Ray Kurzweil has been in the news quite a bit lately regarding his thoughts on the future of life extension and technology. He gives his learned opinions often on these and other subjects related to future expectations and in turn receives acknowledgement for his portending on issues. He makes predictions and boldly gives time frames for these potentially life altering expectations and because of this he should be held to account. Ten years on the predictions Kurzweil made in 1999 require some scrutiny.
Kurzweil has been accused by some of being a story chronicler rather than the futurist he has been referred to by others. Futurism must be dialogued as vague speculation describing what might be rather than clear declarations of what will be, never mind providing an actual time period for such occurrences. I personally prefer Kurzweil’s method of describing future life since it heightens expectations and gives more hope for predictions that sometimes appear to be more fantasy than potential fact.
Kurzweil made the following predictions so let’s see how he fared:
Personal computers using high resolution interfaces entrenched in clothes and jewelry – networked in body LANS.
Most text is produced utilizing continuous speech recognition [CSR] programmed software.
Computer screens built into ordinary eyeglasses that project the images straight at the wearer’s retinas.
Three dimensional chips are utilized for circuitry much more commonly.
Telephone translation technology is in ordinary use for a majority of language pairings.
Unmanned airborne intelligent craft are dominating battlefields. Most of these flight weapons are around the size of smaller birds.
For long distance travel, intelligent roads are in place. When a car computer system is locked in to the roads control system, auto occupants including the driver can sit and relax.
Not one of his predictions has panned out but he is certainly on track with his foretelling of some of these such as aero warfare and telephone translation, close with Speech recognition as well since Google Microsoft and others have been feverishly working on perfecting the technology. Still, he is a long way off on his “quatrains” especially since he gave the year when these advances would be commonplace, or at least – in place.
His predictions have the resonance of an imaginative wish list of techno enticements rather than cautiously regulated technology forecasts. As mentioned these are satisfying as inspirational fodder but his accuracy, specifically his dates, are untimely.
Kurzweil is a bold transhumanist and someone to be looked up to for his knowledge and outlook; however, he should be held accountable for his ideas. There really is no good reason to make a prediction about the future if one is not willing to be held to account for them. Many folks would prefer to have a prediction come with a time range rather than a date, albeit a year but still a time frame we can look toward resolutely. Now it seems in some online forums are trying to push for futurist to provide probabilities rather than concrete times for predictions. I say these folks are killjoys and take things too seriously.
Individuals who are willing to put it out there like Kurzweil should also be able to take the heat when they are wrong and in that bent, perhaps they should not be so vehement when they make their forecasts. Apparently, it would make it easier for some of these fervent followers of the future to be let down.
Kurzweil as of yet has not recognized his missed predictions publicly, at least to my knowledge but it would behoove him to do so if for no other reason than to give him the opportunity to expand on his previous forecasts and provide us with updates. He would risk ridicule and perhaps lose some believers in the process. Maybe it is not feasible for a futurist to remain popular when their accuracy is in question. Overall, it would be good for the community as a whole for futurists like Kurzweil to be called out on their lack of accuracy when making dramatic predictions; it has the potential to raise the bar for others.
Some in the futurist movement have stated that shooting loose with predictions in this field makes no difference since accountability will not happen. As bright and knowledgeable as these forecasters like Kurzweil are, even they act as if their predictions do not matter. They would be wrong. They offer thought prompting ideas and their work in general is looked up to by many at the risk of disappointment. Their work should be viewed with an eye toward polite criticism and rational thought rather than hopeful anticipation.
There was one futurist who failed miserably with a prediction for human-like artificial intelligence by 2015, which may have cost him his employment as the in-house futurist at British telecom. Apparently one too many feature articles in the tabloid press touting his predictions might have caught up to him, it certainly does not do anything for the field of futurism.
What must be remembered from all of this is when Ray Kurzweil is written up for his latest predictions regarding immortality in twenty years and the press discusses his understanding of technologies and genetics all rapidly advancing etc., they fail to follow up on his previous forecasts. This is unfair to the readers of these articles and to Kurzweil himself. Putting futurists feet to the fire on occasion by the main stream press would be good for the futurist movement and keep the futurists on their toes.
Someone of Kurzweil’s standing might be able to slide by on reputation when his predictions fail to live up to their hype but it should not end there. It is time we began to look at these future forecasts as nothing more than “parlor games” rather than any real kind of scientific forecast. Just once, I would like to see the entire documentation laid out on how these forecasts are arrived at. Perhaps then we could decide if the predictions themselves are worthy of all the publicity.
As for Kurzweil’s predictions from ’99, I think they will certainly become a reality, not today but perhaps in five to ten years time.
Thu, Jan 7, 2010
Anti Aging, Immortality, Longevity, Nanotechnology