. It carries astronauts, scientists in hypersleep, and a self-aware computer named HAL..."
These "predictions" are fun and the basis for a lot of lively sci-fi, but every one of them has proven either false or way, way ahead of reality. Go find a copy of the movie shown at the 1939 World's Fair. It's called "1960" and shows a world that may -- may -- actually come to be by the year 2160 or 2260.
Is this really what it is about? Technology saves us from the burden of ourselves. He forgot the part where those who recognize a clear distinction will be scheduled for termination. The concept of extinction will also need to be erased. In short, memory will not be used for memory.
Any how, a couple buddies and I took the thing out to the range and joyously put 50 rounds of 00 buck, about a dozen slugs, and two 30 round clips of .30 carbine through it..
It was one of the most satisfying of events. Much of that computer was ground fine enough to pass through a wedding ring. Pee-Cee in a blender.
I don't care how sophistcated they get. I know how to handle the uppity ones.
It's happening in crude form already.
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