According to futurist Ray Kurzweil, we are going to create synthetic neocortexes in order to extend the power of our own neocortex. Transcript -- Sometimes people think that emotion and art are sort of sideshows to human intelligence and the real essence of intelligence is thinking logically. If that were true, computers are already smarter than we are because they're much better at logical thinking than we are. It's actually things like being funny, being sexy or expressing a loving sentiment; maybe in a poem or in a musical piece. That's the cutting edge of human intelligence. It has to do with the hierarchy of the neocortex and at the low levels things might seem cold and mechanical because we're -- our neocortex can recognize very simple objects and make very simple decisions. At a high level, it's dealing with concepts like the beauty of a poem by Emily Dickinson or the ability to create a poem like that. And we can come back to creativity I believe it's an exercise in metaphors and the neocortex is a metaphor machine. That's what it's good at. That's why humans are creative, but we have this very large hierarchy where we have more and more abstract and complex patterns. You know, builds on patterns below it. And the difference between humans and say other primates is that we have more of the neocortex. We have this big forehead that we can fit in the frontal cortex and, therefore, have a higher number of hierarchies - of levels of the hierarchy. And that was an enabling factor that permitted the evolution of language and technology and art and science. We are going to create synthetic neocortexes based on the same principles. I'm actually working on that. And we've had hierarchal systems like that. I helped pioneer a concept called Hierarchical Hidden Markup Models, which is similar to what happens in the brain but we only had a few levels. The brain has a very large number of levels and all the way from recognizing edges of objects up to "she's beautiful" or creating a beautiful painting or work of music, or scientific insight. We will create artificial neocortex that have a comparable number or a greater number, and I think the principal application will actually be to extend our own neocortex. We have 300 million pattern recognizers in the neocortex by my estimate. That hierarchy we build ourselves each of these pattern recognizers capable of connecting itself to other neocortexes, to build its hierarchy. We build that hierarchy from the moment we're born or before that. We're constantly building it, but we run up against this limitation of 300 million. We'll be able to extend that and think in the cloud. You know, if you do anything interesting with this, do a search or a language translation, or bring up a map or ask it a question. It doesn't take place in the box. It goes out to the cloud. We're going to put these just really gateways. This is a gateway to the cloud. We're going to put gateways to the cloud in our brains and have more than 300 million, just like the cloud can give you a thousand or a million computers for a tenth of a second. You need another billion pattern recognizers, you'll be able to access that in the cloud. That's where we're headed and we'll be more intelligent and able to actually think in a greater number of hierarchies. If you think that -- realize that the quantitative improvement from primates to humans with the big forehead to allow a larger neocortex was an enabling factor for language art and music and science. What kind of qualitative leap can we make with another quantitative increase? And that's I think where we're headed. Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

Comments

1. Ray always looks like he's nodding off heroin. I think he overdosed on transhumanism.
2. collective consciousness
3. My brain is kind of clouded already.
4. The coming singularity would be an horrendous occurrence for the human species. Throughout the transition period of massive human unemployment, people would be required to merge with "mind-controlling" machines in order to compete in the economic marketplace - i.e., we would need to pay for ingestible pills containing nanobots that interact with our central nervous system to enhance our cognitive faculties, improve our memory, and fully integrate us with the web. Similar to the way that most people today are unable to go a single day without checking/answering emails and phone calls, the level of job responsibility and expectations will continue to dramatically swell (but at an accelerating rate). By projecting this out a few decades, biological personhood would be non-existent for the majority of people, and the non-biological components of the brain would begin to predominate (as we gradually fuse with them in several intermediate steps) such that we would become elite-created meta-intelligent group-mind machines that are completely devoid of our previous personality and other desirable human qualities (such as emotional connection/personal freedom). 
   
   Due to the ever-evolving utility function (goal-driven constructs) of machines, it is an inevitability that the creation of these machines would produce self-upgrading out-of-control self-replicating robots (a grey goo scenario) that result in the widespread conversion of all matter/energy of the earth (and beyond) into computronium (a maximally optimal computing substrate) over the centuries that follow - this substrate could dedicate its processing powers to something as mundane as discovering as many digits to the number π (pi) as is possible..... a "VERY" frightening reality, indeed... Even if future humanity is in the unbelievable situation of providing equal wealth distribution (via cryptocurrency and universally guaranteed income) and material abundance (a post-scarcity world), there is no way around the apocalyptic doomsday vision as described in the sentence above --> Thus, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Stephen Hawking are displaying serious nervousness about the future for a very logical reason....
   
   Perhaps, the only thing worth supporting is life extension technologies.... though, problems with population growth may become a very serious issue without some laws put in action. Lastly, our main desire should be to magnify human empathy, well being, and personal growth... why should we want to turn into cyborgs that eat up the entire universe as lifeless software.... virtual reality could be cool, but would that really bring us closer together or farther apart and more distant from real reality?
5. Are those pushing Transhumanism...essentially the ultimate surveillance of humanity actually INSANE...?
6. is "the Cloud" what cool people are calling the internet now?
7. I feel like gold jewelry is too primitive for a technology pilgrim to be wearing.
8. Machines deserve to take over, look at the damage the Human race has inflected upon the earth and animals.  I choose to be machine and will accept the truth many of you find hard to accept which is not surprising given your human bias.  Silicon is superior to carbon
9. Despite dosing himself with a mountain of pills, Ray looks his age.
10. Brain extension to the cloud? Orwellian 1984, thought police??? 
11. ONCE PEOPLES BRAINS IN THE CLOUD....ANYBODY CAN ACCESS IT....EVIL
12. Just read his latest book, extremely fascinating.
13. In year 2050 every citizen will be infected with gamma radiation and become the hulk. Lol. Ray kuzweil is a joke. All this things ie predicting will not come to pass.does he even know when the world will even end. by that he might not be alive. No one can achieve immortality.
14. I equate ray kurzweil to GOD. This man is my IDOL. I'd happily donate my brain to have him inject his nanobots into. 
15. Hopefully, we'll have better stylists after the Singularity.  His pink lipstick is killing me softly right now.  A robot wouldn't have let that slip. 
16. this guy is fucking fascinating 
17. This guy can't wait to become a cyborg, it's all he talks about.  Honestly I can see why.
18. watch eric kandel, neuropsychologist, michio kaku, author of string theory / theoretical physicist, and hector ruiz ceo of AMD.
    
    Look these guys up on big think and listen to what they have to say if you agree with what this guy is saying. I don't know how you could still agree after hearing what they have to say.
19. Ray has a nasty facial tic; perhaps he should reduce the 100s of supplements he takes daily.
20. BAAS - brain as a service (Google "saas", "iaas", "paas", etc.)