Ray Kurzweil | |
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.jpg) Kurzweil in 2017 | |
| Born | Raymond Kurzweil (1948-02-12)February 12, 1948 (age 77) Queens, New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS) |
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| Children | 2; includingAmy Kurzweil |
| Awards |
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| Website | Official website |
Raymond Kurzweil (/ˈkɜːrzwaɪl/KURZ-wyle; born February 12, 1948) is an Americancomputer scientist, author, entrepreneur,futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such asoptical character recognition (OCR),text-to-speech synthesis,speech recognition technology andelectronic keyboard instruments. He has written books onhealth technology,artificial intelligence (AI),transhumanism, thetechnological singularity, andfuturism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook onlife extension technologies and the future ofnanotechnology,robotics, andbiotechnology.
Kurzweil received the 1999National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from PresidentBill Clinton in a White House ceremony. He received the $500,000Lemelson–MIT Prize in 2001. He was elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering in 2001 for the application of technology to improve human-machine communication. In 2002 he was inducted into theNational Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has 21 honorary doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries.Inc. magazine ranked him No. 8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir".
Kurzweil grew up inQueens, New York City. He attended NYC Public Education Kingsbury Elementary School PS188. He was born to secularJewish parents who had emigrated fromAustria just before the onset ofWorld War II. ThroughUnitarian Universalism he was exposed to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing.[1][2] The Unitarian church has a philosophy that there are many paths to the truth: his religious education consisted of studying one religion for six months before moving on to another.[3] His father, Fredric, was a concert pianist, a noted conductor and a music educator. His mother, Hannah, was a visual artist. He is the elder of two children; his sister Enid, an accountant inSanta Barbara, is six years his junior.[4]
Ray Kurzweil decided at age five that he wanted to be an inventor.[5] As a young boy, he had an inventory of parts from various construction toys he had been given and old electronic gadgets he had collected from neighbors. In his youth, Kurzweil was an avid reader of science fiction. At age eight, nine, and ten, he read the entireTom Swift Jr. series. At age seven or eight, he built a robotic puppet theater and robotic game. He was involved with computers by age 12 (in 1960), when only a dozen computers existed in New York City, and built computing devices and statistical programs for the predecessor of Head Start.[6][7] At 14, Kurzweil wrote a paper detailing his theory of theneocortex.[8] His parents were involved with the arts, and he is quoted in the documentaryTranscendent Man[9] as saying that the household always discussed the future and technology.[10]
Kurzweil attendedMartin Van Buren High School. During class, he often held onto his class textbooks to seemingly participate while focusing on his own projects hidden behind the book. His uncle, an engineer atBell Labs, taught Kurzweil the basics ofcomputer science.[11] In 1963, at 15, he wrote his first computer program.[12]
Kurzweil created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical composers, then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. In 1965 he was invited to appear on theCBS television programI've Got a Secret,[13] where he performed a piano piece composed by a computer he had built.[14] Later in the year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention;[15] his submission toWestinghouse Talent Search of his first computer program alongside several other projects resulted in his being one of the contest's national winners, for which PresidentLyndon B. Johnson personally congratulated him during aWhite House ceremony. The experiences impressed upon Kurzweil the belief that nearly any problem could be overcome.[16]
While in high school, Kurzweil had corresponded withMarvin Minsky and was invited to visit him atMassachusetts Institute of Technology, which he did. Kurzweil also visitedFrank Rosenblatt, a psychologist atCornell.[17] He attended MIT to study with Minsky, obtaining a B.Sc. degree in computer science and literature in 1970. Kurzweil took all the computer programming courses (eight or nine) MIT offered in his first year and a half.
In 1968, during his second year at MIT, Kurzweil started a company that used a computer program to match high school students with colleges. The program, called the Select College Consulting Program, was designed by him and compared thousands of different criteria about each college with questionnaire answers each student applicant submitted. Around that time he sold the company toHarcourt, Brace & World for $100,000 ($904,211 in 2024) plus royalties.[18] In 1974, he founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc., and led development of the first omni-fontoptical character recognition system, a computer program capable of recognizing text written in any normal font. Before that time, scanners had been able to read text in only a few fonts. He decided that the technology's best application would be to create a reading machine, which would allow blind people to understand text by having a computer read it to them aloud. But the device required the invention of two enabling technologies—theCCDflatbed scanner and thetext-to-speech synthesizer. Development of these technologies was completed at other institutions likeBell Labs, and on January 13, 1976, the finished product was unveiled during a news conference headed by Kurzweil and the leaders of theNational Federation of the Blind. Called the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the device was large and covered an entire tabletop.Stevie Wonder heard about the demonstration of this new machine onThe Today Show, and later became the user of the first production Kurzweil Reading Machine, beginning a long-term association with Kurzweil.[19]
Kurzweil's next major business venture began in 1978, when Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial version of the optical character recognition computer program.LexisNexis was one of the first customers, and bought the program to upload paper legal and news documents to its nascent online databases. He sold Kurzweil Computer Products to Xerox, where it was first known as Xerox Imaging Systems and later asScansoft; he was a consultant for Xerox until 1995. In 1999,Visioneer, Inc. acquired Scansoft from Xerox to form a new public company with Scansoft as the new company-wide name. Scansoft merged withNuance Communications in 2005.
Kurzweil's next business venture was in electronic music technology. After a 1982 meeting withStevie Wonder, in which Wonder lamented the divide in capabilities and qualities between electronic synthesizers and traditional musical instruments, Kurzweil was inspired to create a new generation of synthesizers that could duplicate the sounds of real instruments.Kurzweil Music Systems was founded in the same year, and in 1984, theKurzweil K250 was unveiled.[19] The machine could imitate a number of instruments, and according to Kurzweil's press packet, musicians could not tell the difference between the Kurzweil K250 on piano mode and a grand piano,[20] though reviewers who actually attempted it questioned that.[21][22] The machine's recording and mixing abilities coupled with its ability to imitate different instruments made it possible for a single user to compose and play an entire orchestral piece.
South Korean musical instrument manufacturerYoung Chang bought Kurzweil Music Systems in 1990. As withXerox, Kurzweil remained as a consultant for several years.Hyundai acquired Young Chang in 2006, and in 2007 appointed Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems.[23] Concurrent with Kurzweil Music Systems, he created the company Kurzweil Applied Intelligence (KAI) to develop computerspeech recognition systems for commercial use. The first product, which debuted in 1987, was an early speech recognition program. KAI was sold toLernout & Hauspie in 1997.[24]
Kurzweil startedKurzweil Educational Systems (KESI) in 1996 to develop new pattern-recognition-based computer technologies to help people with disabilities such as blindness,dyslexia, andattention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in school. Products include the Kurzweil 1000 text-to-speech converter software program, which enables a computer to read electronic and scanned text aloud to blind or visually impaired users, and the Kurzweil 3000 program, a multifaceted electronic learning system that helps with reading, writing, andstudy skills. Kurzweil sold KESI toLernout & Hauspie. After the legal and bankruptcy problems of the latter, he and other KESI employees bought back the company. KESI was eventually sold toCambium Learning Group, Inc.
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During the 1990s, Kurzweil founded the Medical Learning Company.[25] In 1999, Kurzweil created ahedge fund called "FatKat" (Financial Accelerating Transactions from Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies), which began trading in 2006. He has said that the ultimate aim is to improve the performance of FatKat's A.I. investment software program, enhancing its ability to recognize patterns in "currency fluctuations and stock-ownership trends".[26] In his 1999 bookThe Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil predicted that computers would one day be better than humans at making profitable investment decisions. In June 2005, Kurzweil introduced the"Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader" (K-NFB Reader)—a pocket-sized device consisting of a digital camera and computer unit. Like the Kurzweil Reading Machine of almost 30 years before, the K-NFB Reader is designed to aid blind people by reading written text aloud. The newer machine is portable and scans text through digital camera images, while the older machine is large and scans text through flatbed scanning.
In December 2012, Google hired Kurzweil in a full-time position to "work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing".[27] Google co-founderLarry Page personally hired him.[28] Page and Kurzweil agreed on a one-sentence job description: "to bring natural language understanding to Google".[29] Kurzweil received aTechnical Grammy Award on February 8, 2015, specifically for his invention of theKurzweil K250.[30]
Kurzweil has joined theAlcor Life Extension Foundation, acryonics company. After his death, he has a plan to be perfused withcryoprotectants,vitrified inliquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to revive him.[31]
Kurzweil is agnostic about the existence of asoul.[32] Of the possibility of divine intelligence, Kurzweil has said: "Does God exist? I would say 'Not yet.'"[33] He married Sonya Rosenwald Kurzweil in 1975.[34] Sonya is a psychologist in private practice inNewton, Massachusetts; she works with women, children, parents, and families. She holds faculty appointments atHarvard Medical School andWilliam James College in graduate education in psychology. Her research interests and publications are in psychotherapy practice. She also serves as an active overseer atBoston Children's Museum.[35] Ray and Sonya Kurzweil have a son, Ethan, a venture capitalist,[36] and a daughter,Amy, a cartoonist.[37][38]
Kurzweil has said: "I realize that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can't get them to work, but because the timing is wrong—not all of the enabling factors are at play where they are needed. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment."[39][40] For the past several decades, Kurzweil's most effective and common approach to doing creative work has been conducted during alucid dreamlike state immediately preceding his waking state. He claims to have constructed inventions, solved algorithmic, business strategy, organizational, and interpersonal problems, and written speeches in this state.[17]
Kurzweil's first book,The Age of Intelligent Machines, was published in 1990. It discusses the history of computer artificial intelligence (AI) and forecasts future developments. Other AI experts contribute heavily to the book in the form of essays. TheAssociation of American Publishers named it theMost Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990.[41]
In 1993, Kurzweil published a book on nutrition,The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life. Its main idea is that high levels of fat intake are the cause of many health disorders common in the U.S., and thus that cutting fat consumption to 10% of total calories consumed is optimal for most people. In 1999, Kurzweil publishedThe Age of Spiritual Machines, which further elucidates his theories of the future of technology, which stem from his analysis of long-term trends in biological and technological evolution. Much emphasis is on the likely course of AI development, along with the future of computer architecture. Kurzweil's next book,Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (2004), returns to human health and nutrition and is co-authored by Terry Grossman, a medical doctor and specialist inalternative medicine.
The Singularity Is Near, published in 2005, was made into a movie starringPauley Perrette. In 2007, Ptolemaic Productions acquired the rights toThe Singularity Is Near,The Age of Spiritual Machines, andFantastic Voyage, including the rights to film Kurzweil's life and ideas for the documentary filmTranscendent Man,[9] directed by Barry Ptolemy.Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever,[42] a follow-up toFantastic Voyage, was released in 2009. Kurzweil's bookHow to Create a Mind was released in 2012.[43] In it he describes hisPattern Recognition Theory of Mind, the theory that theneocortex is a hierarchical system of pattern recognizers, and argues that emulating this architecture in machines could lead to artificial superintelligence.[44]
Kurzweil's first novel,Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, follows a girl who uses her intelligence and her friends' help to tackle real-world problems. It follows a structure akin to the scientific method. Chapters are organized as year-by-year episodes from Danielle's childhood and adolescence.[45] The book comes with companion materials,A Chronicle of Ideas andHow You Can Be a Danielle, that provide real-world context. It was released in 2019.[46]
Kurzweil's latest book,The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, was published in 2024.[47]
In 2010, Kurzweil wrote and co-produced the filmThe Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future, directed byAnthony Waller and based in part on the bookThe Singularity Is Near. Part fiction, part nonfiction, the film blends interviews with 20 big thinkers (such asMarvin Minsky) with a narrative story that illustrates some of Kurzweil's key ideas, including a computer avatar (Ramona) who saves the world from self-replicating microscopic robots. An independent, feature-length documentary,Transcendent Man, was made about Kurzweil, his life, and his ideas.[9]
In 2010, an independent documentary film,Plug & Pray, premiered at theSeattle International Film Festival, in which Kurzweil and one of his major critics, the lateJoseph Weizenbaum, argue about the benefits of eternal life.[48] Independent filmmaker Doug Wolens's feature-length documentary filmThe Singularity (2012) showcases Kurzweil and has been acclaimed as "a large-scale achievement in its documentation of futurist and counter-futurist ideas" and "the best documentary on the Singularity to date".[49]
On December 12, 2000,Columbia Records released the Canadian alternative rock bandOur Lady Peace's albumSpiritual Machines. Although not initially so intended, the project evolved into a conceptual interpretation of Kurzweil's 1999 bookThe Age of Spiritual Machines. The band emailed Kurzweil to ask permission to use the title of his book for their project. Kurzweil's excitement at the prospect prompted them to invite him to record spoken excerpts from his book for the album. As a result, short tracks of spoken dialog by Kurzweil are interspersed among the album's songs. The Kurzweil K250 keyboard is also used on the album.[50]
In his 1999 bookThe Age of Spiritual Machines, Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially.[51] He further emphasized this issue in his 2001 essay "The Law of Accelerating Returns", which proposes an extension ofMoore's law to a wide variety of technologies and argues in favor ofJohn von Neumann's concept of atechnological singularity.[52]
Kurzweil was working with theArmy Science Board in 2006 to develop a rapid response system to deal with the possible abuse of biotechnology. He suggested that a bioterrorist could use the same technologies that empower us to reprogram biology away from cancer and heart disease to reprogram a virus to be more deadly, communicable, and stealthy. But he suggests we have the scientific tools to defend against such an attack, much as we defend against computer software viruses. Kurzweil has testified before Congress onnanotechnology, saying that it has the potential to solve serious global problems such as poverty, disease, and climate change: "Nanotech Could Give Global Warming a Big Chill".[53]
In media appearances, Kurzweil has stressed nanotechnology's extreme potential dangers[14] but argues that, in practice, progress cannot be stopped because that would require a totalitarian system, and any attempt to do so would drive dangerous technologies underground and deprive responsible scientists of the tools needed for defense. He suggests that the proper place of regulation is to ensure that technological progress proceeds safely and quickly but does not deprive the world of profound benefits. He said: "To avoid dangers such as unrestrained nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest priority on the continuing advance of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity."[54]
Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from aglucose intolerance, an early form oftype II diabetes (a major risk factor forheart disease). He then found a doctor,Terry Grossman, who shared his unconventional beliefs and helped him to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills,chemical intravenous treatments,red wine, and various other methods to attempt to extend his lifespan. In 2007, Kurzweil was ingesting "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses ofalkaline water and 10 cups ofgreen tea" every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to "reprogram" his biochemistry.[55] By 2008, he had reduced the number of supplement pills to 150.[32] By 2015, Kurzweil further reduced his daily pill regimen to 100 pills.[56]
Kurzweil asserts that in the future, everyone will live forever.[57] In a 2013 interview, he said that in 15 years, medical technology couldadd more than a year to one's remaining life expectancy for each year that passes, and we could then "outrun our own deaths". Among other things, he has supported theSENS Research Foundation's approach to finding a way to repair aging damage, and has encouraged the general public to hasten their research by donating.[29][58]
Kurzweil's standing as afuturist andtranshumanist has led to his involvement in several singularity-themed organizations. In 2004, he joined the advisory board of theMachine Intelligence Research Institute.[59] In 2005, he joined the scientific advisory board of theLifeboat Foundation.[60] On May 13, 2006, Kurzweil was the first speaker at theSingularity Summit atStanford University inPalo Alto, California.[61] In 2013, he was the keynote speaker at the Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment (RISE) international conference inSeoul. In 2009, Kurzweil, Google, and theNASA Ames Research Center announced the creation of theSingularity University training center for corporate executives and government officials. The university's self-described mission is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges". UsingVernor Vinge's Singularity concept as a foundation, the university offered its first nine-week graduate program to 40 students in 2009.
Kurzweil views the human body as a system of thousands of "programs" and believes that understanding all their functions could be the key to building trulysentient AI.[62][63]
Kurzweil advocatesuniversal basic income (UBI), arguing that progress in science and technology will lead to anabundance of virtually free resources, enabling every citizen to livewithout the need to work: "We are clearly headed toward a situation where everyone can live very well".[64] According to him, the major hurdle to introducing UBI is not its feasibility, but political will, which is slowly emerging.[65] In a 2018TED Talk, he predicted that "in the early 2030s, we'll have universal basic income in the developed world, and worldwide by the end of the 2030s. You'll be able to live very well on that. The primary concern will bemeaning and purpose."[65]
During a September 17, 2022, interview, Kurzweil explained his worries about technology being used for violence. When asked about nuclear armageddon and theRusso-Ukrainian War, Kurzweil said: "I don't think [nuclear war] is going to happen despite the terrors of that war. It is a possibility but it's unlikely, even with the tensions we've had withthe nuclear power plant that's been taken over. It's very tense but I don't actually see a lot of people worrying that's going to happen. I think we'll avoid that. We had two nuclear bombs go off in [1945], so now we're 77 years later... we've never had another one go off through anger... there are other dangers besides nuclear weapons."[66]
Kurzweil's first book,The Age of Intelligent Machines, presents his ideas about the future. Written from 1986 to 1989, it was published in 1990. Building onIthiel de Sola Pool's "Technologies of Freedom" (1983), Kurzweil claims to have forecast thedissolution of the Soviet Union due to new technologies such as cellular phones and fax machines disempowering authoritarian governments by removing state control of the flow of information.[67] In the book, Kurzweil also extrapolates trends in improving computer chess software performance, predicting that computers will beat the best human players "by the year 2000".[68] In May 1997, IBM'sDeep Blue computerdefeated World ChampionGarry Kasparov ina well-publicized match.[69]
Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet use that began in the 1990s. WhenThe Age of Intelligent Machines was published, there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the world,[70] and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content. He also said that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in content, eventually granting users access "to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services". Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would be through wireless systems, and estimated that this development would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century. In October 2010, Kurzweil released his report "How My Predictions Are Faring" inPDF format,[71] analyzing the predictions he made in his booksThe Age of Intelligent Machines,The Age of Spiritual Machines, andThe Singularity is Near. Of the 147 predictions, Kurzweil claimed that 115 were "entirely correct", 12 were "essentially correct", 17 were "partially correct", and three were "wrong". Combining the "entirely" and "essentially" correct, Kurzweil's claimed accuracy rate comes to 86%.
InNewsweek magazine,Daniel Lyons criticized Kurzweil for some of his incorrect predictions for 2009, such as that the economy would continue to boom, that a U.S. company would have amarket capitalization of more than $1 trillion, that a supercomputer would achieve 20petaflops, that speech recognition would be in widespread use, and that cars would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways.[72] To the charge that a 20-petaflop supercomputer had not been produced, Kurzweil responded that he considered Google a giant supercomputer, and that it was indeed capable of 20 petaflops.[72]
Forbes magazine claimed that Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 were mostly inaccurate, with seven incorrect, four partially correct, and one correct. For example, Kurzweil predicted, "The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition", which was not the case.[73]
In 1999, Kurzweil published a second book,The Age of Spiritual Machines, which explains his futurist ideas in more depth. In it, he says that with radical life extension will come radical life enhancement. He says he is confident that within 10 years[when?] we will have the option to spend some of our time in 3D virtual environments that appear just as real as reality, but that they will not yet be able to directly interact with our nervous system. He expounds on his prediction aboutnanorobotics, claiming that within 20 years millions of blood-cell sized devices, called nanobots, will fight disease inside our bodies and improve our memory and cognitive abilities. Kurzweil also believes a machine will pass theTuring test by 2029. He says that humans will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological intelligence that becomes increasingly dominated by its non-biological component.[74] InTranscendent Man, he writes, "We humans are going to start linking with each other and become a metaconnection; we will all be connected and omnipresent, plugged into a global network that is connected to billions of people and filled with data."[9]
In 2008, Kurzweil said in an expert panel in theNational Academy of Engineering thatsolar power will scale up to produce all of humanity's energy needs in 20 years. According to him, we need to capture only 1 part in 10,000 of the energy from the Sun that hits Earth's surface to meet all of humanity's energy needs.[75]
Kurzweil was called "the ultimate thinking machine" byForbes in 1998[76] and a "restless genius" byThe Wall Street Journal in 1989.[77]PBS included him as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America", along with other inventors of the past two centuries.[78]Inc. magazine ranked Kurzweil eighth among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the U.S. and called him "Edison's rightful heir".[79]Bill Gates called him "the best at predicting the future of artificial intelligence".[80]
Although technological singularity is a popular concept in science fiction, authors such asNeal Stephenson[81] andBruce Sterling have voiced skepticism about its real-world plausibility. Sterling expressed his view in a 2004 talk at theLong Now Foundation calledThe Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole.[82][83] Other prominent AI thinkers and computer scientists who have criticized Kurzweil's projections includeDaniel Dennett,[84]Rodney Brooks,[85]David Gelernter,[86] andPaul Allen.[87]
In the December 2010 issue ofIEEE Spectrum,John Rennie criticized Kurzweil for several predictions that did not come true by the originally predicted date.[88]Sun Microsystems co-founderBill Joy agrees with Kurzweil's timeline of future progress, but thinks that technologies such as AI, nanotechnology, and advanced biotechnology will create adystopian world.[89]Lotus Development Corporation founderMitch Kapor has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for theIQ 140 people... This proposition that we're heading to this point at which everything is going to be just unimaginably different—it's fundamentally, in my view, driven by a religious impulse. And all of the frantic arm-waving can't obscure that fact for me."[26] Cognitive scientistDouglas Hofstadter has said of Kurzweil's andHans Moravec's books: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid."[90] VR pioneerJaron Lanier has called Kurzweil's ideas "cybernetic totalism" and outlined his view on the culture surrounding Kurzweil's predictions in an essay for theEdge Foundation called "One Half of a Manifesto".[49][91] Physicist and futuristTheodore Modis claims that Kurzweil's thesis of a technological singularity lacks scientific rigor.[92]
He was born to secular Jewish parents who had escaped Austria just before the onset of World War II. He was exposed viaUnitarian Universalism to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing.
. . . the piano sound wouldn't win any blindfold tests against a real grand if they were pitted against one another in the same room
During the comparisons, this prompted me to start burying myself in sheet music to see how the 250 could cope with the tonal ebb and flow of Rachmaninoff and the atmospheric haze of Debussy. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Bosendorfer won on both counts . . .
My thoughts are more in line with those of Jaron Lanier, who points out that while hardware might be getting faster all the time, software is shit (I am paraphrasing his argument). And without software to do something useful with all that hardware, the hardware's nothing more than a really complicated space heater.
It's an end-of-history notion, and like most end-of-history notions, it is showing its age.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)I'm glad that Lanier entertains the hunch that Dawkins and I (and Hofstadter and others) 'see some flaw in logic that insulates [our] thinking from the eschatalogical implications' drawn by Kurzweil and Moravec. He's right. I, for one, do see such a flaw, and I expect Dawkins and Hofstadter would say the same.
I do not at all agree with Moravec and Kurzweil's predictions for an eschatological cataclysm, just in time for their own memories and thoughts and person hood to be preserved before they might otherwise die.
Kurzweil's reasoning rests on the Law of Accelerating Returns and its siblings, but these are not physical laws. They are assertions about how past rates of scientific and technical progress can predict the future rate. Therefore, like other attempts to forecast the future from the past, these "laws" will work until they don't.
...it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil...
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)He gave a 2007 keynote speech to the Protestant United Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut, alongside Barack Obama, who was then a Presidential candidate.
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