Kurzweil predicts that machines will match man by 2029 -- bring it on
By Ryan Block 
posted Feb 17th 2008 7:11PM
posted Feb 17th 2008 7:11PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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"Endgame" anyone?
The end is F**king Nigh!!!! Lol. 28 Days Later anyone?
The Singularity is Near!
All this prediction stuff is pretty disturbing, i just read a bunch of articles on wiki. I hold some of them with a grain of salt, I'll start believing in the singularity and such if we get past 2012
As dumb as this upcoming generation appears to be, this achievement wouldn't take much effort.
sweet, landscaping will no longer have a language barrier
:)
Remember the old predictions the scientists use to say on how the world will work in the year 2000? As you can see we have exceeded their predictions by miles, except for the space traveling part. So, I predict that machines will match man even much earlier than they expect, maybe around the 2018 or 2020.
What say you guys?
they thought in the year 2000 that we would be driving hover cars and we would have colonies on neptune...
No, because they were also way off on predictions like flying cars and pill sized meals. If any thing I Wouldn't expect this until 2038
neptune is a gaseous planet...
@ CUBSWILLWIN & @ B:
Maybe it is the other way around! Maybe, the right way to put it is that we will see machines matching man way after 2029, like 2060! What you guys said is more accurate and leads to the fact that scientists predict stuff way ahead of the realistic time frame. :)
@ johnTitor
Uranus is too :P
IT seems like most short-term future predictions made are wrong in exact ideas such as a 1920 prediction of colonizing the others planets, but are somwhat "right" with the level of advancement even if they don't necessarily know what exactly it will be. I hope that sort of makes sense. I'm thinking of people from the late 19th century or early 20th century having made wrong predictions about say, colonizing the planets or having viable personal flying transportation...BUT they couldn't even imagine the advancements we made in electronics and computer technology. I mean they literally couldn't even CONCEIVE of or conceptualize the technology that now is such a large part of modern society.
I have read some of Kurzweil's awesome books, and I agree to some extent with his ideas of robotic artifical intelligence, however I believe that 50 or 75 years from now, the world will be different in ways that we cannot of imagine. I think it's so interesting to look back at famous philosophers and thinkers from classical Greek antiquity up to the renaissance and try to imagine how they saw the world and the future and compare that to what we have today. It really gives you profound insight when trying to understand our own future and what lies ahead. I truly hope that the positive parts of globalization can spread like wildfire allowing average people to experience different cultures and become friends with people from all different parts of the world. It's starting to happen with the internet and increased global travel. I hope the human potential/spirituality movement gains momentum and people really focus on relieving human suffering and creating peace with one another. I know the cynics will call it a pipe dream and that humans always are at war with each other, etc etc, but I believe as many do that times will change for the better, whether a catastrophic natural event or nuclear apocaclypse has to initiate it or not(2012!). This outcome would be better than just having future technology with the same human drama, but technology advancement may actually precipitate better human relations and functioning, especially tech which can help all of human kind life a life with all of their basic needs met. Also I look to space travel and the discovery of other life as potential events that could bring together the world once again.
enough of the novel.... lol
Looks like my toaster won't just burn toast anymore! :P
LOL At your previous comment, thank you for the laugh
>>Looks like my toaster won't just burn toast anymore!
No, it will still burn toast, but it will be doing it because it hates you.
Rob
LOL @ Rob!
no comments about welcoming our machine overlords yet? weird....
I for one don't welcome our i-robot-wannabe humanoids.
Darn. we have to wait that long!?!?!? sucks.
Seriously. I want to become a professional couch potato already.
It's not going to happen don't worry. Realistically, it would be stupids to make true AIs.
I think Kurzweil is an idiot. He seemingly makes a living talking about when artificial intelligence can make even better artificial intelligence, and about how we're going to need to make sure AI won't take over. Whereas we all know, once that happens, we're toast.
Hello? Cloud City? Lando? I think that's where the carbon freezing chamber is too...
Someone's been watching too many Sarah Connor chronicles
Looks like somebody @ 'teh beeb' finally got around to reading The Age of Spiritual Machines... 9 years late. Here are some links if after reading the article you're left asking "where's the beef":
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/7124/7262.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil#2029
Kurzweil actually made this claim quite a while ago, which is (sort of) indicated in the article when he says he has "made the case" for this being true.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0691.html?m=1
yea.. i wouldnt be too keen to step into a ring with a robot.
but i'd definitely take it on out in a jungle or somewhere i can set traps and outsmart it..
Judging by your other comments,
the robot would outsmart you everywhere.
The article on the BBC had more appropriate pictures :P
true. but we know engadget to have a slightly quirky angle on life. i actually think theirs is better. its also from their own collection, from CES this year!
". . . it's going down by or before 2029 . . ."
Don't "by 2029" and "befor 2029" mean the same thing?
I'm just sayin'.
Much Love,
Grammar Boy
I don't think this will ever happen, the people who know how to even make a robot like that will be smart enough not to make it too powerful, right? Its like they've never seen Terminator.
The Mayans may prove right if this all comes down on Dec 21, 2021.
Edit: its not live they've never seen terminator
(When is engadget gonna get a comment edit system)
This is quite old news actually. I knew about 2029 since I was 11, six years ago.
Actually, thanks to your comment, the researchers have set the bar a bit lower on the par "human" intelligence level. They are now targeting 2010.
Was that supposed to be sarcastic? lol didn't get it.
By the way, IA (Intelligence Amplification) is an interesting topic I'll have to look into.
Yeah, I'm gonna start watching that Terminator show and brush up on my robot killing skills. They might come in handy...
"Apparently, machines "will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence" by then,"
I'm pretty sure machines have more intelligence than some people already.
Like Ms. South Carolina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
"I believe" is a concept we should teach robots. They'll be far less harmful on the catwalk.
iron man 28 fx?
Well, we're boned...
;)
If AI does become this advanced I'm curious as to what education will be like. Instead of learning algebra and grammar we may solely be trained to be creative and think only in ideals. Even with the intelligence of a human it's quite unlikely that computers would be able to be as creative as humans.
Interestingly enough, thinking "only in ideas" as a goal of education means that a sizable percentage of the human population will be valuable only as a food source once occupations like digging ditches and making my iced chai latte are adequately performed entirely by machines.
It's a good thing that computers would be able to take over our math and science at that point, because "ideas" are a dime a dozen already when not backed by a knowledge of how to make them reality.
Definitely. we don't even understand how creativity works; no program is capable of producing a dream or a subconsious. machines are a long way off from ethics and morals and 'gut' feelings. we can't makes machines like us because we don't understand what makes us tick. human intelligence is relative; current computers have a mathematical intelligence well above ours, but as seen by rules based voice recognition (yes, you vista) it sucks. I think we're at least 50 years away from anything with half the IQ of a human, let alone a terminator or toy soldiers takeover.
Yeah machines will match humans in that they both will have no autonomy and will be run by chips, yay?
Yes, it's called the "singularity" and Vernor Vinge predicted it many years ago.
ok yeah but when are they starting to time travel, I mean they should have come back allready no?
the fact that we haven't seen any of them maybe because:
1.- we defeated their metallic asses and they never got to travel back in time to destroy us
2.- they waited to be so advanced before time travel that they look exactly like us and thus we haven't noticed (I know a couple o' trolls that could be robots)
3.- we finally became friends after long eons of fighting and there wasn't any real need to travel back in time cuz we will have "VTT (Virtual Time Travel) that would enable us to "live" in any time frame we would so desire.
4.- And lastly but not litlish they never got to time travel cuz we blew them up (earth and all) just before they could and just before we got the remaining of us in one of those old spaceships and embarked in the fruitless search for home in Europa (and later a new solar system)
sorry got little carried away
5. Aliens defeat both us and our machine overlords.
dam those pesky aliens
One word: Hogwash!
EMP > Hydraulic Pumps
There will be cake!
Surely we already have AI that is smarter than the average Engadget commenter? I know for a fact we already have machines smarter than the George Bush,
it's called a wrist watch.
Ha ha, douche.
Not only will they play doom, but they will finally be able to enjoy it.
George Bush vs. Miss South Carolina...
Either Fight of the Century, or Complete Waste of Time. You decide.
Cue Star Wars music:
-"Miss South Carolina. I am you father."
+"Nooooo. That isn't posi .. posibuh ... posibubble."
-"Search you beliefs. You know it true."
In all honesty, I don't believe we will ever achieve true artificial intelligence. I think we will reach something like the NS4s in iRobot (the dumber robots), but never real artificial inteligence. I just think that programing and human though are two different. Also, it is just too complicated to truely be able to replicate. Maybe we will get something similar, but we really know to little about our own selves to do something like that. It ain't happening.
Everything that appears in the nature can be replicated, solely because of the fact that there is atleast 1 mechanism that will end in that result, finding it is only matter of time
I agree. AI of even a primitive form is not happening anytime soon if at all. We are definitely not going to be able to program and understand it for sure. We may be able to simulate a mind by understanding the very basic pieces without understanding the organization but this too is highly unlikely.
I seem to remember a slashdot post about a year ago about how DARPA had successfully taken 10 CIA agents and rigged 5 of them with some sort of interface from their brain to a laptop (carried in a backpack). I have no idea how they did this (just read the slashdot post, not the article. I don't care about 40 page whitepapers when 1 sentance says all I'll understand anyway). They took all 10 agents to a local grocery store and the ones with the assistance of the laptop recognized and identified common household produce (fruit) something like 60% faster.
Personally, besides the obvious comment of "it's already here" I don't believe that the way of the future will be the construction of robots to do our bidding, but rather the addition of robotics to humans. Cyborgs sound MUCH more realistic to me than pure robotic AIs. I don't believe that you can compensate for a lack of emotion by simply quadrupling the CPU power, but I do believe you can give a 30 year old man who was born blind an ocular implant and 20/20 vision in an hour, and even if not yet, soon. Just the same, I don't see how it is that far fetched to create implans similar to those they're putting in deaf people now that give a person the capability to hear higher or lower frequencies than a normal person. I believe an artificial eye could eventually see ultraviolent and infrared light, and even be made to be turned on and off with a simple thought, but I don't believe a robot will ever be able to make the split second gut desicion to save a child in a burning building instead of the elderly woman when the elderly woman would be easier. A robot will never be able to factor in the lifespan of the two people, because though that may appear to be simple programming logic, it's not. It's emotion, and when the elderly woman is 10 times easier to save, the computer will do the rational, yet emotionally wrong action, and save her over the child. That's the problem with the entire theory of robot masters such as those in Terminator or The Matrix (both great films, BTW). The general theory behind both movies is that robots will eventually advance to a point where the concept of power (political, not electrical) or even the more basic instinct of happiness will become mere lines of code, but with a lack of endorphins or a feeling of reward, robots will never have the underlying reason to pursue world domination, and without motivation, nobody - or nothing - will do anything. I can, perhaps, see survival as basic logic, but that's a reason for robots to prevent the mas production of other robots or the blackening of the sky, not to accelerate it. From a basic survival point of view, the fewer other robots created to consume a limited supply of electricity, the better for each robot. That's the same reason humans fight wars - if there was infinite food, booze and land for everyone, nobody would care to own any of it. Strangely enough, it's basic supply and demand.
So though I do believe this may be a good post, and perhaps even an accurate estimate of whien certain events will take place - I do not believe that the basic concept behind an AI will ever match that of a human. At some point, yes, a spacecraft flown by an AI will dodge asteroids better than any human pilot possibly can, but if a firefighter robot still cannot choose the small child over the elderly woman - against rationality and odds, but emotionally the better choice - then it will never truly be an AI, and the simple fact is that irrational decisions cannot be coded in any language. Period.
Same timeframe Ghost in the Shell takes place... I'm all in for it. Bring on my cyberbrain and wang.
His books are quite an interesting read.
this TOTALLY reminds me of an episode of the office season 4 where dwight tries to outsell a computer.
LMAO.
Unlock the door?
Lock the door?
It's funny Kurzweil is mentioning all this now. In "The Age of Spiritual Machines," which he wrote 9-10 years ago, he said the same thing, generally speaking. For a man to stick to his guns like that, especially in light of most of what's happened since 1999, can say a lot of things. Though I must admit, we should hold out till at least 2014 to see if any veracity to that statement is possible.
/And yes, I did put that reference on top in there intentionally. I'm made to heal. :D
Isn't global warming supposed to kill us by then?
That's where the robots come in...
If they do... I'm totally going to make sure we have arenas to have them fight each other. Unreal Tournament/Halo style...
hmm, lets hope i finish my plasma rifle by then, plasma should melt through most metals yes???? (help me out here guys)
ah, but if the machines got hold of the technology they could super mass produce it. man looks like i better get my time travelling boots on.
"Plasma" is just another word for "fire", so you'd at least need a rifle shooting a substance burning at over 500 degrees / C to melt most metals. Or you need thermite. And, even then, thermite takes some time to melt metal - it's not instant.
I guess a big frickin' laser on a shark's head would be a better choice. ($1 to Austin)
The problem isn't with Kurzweil's estimation of computing power, but rather with his incredibly limited view of a human brain. When you grossly underestimate the capabilities of the brain, it's easy to assume that computers will catch up in a few years!
In the real world, of course, we still probably won't have a realistic and objective definition of intelligence within the next 20 years, much less a "nanobot" that can increase it (whatever that would even mean!). Absolutely ridiculous. They thought we'd have natural language processing computers back in the 80s, too. There are only so many consecutive decades in which you can make the same predictions and still be taken seriously.
I hate you all, your ignorance on this topic is outstanding. Judgeing by Average Joe Engadget's opinion computers already exceed humanitys intelligence more than we realise. DOS is smarter than most of you.
2012 conspiracy theorys? THE END IS NIGH? Shit a brick and give me a break you fucks.
Hey......Fuck You. Seems like you can't take a joke
Kurzweil is certainly someone that has a good grasp on technology but as far as how accurate his time frame is, only time will tell. What people need to be concerned with right now is once robots are no longer perceived as cold, expendable machines but as creatures with their own identity and emotional capabilities, we will have to grapple with all the same legal and ethical issues that afflicts humans and animals today. In some sense, the threshold has already been surpassed with such toys as the Sony AIBO robot dog, which while not being anywhere close to what Kurzweil speaks of technologically, was advanced enough for people to establish strong emotional ties. It is critical that lawmakers establish forward looking regulations that covers robotics, or else we are going to end up with a whole big mess on our hands in the near future.
Ah...he's just saying 2029 because we all know the world comes to an end when the UNIX date problem rears it's head.
I suggest you join and donate b/c this is the only org that knows what the **** is really going on;
www.lifeboat.com/
"Futurist" I love that title. I'm gonna start putting it at the end of my name from now on.
-John, Futurist
Well, maybe they'll be smart enough to figure out all those biochemical processes we can't quite crack to cure the diseases we're taking forever to figure out.
But anyways, since we all gotta die someday...why not exterminate ourselves by manufacturing TERMINATOR units?
Its tough to define what is meant by 'exceeding' human intelligence. A lot of this is tied to the emotional and motivational side of things.
We get up in the morning and we are hungry. We perform actions so that we can earn food. We also seek clothing, shelter, procreation, etcetera. There are also human motivations regarding curiosity and entertainment. As a human we could just sit there all day, or we could do something. Our motivation to do something might be different for different people. It could be to achieve an ongoing existence, or it could be to relieve boredom or to address curiosity. Or even a need for recognition. Furthermore, each human may react differently and perform different acts.
What is the motivation for a robot? If they perform because they must then are they really as 'smart' as a human? If every robot is equally competent then acquisition of knowledge becomes predictable and linear. For any problem there is there only one 'proper' and best solution. Or is there room for creativity and uniqueness whereby one robot might develop a novel approach compared to another.
Anyway, this question doesn't make any sense to me unless you define things a bit further. Define robotic motivation. Define creativity versus 'optimal' approaches. Then I'll understand what is meant by equal to humans.
Michael