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Subscribe to RSSThe Singularity is back in the spotlight, thanks to a Time cover story focusing on inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil and his forecast that "the end of human civilization as we know it" will come in about 35 years ... just as Kurzweil is nearing his 100th birthday.
Kurzweil is doing everything in his power to make sure he's ready for the big event, which he calls the Singularity. He takes 150 pills a day, keeps himself in shape and looks forward to the day when he can start re-engineering his own body for immortality. And he's not alone. Kurzweil has been spreading the word about the Singularity in a series of books and two documentaries ("The Singularity Is Near" and "Transcendent Man") as well as academic programs at Singularity University in California's Silicon Valley.
Kurzweil projects that computers will match human brain power by around the year 2030, opening the way for a rapid merging of electronic and biological intelligence. Around the year 2045, that merger will lead to a worldwide transformation so dramatic that its follow-on effects would be hard to predict. (Hence the term "singularity.")
"It's a little alarmist, but the idea is that ... it's a kind of cyborgian era, when there's a combination of man and machine. Even now, Parkinson's patients have neural implants in their brain, basically," Time's managing editor, Richard Stengel, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" today. "Why couldn't you be doing that for regular folks, to increase memory, bandwidth, all of that kind of stuff?"
The development of a search-engine / smart-phone / machine-translator system that's wired directly into our brains would certainly mark a turning point. I referred to the Bluetooth/Google/Babelfish implant four years ago, but the idea goes back at least to the "microsofts" described by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer."
Would such devices count as the merging of man and machine? Is the Singularity nearer than we think? I'm betting that the human-vs.-machine divide will become fuzzier and fuzzier — thanks to gimmicks such as Wafaa Bilal's webcam implant and next week's "Jeopardy" face-off as well as more substantive developments. What's your bet? Will the Singularity still be science fiction in 2045? Or will it be ancient history?
More on the Singularity:
- What will happen when machines outthink us?
- Inventor sets his sights on immortality
- Q&A with Ray Kurzweil about the immortality quest
- Wikipedia keeps score on Kurzweil's predictions
- For Singularitans, humans are so yesterday
- Human evolution at the crossroads
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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I think I will pass on this and remain flesh and bone, fleeting into my obscure death with dignity sans the wires and batteries.
What's undignified about this?
I'm not trying to be argumentative ... just curious?
I understand this type of thing wouldn't be for everyone. Just like a one-way ticket on a manned mission to the outer reaches of the galaxy may turn some off. But to others, the adventure would seem like the greatest possible honor one could ever achieve ... even if they knew they are only serving the sole purpose of exploration.
I've never understood those proclaiming the "good death" mentality. It's as if, as long as they go out stoic ... they can take pride in their own demise. I on the other hand rather like the idea of immortality. I love life. I love it so much that the idea of holding onto such a precious gift sounds like an even greater gift. And a life spent trying to achieve it (at least to me) would not be a wasted life.
I also of course know this will never happen for me (my immortality). I don't fear death. But I also take no satisfaction in the notion that as long as I stand up and say: "I will die with pride!" that I will somehow find peace. Rather, I find more dignity in the idea that I will fight to live. I will go to my grave kicking and screaming for more of what I have come to love. The life that I kicked and screamed to achieve in the first place.
Whether we one day are simply loading our conscious minds onto the net, or continuously harvesting new organs from our own tissue for prolonged survival, I'm sure one day death may very well be a relic. Until then, I think at the very least, we can all find solidarity in the notion that we all share the same fate (at least for now ;)
Chad -
I totally get your viewpoint. It is my belief,however, that life and death are natural, even needed, events in the great scheme of things. If I, or all of us, were to become immortal there would be more stasis and less dynamism in everything - culture, government, science, etc. By exiting my spot in the universe I give way to the new. Immortality could end up as the ultimate banality. You eventually experience everything and become nothing. Although not a Buddhist, I understand (and do not desire) the "nothingness" of a technologically created Nirvana.
I get you.
I just feel that we actually know so little about the natural world that the further and further we reach into the depths .... the vaster and more curious this natural world of ours seems to be. If we were stuck on this rock for eternity, I could see your point. But, with a limitless lifespan potential, I can see us not only evolving into something more different, (more interesting) .... but also experiencing a "difference" that we can't even comprehend at the moment. To me, within this framework, benality would be the least of our worries.
Resistance is futile...
You will be assimilated...
This guy has taken way to many pills. Technology is a tool nothing more nothing less. As for implants I do think they won't be necessary as we will be able to interact without implants. We are electrical beings that put of signals that technology will be able to interpret and respond to.
Implants will be like tattoos. Self expression and unnecessary. A hat, earing or head band maybe but not implants. As for medical purposes? By this time they won't be necessary DNA or reconfiguring the basic blocks will be unlocked and fixable. Bye Bye Pills.
But we have to make it there first! A lot of irrational thought out there.
To me he is underestimating Man Kinds current and future abilities.
Implants will be unnecessary maybe biologically grown interfaces through DNA manipulation. Adding a speed of light device to a chemical device is like adding extra ram (more than 4 gigs) to a 32 bit XP machine. WHY?
Personally I like the indigo generation as in we are more than we can imagine, currently! So much untapped potential. We live on perceived facts of the moment.
I'd sooner experience a Fallout-esque future than one where we willingly become the Borg.
One of the problems many of us have with the idea of merging with machines is the thought of loss of "humanity." It's a serious concern, around for a long time now. Think of those who still do not seek medical care for health issues.
Before I "got it" that living things make decisions for which no amount of knowledge of a priori conditions can account--which contain a miraculous component of actual creation, I thought the idea of computers replacing humans perfectly natural. Now I know its impossibility. Computers, including all forms of artificial intelligence, mimic decision making but are limited to the causative results of inputs, including randomization.
But as far as implants to augment my humanity, I already use the computational speed of computers, and have metal plates and screws in my body. I move faster because of a car. Bring it on. We have a long ways to go before we find where the creativity of life leaves off and the dull repetition of the machine takes over.
Singularity is about both facing human limitations and preparing for the inevitable - emergence of higher intelligence.
Humans are pretty proud of their achievements so far, but the most of the people still doesn't see the bigger picture - there is still plenty to learn and do.
Just two fact: First - humans have been living on Earth for some 200-300 thousand years in comparison to a few billion years since the formation of this planet. Another couple of billion years still remains till sun turns into red giant. Plenty of time to fill, isn't it?
Second - the farthest people did go is moon. Yes, human mission to Mars is planned. Mars is 20 light MINUTES away from Earth. The recently discovered exoplanet Gliese 581g is some 20 light YEARS away. Currently contemplated propulsion systems can get 0.1-0.2c, which would require 100-200 years of travel to reach Gliese system. And the Milky Way has 100 thousand light years in diameter...
Actually, life on Earth does not have until the sun goes red giant. The habital period will end well before that due to the fact that, as the sun ages, it will get hotter.
Now, the facts and figures are still pretty obscure in the meantime. I've seen estimates from 50 million years to just under 2 billion. I know that it doesn't make much difference in the grans scheme of things but just something to keep in mind.
I'd be willing to bet money on the 50 million years before the planet is uninhabitable is way short. If it were correct, then dare I say it, Al Gore is wrong about man made global warming. It is instead just the planet moving towards that 50 million years from now mass extinction.
It is interesting to think that in about 35 years, we might be starting the era of "Battlestar Galactica." It will be interesting to see what evolves. I personally wouldn't object to having electronic implants to help boost my knowledge and reasoning skills. When this body of mine is old and falling apart, I'd also be willing to download myself into another body or computer.
On the bright side, if in 50 million years the earth is too hot, we may still be alright living on it if we are machines at that point and use the solar energy to power ourselves. I just hope I won't be checking out the female robot across the street from me thinking, "She has some nice servos."
Once we have gotten to some sort of merger of the biological and the electromechanical - something on the order of an implanted smart phone, it will only require minor technological tweaks to get us all into continuous real-time communication. There is obviously a big social push for this type of continuous communication, coming from the younger people on the planet. Once we are all continuously interconnected, the human race will very quickly become a single person - a very large, complicated, and smart person, but a single person. I have believed for a long time that this will happen much sooner than most people think.
B-but I can see her bare circuits!
(Hookerbot has a heart of solid gold).
I believe that by then, we will have a significant understanding of genes and how to manipulate those genes to produce smarter, stronger, faster, etc., people and without the need for turning people into cyborgs. I was thinking maybe for those with damaged limbs or brains, but then I realized that per my first statement, we will likely be able to grow new arms, legs, hearts and even repair damage to the brain with no need for turning people into the "Borg". By then, stem cell research may be significantly advanced and we may actually be healthy well into our 100's. I don't see too many people wanting to have electronics implanted, especially if their issue can be fixed with stem cells or even fixed before they are born if that is the case. Of course, who knows what people will do to themselves then. People do some pretty sick and twisted stuff to themselves now, so anything is possible.
Kurzweil is becoming insignificant, just the press pushing ink. For all my studies of AI, and my admiration of the ibm research dept institution, I am expecting a human champion in the jeopordy game against watson....but they(ibm) are close. This will be the first public display of watson in a jeopardy game. But after a few more displays I think they will of coded most of the "hard rules" inside the aiml files, enough that the self-learning alogarithim can compensate...BUT...for instance, the crude joke: "The Red Cross have just knocked at our door and asked if we could help with the floods in Pakistan. I said we would love to, but our garden hose only reaches to the end of our driveway" will always be incomprehensible to watson whereas the dynamics of human response will be all across the board, in essence, they understand the joke..and more so will have a position on it...putting the two surgically together (watson and human) is, in the long run an incompatibility...always will be, on the other end of the spectrum I easily see synthetic eyes for the blind, but in fact, we are pushing the frontier of custom organic organ manufacture even now!...people, for the foreseeable future are going to WANT the option closest to normal. Technical enhancements seem to be acceptable when no other option works, but in the long run, manmade tech, as in borg stuff, will always be problematic and, if nothing else, inferior, at least in the overall. I agree in 2050 perhaps we will have an artificial heart that lasts 500 years...but we may very well have the real thing, cloned or manufactured in vivo, that only lasts 150 (guess for comparison)..but you can have several over the course of you existance...what would you want...one that goes whirrrr, whirrrr, whirrrr...or the one that goes beat, beat, beat, exactly like the one you have now? I think ray kurzweil is more of a sensationalist anymore. personallly I would want the natural heart, even if the titanium one will last through fire and ice. As for hooking watson into the brain, no one wants a damn chatterbox (they can say what they want, cyc has a great program but all in all watson is just a stronger better more learned elisa) hooked in 24x7....think of how poor the interface of your gps is...at this point it will tell you to turn right if you are in the middle of the wrong bridge....with darwins help, it may be providing a path to a better race...but, the good ole map still works just as well. In the future web agents will improve, but the only thing that will allow a collection of nueral links to get the joke above is natural growth coupled with nurture. It is that easy, and that hard. There is no singularity...what an ill concept.
And humans are better than a more advanced Eliza how? Oh, that's right, they're not. It's still preprogrammed responses but the programming is just more complex and the computer a good deal faster. Eliza could "learn" on a limited basis as can Watson or a human being.
I know, I know, "but the computer isn't learning, it's just reitterating." Don't fool yourself into thinking you're doing anything more than that.
And, for my part, if a future artifical heart can be proven to lasts hundreds of years with no failures I'll take it in a second over this failure prone biological copy.
I guess people are just short sighted and feel cheated that we're not well on our way to a Star Trek universe. It's sad that people are rejecting technologies that are barely out of their infancy but have shown fantastic promise.
east coast:
I feel sorry for you if you've never experienced the thrill of creativity or the magic of intuitive problem solving. That's something computers have never experienced, it cannot be programmed in. Sure, computers can be programmed to try all possible solutions until it finds one that works, and can even follow preprogrammed steps to find a solution (btw, that's how Watson works". but that is quite different than how our minds work.
Exactly CM, computers never feel the high that an AHA! gives the human mind!
Well let's see, he takes 150 pills a day, that doesn't sound healthy and we seemed to over look 2012. Man is a unique creature I see science never out doing God.
Why would we overlook 2012? It was such a good movie!
There are only possibilities. We do not know one way or another.
Natural way to preserve human kind in the future. No other reason, evolution go automatically to that direction. There is no way that human without to change one day to some kind of machine or to owe one to search for new planet to live on. It could take millions of light years to find that planet. So is not important that human will not go, bud that something will be able to do that for us and seed the continuation of human kind without to loose all history. Off course also the animals. No rats please :-) I will call it new age of Noes Arch.
The great breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have been just around the corner for over 30 years. The next 30 years are likely to see considerable improvements in computer pattern recognition and processing speed, of course. Computers may even be able to pass some version of a Turing test. But that does not make it a singularity. We still have little understanding of what turns a bunch of neurons into a human mind. I really doubt that we can make an artificial mind until we know much, much more about the flesh and blood one. Truely intelligent computers still belong to the George Jetson vision of the future.
Exactly,
The key point you make here is the recognition of our current limitations in neuroscience. Much discussion of the singularity revolves around the technology, but fails to take into account the significant gaps in our understanding of human physiology and behavior. An analogy would be trying to bake a perfect cake: One can design the world's most technologically superior oven with enough labor and ingenuity; but without adequate knowledge of the recipe for the batter, how can the two merge to form the tastiest treat possible?
In my opinion, the merging of high-tech and biology is indeed likely; I simply doubt that it will occur at a discrete point - much less one which can be predicted based on Moore's law. It seems much more reasonable to expect a gradual synthesis of beneficial technologies which reduce morbidity in the ill and slightly increase longevity.
The closest thing that I can see to a "singularity" occurring would be the completion of an accurate computer model of an archetypal eukaryotic cell, including metabolic and signalling pathways capable of modeling molecular interactions to the T. The predictive power and ability to test drugs/therapies would be phenomenal. I bet we achieve this long before we reach the point at which "resistance is futile."
Great article Alan - keep 'em coming!
This is a good point. Knowledge, or brute computing power don't do you any good unless you have the underlying understanding required to apply that knowledge/power. I remember when the human genome project was going to bring about all sorts of medical breakthroughs once it was finished. It hasn't yet, and a big reason for it is that we are still learning about how genes interact with one another and how the mechanisms of advanced cell biology truly work. I believe that once we have that understanding, we can then use the information from the genome project to bring about the promised cures. Same with the singularity. We won't be able to implement the knowledge, until we gain a deeper understanding of the brain and neuroscience, and as Vote said, I doubt it will be a discrete event that one can point to, but rather a gradual process.
I foresee mans future integration with electronics to be nothing more than that of keeping the human condition, augmenting it with new tools. These tools would be for things like communication, problem solving, storage and indexing and the like. Maybe some of the electronics will give aid do repair work to our bodies. Maybe even form protective barriers around us to guard us against rain or to shed water after we get out of the wet.
I don't ever see us becoming a "ghost in the shell".
I welcome it and the upcoming implants. Can't wait to get my own. Hopefully we're able to scan consciousness into circuitry before I die, but if not, meh.
Creepy.
"You are not ready for immortality"
- Kosh Naranek
I must be a super nerd because I got that reference. Jesus, i thought i was getting better.....
well, if Kosh says it, it must be so!
Ever heard the term "Use it or Lose it"? with the connected brain it doesn't need to do anything it atrophies. Also Jean Luc Peccard can tell us all about the experience after all he was assimilated into the Borg.
Or you could have a "Spock's Brain" situation where society bifuricates and regresses...and wears go-go boots.
it will be easier for the computers to reach or surpass human intelligence as time passes becasue of the rate the govts are dumbing down our young
The Governments aren't the ones denigrating science and learning, that is done by certain Religious Conservatives, who think that anything that doesn't agree with their bronze age legends should be forcibly suppressed. That is most clearly evident in the teaching of biology with "Evilution", but it also pops up in the teaching of astronomy (age of the universe), geology (age of the earth), and even physics (relativity, quantum uncertainty, radioisotope age determination).
Technology trickles down.
My son’s laptop has more computational power than the entire government had 50 years ago.
Regrettably, this dooms the human race. As more advanced technologies become available to people further down the food chain, so do the destructive capabilities that come with the technologies.
If we are ever to achieve the singularity, we must recognize that individuals who have been marginalized will be able to access information that can be used to destabilize our society.
Things like genome specific pathogens, or cold fusion could empower the powerless, and trust me on this one, the powerless are PISSED!
Imagine the hungry with the ability to destroy crops they cannot share in, or the sick modifying their illness to make it more communicable.
Equity or else!
You logic is contradictory, you claim that what the down trodden want is equity, yet at the same time when they aquire it, they will still use it to destroy those above them. Makes no sense. If they had that power, then why not cure or feed themselves? With cures to illness and access to food, they probably wouldn't really be pissed anymore.
Even if we do obtain command of the human genome (and we will), thereby enabling us to engineer stronger, smarter, healthier, more resilient "human" beings, there will still be a huge advantage to merging the biological with the digital. Both of these possibilities for human evolution are probabilities that we're beginning to see now and will be clearly evident in a mere 30 years.
This article makes me think of a Singularity near a black hole where time would stop. Not sure if he names his scenario that because he sees some sort of connection with time. To me it's a no brainer that our technological advancements wil take over our lives very soon. We will not have to move in the future and will become a single entity planted in the ground communicating via brain waves.
The article is missing a very important trend in computer engineering which is the research in biological computers which are based on DNA. As great as the supercomptuers are becoming, they can't match the effeciency of DNA. The greatest drawback in the AI realm is due to the linear streaming of data for processing. Even with parallel computing, the CPU's are still linear. This makes current computers 1-dimensional, whereas, the human mind operates 3-dimensionally with temporal time making it 4 -dimensional. Which should not be a surprise that it matches the physical view of our universe. In the end, I think 2045 is optimistic, maybe 2100. The biggest disadvantge will come from the cost of research and unfortunately I believe the Chinese will be the leaders in this if there is not political turmoil in the next couple of decades. Next will be the political debate on whether it should be done. Not to say which side is right, but I think the conservatives will fight it hard as they do now with stem cell research, if the political structure stays the same as it is now.
I agree, and well said. The closest we are right now is quantum computing. Fascinating indeed, but still lacks that 4th dimension. We will get there, just not in the near future. When we do we will have created a universe, which you are right will open up a can of worms in the political and religious world.
Well kids, it doubtful this old ranger will be around in 35 years and even if I am I don't think I have any interest in plugging in and hanging around hooked up to a machine. Besides, the greatest adventure awaits beyond the veil, right? No? Who cares?
But here's the point I mean. We just celebrated Jules Verne's 183rd birthday. In his day heavier than air powered flight was science fiction, going to the moon was science fiction and a submarine like the Nautaless (sp?)was science fiction. We've done all that and more in the past 100 years. I think it's entirely feasible that man will become a cyborg hybrid or at least be capable of such by mid-century.
I just don't think I'm going to opt for the transformation, thank you.
(Sound up on the STAR TREK theme music) To boldly go where no man has gone before......
LOL, where I know what you mean, the explorer in me would like to get connected when the time comes. Not that I will be around either. Perhaps my atoms can get transported into the internet where I will live forever. Who knows..
Thanks pard, we'll see you down the trail, unless you get cyborgified or downloaded to the internet. Course if that was to happen you'd probably spend the rest of your eons floating around the porn sites.
I guess that beats the alternative, huh?
Yeeeehaw, ride'em cyborg! (It just doesn't have the same feel does it?)
Sort of reminds me of the movie Lawnmower Man. I'm starting to believe that will one day be possible. And yes if I am ever trapped on the web, might as well make it the porn web. Bom Chika Bow Wow.
No it doesn't have the same feel. Gonna need a new phrase.
when everyone around you is getting plugged in, can't you just say 'no thank you.'
simple life.
The primary thought that I have on the "singularity" is that it will turn out to be something similar to the predictions of the futurists of the 1950s: exciting to contemplate, but overly enthusiastic. According to those predictions, we were all supposed to be flying instead of driving long before now. Those futurists failed to consider that only an idiot would put New York City or Los Angeles traffic into the air. People that want to create "bullet trains" in this country were labeled "idiots" just this week by a US Congressman...due to the cost, I believe.
The Watson system for playing Jeopardy is impressive. More impressive is: "Watson is based on commercially available IBM Power 750 servers that have been marketed since February 2010. IBM also intends to market the DeepQA software to large corporations, with a price in the millions of dollars, reflecting the $1 million needed to acquire the complete system that runs Watson. IBM expects the price to drop substantially within a decade as the technology improves." What is "substantially"? 90% improvement in the cost and hardware? ...to 9 computers (instead of 90), 288 processors (instead of 2880), and a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not still over a million? Yup, I want that in my head. I'm ready to buy now. I'm ready to improve my Jeopardy game. Not.
Ok, I got a bit facetious at the end of that last paragraph. However, the point is still there: a "worldwide transformation" is predicted. I'm predicting that the cost will still be high and the money won't be there for anything anywhere close to mass production. Further, it is an established fact that technology far outpaces the human sociological and psychological capability to embrace it. Yes, there is the internet that has mushroomed. I counter with our ability to provide the first class care that Congresswoman Giffords is receiving for her head wound and our inability, or simply unwillingness, to provide that same level of care for our military personel and/or civilians with equally debilitating injuries ... "it's too expensive" ... "there are better ways to spend the money" ... "the government is not responsible for this" ... "why should my taxes be spent on improving a foreigner who might then take my job?" ... and so on. The space program of the 60s and 70s was heady, but we only landed humans on the moon seven times, the last time being 38 years ago. We were supposed to be on Mars a long time ago. What happened?
I figure that the probability that I will live to see 2045 is somewhere between slim and none, so I will likely never know how this plays out by that date. Amazing and awesome advances in both technology and its implementation have occurred in my lifetime. They will continue. I'm just very sceptical of "worldwide transformations." They can happen. I don't think this one will in the alloted time frame.
Compare what we thought the future would be like in 1976, and now, 35 years later. Some things haven't changed much, we still have Conservatives and Liberals (though the division seems deeper, somehow), we still have cars running on gasoline (but more SUVs, hybrids are new, and plug-in are back) and our homes are pretty much the same (but more McMansions). The things that have changed dramatically are computers, DVDs and other digital media, cell phones, the Internet, and certain areas of medical technology (MRI, CAT scans, digitized records). That isn't the future predicted in 1976, back then we were predicting lunar colonies, flying cars, personal robots and automated self-cleaning homes by 2010. Well, we do have robotic vacuum cleaners, but otherwise those predictions were abject failures, as well as the failure to predict what dramatic changes did take place.
I suspect that the world 35 years from now will be similar to today in so many ways, and very very different in others. My prediction is that we will be strongly encouraging birth control and small families, electric cars will have mostly replaced gasoline vehicles, personal automated transportation will replace public transit buses and trains, communication will be ubiquitous, computers will be everywhere but not truly intelligent, and medicine will have many life extending and life improving technologies.
My final "prediction" is that most predictions, perhaps even my own, will fail.
What about the no-go, dreaded, will-I-be-voted-out-of-government area of population control!!! Gotta come, no?? Governments don't want to go there yet though - in 35 years....possibly?? How will it work ? - no idea
What a dopey sensationalist article. (imho) The things Kurzweil talks about (baring any unforseen advances in bedrock technologies such as cheap and powerful quantum computers & the software to go with them) the really serious technologies necessary for true man/machine union, are likely decades and maybe centuries away.
I wish journalist would stop insulting the IQ of those among us who take the time to seriously understand these things.
I'm very tempted to say Elementary dear Watson.
I do agree
Actually there are some fundamtental man / machine interfaces. One in particular is a qudraplegic man who has an interface in his head and is able to move a mouse on a screen with just his mind.
And who would tha be? LOL
Ok, now I will agree with both of you. I agree that Kurzweil didn't exactly dazzle by saying that man will be intergrated with machine. That's becoming obvious as time goes on. But also, what's been done for Stephen Hawkings can perhaps become common technology soon as a method of computer control. And perhaps if it works in one direction, it can work in the other?
I am ready now. Hook me up.
yeah right I was supposed to be in a flying car by now. No thanks Singularity, I will be perfectly happy to die in my 70-80's. That is enough time for me.
an interesting article, from msn.com, to perhaps, bolster this whole concept:
You can wire man to computer all you want, give him immortality and peak physical health ... still doesn't fix good ole stupid. True stupidity is not the inability of a person to think for themselves, true stupidity is the refusal of that person to think for themselves. That kind of stupid is always going to hold us back.
don't use 'stupid' so many times in a short paragraphy. try...'doofusness'.
I like Gooberness
duh-head ness
cotton-headed-ninny-muffins
LMAO! "Cotton-headed-ninny-muffins"
Kurzweil is conflating intelligence and logical thought with consciousness, which in fact is an entirely different phenomenon. We don't know how consciousness works. We don't know why we have subjective experiences of our own sensory perceptions. We don't know what, if any, physical mechanism in our brain leads to conscious, subjective experiences. Why does the color red have a particular conscious sensation associated with it? Why does pain feel like anything in particular? Why aren't we just zombies, functioning intelligently to ensure our individual survival, but without any sense of awareness or experience? We not only don't know how to reproduce consciousness in a machine--we can't even philosophically concieve of any mechanism by which this would be possible--how do you program a logic circuit to "feel" pain? We can program a robot to respond to excessive temperature measurements in its hand so as to withdraw its hand from a hot cup of coffee, but that's completely different from making it actually feel pain or feel anything for that matter. I think Kurzweil is a typical engineer--proficient with math and physics, but utterly lacking in philosophical depth.
Nerve signals are electrical in nature. As such, it'd be simple to duplicate.
If it was so simple, then why haven't we been able to decode the brain? How does the brain process the firing of the neurons?
We don't need to understand how conscious works. As technology advances, we will be able to create a model of a nerve cell that precisely duplicates its behavior. After that, one connects these models in a manner similar to the human brain, expose it to external stimuli, and conscious behavior will likely emerge. It is not necessary to understand it, replicate brain function. Only difference is that it will be done with digital hardware that is fundamentally faster then nerve cell chemistry and that can be grown significantly beyond the size of the human brain.