Mix: Ray Kurzweil: The Singularity

Futurist Ray Kurzweil gave a very stimulating talk at the London Learning Technologies Conference, Jan 25th 2012, on the inevitable growth of computing power and the coming Singularity. Here is some of the background for those wanting to know more.

His basic argument is that the growth in computing power (doubling every 18 months or two years) will continue and there will come a point, within the next 40 years, where machines will be more intelligent than humans. This is the Singularity.

Ray Kurzweil on the Singularity

See the full range of Kurzweil charts his slide decks:

Singularity presentation Ray Kurzweil at Google

Kurzweil ~ Humanity+

Or a 7 minute video of Kurzweil explaining the Singularity:

Ray Kurzweil explains the coming Singularity

For those who prefer text, his article on acclerating returns:

The Law of Accelerating Returns | KurzweilAI

Also, here's the web site for Kurzweil's Singularity Institute:

Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Institute

The World Since 1800

To demonstrate the inexorable progress of the last 200 years, Kurzweil showed the Hans Rosling chart. This is a dramatic visual charting of how different countries across the world have grown in both wealth and health (measured by life expectancy) since 1800.

Here is Hans himself showing the chart on Newsnight this week:

Hans Rosling: Changes in Health & Wealth from 1800

Or play with the chart yourself at Hans' Gapminder site:

Gapminder World

The Critics

Of course not everybody agrees with Kurzweil. Here are a couple of those who believe either that computing power won't continue to grow exponentially or that it won't lead to 'intelligence':

Scientific American: Singularity Schtick: Hi-tech moguls and The New York Times may buy it, but you shouldn't

Problem Solved: Unfriendly AI

The Future: Exciting or Terrifying?

In his LT speech Kurzweil was entirely positive about the benefits of technology, seekming to see (a la Candide) all progress as being for the best, in the best of all possible worlds - although some of his writings are more cautious.

I had been aware of Kurzweil and the Singularity before, and the idea that machine intelligence would pass that of humans. What was striking at his talk was the exponential growth. If computer intelligence continues to double every two years, then it multiples a 1,000 times in ten years.

That means that if artificial intelligence passes the sum of all human intelligence by 2046, it will be 1,000 times more intelligent by 2066 and one million times more intelligent by 2086 - within the lifetime of our children.

Is that an exciting prospect or a completely terrifying one?

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