And 500 years ago, it seemed that it took only 100 years for the printing press to go from invention to widespread use. Today, a product such as a mobile phone and the World Wide Web, from invention to wide application, only takes a few years. Time is fine.
Under such circumstances, let alone ordinary people, even scientists often underestimate the power of exponential growth.
For example, when the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, some scientists believed that at the speed of the time, it would take at least a hundred years to complete the project.
However, the result was unexpectedly fast. In 2003, all sequencing work was completed.
As well as the computer field that everyone is very familiar with, everyone may not believe it. After just 50 years, the calculator power of the Apollo 11 moon landing, which burned countless dollars, is not as convenient as the current calculation of more than a dozen dollars. The device is strong.
The computing power of an iPhone is hundreds of millions of times that of the Apollo 11 moon navigation calculator. Seeing this, do you feel the amazing speed of technological progress?
In the future, it is very likely that because you slept in bed all day, the world may have developed to the point where you cannot understand it the next day.
Kurzweil believes that the limit of growth will appear in 2045. At that time, the tangent to the function of technological growth is almost vertical, and technological progress at every moment may exceed all achievements in the past. sum.
Can you imagine what will happen in this world in the hours following the arrival of the technological singularity? I can't imagine it anyway.
One thing is certain is that artificial intelligence will allow us to reach the technological singularity.
So the question is again, what technology will lead us to the technological singularity? Some people think it is a quantum computer, and some scientists think it is a controlled nuclear fusion technology.
But Kurzweil feels that it is artificial intelligence technology that opens this door, because he believes that the future of technology will develop to a point that we humans cannot understand.
And artificial intelligence can have a faster thinking speed than humans, let alone be as smart as humans, and in Kurzweil’s view, the future of AI will definitely far exceed the wisdom of humans today, and truly become omniscient and omnipotent. Of god.
Of course, this is not just a rhetoric, Kurzweil also gave his reasons.
First of all, the technology of artificial intelligence is growing very fast, because the information technology represented by artificial intelligence is closest to the exponential growth model, and it can improve one's knowledge level through endless learning, and in a short period of time, it will be effective to the world. Several versions can be updated with cognition.
Secondly, their "thinking" speed is also very fast. Machines can process and convert signals at a speed close to the speed of light, while the mammalian brain's signal transmission speed is 100/S, which is 3 million times slower than machines.
Moreover, artificial intelligence is malleable, that is, it has the ability to change the structure. The architecture of the human brain has its own biological limitations.
In addition, artificial intelligence can also share resources quickly, and it is not clear where the efficiency is higher than that of human language.
Therefore, after the arrival of the technological singularity, perhaps only the academic tyrant of artificial intelligence can understand knowledge beyond human reason.
At that time, the intelligence of artificial intelligence compared with humans is equivalent to that of humans compared with ants. This is why some people will say that strong artificial intelligence will be the last invention of human beings, and the subsequent civilization will be artificial Smart to continue.
Although information technology represented by artificial intelligence is one of the keys to the technological singularity, Kurzweil does not think that information technology is the only protagonist in the future.
The protagonist of the future should be the GNR revolution of G (gene technology), N (nanotechnology) and R (robot technology).
If you can't beat it, then join in. With the help of these technologies, humans can transcend the limitations of biology, can be edited like a program, constantly reform themselves, and thus completely integrate with AI.
It’s not a matter of brain-computer interface, consciousness uploading and so on, so as to achieve the immortal state of consciousness. At that time, it is to completely liberate our thoughts from the strict limitations of biological forms. This is one A fundamental spiritual cause.
Of course, for us human beings based on carbon-based life, the world after the technological singularity is no longer understandable by us mortals.
Of course, there are still many opposing comments on the Internet.
Will we live forever after 25 years? Artificial intelligence will become our savior from the flesh? Even if I answer this question and write here, even if I have already walked out of Amegian’s airport, I still have doubts about Kurzweil’s technical singularity theory.
Even if I am dead and nailed in the coffin, I will still be in the tomb and shout with this decadent vocal cord: You are not right!
Friends who have studied economics may have heard of the Malthusian trap, which means that the output of food is increasing linearly, but the growth of the population is exponential. When the population is too large, wars and famines are often born. Go to weed out those too many people.
And food production is the ceiling of population growth.
Therefore, some economists based on Kurzweil’s theory that technology, like population, cannot develop in the form of exponential explosion, because the intelligence of artificial intelligence is unlimited, which means that the energy consumed is also Unlimited ~EbookFREE.me~ This is very unreasonable.
And maybe the development of technology is not exponential, but y+artanx. We are just in the middle stage of the fastest development.
Some people also think that the development of science and technology is not as fast as imagined. Even Kurzweil's information technology field has encountered development bottlenecks. I don’t believe you can see how long Moore’s Law has been invalidated. The major chip manufacturers have changed their names to toothpaste factories.
Moreover, human beings do not have a deep enough understanding of neurology. They don't even understand the principles of the human brain. Still thinking about designing strong artificial intelligence and uploading consciousness?
But actually speaking, this is not the first time Kurzweil has used this kind of language for the future. After all, the name of future scientist is not for nothing.
As early as 1990, Kurzweil made predictions that seemed sensational at the time, such as the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the expansion of the Internet, the computer will defeat the world champion, and the translation software can perform real-time translation and understand people. The voice assistant will appear (similar to Siri, Xiao Ai, etc.)
(End of this chapter)
