5 ms·

Singularity movie is in production, co-director is Raymond Kurzweil

20 points by bemmu 17y ago

clavalle 17y ago
I wish this pseudo-technical, new-age, flim-flam of an idea would die already. Seriously, does anyone with a real technical background that is not directly making money off of seminars, books and articles selling this believe this stuff?
- JeremyChase 17y ago
  No doubt. It isn't the first singularity movie anyway; Terminator, Matrix, Eagle Eye, A Space Odyssey..
  - zephjc 17y ago
    I wouldn't call those singularity movies. Maybe movies with transhuman/posthuman themes, but the singularity implies things about the rate of technological progress - certainly there wasn't much rapid progress in Terminator after the machines nuked the earth (except, maybe, in the production of new terminator robots, but even that wasn't fast, really).
    - electromagnetic 17y ago
      Eagle Eye was a singularity movie in potential, but in essence it was no different than War Games in that it was about a rampant AI with no progression beyond. I, Robot had a far greater display of the advance of technology than virtually any Sci-Fi movie (except maybe the bicentennial man) and only displayed ~3 generations of robots (the replaced, the being replaced and the new) but is in no sense a singularity movie. I doubt we'll ever see a movie truly depict the singularity in any way other than a glimpse and will be akin to virtually any sci-fi movie in any setting. We might get there with a great TV series, but that's doubtful. IMO a singularity TV series would have to take the story progression of Taken in the generation skipping, but instead of giant leaps, it would be a leap of decades, years and then months as technology advances up to the '2030' mark. For movies we'll be stuck with a BS intro that pails in comparison to the introduction of each Fallout game but will inevitably be describing similar events.
  - Retric 17y ago
    None of those present god (little g) level AI being created by humans but, AI (2001) is fairly close to the idea. By the end of the movie the robots knew how to bring someone back from the dead for a day and who knows what else.
- hegemonicon 17y ago
  Eliezer Yudkowsky.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- listic 17y ago
  > does anyone with a real technical background... this believe this stuff? Why not?
  - Retric 17y ago
    There are a large number of assumptions built up around the singularity concept and CPU's are not getting exponentially faster so at least one of them seems incorrect. Honestly, the hardest problem IMO is the idea that intelligence is fungible and twice as much of it will provide anywhere near twice the result. The real world is fuzzy and thinking faster/deeper only get’s you so far. Let's say we can build a machine smarter than a single person, that’s a long way from building something smarter than humanity so there is not a quick kick off to infinity. Now let's suggest we build a billion of the things and they are all smarter than the average person. Nothing says you can get anything close to a linear feedback between the intelligence designing an AI and how smart the AI is so there would not necessarily be a feedback loop to keep making more intelligent systems. etc.
    - pmsaue0 17y ago
      not to mention resource/energy limitations
    - Inufu 17y ago
      You do know Moore's law, don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law Aside from that, the difference between one human and all of us is only 2^32 - so if you can place the intelligence of one human on a chip, you'll be able to do the same thing with all of humanity 64 years later. And that's ignoring things like reduced costs per chip / using multiple chips for the same price.
      - clavalle 17y ago
        You do know that it is not a Law, right? It should be called, Moore's Rule of Thumb.
    - troystribling 17y ago
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  I have a graduate degree in robotics, and I think that robots will be as capable as humans within a few decades. I also think it is likely we can engineer a solution to aging, but I'm not as familiar with the tech there.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  Define "this stuff" - what, specifically, are you snorting at people believing?
  - clavalle 17y ago
    'this stuff' := The Singularity - The idea that we will be able to design systems with enough 'intelligence' (a difficult term to define itself) as to be imbued with novel creativity that surpasses all human understanding...in turn, these systems create ever more advanced creative systems until (insert your dis/utopian idea of preference here).
    - wlievens 17y ago
      Especially the part where they say it all happens in ~30 years from now. Eh?
zephjc 17y ago
Eh, I don't know about this. It sounds like it has a plot and conflict, but will it be good storytelling? However, it's kind of cool to see so many big AI-community/singularitarian names in the cast credits!
martythemaniak 17y ago
Reading The Singularity kinda reminded of a Neal Stephenson novel. You start off with well-grounded reality, you progress smoothly, then you finish and you wonder...wait, wtf just happened? How did I get to this wacky place? I mean, we'll all me omniscient, immortal demi-gods in 39 years? Really?
- tfh 17y ago
  May be "humanity becoming immortal demi-gods" is like "having flying cars everywhere". It's always 39 in the future. http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/song-chart-memes-the-future.jpg?w=506&h=442 http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/song-chart-memes...
- NikkiA 17y ago
  The great thing about youth's obsession with 'immortality' is that once you hit the 35-40 age bracket, and you get the first of your chronic pain sources, the idea suddenly starts to get a LOT less attractive.
geuis 17y ago
I did some work earlier this year making some machinima video in Second Life for this movie. From what I've seen so far, it's just a documentary-style movie.
tfh 17y ago
I've read charles stross's accelrando yesterday. One of the best books about singularity. It's also free (Creative Commons License). Probably the best free ebook I've ever read.
- heed 17y ago
  Sort of related: this is one of the best short stories (actually it's a play) I've read on a singularity-esque vision of the future. http://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html http://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html
  - Micand 17y ago
    On a similar, somewhat-related tangent: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is a fantastic novella depicting rapid change caused by a technological singularity. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
iterationx 17y ago
In the movie, an AI hires Tony Robbins to help her become more human. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Robbins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Robbins Emotional machines plot? ugh.
simon_ 17y ago
Isn't a lot of the singularity idea based on flawed math? I always hear about and see graphs of exponential curves about to "go vertical", but... exponential curves definitely don't do that. You can zoom in on any point of e^x and it will look like it's about to have a singularity... In more general terms... if ~technology has been getting better with some short doubling time for hundreds of years... why is it that the NEXT doubling is supposed to be the really significant one?
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  There is a big difference between humans iterating to improve technology and machines iterating to improve technology that improves the machines. The latter is a stronger feedback loop. But generally, I agree. We're biased to under-appreciate the impacts of past changes.
- rms 17y ago
  The last doubling was really significant. You know, instant free communication to humans anywhere on the world as well as instant access to the sum total of human knowledge.
  - simon_ 17y ago
    Right, and the next doubling will be even better (twice as good!). But the sense that we're right on the threshold of the infinite future has probably been around at least since industrialization. For example, that bit about instant access to people and knowledge was probably said about the telegraph too.
    - rms 17y ago
      Sure, I agree. My only point is that people seem to underestimate the regular, non-singularity exponential doubling. Already some aspects of science and civilization have become more far-fetched than the sci-fi of 50 years ago. Like http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_optigenetics/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_optigenetics/
  - 17y ago
drhowarddrfine 17y ago
Any movie that has co-directors means it's going to be bad. Particularly when one of them is not in the film business at all. Yes, I'm aware of the films made by "brothers" but those are exceptions to the rule.

20 points by bemmu 17y ago

I wish this pseudo-technical, new-age, flim-flam of an idea would die already. Seriously, does anyone with a real technical background that is not directly making money off of seminars, books and articles selling this believe this stuff?

JeremyChase 17y ago
No doubt. It isn't the first singularity movie anyway; Terminator, Matrix, Eagle Eye, A Space Odyssey..
- zephjc 17y ago
  I wouldn't call those singularity movies. Maybe movies with transhuman/posthuman themes, but the singularity implies things about the rate of technological progress - certainly there wasn't much rapid progress in Terminator after the machines nuked the earth (except, maybe, in the production of new terminator robots, but even that wasn't fast, really).
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Eagle Eye was a singularity movie in potential, but in essence it was no different than War Games in that it was about a rampant AI with no progression beyond. I, Robot had a far greater display of the advance of technology than virtually any Sci-Fi movie (except maybe the bicentennial man) and only displayed ~3 generations of robots (the replaced, the being replaced and the new) but is in no sense a singularity movie. I doubt we'll ever see a movie truly depict the singularity in any way other than a glimpse and will be akin to virtually any sci-fi movie in any setting. We might get there with a great TV series, but that's doubtful. IMO a singularity TV series would have to take the story progression of Taken in the generation skipping, but instead of giant leaps, it would be a leap of decades, years and then months as technology advances up to the '2030' mark. For movies we'll be stuck with a BS intro that pails in comparison to the introduction of each Fallout game but will inevitably be describing similar events.
- Retric 17y ago
  None of those present god (little g) level AI being created by humans but, AI (2001) is fairly close to the idea. By the end of the movie the robots knew how to bring someone back from the dead for a day and who knows what else.
hegemonicon 17y ago
Eliezer Yudkowsky.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
listic 17y ago
> does anyone with a real technical background... this believe this stuff? Why not?
- Retric 17y ago
  There are a large number of assumptions built up around the singularity concept and CPU's are not getting exponentially faster so at least one of them seems incorrect. Honestly, the hardest problem IMO is the idea that intelligence is fungible and twice as much of it will provide anywhere near twice the result. The real world is fuzzy and thinking faster/deeper only get’s you so far. Let's say we can build a machine smarter than a single person, that’s a long way from building something smarter than humanity so there is not a quick kick off to infinity. Now let's suggest we build a billion of the things and they are all smarter than the average person. Nothing says you can get anything close to a linear feedback between the intelligence designing an AI and how smart the AI is so there would not necessarily be a feedback loop to keep making more intelligent systems. etc.
  - pmsaue0 17y ago
    not to mention resource/energy limitations
  - Inufu 17y ago
    You do know Moore's law, don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law Aside from that, the difference between one human and all of us is only 2^32 - so if you can place the intelligence of one human on a chip, you'll be able to do the same thing with all of humanity 64 years later. And that's ignoring things like reduced costs per chip / using multiple chips for the same price.
    - clavalle 17y ago
      You do know that it is not a Law, right? It should be called, Moore's Rule of Thumb.
  - troystribling 17y ago
ivankirigin 17y ago
I have a graduate degree in robotics, and I think that robots will be as capable as humans within a few decades. I also think it is likely we can engineer a solution to aging, but I'm not as familiar with the tech there.
jodrellblank 17y ago
Define "this stuff" - what, specifically, are you snorting at people believing?
- clavalle 17y ago
  'this stuff' := The Singularity - The idea that we will be able to design systems with enough 'intelligence' (a difficult term to define itself) as to be imbued with novel creativity that surpasses all human understanding...in turn, these systems create ever more advanced creative systems until (insert your dis/utopian idea of preference here).
  - wlievens 17y ago
    Especially the part where they say it all happens in ~30 years from now. Eh?

zephjc 17y ago

Eh, I don't know about this. It sounds like it has a plot and conflict, but will it be good storytelling? However, it's kind of cool to see so many big AI-community/singularitarian names in the cast credits!

martythemaniak 17y ago

Reading The Singularity kinda reminded of a Neal Stephenson novel. You start off with well-grounded reality, you progress smoothly, then you finish and you wonder...wait, wtf just happened? How did I get to this wacky place? I mean, we'll all me omniscient, immortal demi-gods in 39 years? Really?

tfh 17y ago
May be "humanity becoming immortal demi-gods" is like "having flying cars everywhere". It's always 39 in the future. http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/song-chart-memes-the-future.jpg?w=506&h=442 http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/song-chart-memes...
NikkiA 17y ago
The great thing about youth's obsession with 'immortality' is that once you hit the 35-40 age bracket, and you get the first of your chronic pain sources, the idea suddenly starts to get a LOT less attractive.

geuis 17y ago

I did some work earlier this year making some machinima video in Second Life for this movie. From what I've seen so far, it's just a documentary-style movie.

tfh 17y ago

I've read charles stross's accelrando yesterday. One of the best books about singularity. It's also free (Creative Commons License). Probably the best free ebook I've ever read.

heed 17y ago
Sort of related: this is one of the best short stories (actually it's a play) I've read on a singularity-esque vision of the future. http://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html http://www.fullmoon.nu/Resurrection/PrimarySpecies.html
- Micand 17y ago
  On a similar, somewhat-related tangent: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is a fantastic novella depicting rapid change caused by a technological singularity. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/

iterationx 17y ago

In the movie, an AI hires Tony Robbins to help her become more human. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Robbins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Robbins Emotional machines plot? ugh.

simon_ 17y ago

Isn't a lot of the singularity idea based on flawed math? I always hear about and see graphs of exponential curves about to "go vertical", but... exponential curves definitely don't do that. You can zoom in on any point of e^x and it will look like it's about to have a singularity... In more general terms... if ~technology has been getting better with some short doubling time for hundreds of years... why is it that the NEXT doubling is supposed to be the really significant one?

ivankirigin 17y ago
There is a big difference between humans iterating to improve technology and machines iterating to improve technology that improves the machines. The latter is a stronger feedback loop. But generally, I agree. We're biased to under-appreciate the impacts of past changes.
rms 17y ago
The last doubling was really significant. You know, instant free communication to humans anywhere on the world as well as instant access to the sum total of human knowledge.
- simon_ 17y ago
  Right, and the next doubling will be even better (twice as good!). But the sense that we're right on the threshold of the infinite future has probably been around at least since industrialization. For example, that bit about instant access to people and knowledge was probably said about the telegraph too.
  - rms 17y ago
    Sure, I agree. My only point is that people seem to underestimate the regular, non-singularity exponential doubling. Already some aspects of science and civilization have become more far-fetched than the sci-fi of 50 years ago. Like http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_optigenetics/ http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/mf_optigenetics/
- 17y ago

drhowarddrfine 17y ago

Any movie that has co-directors means it's going to be bad. Particularly when one of them is not in the film business at all. Yes, I'm aware of the films made by "brothers" but those are exceptions to the rule.