Saw today that Ray Kurzweil’s written another book - The Singularity is Nearer.
Had a very quick flick through, and it’s essentially just added ChatGPT stuff in and moved the timeline out another twenty years. The blurb says “has made so many correct predictions”, though is curiously silent on his main prediction of “God comes online, 2020”.
He still thinks Drexlerian Hard Nanotech is possible and grey goo is actually a threat. Which it isn’t, insofar as we better understand the physics involved. It was great for scifi authors though, which he basically is. He refers to stuff on the topic from 2000, which was dated even then!
The closest we’re ever likely to get is using reprogrammed biological cells, the actually existing “tiny things that do incredible things” - but like the usual STEM type if it isn’t shiny silver, lit by LEDs, and capable of omnipotent restructuring of matter and energy then it’s not really interesting. Probably for the best! Musk’s Monkey Murder Machine was just trying to stick computer chips in brains, god knows the outcome if he started trying to play with gene editing.
Crud and we were so close to AGI. Missed the moon by a hairsbreadth, we did.
Saw today that Ray Kurzweil’s written another book - The Singularity is Nearer.
Had a very quick flick through, and it’s essentially just added ChatGPT stuff in and moved the timeline out another twenty years. The blurb says “has made so many correct predictions”, though is curiously silent on his main prediction of “God comes online, 2020”.
He still thinks Drexlerian Hard Nanotech is possible and grey goo is actually a threat. Which it isn’t, insofar as we better understand the physics involved. It was great for scifi authors though, which he basically is. He refers to stuff on the topic from 2000, which was dated even then!
The closest we’re ever likely to get is using reprogrammed biological cells, the actually existing “tiny things that do incredible things” - but like the usual STEM type if it isn’t shiny silver, lit by LEDs, and capable of omnipotent restructuring of matter and energy then it’s not really interesting. Probably for the best! Musk’s Monkey Murder Machine was just trying to stick computer chips in brains, god knows the outcome if he started trying to play with gene editing.