When Will Human-Level AI Arrive? Ray Kurzweil (2029) and Rodney Brooks (2117++)

Ray Kurzweil

Cofounder and chancellor, Singularity University

When will we have computers as capable as the brain?

I believe computers will match and then quickly exceed human capabilities in the areas where humans are still superior today by 2029.

How will brainlike computers change the world?

AI is already accelerating our ability to find cures for diseases, improve crop yields and other forms of productivity to reduce poverty, and find solutions to environmental problems. It already represents a brain extender. Who today can do their job or get an education without these extensions to our intelligence?

Do you have any qualms about a future in which computers have human-level (or greater) intelligence?

Every technology since fire has had intertwined promise and peril. I believe that our best strategy to keep AI safe and beneficial is to essentially merge with it. We are already on that path. Whether [intelligent] machines are inside or outside [the] body is not a critical issue. But they will ultimately go inside our bodies and brains (because miniaturization is another exponential trend), keeping us healthy (by augmenting our immune system), providing virtual and augmented reality from within the nervous system, and making us smarter.

Rodney Brooks

Chairman and CTO, Rethink Robotics

When will we have computers as capable as the brain?
Rodney Brooks’s revised question: When will we have computers/robots recognizably as intelligent and as conscious as humans?

Not in our lifetimes, not even in Ray Kurzweil’s lifetime, and despite his fervent wishes, just like the rest of us, he will die within just a few decades. It will be well over 100 years before we see this level in our machines. Maybe many hundred years.

As intelligent and as conscious as dogs?

Maybe in 50 to 100 years. But they won’t have noses anywhere near as good as the real thing. They will be olfactorily challenged dogs.

How will brainlike computers change the world?

Since we won’t have intelligent computers like humans for well over 100 years, we cannot make any sensible projections about how they will change the world, as we don’t understand what the world will be like at all in 100 years. (For example, imagine reading Turing’s paper on computable numbers in 1936 and trying to project out how computers would change the world in just 70 or 80 years.) So an equivalent well-grounded question would have to be something simpler, like “How will computers/robots continue to change the world?” Answer: Within 20 years most baby boomers are going to have robotic devices in their homes, helping them maintain their independence as they age in place. This will include Ray Kurzweil, who will still not be immortal.

Do you have any qualms about a future in which computers have human-level (or greater) intelligence?

No qualms at all, as the world will have evolved so much in the next 100+ years that we cannot possibly imagine what it will be like, so there is no point in qualming. Qualming in the face of zero facts or understanding is a fun parlor game but generally not useful. And yes, this includes Nick Bostrom.

Source: IEEE Spectrum

When Will Human-Level AI Arrive? Ray Kurzweil (2029) and Rodney Brooks (2117++)

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