7 ms·

Douglas Hofstadter once said of Ray Kurzweil and his grand ideas: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two

Douglas Hofstadter once said of Ray Kurzweil and his grand ideas: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid." I think Google (and Larry Page) is betting that they will be able to separate out this mixture.

ot 13y ago
The irony is that you could say the exact same thing about Douglas Hofstadter himself.
- dave_sullivan 13y ago
  As with so many things, it takes one to know one
- Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
  He may have noticed this in himself first, then applied it to others. In fact, he may consider it a limitation of genius and part of the current human condition.
  - samstave 13y ago
    This is an interesting point. One thing about good ideas - is not so much the novelty, but more-so ideas that are far enough out there that they are semi-novel, but based on an extrapolation of the current state of things such that a path to getting the idea implementable is possible. Sometimes, this means that you're able to foresee the trajectory of industries and technology that others miss or can't. However - its also important to have the resources avaialble to be able to implement/execute/foster that which is needed to make those ideas become reality. In this case, he has immense resources which can make the ratio between rubbish and great ideas shift significantly. Its easy to simply be a daydreamer - even if a greatly informed day dreamer - when you have no resources.
    - Kekeli 13y ago
      I am going to insert this piece into my pitch. It touches on the basic and salient rationale that access to resources is a given to derive inertia for for certain ideas
  - nrlucas 13y ago
    I haven't read his new book, but "I am a strange loop" sure as hell didn't acknowledge it.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Really? I don't think so. For one, Kurzweill DOES have "grand" ideas. Extravagant visions of a future with technological immortality, singularity, etc. Hofstadter does not. He merely examines some things, like cognition, and proposes some theories about their workings. Like, you know, every scientist. Kurzweill comes out as grandioze, obsessive and deluded, Hofstadter like a normal writer, no more or less strange than, say, Marvin Minsky.
  - esahione 13y ago
    Except that Hofstadter, other than writing about his ideas and theories, has accomplished jack shit. Pragmatically speaking, Kurzweil is miles ahead of Hofstadter in terms of putting his theories and ideas to practice. It's very easy to criticize visionaries, until they achieve something. Then nobody holds the critics accountable for their negative attitudes towards the visions, and the critics probably would claim that the progress was obvious (in hindsight everything is obvious).
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >Except that Hofstadter, other than writing about his ideas and theories, has accomplished jack shit. Why would he have to accomplish anything else? He is not an inventor, he is a writer. >Pragmatically speaking, Kurzweil is miles ahead of Hofstadter in terms of putting his theories and ideas to practice. I don't think so. He merely invented some low hanging fruit in early computer science, like OCR and text recognition. Things on which other people worked and had results too. And things that, even now, 3 and 4 decades after his inventions, are miles BEHIND of his expectations of them, and somewhat of a disappointment still. >It's very easy to criticize visionaries, until they achieve something. And it's equally easy to be a "visionary", if you don't have to also achieve those visions. Visionaries are a dime a dozen, especially in California.
      - hdxuyx 13y ago
        >>I don't think so. He merely invented some low hanging fruit in early computer science, like OCR and text recognition. Things on which other people worked and had results too. It only looks like low hanging fruit after it is done. >>And it's equally easy to be a "visionary", if you don't have to also achieve those visions. Visionaries are a dime a dozen, especially in California. What exactly is your overall point? Most visionaries will fail because that is just how things are. Leonardo da vinci was a great visionary that could not fulfill any of his visions. Visions that were fulfilled hundreds of years latter. Eventually somebody will fulfilled those visions. Again, I don't understand what you are bitching about. All this irrational hate against the guy for daring to dream what would be one of the greatest achievements of human history is unnerving. Eventually we WILL have strong AI, we are living proof that it is possible just as birds were living proof that things could fly.
joe_the_user 13y ago
As I recall, Hofstadter said this about "the singularity" in particular. I don't Kurzweil is claiming he will bring this about at Google, at least not before his rough projected arrival date of 2030-40.

ot 13y ago

The irony is that you could say the exact same thing about Douglas Hofstadter himself.

dave_sullivan 13y ago
As with so many things, it takes one to know one
Lost_BiomedE 13y ago
He may have noticed this in himself first, then applied it to others. In fact, he may consider it a limitation of genius and part of the current human condition.
- samstave 13y ago
  This is an interesting point. One thing about good ideas - is not so much the novelty, but more-so ideas that are far enough out there that they are semi-novel, but based on an extrapolation of the current state of things such that a path to getting the idea implementable is possible. Sometimes, this means that you're able to foresee the trajectory of industries and technology that others miss or can't. However - its also important to have the resources avaialble to be able to implement/execute/foster that which is needed to make those ideas become reality. In this case, he has immense resources which can make the ratio between rubbish and great ideas shift significantly. Its easy to simply be a daydreamer - even if a greatly informed day dreamer - when you have no resources.
  - Kekeli 13y ago
    I am going to insert this piece into my pitch. It touches on the basic and salient rationale that access to resources is a given to derive inertia for for certain ideas
- nrlucas 13y ago
  I haven't read his new book, but "I am a strange loop" sure as hell didn't acknowledge it.
coldtea 13y ago
Really? I don't think so. For one, Kurzweill DOES have "grand" ideas. Extravagant visions of a future with technological immortality, singularity, etc. Hofstadter does not. He merely examines some things, like cognition, and proposes some theories about their workings. Like, you know, every scientist. Kurzweill comes out as grandioze, obsessive and deluded, Hofstadter like a normal writer, no more or less strange than, say, Marvin Minsky.
- esahione 13y ago
  Except that Hofstadter, other than writing about his ideas and theories, has accomplished jack shit. Pragmatically speaking, Kurzweil is miles ahead of Hofstadter in terms of putting his theories and ideas to practice. It's very easy to criticize visionaries, until they achieve something. Then nobody holds the critics accountable for their negative attitudes towards the visions, and the critics probably would claim that the progress was obvious (in hindsight everything is obvious).
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Except that Hofstadter, other than writing about his ideas and theories, has accomplished jack shit. Why would he have to accomplish anything else? He is not an inventor, he is a writer. >Pragmatically speaking, Kurzweil is miles ahead of Hofstadter in terms of putting his theories and ideas to practice. I don't think so. He merely invented some low hanging fruit in early computer science, like OCR and text recognition. Things on which other people worked and had results too. And things that, even now, 3 and 4 decades after his inventions, are miles BEHIND of his expectations of them, and somewhat of a disappointment still. >It's very easy to criticize visionaries, until they achieve something. And it's equally easy to be a "visionary", if you don't have to also achieve those visions. Visionaries are a dime a dozen, especially in California.
    - hdxuyx 13y ago
      >>I don't think so. He merely invented some low hanging fruit in early computer science, like OCR and text recognition. Things on which other people worked and had results too. It only looks like low hanging fruit after it is done. >>And it's equally easy to be a "visionary", if you don't have to also achieve those visions. Visionaries are a dime a dozen, especially in California. What exactly is your overall point? Most visionaries will fail because that is just how things are. Leonardo da vinci was a great visionary that could not fulfill any of his visions. Visions that were fulfilled hundreds of years latter. Eventually somebody will fulfilled those visions. Again, I don't understand what you are bitching about. All this irrational hate against the guy for daring to dream what would be one of the greatest achievements of human history is unnerving. Eventually we WILL have strong AI, we are living proof that it is possible just as birds were living proof that things could fly.

joe_the_user 13y ago

As I recall, Hofstadter said this about "the singularity" in particular. I don't Kurzweil is claiming he will bring this about at Google, at least not before his rough projected arrival date of 2030-40.