| His argument, if you read his work, isn't based solely on the increasing speed of computers. His idea is that progress is exponential in all of the requisite areas. That includes algorithms, hardware, biology, neuroscience, and more. > Siri, etc, are nothing more than text parsers that give a canned set of responses We say the same about everything once we can do it with computers, because progress doesn't come magically. It's incremental. Yet much of what we have already is what used to be "science fiction" and, before that, "magic". I'm sure when AIs are passing the Turing test, we won't think any more of computers, but less of the Turing test. This isn't an argument against Kurzweil's predictions, it's just moving the goalposts as you say. If strong AI comes, we'll move them all the way there and maybe even a bit past. I disagree that we'll know it when we see it though. I think we'll deny it until we die and the new generation grows up in a world in which computers have rights. > I'm not saying it won't happen, but it will require a type of conceptual breakthrough that we simply haven't had yet. Finally, Kurzweil's arguments do not require a breakthrough as a premise. Kurzweil's idea is to scan the brain at the neuronal level, then brute-force its simulation at the biochemical level. It's straightforward extrapolation. You could propose that we will come across some roadblock in our exponential progress towards that goal, but in the absence of one, the null hypothesis is that progress will continue as it has. Then indeed, the singularity is nigh. |