Talk:The Singularity Is Near/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Regarding postulate 4

Why does it matter if baby boomers are alive for this event or not? Whatever generation is alive will allow for 'reaching the same conclusions' unless his conclusions include some sort of 'self-obsession'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.58.46 (talk) 03:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if they are alive or not. If you read the book Kurzweil is not obsessed with baby boomers reaching Singularity, but rather hypothesizes with advances in genetics and biomeds boomers could theoretically keep themselves alive and healthy (read: with the physical body of a much younger person) well into the 2040's (almost 80-95 years old). This is not a self-obsession, but rather preaching the uber-healthy lifestyle that he leads, and why other boomers should convert, should they want to give themselves the best chance they can to reach Singularity (and possible immortality). For younger generations it is less important because the flexible time frame given; even if Singularity were to miss by say 15 years (unlikely according to Kurzweil), younger generations would still be well within even this era's average lifespan, and thus not at risk to miss Singularity by leading a average lifestyle.24.206.86.229 (talk) 12:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If everyone had the minds and bodies of 30-year-old people, there would be no menopause or retirement. People could continue to have babies and run their home-based business into near infinity. GVnayR (talk) 01:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Someone familiar with the subject, please check that I'm not breaking something..

The following (blockquoted) is a single sentence. I have edited it to make it somewhat understandable, but I am worried I may be removing some aspect of the article in editing it. It definitely needs to be reformed to not have so confusing a structure. Parenthetical remarks, three comma breaks, a dash, words like 'ameliorate', and obtuse phrasings make this a wall of impenetrable text. If my fix appears crazy, please revert or merge.

Original: (only showing the problem area)

In a rebuttal paper at KurzweilAI.net, Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement - an argument that seems again to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies (as well as the inevitable paradigm shift by advent of another periodically) could ameliorate even such a barrier, a relevant example being more advanced a form of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, at a scale and with accuracy of computation equivalent to the biological human brain.

I believe that 'ameliorate' was misused. It means "to aid" or "to improve", and is here said "to ameliorate even such a barrier", when it appears to be intended to read "help to bring down such a barrier". I have replaced "ameliorate" with "overcome".

Also, the final statement about "a more advanced form of quantum computing" doesn't have a reference. Did whoever wrote this just bullshit it? It really doesn't feel like anything beyond a vague, speculative bit of inanity.

Broke this enormous two-story paragraph into two smaller, more readable pieces.

Revised: (showing the whole subsection)

Kurzweil asserts that the functionality of the brain is quantifiable in terms of technology that we can build in the near future. Kurzweil's earlier books showed cerebral processing power as primarily the number of computations in a square inch multiplied by the area of the brain. In this update, however, he acknowledges the possibility of Penrose-Hameroff Microtubule quantum processing (Orch-OR) and states that if his calculations of the processing capability of the brain are off by a factor of a billion, the double-exponential growth of technology will still catch up to it twenty-four years after his original projections. The Orch-OR theory is generally discredited among neuroscientists.

In a rebuttal paper, Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement. This argument seems to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies could, in a nominal period, overcome such a barrier. Additionally, other technologies could emerge which greatly lower the time required to reach the Singularity. A notable example would be more advanced forms of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, which on a large enough scale, could function equivalently to the biological human brain.

One last thing - "processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be" - does this mean that the power required is precisely an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed, or simply that it is beyond present expression? This is ambiguous, and I've decided to leave it that way - if someone knows the actual meaning, please make it concrete. Thanks! 99.225.15.55 (talk) 10:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Old talk

I deleted 5-6 paragraphs under the sufficient medical advancements section. Its entirety was comprised of a book review lifted from: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17557088%255E5001986,00.html

Whomever edited that section previously failed to credit the original author, failed to paraphrase any of it (i.e. plagiarism) and much to the chagrin of the Wikipedia community: failed to hyperlink keywords.

At any rate, I have not read the book personally (only various chapters and reviews) -- however, to answer the questions raised below, it has been published as a couple of my friends own it. And for the record, the article still doesn't seem NPOV. If you want to criticize certain parts of it, create a Criticism section. - Tejano 05:32, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)

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Wikipedia is about things/beliefs that exist or have existed, not that MIGHT exist in the future. There are a bazillion-and-one books in the process of being written - they don't deserve articles except in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and none seem to exist in this case. Once "Singularity" actually exists, we can write an article on it. - DavidWBrooks 17:11, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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I believe the book is either finished, or just about finished, and there's no reason to believe that it'll be behind schedule in its release. Amoffit 17:25, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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But it doesn't actually exist yet. The publisher could decide to not print it until, say, the Christmas season, or next spring due to obscure business reasons. Or the publisher could go out of business tomorrow and the book get lost in legal limbo. Or the title could be changed at the last minute. In any case, we should wait until the book actually exists before writing a story about it! - DavidWBrooks 18:49, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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But it's such an anticipated release :) Andrew 19:24, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Ziff-Davis (the publishing company) doesn't even mention the book in a press release about a Kurzweil speech earlier this month (June) - in fact, I can't Google any news about its upcoming publication at all. He's been giving talks with that title for years - can you point me to some evidence that it is actually coming out? - DavidWBrooks 00:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Truth be told I just took the information from the wikipedia Ray Kurzweil page, which mentioned it was to be released in 2004. It looks like you've removed mention to this book from that entry.. But it was highlighted and I thought there would be an entry and when I found that there wasn't it was, I believed, my duty to add it.. There must be a lot of people awaiting this release and so little mentions on the internet, it's baffling actually!

On this webpage; http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0235.html?m%3D1 the first video is an interview with Ray Kurzweil that mentions The Singularity is Near is due in 2003. So I guess it's behind schedule at this point. (I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing or even much of it) Andrew 4:24, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I don't mean to be so pompous and annoying about this, but wikipedia is getting close to the point where some people use it as source material - and so we need to be careful about putting in material that may not be true. There are enough ULs floating around the Net! ... anyway, how about re-writing this article to talk about the singularity idea he's been talking about, and just put a sentence at the end saying that he has long had a plan to turn it into a book, or something like that? - DavidWBrooks 12:33, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I've modified the entry to indicate that it is not to be taken as 'gospel'. Here's another link that mentions kurzweil talking about his book (in 2003 though). http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0476.html here's a wired article from a little over a year ago mentioning it: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/start.html?pg=12 --Andrew 19:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I turned the article around: The talks are definitely real, so I started with them. The book is possible, so I moved it to the end. - DavidWBrooks 13:35, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Singularity Is Near Is Near

But is it here? It's sept 22 in Europe, for hours. What's holding it up? GangofOne 05:11, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Just checked amazon. ships within 24 hrs. GangofOne 08:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Title

Is the title a parody of apocalyptic prediction, or is he serious. If he is, it will be an easy shot for opponents Reply to David Latapie 20:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Both. Yes, for instance see review of previous book Age of Spir.Machines by John Searle in NYRB GangofOne 21:48, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

It's definietly a parody. Just look at p.368 or the WSJ review.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 22:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Miscenaneous errata

On page 265 Kurxweil makes the very common mistake of attributing flight to the Bernoulli Effect while the Coanda Effect is more pertinent. If flight really depended on the shape of the wing as Bernoulli advocates believe, then airplanes could not fly upside down. But they can. Karpinski 19:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Anon section on errors

I moved it here, as it should be discussed and wikified. Besides, anything writtin in the first person (I personally would not bet...) is not encyclopedic.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 02:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

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Ray's book has several errors with regard to his claims about the increases in human life expectancy. His table on page 324 backed up by endnote 40 for chapter 6 on pages 587-588 is worrisome.

He cites Cro-Magnon Life expectancy as 18 years. The webpage he cites is no longer online, but the author had this to say

"I revised all of my physical anthropology webpages last spring and early summer. In that process, http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/sapiens_culture.htm became http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_5.htm. As I recall, the earlier version did not say that Cro-Magnon life expectancy was 18. My data source for the "30 years or less" was the Rachel Caspari and San-Hee Lee article that you mentioned. I personally, would not bet the farm on the "30 years or less" figure given that we have no way of knowing how representative the sample is. However, it is still better than a guess."

He cites the life expectancy of an ancient Egyptian as 25 years of age, however the webpage he cites has this to say

" "Because their book did not mention the average life expectancy of an ancient Egyptian, I wrote to Ms. Janssen and asked for her opinion. She returned, "The average life expectancy FROM BIRTH was 25 for men, and 21 for women – but these are figures obtained from Graeco-Roman census lists. However, in the New Kingdom I think that it would not have been much different. Obviously if you exclude the high infant mortality, and go to life expectancy at 1 year, then the figures would be much higher - at least 33 for men and 30 for women - the figures given in a recent general book by Teeter and Brewer." [10] [11] "

He cites the life expectancy in 1400s Europe as 30. Here is some of what the cited webpage has to say on the matter

"Life expectancy averaged only 37 years between 1540 and 1800. Life expectancy at birth was even lower in pre-industrial France because of its higher birth rate. There it was only about 28 years in the latter half of the eighteenth century. "

"It would be nice to compare the life expectancies for Europe in the years after 1300 with those of communities before 1300, to test further the claim made above that material conditions did not improve between the Neolithic and 1800. Unfortunately while it is possible to estimate the age at death for skeletal remains no reliable way has been found to translate these estimates into estimates of life expectancy at a given age. Skeletal material from the very young and very 4 old does not seem to survive well in the ground, so that the surviving remains are unrepresentative of the population as a whole."

For 1900s United States he claims life expectancies were 48. His source says 47.3. One traditionally would not round up in this case.

He claims the 2002 U.S. life expectancy was 78. He does not cite where this came from. According to the CDC, the age was 77.3.

In summary, while these errors do not impeach the underlying idea Ray is trying to get across, they do call the details of his arguments throughout the entire book into question.

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See Life Expectancy and notice that large changes occur with the reduction of infant mortality since the term usually is interpreted as life expectancy at birth. -- Karpinski 19:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• Jumping in after 3 1/2 years! I don't think the term "life expectancy" had much meaning in pre-modern societies. If a person had a 50% chance of dying as an infant, a woman a stong chance of dying in childbirth, a man a strong chance of dying in a tribal war, etc. I don't think there was much expenctancy of anything. Some people did live to old age however.Borock (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Exponential

From the article:

He expands on Moore's Law with models showing that not only the return, but the rate of return is increasing exponentially.

This is true of any exponential growth, always. If the rate of return was less than exponential, the growth cannot be exponential. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe this is correct. "rate of return" is the first derivative, and an exponential return could be x^2, while the RoR is therefore x, thus linear. --TimOertel 18:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

x^2 is a quadratic, not an exponential. Exponential growth: f(x)=a^x. df/dx (the derivative of a^x) = ln(a) * a^x, thus also exponential.

I came to the discussion to page specifically to see if anyone else had noticed that. I agree: the rate of change of a function is exponential if and only if the function itself is exponential. 94.101.145.114 (talk) 10:50, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

The article also had a statement about processor clock speeds increasing exponentially, which is no longer true. Clock speeds have not increased much at all since about 2003 or 2004. --71.214.208.252 (talk) 19:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Distortions ...

In the article and the work itself. Wrt. to the former, the book has nine chapters and more than 600 pages of which chapters one and two are only a hundred pages. The various arguments and predictions could be picked apart critically as I have done on my user page for Ch. 6. Lycurgus (talk) 18:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Luddite

Since when is "luddite" synonymous with "green anarchism?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.4.181.41 (talk) 02:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Postulates

One of the postulates claimes Acceptance and striving for the idea of living forever. There is the problem of generalization here. Who is it that have to accept and strive? In practice, it isn't everyone. As soon as someone will do it, it is enough. Because of that, this is unavoidable?

LarsPensjo (talk) 07:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

2018 prediction (10¹³ bits of computer memory)

What does that prediction mean? 10¹³ bits roughly is one terabyte, and that's the capacity of your average hard disk drive today. So what is supposed to be in 2018? --bender235 (talk) 23:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

He means ram not hard drive space —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.206.254 (talk) 19:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

$1000 in 2045

The article says that in 2045, $1000 buys a computer with the computational power of 1 billion people. Is this $1,000 in today's dollars, or in whatever the worth $1,000 will be in 2045? --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 21:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

As we have no real way of predicting the state of the economy in 2045, we would have to assume that his is not adujusted for inflation/deflation, and is $1,000 in modern day dollars. -Nova —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.34.197 (talk) 16:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"Infinitely impossible"

Does anyone else think that User:74.66.129.192's contributions (such as [1]) are worthwhile? I don't want to break 3RR here, but come on. I don't think Kurzweil ever used this kind of language. —Keenan Pepper 18:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Nature of this article

To me it seems like this article is more like a reprinting of the book in a condensed form, not an encylopedia article about the book. Can some of the detail be taken out and more info added, from reliable secondary sources, about the importance and influence of the book? Borock (talk) 05:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that DNA error be merged into The Singularity Is Near. On my reading of DNA error, that article is almost entirely a summary of a portion of the theories set out in this book. Otherwise, it seems speculative and does not read as a stand-alone subject. Agent 86 (talk) 01:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

• Support - Actually, I think DNA error should be a redirect to mutation, as that article contains scientifically accepted definitions of genetic changes. A summary of the content in DNA error can then be moved into The Singularity Is Near where it belongs.

The current DNA error article is almost entirely based on Kurzweil's theories and ultra-speculative ideas about biology, many of which do not pass the sniff test. For instance: "the only permanent way to get rid of the DNA errors (that are a part of cancer cells and/or the various pathogens found in other illnesses) is by injecting nanobots (ideally multifunctional nanoparticles) into the patient's body." While the citations provide evidence that nanobots may someday be useful in cancer treatments, I don't see any evidence to support the idea that injecting nanobots is the only potential future way to cure cancer, which is essentially what this sentence is suggesting. I also don't see evidence that supports the statement that lowering SP2 protein levels is a means to cure cancer. Claims that Alzheimer's disease is caused by DNA errors aren't absurd, but certainly don't represent scientific consensus as the cause of the disease is an open question. It also claims that "nanomedicine is before[sic] more affordable for the average person year by year," but there's no reason to believe this when today drugs are becoming less and less affordable for many. Similarly, it claims that "All methods of death that are not caused by accidents are caused by a long line of DNA errors that are never corrected over a very long period of time." Originally the claim was that all methods of death are caused by DNA errors, but this was revised after I pointed out that getting hit by a bus is not a DNA error. However, many non-accidental causes of death are apparently unrelated to genetics, such as alcoholic liver disease, paracetamol toxicity, pulmonary embolism, stroke, starvation, dehydration, water intoxication, many parasitic diseases, some causes of maternal death, pancreatic from gallstones, and even intentional deaths (suicide, war, and other violence). The article is pseudoscience at best and the portions of the article that have merit can be adequately addressed here in the context of the book. Zachlipton (talk) 07:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all, the word "before" was an accidental typo; I meant to use the word "becoming." Secondly, the prices of today's drugs are only going up due to political and socio-economic conditions. The cost of electronic goods are still going down so there is no scientific principle that condons the raising of drug prices; only political and/or economic. Kurzweil has taught me a lot about nanomedicine and the Singularity (even though he wrote that book back in the uber-optimistic days of 2005). Most importantly, Kurzweil dedicated an entire appendix to the rich-poor divide and how things will level out in the end when it comes to nanomedicine and technological devices. Besides, Kurzweil says that all recessions and economic depressions go away in time (and we'll be prosperous again in a few years). GVnayR (talk) 01:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Predictions Section

This is a good overview of the book, but by lacking any criticisms of skeptics, it comes across as too accepting and non-impartial.

For example, in the Predictions section, after mentioning Kurzweil's prediction that by 2010 "Computers will disappear as distinct physical objects" this article added "meaning many will have nontraditional shapes and/or will be embedded in clothing and everyday objects."

Kurzweil didn't write that MANY computers will have "nontraditional shapes;" he said that "computers will disappear as distinct physical objects." That's a very different claim. After all, many computers have had nontraditional shapes, having been built into coffeemakers, exercise machines and so on, for a very long time now, so that wouldn't be a "prediction" at all.

Kurzweil's overly-optimistic claim that by 2010 "Displays built into our eyeglasses will provide full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality" was watered down in this article to "Full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality will exist." Well again, depending on how you define "full-immersion," audio-visual virtual reality has existed for over twenty years now, so that obviously was not Kurzweil's actual prediction.

Kurzweil's critics don't say that the things he claims are impossible, just that he has the time frame wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TimMagic (talk • contribs) 16:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: adding MiszaBot

If there is no objection I will add MiszaBot with the same parameters as was done on Talk:Ray Kurzweil. --Silas Ropac (talk) 21:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

I have added MiszaBat with to archive thread > 90d old. --Silas Ropac (talk) 21:18, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Conflicting definitions of Singularity

It seems to me that this article, along with a lot of similar pieces, use different definitions of singularity. This article has a link to technological singularity (when machines become superintelligent), but the author seems to be more referring to biological singularity (when technology advances far enough to download human consciousness into machines, allowing people to become immortal). 143.229.6.149 (talk) 18:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't Kurzweil believe machines will become super intelligent and believe in "downloading" and immortal humans? Yudkowsky claimed there are 3 schools of thought related to the singularity, and none are "technological singularity" or "biological singularity". So I buy that something is confused here, but not sure what it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silas Ropac (talk • contribs) 18:56, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Deleting predictions from this article

Per the merger proposal that's been in the article for over a week, I plan to real soon now delete the predictions in this page. Instead like in The Age of Intelligent Machines we'll direct the reader to the main predictions article, and then include a small paragraph of highlights.

The reason for doing this is right now the book article and predictions article completely overlap. This duplication is very unhealthy for reader and editor alike. Eliminating the duplication is the first step, then focusing on cleanup of the predictions in the prediction article is next.

Any comments or better ideas please post to the merger proposal. Thanks. Silas Ropac (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay merge discussion closed (it passed, based on silence) and so I deleted the inline predictions. The predictions article is now the main/only location for the detailed timeline of predictions. If any of the text in the deleted version needs to be merged over, that is fine, but realize the predictions page itself is going to need to be trimmed down significantly. Silas Ropac (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Criticism section

This page is a rather detailed summary of the book, which is fine, but shouldn't there also be some criticism somewhere? Or at least a link? It's just that people who subscribe to his ideas deserve to also be exposed to careful outside analysis of them. Personally, I think many of his assumptions and assertions are deeply unjustified and much of his reasoning is false... but I don't want to do OR here, does anyone know of a solid body of criticism of this work? --Jonathan Stray (talk) 11:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The rate of expansion of the universe is increasing which may make it difficult for the machines to convert the universe (maybe the universe is going into self preservation mode) and even so faster than light travel is not really possible. -- Good luck bots —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.21.195.230 (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

"He expands on Moore's Law with models showing that not only the return, but the rate of return is increasing exponentially." Some one more mathematically inclined, can maybe answer this question, can the rate of return be exponential if the return is exponential too? --Lightenoughtotravel (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In 2030 I might be able to download my brain into a computer, but I bet I still won't have my rocket car. As a molecular biologist, I think the biology in this article is way too optimistic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.255.152 (talk) 21:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

The idea of a Universal singularity is just downright silly... What is the purpose of converting all material in the universe into nanomachine super-computers once all the laws of physics are understood as observable truths... It would just be wasted power, serving no purpose and learning nothing... Do we need to know the exact extent of all matter in the universe or is that just useless knowledge... Must we map every planet and star of every galaxy, every crack in every surface of every planet? Besides that, what about the limits of communication being the speed of light, (even if light was not constant, which as far as we know it is) having a giant brain computer spanning the distance of Earth to Mars would create a communication gap of nearly two hours. Such a being, even a very smart one, would not be able to react quickly to external stimuli, and could be easily destroyed, as each particle could not possibly hold all the necessary information needed for the survival of the whole. In such a case, multiple copies and versions of itself would have to be created and replicated so that it could efficiently communicate with all the parts of itself. This would mean creating individual super computers as each one's experience would be essentially different, thus IT WOULD NOT BE A SINGULARITY BUT INDIVIDUAL COMPUTERS COMMUNICATING AS A LARGER NETWORK. Fin. (unsigned)

I agree that a 'criticism' section is well-warranted. The article as-is reads like an advertisement and summary of the book, and many of the claims seem ludicrous to me. Is there an existing, reasoned critique that we can point to? Several, preferably. 152.51.56.1 (talk) 14:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Should this page contain criticism about this particular book, or about Kurzweil's predictions in general? It is hard to untangle the two much of the time. Maybe general criticism should go on the predictions page or on his main page? Here is one review of the book specifically:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/books/03masl.html?_r=0

Not that critical, but does say he's "disinclined to contemplate the dangers of what he imagines" which I think is a valid criticism. [2] impressively links to reviews some of which are quite critical, although most of the links are dead. But for example from Nature:

* http://www.singularity.com/When_computers_take_over.pdf

Says "The key point about exponential growth is that it never lasts." and "Kurzweil is apt to be vague or even mis-informed" although really he doesn't have many concrete complaints. I would like to see all the various Kurzweil pages contain appropriate criticism, to balance things out. I'm not sure where it all should go exactly. --Silas Ropac (talk) 21:13, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

A review that's not very critical, but maybe some some usable stuff: Abou Farman, The Mode of Prediction: Review of The Singularity is Near, Anthropology Now, Vol 2 No 3 Dec 2010. I found the full text of this via google, at an unofficial site I won't link to. Silas Ropac (talk) 16:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Duplication between predicions section and another article

The predictions section in this article duplicates The Singularity is Near section of Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil. There are slight incidental differences, but it is 95% the same. We should not have the same predictions recounted, slightly differently, in two different places. Either this article should defer to Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil or vice versa.Silas Ropac (talk) 16:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

This is resolved see "deleting predictions from this article" below. Silas Ropac (talk) 06:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Balance in summary

Today we have long summaries of Postulates, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. And nothing on Chapters 3-9. We should cut down the existing there, and add something for the rest. Probably should not be 1 section per chapter, but needs to touch on them. Silas Ropac (talk) 16:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I have cut down chapters 1 and 2 and summarizing the remaining chapters is underway. However this too seems like it will be too long. And it's awkward and frowned upon to have chapter-by-chapter summaries anyway. What needs to happen next, once the summaries are in place, is to combine and compress them into a single flow which is not chapter based. Silas Ropac (talk) 04:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Structure is in place to get rid of chapter-by-chapter summaries. Now last chapters should be summarized and then stuff should be smooshed together and re-ordered to be a cohesive whole-book summary. Then new content should be added such as a Background (mention other singularity books like Moravec) and much more reception/criticism bring in as many outside realiable sources as possible. Silas Ropac (talk) 05:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Postulates

The "Postulates" section should go away. First 4 were added in Nov 2005 by banned user User:Zephram Stark with the heading "All four of Kurzweil's primary postulates must be correct in order for Kurzweil's assertion that he will live forever to be true." see this diff. The book is not about Kurzweil's assertion that he will live forever, so it is weird to build a summary around the idea. I don't think they serve as a very good summary of the book or of Kurzweil's arguments. It's kind of just this random section at the start of the article. The DNA errors section perhaps should be salvaged in some form, looks like a lot of work went in it. Likely that is from Chapter 3: GNR. I will just move it to Chapter 3 probably. Any comments? Silas Ropac (talk) 19:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This is done, it is away. Did not save the DNA errors part, way too details. Silas Ropac (talk) 05:59, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Possible references

• Beam, Alex. That Singularity Sensation, The Boston Globe. 2005-02-24.
• Doerr, Anthony. Which Way Will Technology Take us?, The Boston Globe. 2005-10-02.
• Lamb, Gregory. Progress at light speed, The Christian Science Monitor. 2005-10-13
• Modis, Theodore. "The Singularity Myth". Technological Forecasting & Social Change. 73.2 (2006).
• Gray, John. On the Road to Immortality. The New York Review of Books. 2011-11-24
• Vance, Ashlee. Merely Human? That's So Yesterday. The New York Times. 2010-06-12
• Linden, David. The Singularity is Far: A Neuroscientist's View. Boing Boing,
• Popper, Ben. Rapture of the nerds: will the Singularity turn us into gods or end the human race?. The Verge. 2012-10-22.
• Davies, Paul. When compturs take over. Nature. Vol 437|440|23 March 2006.
• Maslin, Janet. Will the Future Be a Trillian Times Better? The New York Times. 2005-10-03.
• Magee, Christopher and Devezas, Tessaleno. How many singularities are near and how will they disrupt human history?
• Abou Farman, The Mode of Prediction: Review of The Singularity is Near, Anthropology Now, Vol 2 No 3 Dec 2010

Maybe some worth using? Silas Ropac (talk) 16:04, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

New content section - need feedback please

The content section of the article has completely changed in the last 2 weeks. Please read the old and new and compare, make sure it is heading in the right direction. I have made a lot of changes with no input, I want some validation I'm not making things worse.

• old
• new

The goals for the new version were:

1. Much less detail: old covered only chapters 1 and 2 and was already way too long
2. Remove OR and out-of-balance material (postulates and DNA error section)
3. Much more coverage: now covers material from all chapters
4. Avoid chapter-by-chapter by chapter structure, frowned upon and clunky
5. Have citations, old had none. Maybe too many now, but we can cut down easily

Let me know how things read now. What can be added or changed or improved? Or please just have it and make changes. I stubbed in a Background and Reception section which are next goals, after content is settled. Silas Ropac (talk) 04:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Feedback

Thanks for your work here: 2 tips on my first reading (note these may have been a problem before your edits, so I'm not blaming you):

1. Avoid use of you/us/we. Write in third-person (people, one, humans, they). See WP:TONE for more details.

   Example: Kurzweil attempts to give a glimpse of what awaits us --> Kurzweil attempts to describe technological changes he believes human civilization will undergo...

   Example: The four epochs we have been through so far --> Kurzweil describes four epochs humans/civilization/theuniverse has been through before...

2. Avoid describing Kurzweil's views with Wikipedia's voice. WP:NPOV (worth a close read) requires that we describe debates rather than engaging in them. When a statement is theory, speculation, or otherwise not a consensus view, the article should make clear that Wikipedia doesn't necessarily agree nor disagree with the statement.

   Example: The singularity will result from the application of his law of accelerating returns --> The singularity follows from Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns, in which...

   Example: The four epochs we have been through so far--> Kurzweil describes four epochs humans/civilization/theuniverse has been through before...

In general, using an WP:INUNIVERSE style, in my understanding, is not suitable for theoretical/scientific/historical/speculative content, as it blurs the line between fact and opinion. There are many examples of both issues. I'd be happy to provide more examples and/or check any progress you make on addressing them. Thanks again for your improvements! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 03:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at it. I know I've been doing both of these things, so probably is me! I figured in the back of my mind they were probably wrong, but also wasn't sure how to avoid them and keep the prose compact and readable. Mechanically substituting "we" with "human civilization" everywhere would obviously not be good! So I guess the trick is to vary things up. Using "we" is just so convenient, it will take practice to avoid. As for "in universe" I've done that on purpose to avoid a stilted style of attributing in every sentence "Kurzweil says A. Kurzweil says B. Kurzweil says C". Again I guess the trick is to attribute, but in a varied and interesting ways? I will have to look at some GA or FA articles and see if I can pick up some hints. I could mechanically fix this problem now but I feel it would leave the prose worse for the wear. Silas Ropac (talk) 05:32, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Update: Okay I have taken a pass through on both issues: eliminate "we" and "our" in the content section (except for quotes from the book where he uses it) and attributed to Kurzweil ideas which are his from the book. Please take a look! Silas Ropac (talk) 15:08, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Update2: Also I added a new lead, and took out the empty background section for now. Silas Ropac (talk) 16:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Great work. I continued with some minor copyedits and I think both issues are satisfactorily resolved now. This style is less engaging and a little dry, but sometimes that's the nature of an encyclopedia writing. Prose can be lucid, but it can't really engage (speak to) the reader in the same way as an essay would. In any case, I think we struck the right balance here between speculation and description.

You're awesome for improving this article, surely one of my favorite books. Now it will give readers a much more thorough and encyclopedic introduction to the subject. Thanks for doing that!! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 16:28, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Yeah I thought it deserved a decent article. It was fun to work on. It gave me a much better sense of his ideas and logic. Yeah I'm new to wikipedia so learning how to write encyclopedia style will take some practice. I just hope I can "turn it off" if I want to write something with more pizazz. So how can I get it re-assed? For GA and FA there is all this formal machinery. For stub/start/c/b I don't yet understand how it's supposed to work.I read "anybody" can do it, but I mean you want someone somewhat neutral I would think, and some experienced enough, and maybe someone familiar with the subject matter (although maybe not). It'd be nice if there was a queue or a process, but is "just grabbing someone" the preferred approach?

I'm hoping to work on his older books need The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines next. Although now I see they are quite similar, the ideas are repeated between each book, refined but repeated. Still I think they are deserve some minimum level of article. After all I see many individual simpson's episodes have GA articles, so poor Mr. Kurzweil at least deserves C articles for his hefty tomes.18:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silas Ropac (talk • contribs)

Sure. The way to have an article re-rated is to ping the wikiprojects listed at the top of this talk page. Each wikiproject has its own talk page, so you would just kindly leave a note requesting someone to rerate the article as its been through a major rewrite. In this case it's Wikipedia:WikiProject_Transhumanism and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books. Then someone should come along in a few days and take a look. If that doesn't work, ping me again. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 22:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I have reviewed the article and rated it B-class as it meets the B-Class criteria. The next step is edit to meet the Good-Class criteria, specifically Criteria 3 (as well as a few minor items). To meet that criteria, I think there should be a Background section describing where this book came from (what make the author qualified to write on the subject? there are some hints in the lead but per WP:LEAD this should be expanded in the body of the article), a little more in the Analysis section regarding style/genre (is this a popular science or academic book?) and an expanded Reception section with additional sources used (was it well-received by the academic community or popular media?). maclean (talk) 06:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Great and thanks for ideas for GA. I know you don't have to give feedback to re-asses, but it's very helpful.I read the article on Pattern Recognition you worked on, very impressive. I have read the book, but still got a lot from the article, it felt very comprehensive. You've worked on a lot of great book articles. Silas Ropac (talk) 12:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)