And nutrition. And wealth distribution. And working standards. And technology that took away the "hard" labor.

Remember coal mining? When they used to go into a hole with a candle, a bird, and a shovel? Thank GOD we don't have to do that anymore.

People used to work themselves to death just to get by. Nowadays, a "bad economy" means sitting at your desk scheduling job interviews while CNN plays on a 50" television.

>The man is insane.

Reality check, I've scrolled through 1/3rd of a 600+ discussion and I have yet to hear one statement from Ray Kurzweil.

Maybe we should find out what we're arguing about. Maybe Ray Kurzweil needs better P.R. - I've scrolled through 1/3rd of a 60+ life and I have yet to hear one statement from Ray Kurzweil.

>Yes, but hammers don't build houses.

Hammers build other hammers (think blacksmithing). But the "best" hammer (or hammer-making machine) has already been invented, so that lifecycle has stopped.

Computers will probably build better computers for...a long time.

>The amount that calculators and computers have done for things like fundamental research have been substantial, but not jaw-dropping. Einstein got by pretty much without.

I'm surprised you would say such a thing. That's like saying just because there was a $100 bottle of wine in 1850, the things tractors did for farming weren't jaw-dropping.

One of the things Einstein worked on was nuclear weapons. We simulate those now.

>I think the rate of change is slowing already. Things have certainly gotten a bit stale in computer hardware and software.

Technology always seems to get "stale" when it filters out of the hobbyist/inventor crowd into the masses. Now you get a double-whammy of slowdown - one part sheer communication lag, one part "these people will almost never get it".

I think we should start anticipating these slowdowns. The Internet was unleashed on an America that was completely unprepared for it. Now we've spent 15 years just waiting for people to learn how to use it. Meanwhile, along the way, a lot of core features got dropped.

Example, Myspace vs. Facebook was society at large learning the difference between "sane" and "insane" html. Insane html was never part of the original spec, so that was a terribly wasteful detour.

Now, regarding Facebook, we have to wait for people to learn that "sane" html can rob you blind. Another 10 years down the drain while they learn PHP and SQL. See you in 2020 on the exact same slashdot. We could have written a new one five times over.

I think the analogy is excellent. However somebody who heard the talk says Kurzweil understands much of this and is being mis-quoted.

Either way, there are many genomics labs who may not understand this. I'm often surprised that cross-species inserted DNA works at all. From that, it seems all species have a lot of shared history to work with. But I'll bet there are thousands of people who find the same DNA does the same thing in 2 different animals, and assume it's the DNA, not realizing the code was written before the animals became distinct...

>an immobile supercomputer would pretty much have to maintain its own profitable corporation to ensure its survival.

Great point among many.

>once you have enough processing power to, say, engage in multiple simultaneous conversations at once, how should context-dependent things like emotional state behave?

Insightful dilemma, however you should consider that emotions are intelligence as far as Darwinian evolution was concerned up until we invented grammar. Look around, animals all have emotional states that motivate and de-motivate their goals. If you're not starting with emotions, you're not doing it the way evolution did.

The simplest AI will not speak English, it will have a light that flashes "happy/unhappy". (The unhappy light may even be blue and fill the whole screen.)

>so you could, in theory, simply keep on adding memory and processors to simulate more and more neurons.

Not quite. Did you see that each neuron has an average of 7000 connections? "Adding" is not going to be so simple when you have to wire it to every other component. And I guarantee you that no two wires serve the same purpose.

So starting from 2, you would need -4 Troll, +2 Informative, +2 Insightful, and +3 Interesting?

As an aside, I always thought Insightful and Interesting were only subjectively different.

>100 billion neurons, each with something like seven thousand connections to other neurons.

Are you serious? 7000 connections?

With that many connections, virtually any sub-structures are possible. The neuron that handles Pamela Anderson can hand off that input to the big-boobs neuron as well as the fake-boobs neuron AND the limited-talent neuron (assuming they're not the same) and still have 6997 outputs left over.

By the time you get five neurons deep, you could have her entire career catalogued. Six if it's George Washington.

I think you just shattered the "mystery" here.

They should make Bionic Commando 2-player, so you can play the side that resurrects Hitler.

I bet that albatross makes a sweet UAV as well.

We should have vinyl quality phone calls by now IMO.

>This is the first of many Assnagel threads on slashdot that have finally gotten around to leveling the guns at him.

My bad, the rest of the thread is about 9/11 and Afghanistan.

OK, in each discussion on Assnagel there is one post leveling the guns at him. I tip my hat to you.

>It's a shame that such a clearly talented and charismatic man has chosen a life of faux drama and hucksterism.

Yes, but what's scary is how a shallow persona has become heroic to so many computer nerds. This is the first of many Assnagel threads on slashdot that have finally gotten around to leveling the guns at him.

I read a quote from a computer nerd a few days back that said, "It's impossible to be in computer security circles and not know people who are in Wikileaks."

But what does it mean to be "in" Wikileaks? It's one person. With a fanbase rivaling Justin Bieber's in temperament.

> If in your view the iPhone was not innovative, how would you classify the Droid X and HTC EVO, et al?

Yeah but this article is not just saying that Apple is innovative. It also claims that IBM, Oracle, HP, Microsoft, and Cisco are shitbox companies that do nothing but eat sushi all day and wipe their asses with shares of stock.

The flaw in this article is that "innovation" = "consumer handheld devices" and there is no other type of innovation possible. Microsoft X-Box Live? Sorry, not handheld. IBM DB2 and Oracle databases? Sorry, not consumer-oriented.

Cisco 7000 series network switch (image)? But does it have multitouch?

Basically, if your company has a market cap of $200 billion and you embed accelerometers in electronic devices, then this guy says you're a "startup" who "innovates." If you do anything else that people find useful, then forget it, you can go fuck yourself.

>Han shooting second really IS kiddieization.

True, but...

>It got the laser like focus on kiddies you're thinking about with the prequels.

Reconcile this with the guy who said the prequels were too slow because Lucas is an old-school 70's director.