By Through Ray Kurzweil’s new book, Silicon Valley is cheerleading the prospect of human–AI hybrids
Editor's CommentBy refusing to simply believe that humans have been created in the image of God as defined in the Bible, men like Ray Kurzweil keep selling the farcical dream that man will someday merge with machines, extend our lifespans, and perhaps even become immortal. The following review of Kurzweil’s new book exposes many of his ideas for the dangers they pose to living like a real human being, the way God intended. – Jesse Smith
by Alex Gomez-Marin | Nature
The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge With AI Ray Kurzweil Viking (2024)
The US computer scientist, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil is a prophet of transhumanism, the movement that advocates for the possibility, even the moral imperative, of technologically tinkering with the human condition to enhance our cognition and eventually transcend our biology.
In his book The Singularity is Nearer — a sequel to The Singularity is Near (2005) — Kurzweil says that humanity is about to enter a new epoch in the history of intelligence: the merging of humans with artificial intelligence (AI). He borrows the ‘singularity’ metaphor from the physics of black holes: as we fall into the abyss of ever-improving computing power, what it means to be human seems to be on the verge of breaking down.
Kurzweil reappraises his earlier predictions and insists that such an event is imminent and welcome. His forecasts are based largely on the exponential growth in the number of computations per second that can be performed per inflation-adjusted dollar, a trend that has been observed since 1939. He expects the Turing test to be passed before 2030 — computers will be able to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from humans, and will go on to achieve “superhuman ability” in a wide range of areas. The book’s urgency thus comes from the nature of the exponential change itself: nearer is a different kind of near.
In Kurzweil’s techno-utopian world view, humanity’s future can be unpacked by merely following the evolution of information technology. By the end of this decade, Kurzweil says, most clothes and other common goods will be 3D-printed; brain–computer interfaces will be able to feed simulated sensory data directly into people’s brains. And in the long run, a species of human–AI hybrid will discover ways to turn all ordinary matter in the Universe into “computronium”, a hypothesized programmable substrate for ultra-high-efficiency computation.
To predict the future is difficult indeed. To articulate technocratic fictions is easier, especially when footloose metaphors are taken literally. Juggling basic evolutionary neuroscience with the new possibilities unleashed by large language models, Kurzweil postulates that computers will be able to simulate human brains “in all the ways we might care about within the next two decades or so”, adding, “at last we will have access to our own source code”. Read Full Article >
