Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Ray Kurzweil and The Guardian. The article’s title is “AI Scientist Ray Kurzweil: We Are Going to Expand Intelligence a Millionfold by 2045.” Intelligence will be a million-fold more by 2045. Kurzweil is consistent with his predictions regarding what he makes and sticks to. What are your thoughts on this prediction of a million-fold expansion of intelligence?
Rick Rosner: Nobody’s been able to define intelligence in the history of trying to do it, so what does he mean? Since he’s a pretty math-oriented guy and an engineer, he has some semi-technical meaning for what he’s saying. I doubt he’d throw “a millionfold” without a specific meaning. What are we expanding? Computations per second within a single integrated entity?
Jacobsen: I’ll define it here. So, he is asked in this article:
What exactly is the Singularity?
Today, we have one brain size which we can’t go beyond to get smarter. But the cloud is getting smarter and it is growing really without bounds. The Singularity, which is a metaphor borrowed from physics, will occur when we merge our brain with the cloud. We’re going to be a combination of our natural intelligence and our cybernetic intelligence and it’s all going to be rolled into one. Making it possible will be brain-computer interfaces which ultimately will be nanobots – robots the size of molecules – that will go noninvasively into our brains through the capillaries. We are going to expand intelligence a millionfold by 2045 and it is going to deepen our awareness and consciousness.
Rosner: Yes, so I buy that it will deepen our awareness of consciousness. Did he say “under the awareness of consciousness”?
Jacobsen: Deepen our awareness and consciousness.
Rosner: Yes, but he’s throwing around many terms he’s not defining and couldn’t adequately define, like consciousness and awareness. But if you asked him to, he probably would attempt to define what he’s talking about. Certainly, we will be intimately linked with vast probability nets trained on trillions of information units, which will create all sorts of new smart things. But he’s notdon’tuately; he’s characterized what he means by expanding intelligence a millionfold. When he talks about the singularity, he’s said things he’s, and maybe he hasn’t, but thathasn’t40, or now he’s saying 2045he’sy question that has ever been asked or could be asked by humans will be answered by this explosion in whatever you want to call it. That seems more concrete to me. What else did he say in the interview? Because that one answer could be more satisfying. What do you think? Do you find his answer satisfying that we will increase our intelligence a millionfold?
Jacobsen: It’s hand-waving.
Rosner: Yes, and it seems like the universe could have more complexity to require a million-fold intelligence expansion. AI-type things may contain a million times more information than a human brain. Or you could make the case that during this century, the information stored in AI may exceed the aggregate information stored in human brains by a million times. But I’m not convinced what he’s saying because it’s unclear.
Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org
Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com
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Rick Rosner 