Talk:The Singularity Is Near

Regarding postulate 4

Why does it matter if baby boomers are alive for this event or not? Whatever generation is alive will allow for 'reaching the same conclusions' unless his conclusions include some sort of 'self-obsession'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.58.46 (talk) 03:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if they are alive or not. If you read the book Kurzweil is not obsessed with baby boomers reaching Singularity, but rather hypothesizes with advances in genetics and biomeds boomers could theoretically keep themselves alive and healthy (read: with the physical body of a much younger person) well into the 2040's (almost 80-95 years old). This is not a self-obsession, but rather preaching the uber-healthy lifestyle that he leads, and why other boomers should convert, should they want to give themselves the best chance they can to reach Singularity (and possible immortality). For younger generations it is less important because the flexible time frame given; even if Singularity were to miss by say 15 years (unlikely according to Kurzweil), younger generations would still be well within even this era's average lifespan, and thus not at risk to miss Singularity by leading a average lifestyle.24.206.86.229 (talk) 12:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Someone familiar with the subject, please check that I'm not breaking something..

The following (blockquoted) is a single sentence. I have edited it to make it somewhat understandable, but I am worried I may be removing some aspect of the article in editing it. It definitely needs to be reformed to not have so confusing a structure. Parenthetical remarks, three comma breaks, a dash, words like 'ameliorate', and obtuse phrasings make this a wall of impenetrable text. If my fix appears crazy, please revert or merge.

Original: (only showing the problem area)

In a rebuttal paper at KurzweilAI.net, Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement - an argument that seems again to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies (as well as the inevitable paradigm shift by advent of another periodically) could ameliorate even such a barrier, a relevant example being more advanced a form of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, at a scale and with accuracy of computation equivalent to the biological human brain.

I believe that 'ameliorate' was misused. It means "to aid" or "to improve", and is here said "to ameliorate even such a barrier", when it appears to be intended to read "help to bring down such a barrier". I have replaced "ameliorate" with "overcome".

Also, the final statement about "a more advanced form of quantum computing" doesn't have a reference. Did whoever wrote this just bullshit it? It really doesn't feel like anything beyond a vague, speculative bit of inanity.

Broke this enormous two-story paragraph into two smaller, more readable pieces.

Revised: (showing the whole subsection)

Kurzweil asserts that the functionality of the brain is quantifiable in terms of technology that we can build in the near future. Kurzweil's earlier books showed cerebral processing power as primarily the number of computations in a square inch multiplied by the area of the brain. In this update, however, he acknowledges the possibility of Penrose-Hameroff Microtubule quantum processing (Orch-OR) and states that if his calculations of the processing capability of the brain are off by a factor of a billion, the double-exponential growth of technology will still catch up to it twenty-four years after his original projections. The Orch-OR theory is generally discredited among neuroscientists.

In a rebuttal paper, Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement. This argument seems to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies could, in a nominal period, overcome such a barrier. Additionally, other technologies could emerge which greatly lower the time required to reach the Singularity. A notable example would be more advanced forms of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, which on a large enough scale, could function equivalently to the biological human brain.

One last thing - "processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be" - does this mean that the power required is precisely an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed, or simply that it is beyond present expression? This is ambiguous, and I've decided to leave it that way - if someone knows the actual meaning, please make it concrete. Thanks! 99.225.15.55 (talk) 10:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section

This page is a rather detailed summary of the book, which is fine, but shouldn't there also be some criticism somewhere? Or at least a link? It's just that people who subscribe to his ideas deserve to also be exposed to careful outside analysis of them. Personally, I think many of his assumptions and assertions are deeply unjustified and much of his reasoning is false... but I don't want to do OR here, does anyone know of a solid body of criticism of this work? --Jonathan Stray (talk) 11:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The rate of expansion of the universe is increasing which may make it difficult for the machines to convert the universe (maybe the universe is going into self preservation mode) and even so faster than light travel is not really possible. -- Good luck bots —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.21.195.230 (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

"He expands on Moore's Law with models showing that not only the return, but the rate of return is increasing exponentially." Some one more mathematically inclined, can maybe answer this question, can the rate of return be exponential if the return is exponential too? --Lightenoughtotravel (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In 2030 I might be able to download my brain into a computer, but I bet I still won't have my rocket car. As a molecular biologist, I think the biology in this article is way too optimistic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.255.152 (talk) 21:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Old talk

I deleted 5-6 paragraphs under the sufficient medical advancements section. Its entirety was comprised of a book review lifted from: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17557088%255E5001986,00.html

Whomever edited that section previously failed to credit the original author, failed to paraphrase any of it (i.e. plagiarism) and much to the chagrin of the Wikipedia community: failed to hyperlink keywords.

At any rate, I have not read the book personally (only various chapters and reviews) -- however, to answer the questions raised below, it has been published as a couple of my friends own it. And for the record, the article still doesn't seem NPOV. If you want to criticize certain parts of it, create a Criticism section. - Tejano 05:32, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

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Wikipedia is about things/beliefs that exist or have existed, not that MIGHT exist in the future. There are a bazillion-and-one books in the process of being written - they don't deserve articles except in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and none seem to exist in this case. Once "Singularity" actually exists, we can write an article on it. - DavidWBrooks 17:11, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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I believe the book is either finished, or just about finished, and there's no reason to believe that it'll be behind schedule in its release. Amoffit 17:25, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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But it doesn't actually exist yet. The publisher could decide to not print it until, say, the Christmas season, or next spring due to obscure business reasons. Or the publisher could go out of business tomorrow and the book get lost in legal limbo. Or the title could be changed at the last minute. In any case, we should wait until the book actually exists before writing a story about it! - DavidWBrooks 18:49, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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But it's such an anticipated release :) Andrew 19:24, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Ziff-Davis (the publishing company) doesn't even mention the book in a press release about a Kurzweil speech earlier this month (June) - in fact, I can't Google any news about its upcoming publication at all. He's been giving talks with that title for years - can you point me to some evidence that it is actually coming out? - DavidWBrooks 00:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Truth be told I just took the information from the wikipedia Ray Kurzweil page, which mentioned it was to be released in 2004. It looks like you've removed mention to this book from that entry.. But it was highlighted and I thought there would be an entry and when I found that there wasn't it was, I believed, my duty to add it.. There must be a lot of people awaiting this release and so little mentions on the internet, it's baffling actually!

On this webpage; http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0235.html?m%3D1 the first video is an interview with Ray Kurzweil that mentions The Singularity is Near is due in 2003. So I guess it's behind schedule at this point. (I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing or even much of it) Andrew 4:24, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I don't mean to be so pompous and annoying about this, but wikipedia is getting close to the point where some people use it as source material - and so we need to be careful about putting in material that may not be true. There are enough ULs floating around the Net! ... anyway, how about re-writing this article to talk about the singularity idea he's been talking about, and just put a sentence at the end saying that he has long had a plan to turn it into a book, or something like that? - DavidWBrooks 12:33, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I've modified the entry to indicate that it is not to be taken as 'gospel'. Here's another link that mentions kurzweil talking about his book (in 2003 though). http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0476.html here's a wired article from a little over a year ago mentioning it: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/start.html?pg=12 --Andrew 19:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I turned the article around: The talks are definitely real, so I started with them. The book is possible, so I moved it to the end. - DavidWBrooks 13:35, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Singularity Is Near Is Near

But is it here? It's sept 22 in Europe, for hours. What's holding it up? GangofOne 05:11, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Just checked amazon. ships within 24 hrs. GangofOne 08:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Title

Is the title a parody of apocalyptic prediction, or is he serious. If he is, it will be an easy shot for opponents Reply to David Latapie 20:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Both. Yes, for instance see review of previous book Age of Spir.Machines by John Searle in NYRB GangofOne 21:48, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

It's definietly a parody. Just look at p.368 or the WSJ review.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Miscenaneous errata

On page 265 Kurxweil makes the very common mistake of attributing flight to the Bernoulli Effect while the Coanda Effect is more pertinent. If flight really depended on the shape of the wing as Bernoulli advocates believe, then airplanes could not fly upside down. But they can. Karpinski 19:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Anon section on errors

I moved it here, as it should be discussed and wikified. Besides, anything writtin in the first person (I personally would not bet...) is not encyclopedic.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

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Ray's book has several errors with regard to his claims about the increases in human life expectancy. His table on page 324 backed up by endnote 40 for chapter 6 on pages 587-588 is worrisome.

He cites Cro-Magnon Life expectancy as 18 years. The webpage he cites is no longer online, but the author had this to say

"I revised all of my physical anthropology webpages last spring and early summer. In that process, http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/sapiens_culture.htm became http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_5.htm. As I recall, the earlier version did not say that Cro-Magnon life expectancy was 18. My data source for the "30 years or less" was the Rachel Caspari and San-Hee Lee article that you mentioned. I personally, would not bet the farm on the "30 years or less" figure given that we have no way of knowing how representative the sample is. However, it is still better than a guess."

He cites the life expectancy of an ancient Egyptian as 25 years of age, however the webpage he cites has this to say

" "Because their book did not mention the average life expectancy of an ancient Egyptian, I wrote to Ms. Janssen and asked for her opinion. She returned, "The average life expectancy FROM BIRTH was 25 for men, and 21 for women – but these are figures obtained from Graeco-Roman census lists. However, in the New Kingdom I think that it would not have been much different. Obviously if you exclude the high infant mortality, and go to life expectancy at 1 year, then the figures would be much higher - at least 33 for men and 30 for women - the figures given in a recent general book by Teeter and Brewer." [10] [11] "

He cites the life expectancy in 1400s Europe as 30. Here is some of what the cited webpage has to say on the matter

"Life expectancy averaged only 37 years between 1540 and 1800. Life expectancy at birth was even lower in pre-industrial France because of its higher birth rate. There it was only about 28 years in the latter half of the eighteenth century. "

"It would be nice to compare the life expectancies for Europe in the years after 1300 with those of communities before 1300, to test further the claim made above that material conditions did not improve between the Neolithic and 1800. Unfortunately while it is possible to estimate the age at death for skeletal remains no reliable way has been found to translate these estimates into estimates of life expectancy at a given age. Skeletal material from the very young and very 4 old does not seem to survive well in the ground, so that the surviving remains are unrepresentative of the population as a whole."

For 1900s United States he claims life expectancies were 48. His source says 47.3. One traditionally would not round up in this case.

He claims the 2002 U.S. life expectancy was 78. He does not cite where this came from. According to the CDC, the age was 77.3.

In summary, while these errors do not impeach the underlying idea Ray is trying to get across, they do call the details of his arguments throughout the entire book into question.

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See Life Expectancy and notice that large changes occur with the reduction of infant mortality since the term usually is interpreted as life expectancy at birth. -- Karpinski 19:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• Jumping in after 3 1/2 years! I don't think the term "life expectancy" had much meaning in pre-modern societies. If a person had a 50% chance of dying as an infant, a woman a stong chance of dying in childbirth, a man a strong chance of dying in a tribal war, etc. I don't think there was much expenctancy of anything. Some people did live to old age however.Borock (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Exponential

From the article:

He expands on Moore's Law with models showing that not only the return, but the rate of return is increasing exponentially.

This is true of any exponential growth, always. If the rate of return was less than exponential, the growth cannot be exponential. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe this is correct. "rate of return" is the first derivative, and an exponential return could be x^2, while the RoR is therefore x, thus linear. --TimOertel 18:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Distortions ...

In the article and the work itself. Wrt. to the former, the book has nine chapters and more than 600 pages of which chapters one and two are only a hundred pages. The various arguments and predictions could be picked apart critically as I have done on my user page for Ch. 6. Lycurgus (talk) 18:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Luddite

Since when is "luddite" synonymous with "green anarchism?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.4.181.41 (talk) 02:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Postulates

One of the postulates claimes Acceptance and striving for the idea of living forever. There is the problem of generalization here. Who is it that have to accept and strive? In practice, it isn't everyone. As soon as someone will do it, it is enough. Because of that, this is unavoidable?

LarsPensjo (talk) 07:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

2018 prediction (10¹³ bits of computer memory)

What does that prediction mean? 10¹³ bits roughly is one terabyte, and that's the capacity of your average hard disk drive today. So what is supposed to be in 2018? --bender235 (talk) 23:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

He means ram not hard drive space —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.206.254 (talk) 19:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

$1000 in 2045

The article says that in 2045, $1000 buys a computer with the computational power of 1 billion people. Is this $1,000 in today's dollars, or in whatever the worth $1,000 will be in 2045? --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 21:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

As we have no real way of predicting the state of the economy in 2045, we would have to assume that his is not adujusted for inflation/deflation, and is $1,000 in modern day dollars. -Nova —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.34.197 (talk) 16:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"Infinitely impossible"

Does anyone else think that User:74.66.129.192's contributions (such as [1]) are worthwhile? I don't want to break 3RR here, but come on. I don't think Kurzweil ever used this kind of language. —Keenan Pepper 18:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Nature of this article

To me it seems like this article is more like a reprinting of the book in a condensed form, not an encylopedia article about the book. Can some of the detail be taken out and more info added, from reliable secondary sources, about the importance and influence of the book? Borock (talk) 05:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)