Some of you may know Ray Kurweil‘s work. He’s most famous for his invention of speech recognition machines, as well as authoring the book “The Age of Spiritual Machines”. He recently released a new book: “The Singularity is Near” which develops the idea that the logarithmic acceleration of technology development brings us nearer (say 50 years) to a point “of singularity” in which the capacity of artificial intelligence will exceed human intelligence.
Here is an interesting interview with him, as he discusses this work and other ideas.
-Lorraine
Him and Minsky have been promising this for some time. It’s time for these people to deliver, or else .-)
Kurzweil (with a Z) is more of a trend predictor than pithy critic (like Minsky). His take on the structure of ICTs and the way we use them always seems more direct and cogent. Minsky’s work, particularly in his misguided critique of neural networks, always seemed more psycho-social. Kurzweil paints pictures of what might be while Minsky will routinely talk of his view of a future that he defines in vague terms. In that sense, Minsky can’t deliver.
Ouch…you’re both harsh critics. Let’s remember that both Minsky (http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/) and Kurzweil (http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html) are remarkable scientists with many accomplishments to date, and in that sense that have delivered in spades. So, for me, their insights hold weight, and at the least are very provacative.
My apologies for the mispelling of Kurzweil’s name. I also flubbed the ‘most famous’ without first checking my facts. Kurzweil’s first invention was the “Kurzweil Reading Machine” which translated text to speech for blind readers. Since then he has contributed many other inventions, including speech recognition technologies.
Again, check out the interview. At least, there’s a fun section in the middle when Kurzweil describes his methodical technique for ‘capturing’ his creative insights and inventions.
Lorraine