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Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- endtime 18y agoDoes anyone know more about this movie? The trailer isn't especially informative (nor is the press kit), but it seems like the movie will be low on content (excluding stuff that Kurzweil and others have been saying for years) and high on self promotion. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it would just mean that I'm not the target audience.
- barredo 18y agoI guess the film will be to spread the Singularity ideas and theory for the masses and get some news/press coverage similar to Michael Moore's films.
- goodgoblin 18y agoHopefully the movie will contain a subliminal message which implants itself into the brain's of all its viewers. The viewers then will then go out and simultaneously engage in activities that serve to bring us closer to the Singularity.
- arcadeparade 18y agoExcellent.
- endtime 18y agoYeah, I guess. A kind of intro to the Singularity for your mom. I suppose that's worth knowing about.
- jodrellblank 18y agoMy mom is extremely unlikely to watch a film called "Transcendent Man". I doubt if the technical people I know would be interested. Even the people here at HN are skeptical. This film has a feeling to me of a ... startup trying to launch on technical impressiveness. Only a few people will care, and they have probably already heard about it.
- endtime 18y agoYeah, thus my original skepticism, but I'm trying to be generous. I might be able to convince my mom to watch it.
- velocity_wave 18y agoActually my mother is the one who introduced me to Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and she bought me the book for Christmas. My mother is not a scientist -- she only graduated from High School. She is also very religious and spiritual. So you might be inclined to stereotype or judge her (or other people's Mothers) and assume that you know their points of view on Ray Kurzweil, or science in general. But you might be surprised, if you actually got to know some of these people. I really credit my Mother with inspiring my interest in computers and science. When I was younger she used to read me "science books for kids" and then bought all the Time-Life Science books (including the one on the "Universe") she could get her hands on, for me to read. She even signed me up for a subscription to "Discover-Magazine" and "Popular Science" when I was a teenager! Not bad for a "stay at home Mom" who has serious Catholic views, and "just a high school diploma".
- Alex3917 18y agoI'm sure the actual movie will be much better than the trailer. 95% of the the content of the book can be summed up in about 10 line graphs. They probably just haven't hired someone to take those and make them pretty yet.
- Tichy 18y agoIt's horrible. I like Kurzweil and singularity doesn't seem so unlikely - just the trailer is unbearable for me, for too many reasons to count (like cutting from Captain Kirk to "The Singularity Is Near" lieing on a desk).
- vinutheraj 18y agoThose pills those guys were taking ... they think that they will make 'em live forever ?
- barredo 18y agoNo, but the pills are supposed to give them better ods to live until 2040-2050 where they think the Singularity will allow them to transcend their human bodies. Other people prefer go and live in Florida or Spain :-)
- gourneau 18y agoThis article in Wired goes into a little detail about his pill regiment: http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzwei...
- scott_s 18y agoToo bad no medical studies support the idea that taking vitamins improves health: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/news-keeps-getting-worse-for-vitamins/?em http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/news-keeps-getting-...
- randallsquared 18y ago"no medical studies"? That seems like a very interesting claim, but the article you linked doesn't support it much, instead just listing a few studies which found that specific vitamins failed to improve health in specific areas.
- scott_s 18y agoHave you heard of any? I haven't. If taking vitamins regularly was something that improved our health, we should be able to measure that. But as far as I know, we haven't been able to.
- 18y ago
- snowbird122 18y agoMore information about the movie here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117394/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117394/ The book (The singularity is near), which serves as the basis for the movie is one of the most thought provoking reads I have had in a long time. He looks at various trends throughout history (like Moore's Law) which follow an exponential curve, and he extrapolates the curve into the future. There may be some arm waving here and there, but there is definitely something to his theories. Summary: "Most people overestimate what can be accomplished in the short term and underestimate what can be accomplished in the long term".
- jodrellblank 18y agoThe most compelling counter is one throwaway comment I saw here - that things are just going to get so complex we will be overwhelmed with complexity and leaky abstractions and progress will crash into a wall before intelligence amplification helps us pass said wall. I prefer the ideas of Aubrey De Gray, because while they require future-technology and future-developments, they don't require intelligence amplification or AI or thought-to-be-impossible technology, and if done successfully would give us longer lives which might be the equivalent of amplified intelligence allowing a way round said wall (i.e. work at the same level of smartness, but for longer).
- snowbird122 18y agoRay's argument against things getting complex would probably be something like: Why would things suddenly get "so complex" when the trend has been going on for millions of years. Douglas Hofstadler (Godel Escher Bach author) says that perhaps humans aren't smart enough to understand and recreate consciousness. Thanks for the Aubrey De Gray reference. Found a video interview of him here: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16508 http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/16508
- jodrellblank 18y agoWhy would things suddenly get "so complex" That's the nature of exponentials. It will look like we have a lot of headroom to spare, but in a couple of steps - wham. Exponential doubling run backwards: 100% - full. 50% - one step earlier. 25% - two steps earlier. Two doublings before the limit, you look around and see 75% room to grow into - why would there suddenly be a problem, there's so much room for manoeuvre, stop worrying.
- thepanister 18y agoWhatever this guy thinks he can do, I am sure he won't be able to make humans live forever, or even "get his father back to life". Maybe he can make a machine that lives forever, but he can't make a human to live forever. There are things that god forced in this world, and it will continue regardless if you believe in god or not. And I think that god forced humans to die, and this won't change in the future.
- gord 18y agoWell one can always ask just how long did god intend humans to live? Was it 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 or 180 yrs? I think well see all of those as possible answers, given the advance of medicine and engineering. If by god you mean "stochastic calculus".. then yes, I do believe in god, and he has mysterious ways indeed :]
- thepanister 18y agoAbout God, he has created you, me, and the whole world [the world of creatures]. And even if some people try to deny God, he is there and we need him. Well, advance of medicine and engineering? Did medicine help prevent people die at age 5 or 6 yrs old? There is something called "fate", and I guess you don't believe in it too.
- jimbokun 18y agoIt might be more productive if you argued why others should share your belief in fate or God, instead of just stating your belief without any justification. I do believe in God, but I do not find your statements very interesting without at least some attempt to persuade.
- thepanister 18y agoThank you so much for making it clear to me what's wrong, and I will keep this in mind.
- gord 18y ago
- brightscreamer 18y agoSerious question--how does the struggling global economy factor into all of this? I'd think it would, at the very least, postpone a technological singularity.
- ivankirigin 18y agoCycles of peaks and troughs in growth rates are normal.
- time_management 18y agoRight, but let's consider the difference between a recession and a depression. A recession is a contraction in a healthy economy. It's normal, and probably necessary. A depression is something worse. We don't know yet if this is a recession or a depression.
- ivankirigin 18y agoThe D word is mainly used to fill the time in between commercials with talking heads debating irrelevant semantics. I also doubt a long recession or depression would significantly impact a decades long trend by much.
- whughes 18y agoAt worst, we're talking about a stagnation, a flatlining in the exponential curve for a few years. I doubt that we'll get to that point. To see growth completely stop we'd need a nuclear war or something to that end. Life was still better during the Great Depression than it was only a few decades earlier. Progress will continue even if the political and economic landscape is unfavorable.
- FiReaNG3L 18y agoThe singularity prediction relies on a trend of technological advances that is ever increasing. The only thing it forgets is that resources are not infinite. Hey, bacteria on a plate grow exponentially, but eventually they run out of resources and just die.
- jksmith 18y agoMaybe the universe is a closed system, but reaching the "Singularity" before we reach maximum entropy is probably more likely.
- scott_s 18y agoOur "plate" is probably not all of the known universe. We may never leave this solar system.
- jksmith 18y agoWhich makes for another interesting issue. Some Packlid may be reading this and thinking, "What do you mean "we" human?" Kurzweil may still (already) be proven right, whether we make it happen or not. Just some whimsy for thought.
- GHFigs 18y agoWhat makes you think that?
- scott_s 18y agoCharles Stross, a science fiction writer, has an interesting essay about the difficulties involved: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high... His conclusion is that it's unlikely, and I agree.
- xenophanes 18y agoHow are we going to educate the AIs? Hopefully not at our existing schools, which would bore them to tears.
- xenophanes 18y agoWhat's objectionable about this comment? I don't know. Fill me in?
- discojesus 18y ago"[Kurzweil] says computers will have human consciousness in 25 years." Wait is this one of those 1980s AI-in-25-years predictions or is this a new 2009 We're Really Serious This Time, Guys prediction?
- ivankirigin 18y agoActually, he's said the year 2029 for a long time now.
- discojesus 18y agoI think Kurzweil should be more explicit in step two.
- mixmax 18y agoPersonally I think it's one of those predictions. I explain why here: http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2008/11/why-singularity-may-never-arrive.html http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2008/11/why-singularity-may-neve...
- sgk284 18y agoKurzweil is one of the few guys whose predictions I take serious, simply because his track record is solid... in fact quite a few of is predictions he's directly made happen. If you look at the claims made in "The Age of Intelligent Machines", and the follow up a decade later in "The Age of Spiritual Machines", you realize the guy is pretty on the ball. Not 100% of the time, but even when he's wrong he usually got some part of it right.
- bitwize 18y agoHey, the best way to predict the future is to (in|pre)vent it.
- jksmith 18y ago"God is who he is, and our challenge should be to know Him, not try to create Him." That's the tough thing. Maybe the only way to know God is to become God, at which point we just take it all for granted, like any other technology we integrate into our lives.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ivankirigin 18y agoThis doesn't look very good, as it focuses on Ray, and not on the issue. I'd rather hear what Kevin Kelly and others shown have to say about the tech. I don't care what they think about each other personally or politically. I think Kelly is right by the way (he's the guy with white hair and a chin strap beard). There has been too much focus on this guy, and the hope he brings to people. It should motivate people, but only enough to learn or tech more engineering to get there faster with practical, immediate action.
- peregrine 18y agoThe nice thing about being Ray Kurzweil is that he can keep making predictions on the most simple things and get them right. So much that if hes wrong on any he can easily push them aside. Technology won't slow down, it can't, not even a depression could slow it down. The information is too available and the school numbers are still high.
- gord 18y agoI found this just hilarious after having read Michael Lewis' book "The Future Just Happened". On the one hand hes totally right.. on the other hand hes totally missing the point, completely obsessed with blatant self promotion. ugh. Then we see Tony Robbins propping up Rays rep as a 'serious human being'.. omg, my arse hurts from laughing so much. This and "W" {dubya} are my must sees for comedy movies of '09.