I always liked the joke (I think it is Monty Python) were someone prays there's intelligent life somewhere in space beause there is no evidence of it on Earth. It's elitist , despairing and funny.
I don't know why but I thought of said joke when reading an article about a Ray Kurzweil. Mr Kurzweil is employed by Google as head of engineering. By 2029 he imagines a brave new world of conscious machines. They will be benign rather than the Arnold Schwarzenegger variety. Instead of toasters threatening nuclear warfare we will have helpful machines that are smarter than their creators. They will take over tricky day to day tasks like sentience and thought. Mr Kurzweil (who is in his sixties) is also holding out for a break through in medical science that will grant immortality .
The idea of the singularity proposed by Mr Kurzweil is an interesting one. It refers to the Turing test – the moment at which a computer will exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from a human. It will raise interesting questions about identity and metaphysics but I cannot help feeling it is utopian. The problems faced by most people will not be answered by smart machines. Freud's statement that psychoanalysis is successful when it turns misery into ordinary everyday unhappiness will still hold true.Ordinary everyday unhappiness will remain with Robbie the robot for company or without. The clever machines will mainly benefit the wealthy of course - that will always be a truism.
I am aware of the irony in typing this missive out on a computer. I am also aware of the greater irony on posting said missive on a service provided by Mr Kurzweil's employer. I hope ET appreciates the joke.
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