Noam Chomsky: The Singularity is Science Fiction!

[bananas]

During our 28 minute conversation with Noam Chomsky we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the balance between his academic and his political life; artificial intelligence and reverse engineering the human brain; why in his view both Deep Blue and Watson are little more than PR; the slow but substantial progress of our civilization; the technological singularity...

Via http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/socrates20131005

[leveymg]

1. An interesting, deeply-skeptical mind. Too bad there are so few, and he gets so little mass media

coverage. But, hardly surprising.

[Ed Suspicious]

5. He's a pretty harsh critic of mass media in that he has shown corporate media to be purveyors of

propaganda. Because he exposes the systemic problem, he finds no quarter in mass media.

[bananas]

7. Did you notice what Chomsky said about nuclear war?

Near the end, at about 28:28, Chomsky says:

"It's kind of a miracle that we've escaped a nuclear war,
literally a miracle,
and you can't expect that miracle to continue,
so something quickly and urgently has to be done to eliminate this curse."

[leveymg]

8. When an MIT professor tells you the odds are against you, better listen.

That's the truly appalling thing about the mass media -- the mindless scandals and phony issues (aggitation propaganda), and the nearly total negation of real crises -- it's almost purely distraction, that tells me that the TPTB are as usual deferring any real, voluntary reform (forget about consulting the rest of us before a plan a chosen), which means (as usual) we're in real trouble.

[drynberg]

2. Thanks "bananas" and Prof. Chomsky

You, Noam, are one of my long held heros for decades. A different look at you in this interview, and helps me understand all the other interviews.

[idwiyo]

3. k&r

[longship]

4. Ray Kurweil's has fallen into a Matrix wet dream.

He's a real kook.

If I take thousands of vitamins I'll live forever.

Rubbish.

[LongTomH]

6. A number of people have expressed skepticism about 'The Singularity'

One is writer Kim Stanley Robinson. Do a Google search on: Kim Stanley Robinson AND singularity and you'll get nearly 300,000 hits. This is from an interview he gave to Wired magazine in 2012.

I think it’s a misunderstanding of the brain and of computers, in effect. We are underestimating how complex the brain is and how little we understand it, and we’re overestimating how much computers might have a will or intention. I think the intention will always stay with us, and the machines will be search engines and adding machines — enormously powerful and fast binary, digital things — but they’re not going to do the singularity as I understand it, this notion that machines will take off on their own and leave us behind.

I think it’s some of this what I call MIT-style public relations “futurology,” which is just lame science fiction, where people are asserting that it’s really going to come true. And as a science fiction writer, I find that a little bit offensive, because nobody knows what’s really going to come true, and people who declare it is are instantly putting themselves in the fraud category. They’re claiming more than they can.

Edited to add this video interview with KSR: