Journal articles on the topic 'Ray Kurzweil'

The article is devoted to understanding the prospects of possible application of advanced technological developments in order to improve the biological nature of man. It analyses the ideas of Ray Kurzweil, who is a supporter of such transformations of human nature. It is shown that Kurzweil’s conclusions are of a worldview nature: in the near future, through the cyborgization of people, it will be possible to achieve a state close to immortality and, thus, solve the world-view issues of self-knowledge and create the conditions for unlimited self-development. It is concluded that such optimistic forecasts are insufficiently justified due to the limited possibility of modern technologies to “improve” a person’s life and help with the most difficult technical and ethical problems.

Philosophy of mind has long ceased to be, if indeed it ever was, the exclusive domain of philosophers. In contemporary thought there is increasing interest in these matters from the point of view of technology. This paper gives a critique of the ideas of Ray Kurzweil and briefly reviews some of the recent trends in the treatment of these questions.

Los programas de computación, ante todo la ingeniería de la visión artificial y la programación de los sensores somáticos, ya han permitido, y lo harán con mayor perfección en el futuro, construir con alta perfección androides o cyborgs que colaborarán con el hombre y abrirán sin duda nuevas reflexiones morales sobre como respetar en su dignidad ontológica las nuevas máquinas humanoides. Además, tanto los hombres actuales como los nuevos androides estarán en conexión con inmensas redes de computación externa que harán crecer de forma casi increíble la eficacia en el dominio del propio cuerpo y de la naturaleza. Sin embargo, nuestro conocimiento científico actual, por una parte, del hardware y del software que sostendrá tanto las máquinas humanoides como las redes de computación externa hechas con la ingeniería existente (y también la previsible a medio e incluso largo plazo) y, por otra, nuestro conocimiento científico sobre el comportamiento animal y humano desde las estructuras biológico-neuronales que producen un sistema psíquico, nos permiten establecer que no existe fundamento científico que permita hablar de una identidad ontológica entre las máquinas computacionales y el hombre. En consecuencia, diversas ontologías producirán sistemas funcionales diversos. Podrá haber simulación, pero nunca identidad ontológica. Estas ideas son esenciales para valorar el pensamiento transhumanista de Ray Kurzweil.

Humanity is evolving towards a “post-human” society that may include enhanced human beings, hybrid humans, and artificial intelligences. As an artist working in digital media and network culture, I believe that the crucial issue of the time is to clear the path for networked art and to create the foundations for a new aesthetic discourse emerging from networked culture. In order to do this, one has to be willing to create art that may not be readily recognized as artwork. In this essay, I trace the common roots of structuralist philosophy, developmental psychology, reductivist art discourse, structural linguistics and neural nets in an attempt to create a basis for this new aesthetic discourse.

Marvin Minsky, one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence and a renowned mathematicial and computer scientist, died on Sunday, 24 January 2016 of a cerebral hemmorhage. He was 88. In this article, AI scientists Kenneth D. Forbus (Northwestern University), Benjamin Kuipers (University of Michigan), and Henry Lieberman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) recall their interactions with Minksy and briefly recount the impact he had on their lives and their research. A remembrance of Marvin Minsky was held at the AAAI Spring Symposium at Stanford University on March 22. Video remembrances of Minsky by Danny Bobrow, Benjamin Kuipers, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Waldinger, and others can be on the sentient webpage1 or on youtube.com.

Economy, understood as a domain of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, has been unquestionably comprehended as a social activity, the purpose of which is to satisfy first of all vital material, but also immaterial, needs of the biological natural human being. Whatever the underlying ideology—whether protectionist mercantilism, the physiocrats’ laissez-faire policy, Adam Smith’s free-market capitalism, Karl Marx’s socialist economics, Keynesian state interventionism, or present day neoliberalism—economic considerations have been invariably driven by the fundamental problem of scarcity. The objective of the proposed paper is to present Charles Stross’s speculative predictions, made in his SF novel Accelerando, about the future of economic models in light of trans/posthuman evolution hailed by, among others, Ray Kurzweil, Max More, and Hans Moravec.

This essay explores recent developments surrounding the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly as they relate to the challenge of technological unemployment. In an age of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (Al), so warns the philosopher-historian Yuval Noah Harari, ordinary people may become unemployable, unable to contribute to society, and therefore be declared a “useless class.” In contrast to such a dystopian view, futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Nick Bostrom envision a digital utopia, while more realistic optimists emphasize that Al will ultimately create more jobs than it destroys. As an alternative to these perspectives, this essay proposes a Judeo- Christian approach that, independently of traditional frameworks of paid work, affirms the unique value and dignity of all human beings by highlighting the theological significance of human creativity, the balance between work and play, love as an overarching framework for life, and the role of human beings as ethical decision-makers.

For years, experts have warned against the unanticipated effects of general artificial intelligence (AI) on society. Ray Kurzweil (1998, 2005) predicts that by 2029 intelligent machines will be able to outsmart human beings. Stephen Hawking argues that “once humans develop full AI; it will take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate”. Elon Musk warns that AI may constitute a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization”. If the problems of incorporating AI in manufacture and service operations, i.e. using smart machines, are smaller, as the ‘faults’ can be recognized relatively quickly and they do not have a drastic effect on society, then the incorporation of AI in society and especially in the educational process is an extremely risky business that requires a thorough consideration. The consequences of mistakes in this endeavour could be catastrophic and long-term, as the results can be seen only after many years.

Gamearte é uma pesquisa que procura na linguagem do game eletrônico desenvolver uma poética artística digital interativa e de compartilhamento de espaços virtuais em instalações e na rede mundial de computadores, por meio da tecnologia da realidade virtual. A poética em desenvolvimento é marcada por uma reflexão onde o lúdico simula situações ou testa ruptura na desconstrução de outros modelos sociais. Modelagens físicas, mídias interativas, modificações randômicas, banco de dados iconográficos, mensagens subliminares e a inteligência artificial fazem parte dessa atmosfera virtual. Nesse sentido, o texto apresenta o desenvolvimento da pesquisa citando alguns teóricos importantes para o trabalho, tais como Ray Kurzweil, cientista e escritor que afirmou que em breve não será mais possível distinguir entre o pensamento humano e a capacidade das máquinas de processar e compreender os dados. Descreve, ainda, a história do game eletrônico, em função do seu desenvolvimento tecnológico como a aplicação da inteligência artificial e do design de suas interfaces gráficas e sensoriais.

Recent advances in technology have brought humanity to a unique point in history where theodicy is no more just a religious matter but also a matter of science and technology. Ray Kurzweil offers a non-religious Singularity theodicy of this-worldly subjective immortality (the survival of the soul after the dissolution of the body) with three strategies: the freezing strategy in cryonics, the cloning strategy in genetics, and the transference strategy in information technology. I argue that three challenges need to be met for the Singularity theodicy to be successful. The first challenge is related to the technological plausibility of human brain scanning and whether one can scan unconsciousness without making it into something other than unconsciousness. Based on the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Derek Parfit, I offer the second criticism that the non-identity problem arises, due to personal identity being a temporal seriality of experiences between the biological person and the unloaded data. Lastly, even if intelligent patterns become immortal in the Singularity, this would not be what Christianity has called the immortality of the soul.

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos šiuo metu prasidedančios naujos mokslinės-techninės revoliucijos technologinės prielaidos ir politinės ekonominės pasekmės. Technologines prielaidas sukuria naujas technomokslas – sintetinė biologija, arba radikali genų inžinerija, kuri leidžia pereiti nuo natūralių gyvybės rūšiųgenomo modifikavimo prie dirbtinių rūšių kūrimo. Nors daugiausia masinės informacijos priemonių dėmesio sulaukia sintetinės biologijos perspektyvos medicinoje, didžiausių ekonominių pasekmių jos raida gali turėti energetikoje, tradicinės ir kompiuterių pramonės technologijoje, sukeldama šeštąją Kondratjevo bangą. Jos politinė ekonominė pasekmė – naujo biokapitalistinio gamybos būdo, pakeisiančio dabartinį pofordistinį skaitmeninį kapitalizmą, susiformavimas. Straipsnyje kritikuojamas technologinis determinizmas kaip bendroji socialinės kaitos priežasčių teorija, tačiau pripažįstamas jo adekvatumas technokapitalistinių gamybos būdų atžvilgiu. Kritiškai vertinama Ray’aus Kurzweilio tezė, kad nauja technologinė revoliucija baigsis transhumaniškuoju singuliarumu. Pateikiamas alternatyvus oficialiajam Lietuvos po 2030 metų raidos scenarijus.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: technologinis determinizmas, sintetinė biologija, šeštoji Kondratjevo banga, biokapitalizmas, Lietuva po 2030 metų.On the Coming Synthetic Biology Kondratieff Wave and Biocapitalist LithuaniaZenonas Norkus SummaryThe paper discusses technological conditions and political-economical outcomes of the forthcoming scientific-technological revolution. Its technologicalconditions will be created by the synthetic biology (extreme genetic engineeering) as new technoscience in the making which promises the transition from the tinkering modification of the genome of natural life species to the creation of the artificial life species. Mass media focus on the prospects of synthetic biology in the medical biotechnologies. However, the changes in the energetics, technology of traditional and computer industries brought by the advances in the synthetic biology may have much more important economic outcomes, unleashing the 6th Kondratieff wave. The political economical outcome of the synthetic biology technological revolution will be the formation of the new biocapitalist mode of production which will succeed contemporary digital capitalism. The author rejects technological determinism as general theory of causes of social change. However, technological determinism remains suitable for the explanation of social change in the societies grounded in the technocapitalist modes of production. Prediction by Ray Kurzweil of transhuman singularity imminent after synthetic biological revolution in technology is also rejected. The paper closes with the alternative to the official scenario of development of Lithuania by and after 2030.Key words: technological determinism, synthetic biology, sixth Kondratieff wave, biocapitalism, Lithuania after 2030.

This paper examines the plastic figure as it appears in both Ray Kurzweil's vision of the post-singularity human body and in Thomas King's retelling of North-American Indigenous myth. It proposes that the plastic figure, true to its name, serves very different symbolic purposes. While in Kurzweil's vision, the plastic figure is part of a vision of unfettered consumption, in King's vision, plasticity suggests a chaotic quality that must be 'fixed.' The paper ultimately suggests that Kurzweil's and King's futuristic and mythical narratives possess vastly different views on the human body as it exists in the present.

Artificial Intelligence in present days is in extreme growth. We see AI in almost every field in work today. Artificial Intelligence is being introduced in crucial roles like recruiting, Law enforcement and in the Military. To be involved in such crucial roles, it needs lots of trusts and scientific evaluation. With the evolution of artificial intelligence, automatic machines are in a speed run in this decade. Developing a machine/robot with a set of tools/programs will technically sort of some of the challenges. But the problem arises when we completely depend on robots/machines. Artificial intelligence this fast-growing technology will be very helpful when we take help from it for just primary needs like face detection, sensor-controllers, bill counters…etc. But we face real challenges when we involve with decision making, critical thinking…etc. In mere future, automated machines are going to replace many positions of humans. Many firms from small to big are opting for Autonomous means just to make their work simpler and efficient. Using a machine gives more accurate results and outputs in simulated time. As technology is developing fast, they should be developed as per societal rules and conditions. Scientists and analysts predict that singularity in AI can be achieved by 2047. Ray Kurzweil, Director of Technology at Google predicted that AI may achieve singularity in 2047. We all saw the DRDO invention on autonomous fighting drones. They operate without any human assistance. They evaluate target type, its features and eliminate them based on edge detection techniques using computer vision. AI is also into recruiting people for companies. Some companies started using AI Recruiter to evaluate the big pool of applications and select efficient ones into the industry. This is possible through computer vision and machine learning algorithms. In recent times AI is being used as a suggestion tool for judgement too. Apart from all these advancements, some malicious scenarios may affect humankind. When AI is used in the wrong way many lives will fall in danger. Collecting all good and evil from past experiences is it possible to feed a machine to work autonomously. As many philosophers and educated people kept some set of guidelines in society is it practically possible to follow when AI achieves singularity and when we talk about the neural networking of human. They have good decision-making skills, critical thinking…etc. We will briefly discuss the ethics and AI robots / Machines that involve consciousness and cognitive abilities. In this upgrading technological world, AI is ruling a maximum number of operations. So, we will discuss how can ethics be followed. How can we balance ethics and technology in both phases.We will deep dive into some of these interesting areas in this article.

Since the transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories in 1947 and the concept of the integrated circuit was presented by Jack Kilby of TI in 1958, devices using silicon semiconductors have been developed with tremendous drive. Today, ultrastructural, highly dense, and high-functional ULSI devices have become a reality. Accordingly, novel, three-dimensional devices that aim at multiple functions and high performance have been proposed, and novel materials have come into existence. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) has drawn increasing attention, the concept of “Singularity,” or singular technical point, has become a focus of great attention. Singularity is a prediction put forth by American futurist Ray Kurzweil, who said, “Singularity will come in 2045, when the speed of the evolution of technology will become infinite and Artificial Intelligence will exceed human intelligence.” This prediction is said to have its roots in “Moore’s law,” formulated by Intel founder Gordon Moore, which states that “the degree of integration of transistors doubles every year and a half.” The deep learning and self-learning functions of computers can be mentioned as significant driving factors behind the dramatic development of AI studies. The processing capacity of AI has increased exponentially owing to the evolution and combination of various technologies, and the speed of development of technology now far exceeds the biological limits of humankind. As a result, it is inevitable that “Singularity” will come to pass, and the technologies behind semiconductor devices contributing to the arrival of Singularity are expected to develop much further. In the process of such semiconductor development, silicon carbide (SiC), among other materials, came to be expected as the next-generation semiconductor in the 1950s, but it could not succeed significantly as a practical device. SiC also attracted attention as the material used in green and red light-emitting elements. In the 1990s, SiC came into the spotlight, along with gallium nitride (GaN) crystal and other materials, by being put into practical use as the material used in blue light-emitting diodes. Today, as the silicon (Si) as power devices have already approached the physical limits of the material, next-generation devices focus on semiconductor substrates such as SiC and GaN, which have performance indexes tens to thousands of times higher than the Si semiconductor. Especially, high-power devices and high-frequency devices have attracted special attention, because the use of semiconductor devices in the automotive and other fields has increased dramatically. Furthermore, the single-crystal substrate of semiconducting diamond is considered to be the ultimate semiconductor device, so this topic has been vigorously researched. The above-mentioned next-generation devices are called green devices because they could reduce power consumption and carbon dioxide emissions tremendously, leading to the realization of a low-carbon and energy-saving society. Such devices are utilized not only as high-power semiconductors and light-emitting semiconductors but also as various sensors, including gas sensors and UV sensors, as well as MEMS devices. Further application of such devices is expected in the future. To actually produce the high-performance and multifunctional green devices, it will be necessary to establish the technologies for device integration and the manufacturing process. An example would be the process of growing crystals that are larger in diameter and higher in quality. The substrate materials applied in such technologies, including SiC, GaN, and diamond, are known as ultra-hard-to-process materials: their extreme mechanical and chemical stability makes the general manufacturing process much more difficult. A breakthrough is needed to solve this problem. Many challenges must be overcome systematically to produce a high-performance green device, as the device to which such crystalline materials are applied will reduce power consumption and carbon dioxide emissions extremely effectively. This special issue focuses on manufacturing processes, including the planarization processing of every kind of hard-to-process crystal substrate, involved in producing green devices, sensors, etc. And the paper on the various applications of the device are published in this issue. This issue is expected to contribute to the establishment of a process for manufacturing green devices, which is an essential industrial strategy, as well as to future intensive studies in this field.

After becoming independent in 1957, Malaysia continued as an agricultural country but quickly grew into a manufacturing nation in a relatively short time. Literally from nowhere, the manufacturing sector now commands more than 38% of the nation’s GDP overtaking the agriculture sector which commands just slightly above 7%. In addition to the multinational manufacturers who are mainly in the electrical and electronics sectors, there are also other smaller producers who produce for the rest of the world. Nevertheless in order to compete, they cannot just rely on manual labour whether local or foreign, to produce high volume and high quality goods at a competitive price. With intense competition, even the old way of making many products to satisfy the global appetite for good products from both the brick-and-mortar shops to your huge online shops is no longer adequate. Manual operations in the manufacturing process can come in various forms, ranging from the very simple but monotonous and repetitive to the highly complex or sophisticated. In the quality department many of the local manufacturers have chosen to use human labour to ensure their quality is maintained. For many of these highly repetitive but relatively simple tasks, the human operators need to be properly trained for an appropriate length of time before they can perform effectively. Other than the intelligence of these operators, their ability to detect deviations from the desired patterns are also utilised. And this is where artificial intelligence and computer vision can help. The term artificial intelligence was first coined at the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence by John McCarthy in 1956. While there are many definitions, Ray Kurzweil, an American inventor and futurist defines it as machines that perform functions that require intelligence when performed by humans[1]. On the other hand, computer vision deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the human visual system can do. This paper shows how artificial intelligence combined with computer vision can be used to improve productivity and effectiveness in three different areas.