Ray Kurzweil's TV07 acceptance speech

Ray Kurzweil accepts the WTA's H.G. Wells award for transhumanist of the year.

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[DK0526]

lonecretin is a very screwed up and sick individual in need of help...just check out his own link full of hatred and self loathing. I wouldn't even waste my precious time debating with mental illness personified!

[Panamango]

Doctorow thinks it will happen within our lifetimes. Smart thinks 2040-50. De Garis: within our lifetimes. Kaku's enthusiasm seems to have grown quite a bit (check his recent documentary "The Intelligent Revolution". Kurzweil makes several appearances). "Yudkowsky and Goetzel are chasing impossible goals" = baseless. Vinge was also a leading computer scientist. Toffler and Broderick are still relevant :/ I agree with Lanier on several things. I'll have to check out Modis and Seidensticker.

[lonecretin]

Yudkowsky and Goetzel are chasing impossible goals, Vinge is just a sci-fi author, Clarke was a pie-in-the-sky dreamer and Toffler and Broderick have dropped out of the game for a while now.

Kurzweil's theories are seductive to most who come across transhumanism for the first time, but for realistic analysis of trends, drop him and read Bob Seidensticker, Ted Modis and Jaron Lanier instead.

[lonecretin]

Doctorow, Smart, De Garis and certainly Kaku don't think so, they think it will take longer. From what I've heard from Kaku, he thinks Kurzweil is too optimistic in his timeline estimates and it will take thousands of years to get to the Singularity.

[Panamango]

At least Kurzweil admits he could be wrong about some of his predictions, unlike your baseless certainty.

[Panamango]

Many other futurists project a singularity to occur around 2035-2045; futurists who are much younger than Kurzweil (Schmidhuber, Doctorow, Goertzel, John Smart, Yudkowsky), and therefore more likely to witness the singularity, and futurists who are older than Kurzweil (Vinge, Arthur C. Clarke [RIP], Toffler, Kaku, Broderick, Garis), who are less likely to witness it, but think such a projection is nonetheless accurate according to current exponential trends. So your theory is complete bullshit.

[Bzdi138]

His books are revered by many in the scientific community; although I do disagree with him a lot; I haven't heard many describe any of his work is garbage; hmmm this sounds more of your opinion. I tried to point out something below but apparently, it's too long. Email me if you want to discuss.

[Bzdi138]

He's not right about all of his dates; you are correct. The century is already seeing vast change. Birth - genetic programming (already taking effect) - will allow parents to ensure that their children will not develop harmful predispositions. Work - will be changed to a degree, as it has always continued to change (and it has changed massively). Marriage - again this has changed and may or may not but that's not what this is about is it?

[lonecretin]

His infamous book, the Singularity is Near, has been analyzed thoroughly by the scientific community. Their conclusion? Garbage.

Now that all copies of his book has been forgotten and left to collect dust, he is trying to grab our attention with a few films, "The Singularity is Near" and "Transcendent Man", both of which will flop miserably. I see his cinematic efforts as little more than a temper tantrum to get noticed again.

[lonecretin]

Even Wikipedia, that hotbed of information, disagrees with Kurzweil's outlook on technological progress. Under Kurzweil's entry you will find a great deal of skeptical analysis about his predictions.