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Computers with Consciousnesses? It's Sooner than You Think

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (12)

transcendent man.jpg

Ray Kurzweil is a bit of a celebrity in sci-fi and tech circles, with one of those wacky sorts of lives that would seem too far fetched if it was the backstory of a fictional character. He’s exceptionally quirky, taking hundreds of self-selected supplement pills per day along with gallons of alkaline water and green tea in an effort to extend his lifespan until immortality is technically possible. If he doesn’t make it, he has made arrangements for the cryogenic freezing of his body. But he’s not just some nutty self-medicating health guru: he’s one of the most accomplished inventors of the late twentieth century. He’s made a pile of money on the basis of a variety of inventions he developed from the sixties through today, including a number of inventions aimed at artificial generation of music and pattern recognition.

Kurzweil really struck a chord with the tech community in 1990 with a book called The Age of Intelligent Machines, which predicted the explosion of the internet during the 1990s and speculated on the construction of artificial intelligence within our lifetimes. He followed this up with The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near, which both solidified his credentials as a geek icon and closely tied his work with any discussion of the theory of a singularity. The singularity is the theory that technological progress increases exponentially and that there will be a point when it is moving so quickly that what follows will be unrecognizable and incomprehensible to anyone living before that point. Vernor Vinge coined the term and wrote a great short essay on it that’s floating around the interwebs if you’re interested, but I probably shouldn’t ramble on right here on behalf of a loosely related trailer.

In any case, a documentary about Ray Kurzweil has been finished up and is making the rounds in very limited releases. Here’s the trailer.









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Comments

I really want to see this. Whether you believe in Kurzweil's theories or not, it looks absolutely brilliant.

Posted by: admin at May 7, 2009 10:34 AM

Wow. I can't believe this is the first I've heard of him (thank you, Steven!).

I'm sure I'm going to have to do a lot of reading to determine whether I think he's brilliant or full of crap, but I can say this. I'm already fascinated. :-)

Posted by: ShinyKate at May 7, 2009 10:34 AM

Two things:

1) immortality

There are few worse fates I would wish on a man.

2. what follows will be unrecognizable and incomprehensible to anyone living before that point.

Sometimes I feel like we're already there.

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at May 7, 2009 10:45 AM

Steven, this is freaky; did you see my comment about him yesterday?

I was in the city a couple of weekends ago and hoped to get to this at the Tribeca Film Festival, but unfortunately we didn't make it.

Posted by: Cindy at May 7, 2009 10:47 AM

Also, I believe Kurzweil is correct in his predictions about our evolution.

Posted by: Cindy at May 7, 2009 10:50 AM

This guy a freaking nutjob, I can't wait to see this.

Posted by: George at May 7, 2009 10:51 AM

Kurzweil wasn't the first to come up with this idea--I think this essay by SF writer Vernor Vinge was the first to coin the term "singularity". But Kurzweil is a good popularizer and his books have a lot of interesting statistics and technical ideas. It does kind of amuse me that all these singularity advocates invariable predict a date for it that will allow them to still be alive and gain immortality for themselves (I think Kurzweil predicts it'll happen by 2030)...personally I think superintelligent A.I. and/or mind uploading will probably happen eventually if humanity doesn't kill itself off first, but I think there's a pretty good chance it won't be until the 22nd century or some other far-off date.

Posted by: Jesse M. at May 7, 2009 12:01 PM

Am I going to respond to an impulsive corrector with an impulsive correction? Yes. Yes!

Posted by: Lucas at May 7, 2009 7:19 PM

Whoops, I didn't notice Steven had already mentioned that Vernor Vinge was the one who actually came up with the "singularity" idea. I wasn't really trying to "correct" Steven's post though, I just thought it was something worth pointing out about Kurzweil since nowadays he's like the go-to guy on everything singularity related.

Posted by: Jesse M. at May 7, 2009 8:45 PM

I usually don't go with any you reviewers for books or music, but I just bought a Kurzweil book off Amazon right now. (I liked your spiritual atheism post, stipe.) I also carted Time Traveler's Wife because of what I've read here, so we'll let's see.

That's not why I commented here though. Has anyone read this dude? I got the Spiritual Computer or something approximating that. Can they recommend other authors that explore these kinds of ideas?

Posted by: Jackseppelin at May 7, 2009 10:30 PM

Jackseppelin, some other authors/books you might want to check out are "Citizen Cyborg" by James Hughes, "The Spike" by Damien Broderick, "Radical Evolution" by Joel Garreau, and "Beyond Humanity" by Gregory S. Paul (also, as far as Kurzweil goes I think 'The Singularity is Near' is the best one overall). There's a lot of good stuff online too, like KurzweilAI, The Singularity Institute, Anders Sandberg's transhumanism pages, and Acceleration Watch.

Posted by: Jesse M. at May 8, 2009 4:21 AM

Nice.

Thanks very much.

Posted by: Jackseppelin at May 8, 2009 3:08 PM