Will the PP protect us from Ray Kurzweil?

[Gosso]

Before you comment on this thread please watch “Transcendent Man”?.  It is available on Netflix Canada, so it should be on Netflix USA.  It can also likely be watched directly on their website, but I cannot confirm this since it is blocked in Canada.  At times this documentary can be a little egomaniacal; however the overall message is the important part.

I suppose I have always envisioned the future as something similar to the Jetsons, where we still have jobs, capitalism still reigns, and we are simply flesh and bones with a lot of wonderful technology around us.  But I may have been naïve.  Here are some of the topics the documentary takes on, which might be achievable in the next 20-30 years:
-  Exponential growth of technology: In 20 years computers will be one million times more powerful; in 25 years computers will be a billion times more powerful than today’s computers.
-  Energy: Solar Panels will be able to provide all our energy needs in 20 years.
-  Bring people back to Life:  Ray is determined to bring his father back to life.  I have to think this is how the zombie apocalypse starts 
-  Artificial Intelligence:  Once machines achieve AI, it is likely that Humans will be unable to control them…think Skynet or The Matrix.
-  Live Forever:  We will be able to download all of our memories into machines, to effectively create an electronic version of ourselves.
-  Nanotechnology: Nano-bots will replace our red-blood cells.  This one I have a hard time believing given how little we really know about out bodies.
-  The Singularity: The merging of humans and machine, to create a new superior species.  I always imagine something similar to the Borg.
-  Virtual Reality:  Would you rather continue to live in this reality or become God of your own Universe?

I realize a lot of this seems like science fiction, and a lot of it probably won’t happen or at least not in the timeframe Kurzweil predicts, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.  Before you dismiss all this realize that back in the 1950’s this is what they thought home computers would look like in the year 2004.



Now I am no expert on any of this, but it does make me question the practice of savings your current income so that it can be spent 30-60 years from now.  We all like to think that the status-quo will be maintained and that we’ll be using iPad 237 on the day we retire.  But I have a hard time seeing how any saved capital will be relevant if we merge with technology or it takes over our lives (or kills us off)...I need a hug.

Having said all that I'm not saying we should all blow our savings and live it up until the computers take over.  But I suppose this highlights the importance of Harry Browne’s Rule #16, “Enjoy Yourself with a Budget for Pleasure”?, since for better or worse the future is completely unknowable.  This is actually the one Rule that I have a hard time following, so hopefully this post will get me motivated to enjoy my hard earned dollars and live more in the moment.

[MediumTex]

I watched that film a while back.  It's pretty good, though Kurzweil's ego seems to have damaged his ability to see the weaknesses in his own arguments.

My impression is that Kurzweil views technology in the same way that religious fundamentalists view their deity.

The human mind is unquestionably capable of dreaming up amazing things.  The question going forward isn't going to be whether we can conceive of a better mousetrap--the question is going to be whether we can find a place to plug it in.

To the question in the OP, no matter what future shows up it still will be characterized by prosperity or economic contraction, and monetary inflation or deflation.  If I had to guess I would say that Kurzweil believes that the future will be filled with prosperity and price stability.

[Gosso]

I watched that film a while back.  It's pretty good, though Kurzweil's ego seems to have damaged his ability to see the weaknesses in his own arguments.

My impression is that Kurzweil views technology in the same way that religious fundamentalists view their deity.

The human mind is unquestionably capable of dreaming up amazing things.  The question going forward isn't going to be whether we can conceive of a better mousetrap--the question is going to be whether we can find a place to plug it in.

To the question in the OP, no matter what future shows up it still will be characterized by prosperity or economic contraction, and monetary inflation or deflation.  If I had to guess I would say that Kurzweil believes that the future will be filled with prosperity and price stability.

Netflix Canada is usually a year or two behind the US in releasing some of their content, but we get it eventually.  Kurzweil definitely has a high opinion of himself and his ideas, but I suppose he needs to if he wants to continue to sell his books.  I just thought it was refreshing to hear several other "collapse-of-the-system" scenarios that didn't involve the US dollar collapsing, hyperinflation or Iran triggering nuclear Armageddon.

I suspect that the current consumerism culture will fight tooth and nail with any type of technology that threatens its survival, unless Kurzweil can find a way for it to increase the bottom line.  It should be fun to watch it all develop!

[Tortoise]

Before you dismiss all this realize that back in the 1950’s this is what they thought home computers would look like in the year 2004.

Is that a steering wheel on that computer??

I watched Transcendent Man a few months ago. Very interesting documentary. I had heard of Kurzweil and was aware of some of his futurist ideas, but I had never known that he was a child prodigy who made an appearance on a CBS game show as a teenager to exhibit his computer and musical talents, met the President at the White House, etc.

I also had never known that one of the main motivations behind Kurzweil's futurist theories and work was a desire to be reunited in some form with his deceased father.

Kurzweil may be borderline religious in his futurist beliefs, but at least some of what he believes may be true. Regardless of what the future holds--even if it's a technological singularity where the concept of money goes out the window--I think it makes sense to save some percentage of your income. Consider your savings as a self-insurance policy where your monthly savings are the premium payments. If people are still using money in the future, you will collect on your policy; if they are not, you won't need to.

If you pay auto insurance premiums your whole life but never get into a collision, is that a bad thing? If you pay home insurance premiums your whole life but your house never burns down or gets flooded, is that a bad thing? Think of your savings in the same way. You can decide what level of "coverage" you want, which will determine the monthly "premium" you pay, then you can live your life without having to worry too much about whether people/robots/cyborgs will or will not use money in the future. If they do, great--you're covered. If they don't, you just won't have to collect on your policy.

[MachineGhost]

Now I am no expert on any of this, but it does make me question the practice of savings your current income so that it can be spent 30-60 years from now.  We all like to think that the status-quo will be maintained and that we’ll be using iPad 237 on the day we retire.  But I have a hard time seeing how any saved capital will be relevant if we merge with technology or it takes over our lives (or kills us off)...I need a hug.

Those under 40 better make allowances for the next 80 years at a minimum...

MG

[Gosso]

Regardless of what the future holds--even if it's a technological singularity where the concept of money goes out the window--I think it makes sense to save some percentage of your income. Consider your savings as a self-insurance policy where your monthly savings are the premium payments. If people are still using money in the future, you will collect on your policy; if they are not, you won't need to.

If you pay auto insurance premiums your whole life but never get into a collision, is that a bad thing? If you pay home insurance premiums your whole life but your house never burns down or gets flooded, is that a bad thing? Think of your savings in the same way. You can decide what level of "coverage" you want, which will determine the monthly "premium" you pay, then you can live your life without having to worry too much about whether people/robots/cyborgs will or will not use money in the future. If they do, great--you're covered. If they don't, you just won't have to collect on your policy.

I completely agree.  That is a great way to look at investing, it's an insurance policy that pays off if we can hold the system together.

When I first started investing I created all these wonderful excel sheets that could determine the exact month I could retire given a certain amount of money saved per month and an assumed ROI.  At the time my logical conclusion was that the more I saved the sooner I would be able to retire and travel the world, or do whatever I wanted.  Basically I looked at investing as a 'get rich slowly' system, where all I had to do is sacrifice and suffer for 10-15 years, and then I would be free!  It is the same line of thinking as ERE (wow, even ERE guy went back to work).

But now I realize that it is pointless to focus on some arbitrary point way in the future because we have no idea what it will be like.  I like how Alan Watts describes life as musical (only two minute clip), rather than a single loud crashing note played at the very end.

[dualstow]

I haven't seen the film, but I read Kurzweil's 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' ten years ago and have been reading his weekly tech news summaries for almost as long. Sometimes you just gotta take a break from finance, homicides in your local area and the Middle East to read about creepy love robots. 'Machines' is a great read, though of course you have to take it with a nano-grain of salt. Sure, Ray Kurzweil is a bit wacky, and it's hard for me to take someone seriously once they put out their own line of vitamin supplements. Still, the Singularity is something to think about, and no the pp cannot protect us from it.

[Storm]

I've read Kurzweil's book "The Singularity is Near," and found it interesting, however, I think he is way too optimistic about the pace of medical advances and artificial intelligence.  One of Kurzweil's theories is that in the near future, nanobots may be able to swim around our bodies and repair damaged brain tissue.  This sounds wonderful; a million tiny little robots repairing my neurons so that I never forget anything, or grow mentally old.  This theory has been widely discredited by some neurologists.  There isn't enough room in our brain for little nano-bots to move around without damaging other tissue.  One guy even said something the equivalent of "it's like trying to drive a bus through a parking lot packed full of cars bumper to bumper, and not hit anything."

Having programmed computers for many years now, I also question whether artificial intelligence will ever approach the capabilities of even a small child, much less a human adult.  Even things like pattern recognition can be performed by babies much better than a computer.  I don't think a computer will ever become sentient.  Not that computing power wouldn't allow it, but it's a matter of the software having the capability of modifying itself and improving itself.  That is a problem that computer scientists have been working on for over 100 years, with no significant breakthroughs.

I find Kurzweil and the thought of a singularity an interesting concept.  Who wouldn't like to live in a Star Trek type of universe where resource scarcity is no longer an issue?  I just don't think anything like that will be happening in our lifetime.  Sure, life extension will improve, but it will be only for the super-rich.

As a famous science fiction author, William Gibson once said:  "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

[clacy]

This is an interesting subject, but for some reason I can't get the image of Conan O'Brien doing the "In the Year 2000" skit out of my mind when thinking about this stuff.

[stone]

Storm, will programing start to be done by computers? Once you can get such a positive feedback loop going, then exponential advances could happen couldn't they? Isn't sentience just a function of complexity? I guess just a few decades ago those self driving cars would have seemed far fetched.

[Gosso]

Storm,

I share your scepticism, but from a different point of view.  I work in the natural resource sector and have always liked the saying, "If it cannot be grown, it must be mined".  This to me is the most significant limiting factor that could prevent a lot of Kurzweil's predictions.  Especially the rare earth minerals, which are essential for creating any kind of technology.  Every new circuit-board (whether it's in your cellphone or laptop) require silica sand that contain almost no impurities...this is extremely rare to find in nature and only a few mines in the world produce this.  However, it might be possible in the future to remove impurities from poorer quality silica sand, but the cost and amount of energy required would be far far greater.

[stone]

Gosso, can it be recycled out of old chips or is that even harder than using dirty sand?

[Gosso]

This is an interesting subject, but for some reason I can't get the image of Conan O'Brien doing the "In the Year 2000" skit out of my mind when thinking about this stuff.

MMmmmmmm...Diarrh-ito Supreme    Maybe the future won't be so bad after all.

[dualstow]

This is an interesting subject, but for some reason I can't get the image of Conan O'Brien doing the "In the Year 2000" skit out of my mind when thinking about this stuff.

MMmmmmmm...Diarrh-ito Supreme  :D  Maybe the future won't be so bad after all.

It's either going to be the Singularity or this, and only time will tell.

[Gosso]

Gosso, can it be recycled out of old chips or is that even harder than using dirty sand?

That I don't know.  It might be possible in the future, but right now it is cheaper to mine it from the Earth, which keeps me employed.  In the future I imagine machines processing our garbage dumps, and extracting all the various minerals that we have thrown away.  This is currently happening at old mining sites where the tailings ponds and waste rock are being processed because the percent iron or gold now meet the break-even level.  We are constantly picking the low-hanging fruit.

[Storm]

Storm, will programing start to be done by computers? Once you can get such a positive feedback loop going, then exponential advances could happen couldn't they? Isn't sentience just a function of complexity? I guess just a few decades ago those self driving cars would have seemed far fetched.

Stone, I believe write now you could write a program that was capable of writing another program of lower complexity.  What computers are not capable of, and I think they never will be, is writing a program of higher complexity.

In the computing world, there is a concept of garbage in, garbage out, in other words, if you put garbage data in, you get garbage results.  You could program a computer to play music, although, don't expect it to be able to write the next symphony.  It will only create music exactly as good as you programmed it to.

I don't think it would be possible for a computer program to create something more complex than itself.  In order for life to evolve in the biological world, nature is capable of creating organisms that are more and more complex each generation.  Computers are not capable of doing so.

[jackely]

Now I am no expert on any of this, but it does make me question the practice of savings your current income so that it can be spent 30-60 years from now. 

I once believed Jesus was going to return in my lifetime so I didn't start seriously saving money for retirement until I was well into my 40's.

But apart from Jesus' return or all the technological possibilities you have described, there is also the possibility that you will simply die.

And also I recently learned that someone studying quantum physics came up with a very convincing theory that the universe is a computer simulation. If that is true then there is always the possibility the programmer will get bored and turn off the machine.

[Gosso]

But apart from Jesus' return or all the technological possibilities you have described, there is also the possibility that you will simply die.

Touché!

That is a great point.  Last time I checked we're not allowed to bring our money with us into the great unknown after death.  It is kinda funny to think of how the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs would be buried with all their gold and worldly possessions...now those guys had big egos!!  But maybe they knew something we don't?

[MediumTex]

Now I am no expert on any of this, but it does make me question the practice of savings your current income so that it can be spent 30-60 years from now. 

I once believed Jesus was going to return in my lifetime so I didn't start seriously saving money for retirement until I was well into my 40's.

But apart from Jesus' return or all the technological possibilities you have described, there is also the possibility that you will simply die.

And also I recently learned that someone studying quantum physics came up with a very convincing theory that the universe is a computer simulation. If that is true then there is always the possibility the programmer will get bored and turn off the machine.

It sounds like your thinking has evolved significantly over the years.

In light of revisions to your past beliefs, do you think that your future beliefs will differ in the same way from what you believe today?

My own thinking has evolved tremendously as I have matured, but I don't think that I will see similar huge strides going forward from here.

It's almost like a person's mental processes go through a lifetime shift from a basically childlike view of things in which imagination plays a large role and ideas are accepted without skepticism to a view of things in which rationality plays a large role and every new concept is met with skepticism.  I think that many people spend their whole lives without fully escaping the first stage (and who knows, their lives may be perfectly happy in that place), while others allow the shift into the second stage to make them cynical or otherwise just what you might call "unpleasantly worldly."

I do miss certain mental configurations I used to have.  It bothers me a little that movies and TV shows I used to love now strike me as dumb or boring.

There was a time in my life when I believed that "C.H.I.P.S.", "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "The A Team" were really outstanding TV programming.  When I look at these shows now I see a lot of things that I missed the first time around.

Good advice for someone just getting started in the thinking business might be to cultivate a sense of skepticism without cultivating a sense of cynicism.  And always make sure to look for the humor in things.

[MediumTex]

But apart from Jesus' return or all the technological possibilities you have described, there is also the possibility that you will simply die.

Touché!

That is a great point.  Last time I checked we're not allowed to bring our money with us into the great unknown after death.  It is kinda funny to think of how the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs would be buried with all their gold and worldly possessions...now those guys had big egos!!  But maybe they knew something we don't?

I was walking from the bathroom into the bedroom last night and I thought to myself "What will I be after I die?"

My head is always full of this sort of stuff, so it wasn't all that unusual.  What was unusual was that the thought above was followed by this thought: "The same thing you were before you were born."

As I put these two thoughts together I had one of those "moments of clarity" and it was pretty cool. 

[Storm]

And also I recently learned that someone studying quantum physics came up with a very convincing theory that the universe is a computer simulation. If that is true then there is always the possibility the programmer will get bored and turn off the machine.

Personally, I find the simulation hypothesis very interesting.  The basic premise is that any sufficiently advanced society would be interested in running simulations, or "playing God," as it were.  Thus, the likelihood that we are all living inside a simulation is much greater than we think.  It is exponentially more likely that we are living in a simulation, rather than in the real parent universe of such simulations.  When you think about it more, it is even possible that we are living in a simulation of a simulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

[MediumTex]

And also I recently learned that someone studying quantum physics came up with a very convincing theory that the universe is a computer simulation. If that is true then there is always the possibility the programmer will get bored and turn off the machine.

Personally, I find the simulation hypothesis very interesting.  The basic premise is that any sufficiently advanced society would be interested in running simulations, or "playing God," as it were.  Thus, the likelihood that we are all living inside a simulation is much greater than we think.  It is exponentially more likely that we are living in a simulation, rather than in the real parent universe of such simulations.  When you think about it more, it is even possible that we are living in a simulation of a simulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

But doesn't this lead to a question of definitions?  What do we mean when we say "simulation" in this discussion?  A simulation of what?  It seems that the thing we are suggesting is being simulated is outside of our understanding, in which case we wouldn't have the ability to comrehend what a simulation of it might look like.

Alternatively, isn't the simulation hypothesis just another way of describing a God that is creator and monitor of human affairs?

Once you go down the simulation road, aren't you locking yourself into the idea that any upstream "reality" that is uncovered is yet another simulation (sort of like "The Matrix" movies hinted around at)?

To me, a good argument against the simulation hypothesis is that any creator that would set up our world as a simulation would presumably do so without giving us the ability to identify our experiences as being part of the simulation.  In other words, of what value would a simulation be if the players were able to figure out they were involved in a simulation?  Wouldn't that be like telling the participants in a double blind study who was getting the placebo and who was getting the real stuff? 

It almost seems to me that our knowledge of the possibility that we are involved in a simulation means that we probably aren't.

[Lone Wolf]

Kurzweil's material is incredibly interesting.  I think that most of what he describes will one day arrive.  I'm less sure about his timetable, though.  The trouble is that I fear many of us will run out of runway before it gets here!

I've heard the Singularity described as "the Rapture for nerds".  There's some real truth to this.  You can see that in Kurzweil's poignant wish to virtually resurrect his father, an idea that I find genuinely moving.

For what it's worth, although I don't necessarily see the Singularity hitting in my lifetime, I actually think that my children have a better than even shot.  If the Singularity's tires grip the road in their lifetime, I hope they'll think to resurrect their dear old dad!    I'm going to want to know how that Permanent Portfolio is holding up.

[Lone Wolf]

Stone, I believe write now you could write a program that was capable of writing another program of lower complexity.  What computers are not capable of, and I think they never will be, is writing a program of higher complexity.

In the computing world, there is a concept of garbage in, garbage out, in other words, if you put garbage data in, you get garbage results.  You could program a computer to play music, although, don't expect it to be able to write the next symphony.  It will only create music exactly as good as you programmed it to.

I don't think it would be possible for a computer program to create something more complex than itself.  In order for life to evolve in the biological world, nature is capable of creating organisms that are more and more complex each generation.  Computers are not capable of doing so.

I see where you're coming from but I think that there are some interesting counterexamples.

For example, I play Othello like a complete novice.  However, it is possible for me (and for many programmers) to create an artificial intelligence that can play at expert level.  Algorithms like minimax that simply crawl the decision tree in a clever way (and employ a decent static board evaluator) exhibit little understanding of "deep" Othello strategy... and yet they produce devastating gameplay.

I think that the withering Othello gameplay that emerges from a simple minimax implementation is an example of a computer program that creates behavior which is much more complex than itself.

And something like Google Translate's statistical machine translation algorithm, to me, is another example of a seemingly crude approach (performing and applying statistical analysis on lots and lots of United Nations documents) building something much greater than itself (a system that can translate between 60+ different languages.)

In other words, if I can program a computer to do things at a world-class level that I am unable to do myself, it doesn't seem far-fetched to imagine a day in the far future where computers do just about everything better.  Including program computers.

I was walking from the bathroom into the bedroom last night and I thought to myself "What will I be after I die?"

My head is always full of this sort of stuff, so it wasn't all that unusual.  What was unusual was that the thought above was followed by this thought: "The same thing you were before you were born."

Very nice.

I will either be that or a god-like artificial intelligence that lives on eternally in an underground array of supercomputers powered by the heat from the earth's core.  (Or perhaps a PlayStation 2 plugged into a hamster wheel if money's tight.)

[MediumTex]

Kurzweil's material is incredibly interesting.  I think that most of what he describes will one day arrive.  I'm less sure about his timetable, though.  The trouble is that I fear many of us will run out of runway before it gets here!

I've heard the Singularity described as "the Rapture for nerds".  There's some real truth to this.  You can see that in Kurzweil's poignant wish to virtually resurrect his father, an idea that I find genuinely moving.

For what it's worth, although I don't necessarily see the Singularity hitting in my lifetime, I actually think that my children have a better than even shot.  If the Singularity's tires grip the road in their lifetime, I hope they'll think to resurrect their dear old dad!    I'm going to want to know how that Permanent Portfolio is holding up.

Do you think that the whole world will share in the Singularity or only members of first world industrial economies?

I'll bet if you asked this woman if she was ready for the Singularity she might stare at you blankly for a while and then say "goonygoogoo":



To extend upon the "Rapture for Nerds" idea, much of this Singularity talk sounds like the same sort of folklore and mythology that you find in all cultures.  We don't see it as mythology because it is perfectly aligned with our values and expectations of life (or at least the values and expectations of those who share Kurzweil's vision), but the woman above might just laugh when we explained to her what we were talking about before informing us that we were deeply mistaken.  She might then begin explaining to us how her tribe's deity actually does do some of the same stuff that Kurzweil is talking about.