Kurzweil 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.
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"[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?
Kurzweil 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.
Hey, the best way to predict the future is to (in|pre)vent it.
Actually, he's said the year 2029 for a long time now.
I think Kurzweil should be more explicit in step two.
Personally I think it's one of those predictions.
I explain why here: http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2008/11/why-singularity-may-neve...