Posted: Mar 20, 2012 7:04 am
I am by no means a Singularity expert(actually more like a singularity skeptic) but I find Ray Kurzweil's ideas entertaining and worth consideration. He is after all probably one of the smartest people on this planet and has numerous honors given to him from past Presidents, colleges, has the Singularity University etc. Basically Kurzweil asserts based on Moore's law of accelerating returns technology is bringing us to a point in the near future(2045) where man merges with AI, achieves immortality, and increases his intelligence a billionfold, I think. Anywho I own a copy of the Singularity is Near(2005) but not Age of Spiritual Machines(1999). Close examination of Ray's rosy predictions for 2009 show that only 25% of his main predictions have come to fruition.
"Conclusion: Out of 12 key predictions that Kurzweil highlighted for the year 2009, only one has come completely true. Four were partially true (score them a half-point each) and eight failed to come true by the end of 2011. That’s a score of 3 / 12 – or 25% accurate. This is actually being somewhat generous, because if you go and read the chapter that provides a fuller explication of the world Kurzweil predicted, the picture he paints of the culture and society in general were pretty far off. Though to be fair, while most of those predictions were still wrong, some of the ones Kurzweil chose not to highlight in his timeline turned out to be accurate.
Of course, Kurzweil has revised some of these predictions since then, and I’ll be covering the development of his ideas in future blog posts. And by that, I mean I hope you’ll join me in reading through his seminal book The Singularity Is Near. Find yourself a copy of the book – we start in April."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2 ... naccurate/
"Conclusion: Out of 12 key predictions that Kurzweil highlighted for the year 2009, only one has come completely true. Four were partially true (score them a half-point each) and eight failed to come true by the end of 2011. That’s a score of 3 / 12 – or 25% accurate. This is actually being somewhat generous, because if you go and read the chapter that provides a fuller explication of the world Kurzweil predicted, the picture he paints of the culture and society in general were pretty far off. Though to be fair, while most of those predictions were still wrong, some of the ones Kurzweil chose not to highlight in his timeline turned out to be accurate.
Of course, Kurzweil has revised some of these predictions since then, and I’ll be covering the development of his ideas in future blog posts. And by that, I mean I hope you’ll join me in reading through his seminal book The Singularity Is Near. Find yourself a copy of the book – we start in April."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2 ... naccurate/