Ray Kurzweil: Don't Fear the Nanofuture
Ray Kurzweil talks about virtual reality, nanobots, and Bill Joy's view of the future.
Originally published March 19, 2001 at CNET.com. Published on KurzweilAI.net May 31, 2001.
When it comes to imagining the future, Ray Kurzweil has an impressive list of credentials to state his case. Among other achievements, Kurzweil, who has worked on artificial intelligence and pattern recognition technologies for over four decades, invented the first reading machine for the blind.
In his latest venture, the tech entrepreneur has essentially taken on a Johnny Appleseed role, demonstrating how breakthrough--even sci-fi sounding--technologies are going to improve the way people work.
In books and speeches, Kurzweil has sketched out a scenario where the distinction between human and machine blurs, an emerging era where microscopic "nanobots" will be able to trigger images allowing people to operate in virtual reality whenever the mood or need strikes.
But Kurzweil's musings have also triggered a larger debate about what it means to be human in a future marked by a fusion with robotic technologies and synthetic personalities. Most notably, he has been paired as the sunny optimist vs. Bill Joy, the chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, who last year penned a long article that raised a red flag about some of Kurzweil's ideas.
The inventor-author nonetheless is optimistic about the future and last month gave a public demonstration of how a singer could be transformed into a virtual reality persona in real time. Kurzweil talked about his ideas in a recent interview.
Where do you go in terms of bringing the concept of conversational Web site avatars into more regular, everyday use?
We're investigating options for Web-based speech recognition. This will take time, but eventually you will be able to speak to her and get good quality back. It'll probably take six to 12 months. We are doing constant work on updating her knowledge base, but she also has a lot of general knowledge from conversation. Of course, she doesn't yet pass the Turing test. (The Turing test was developed by computer scientist Alan Turing to determine whether computers can "think.")
Take the 30,000-foot view. What do you envision as the predominant benefit society will derive from virtual reality?
There are several ways to approach this. I think avatars will be a near-term trend over the next several years. We'll see them as a very useful human interface. They're entertaining but also a good way to interact with machines.
Complete article available at CNET.com
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