GOOGLE’S DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING RAY KURZWEIL: “We will merge with computers by 2045”
Photo: wsj.com
The Wall Street Journal has long, and with good reason, dubbed Google`s director of engineering Ray Kurzweil a “restless genius”. This is because Ray has a huge track record of making fairly accurate predictions and is not afraid to put exact dates in his forecasts.
Ray Kurzweil is a transhumanist who believes that “even the best person is just another stepping stone”.
#1 BE PREPARED FOR A COMPUTER TO RELY ON COMMON SENSE IN 2029
The Turing test will be passed by the computer by 2029, which will indicate that the computer has a mind in the human sense of the word. However, no more than 30% of AI experts agree with this statement.
The Turing test is an empirical test, the idea of which was proposed by Alan Turing in the article “Computing Machines and the Mind”, published in 1950 in the philosophical magazine Mind.
Turing set out to determine whether a machine could think: “A person interacts with one computer and one person. Based on the answers to the questions, he must determine with whom he is talking: with a person or a computer program. The task of a computer program is to mislead a person into making the wrong choice.”
All test participants do not see each other. If the judge cannot say for sure which of the interlocutors is human, then the car is considered to have passed the test. In order to test the intelligence of the machine, and not its ability to recognize oral speech, the conversation is conducted in the “text only” mode, for example, using a keyboard and screen (intermediary computer).
Correspondence must take place at controlled intervals so that the judge cannot draw conclusions based on the speed of responses. In Turing’s time, computers reacted more slowly than humans. Now this rule is also necessary, because they react much faster.
#2 GET READY FOR YOUR OWN HYBRID THINKING IN THE 30S
In the 2030s, according to Kurzweil, we will connect the top layer of our neocortex to the last layer of the cloud (as in cloud computing) to connect our biological intelligence with non-biological intelligence.
“Our thinking then will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological thinking,” says Kurzweil.
To do this, we need to get into your brain. When we get to the 2030s, we can do it. So most of our thinking will be inside the cloud. In another ten years, our non-biological thinking will be much better than biological.
#3 GET READY FOR THE FULL MERGING OF MAN AND MACHINE IN 2045
Kurzweil predicts a technological singularity by 2045. At this time, the entire Earth will begin to turn into one giant computer, and gradually this process can spread to the entire Universe. The nature of the singularity is such that it is difficult to make more specific predictions for the period after 2045.
IS KURZWEIL A TECHNOUTOPIST OR A TECHNOREALIST?
The Club of Rome is wary of “exponential technologies” and techno-utopian predictions. Experts, on the other hand, believe that Moore’s law will cease to operate in 2020-2025, so that the singularity will not come.
Kurzweil’s approach also contrasts sharply with that of Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler, who previously stated that all Big Tech companies contain the seeds of self-destruction.
Now is the time to contemplate what will come first: whether the seed of self-destruction will germinate or the Kurzweil Singularity will occur.
