SXSW 2018 Day 5 Session 4: The Power of Ideas to Transform the World is Accelerating

Session page, including audio: https://schedule.sxsw.com/2018/events/PP99241

Video of session: https://youtu.be/CiLmyA-gAZk

Ray Kurzweil, Google

Jessica Coen, Mashable

Ray: A computer will pass the valid Turing test by 2029; we will achieve the technological singularity by 2045 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity).

The pace of progress is increasing.  Ironically, people feel things are getting worst because information about poverty, hunger and other problems is more available and immediate; and we have an evolutionary disposition to pay attention to and focus on bad news.  However, every aspect of human life is getting better.

We will see improvements to longevity, and we are in the most peaceful time in world history.

Jessica: Elon Musk was quoted as saying that AI is more dangerous than Nuclear weapons.  What do you think?

Ray: There are risks to AI, such as privacy and bias, but I’m an optimist.  I don’t see AI as an external entity; we will have brain extenders and body extenders, so this should keep it safe.

As an analogy, 40 years ago people saw the promise and danger of biotech, and formed guidelines that govern the domain quite well.  This is a good paradigm for AI, and last year, for the first time, there was a similar type of conference for AI to discuss how to prepare.

Jessica: Do we have enough oversight on the domain?

Ray: We have a lot of regulations.

Jessica: Self-improving tech – how do we prevent it from running away from us and diverging from human interests?

Ray: Any time AI impacts the world there’s a lot of observation of it and monitoring of it.  There is a concern of its use in the military; the best strategy here is to apply our own value sets to it.  AI is an implementation of human values.

Jessica: There is a large lack of diversity in the engineers building the AI; how do you prevent that from impacting the AI that is being created?

Ray: That’s a complicated issue, because there is inherent bias in the data software is learning from and trying to correct it risks inserting the corrector’s values.

The world has a pessimistic view.  People feel things are getting worst in all parameters.  However, in 2020 we will be able to print cloths for pennies per pound.  We’re moving towards the ability to print out housing and support vertical architecture.  The 50% deflation rate of IT will apply to other resources as well.

We will be creating a synthetic neocortex in the cloud – by 2030 we will have a good model of a synthetic neocortex; we’ll be able to connect these with our own.  But even before that, we already have brain enhancers – we are already augmenting our creativity and capabilities.

AIs are not yet at the highest level of meaningful interaction.  Just a few weeks ago computers passed a reading comprehension test at average adult level.  They still can’t human level complex comprehension, but they’ll gain that ability by 2029.

Jessica: Should conscious AIs be granted human rights?

Ray: once they reach consciousness (2029), yes, they should.

Question: What’s the next major industry to die?

Ray: They don’t die, they just transform.  Agriculture will transform even more with vertical agriculture.  Transportation will be transformed not just by autonomous vehicles, but also by virtual and augmented reality, which will prevent the need to physically travel in the first place.

Question: Will we reach immortality by 2050?

Ray: 10 years from now we’ll have a flood of medical enhancements.  The third bridge is medical nano-robots, enabling non-biological blood cells and T cells, inner-body monitoring devices and organ augmentation (by around 2030s).

Question: What near term (2-3 years) innovation are you most excited about?

Ray: In that timeline, 3-D printing at the submicron level.  Vertical agriculture is about 5-6 years away.  VR/AR had a premature start, and will take another 3-4 years to mature.

Question: What are futurists going to do after the singularity?

Ray: It’s hard to see beyond that horizon.

Question: What do you think of the theory that we live in a “Matrix”-like simulation?

Ray: If it was created for someone else, we should do our best to keep them interested!  There’s another theory of thought that says the universe itself is a computer.  There is some evidence to this: there are about 50 physical constants that exist, and could only exist in a very specific and narrow range for the universe to be able to work.