From: Mike Linksvayer (ml@justintime.com)
Date: Fri Jan 22 1999 - 09:45:58 MST
On Wednesday I saw Ray Kurzweil give a short talk promoting "The
Age of Spiritual Machines" at Stacey's in downtown San Francisco.
He spoke of the usual stuff (superintelligences, uploading, nanotech)
and made a few interesting claims/points.
* He graphed the speed of computing devices from 1900 to present, and
claimed that computing speed is not only increasing exponentially,
but that the rate at which computing speed is increasing is
increasing exponentially (the graph on a log scale curves upwards).
* He talked about how exponential advances seem small at first, then
explode. He illustrated this with the old tale about a chess
master who was granted a wish by a king and asked for one grain
of rice on the first square of the chess board, two on the second,
four on the third... The king (assuming an ignorance of math I
guess) would not have worried until about halfway through the
board. Shortly thereafter, the king would be bankrupt or the
chess master would be beheaded. Kurzweil claimed that we are at
a similar midpoint with regards to computers -- fairly quietly
they have become an integral part of human society, and will soon
radically alter it.
* He implied that any philosophical debate over whether machines can
be truly intelligent will be rendered irrelevant by intelligent
machines. They will claim to be intelligent, and humans will
accept that the computers are intelligent because their intelligence
will be so compelling.
The audience was either already well informed or just took all of this in
stride. The questions were very predictable, but not stupid, e.g.
(questions and answers completely from memory and very possibly
inaccurate)
Q: What about physical barriers to making silicon wafer based technology
faster?
A: 3D chips, nanotech
Q: What about biotech?
A: We're entering a golden age of bioengineering, but long term computers
will have a far more profound effect.
Q: I work with technology every day and love it, but I love humans too. I
don't understand why anyone would want to upload.
A: One wouldn't give up any humanity by uploading. One could experience
anything a human does now and much more, at higher fidelity.
Q: Aren't you forgetting that AI is considered a failure and there are
many fundamental philosophical issues to be resolved?
A: Hardcoded rule based systems haven't lived up to early claims, though
they have proved incredibly useful in expert systems. Nueral
net systems that can be trained and learn themselves are the
way to go. We know machines can be intelligent -- the human
brain is a machine.
Q: I understand that computers will be smart and can ape human artists,
but will they ever be creative? Will they ever create radical
new movements and art, like Picasso and de Kooning?
A: Much of human creativity involves drawing connections between
previously unconnected elements/ideas. Computers will be able
to do this quite well. There are already some examples.
I forgot the examples. I think a much stronger argument can be
made in response to the question of creativity. First, attributing
the creativity of a few masters to humanity and vice versa gives
both far too much credit. Second, if creativity involves making
unforseen connections (I haven't read much about creativity) then
computers will surely seem incredibly creative. Once computers
have some basic creative abilities, they will be able to generate
new and far more wildly unforseen connections than any human ever
could. It's likely that mere human artists will be aping computer
artists rather than the other way around, assuming there is an
extended period of coexistence.
Overall I thought Kurzweil presented his ideas very reasonably.
No hint of 'gee whiz'. I still haven't looked at "The Age of
Spiritual Machines", and probably won't (my backlog is way too big),
but based on the talk I saw I'd recommend the book to someone
unfamiliar with but interested in the subject.
--- I heard one other point the other day that isn't worth posting in a separate message, but may be useful or heartening to someone, so... I'm taking a video class with some coworkers taught by John Searle. Fortunately we've gotten past his Chinese Room blather, and he's now talking about establishing a 'science of consciousness'. His claim: the human (physical) brain gives rise to consciousness. Nothing amazing there. The interesting thing is that he claimed that a century ago there were intense debates about whether life could have a purely biological foundation. Many postulated that for a thing to be alive it needed a mystical 'life force', which the mechanics of biology would never suffice to produce. Very similar to current beliefs held by many that conciousness cannot be explained by the purely physical and requires some kind of spiritual component, if not in so many words. Now it's pretty much universally accepted that life has a biological basis. Searle contends that once we understand more about how the brain works, it will become more or less universally accepted that conciousness has a biological basis and arguments to the contrary will be just as unknown and seem just as quaint as arguments about 'life force' seem to us now. There is hope. -- See From: and Organization: above. Call +1 415 553 6408 for assistance.
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