How Accurate Were Ray Kurzweil's Predictions for 2019? (lesswrong.com) 70
Kurzweil's predictions for 2019 were considerably worse than those for 2009, with more than half strongly wrong.
The assessors ultimately categorized just 12% of Kurzweil's predictions as true, with another 12% declared "weakly true," while another 10% were classed as "cannot decide." But 52% were declared "false" -- with another 15% also called "weakly false."
Among Kurzweil's false predictions for the year 2019:
- "Phone" calls routinely include high-resolution three-dimensional images projected through the direct-eye displays and auditory lenses... Thus a person can be fooled as to whether or not another person is physically present or is being projected through electronic communication.
- The all-enveloping tactile environment is now widely available and fully convincing.
"As you can see, Kurzweil suffered a lot from his VR predictions," explains the LessWrong blogpost. "This seems a perennial thing: Hollywood is always convinced that mass 3D is just around the corner; technologists are convinced that VR is imminent."
But the blog post also thanks Kurzweil, "who, unlike most prognosticators, had the guts and the courtesy to write down his predictions and give them a date. I strongly suspect that most people's 1999 predictions about 2019 would have been a lot worse."
And they also took special note of Kurzweil's two most accurate predictions. First, "The existence of the human underclass continues as an issue." And second:
"People attempt to protect their privacy with near-unbreakable encryption technologies, but privacy continues to be a major political and social issue with each individual's practically every move stored in a database somewhere."
Still going with my go-to (Score:2)
"...when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter the kingdom."
Hold on, need to take off my VR headset.
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And Yogi Berra only had to do next baseball season, rather than 2000 years ahead.
Helps to be omniscient.
Rather clear allegorical allusions to evolution can be found in Thomas, as well, for those interested. Otherwise, the default outcome works for me.
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Strike!
Meanwhile, the color commentator drives the discussion.
Re: Is slashdot claiming... (Score:2)
In the US, they factually are. Mostly.
Sayig that, is not saying that that is OK, so soothe your jimmies. Just that it is the case. (With a big fat hint that maybe we should change that.)
OK, now I can read TFS. ;))
The most true prediction is quite old... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's interesting that his most-true prediction echoes a 2000 year old prediction from Mark 14:7 ("The poor you will always have with you").
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Poverty is relative.
The poor in America today live better than the emperor did 2000 years ago.
The poverty line in America is higher than the income of 85% of the world's population.
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When poor people became more prosperous, the first thing they buy is a cellphone. Next, they buy a TV. Then a refrigerator and a microwave oven. Then an indoor toilet.
These are the things that poor people want. None of them were available to Tiberius (except maybe the toilet).
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I suspect they also want housing but know it is either too expensive or too remote.
Who literally gives a fuck? (Score:1)
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Yeah, never ever listen to predictions https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org] .
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Fuck off.
Re: Who literally gives a fuck? (Score:2)
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Maybe invent a future where you don't sound like a shithead.
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I don't listen to people's 'predictions'. If you do then you probably fall for 'fortune tellers' and other swindlers who have mastered the art of cold [wikipedia.org] reading [wikihow.com].
Nobody gives a fuck. And nobody should, because these kinds of things are mostly laughably wrong, or only right in areas that are obvious.
Re: Who literally gives a fuck? (Score:1)
I agree on your intent.
Though the whole point of our brains and science is, to make predictions that are useful (due to having been shown to reliably match reality).
So not all predictions are bad or useless.
It's just the scale. As complexity increases like nothing else, over time. :)
That is why predictions of the far future are usually silly.
You can counter it, by being vague and generic though.
Like, there's probably going to be a summer in the northern hemisphere, next year around August.
That's not clickba
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Good point - predictive power is what defines scie (Score:3)
That's a good point. Useful science is that which predicts what will happen or what will be found. For example, chemistry says if you mix these two things, at this temperature, it will produce that. Taken literally, "I don't listen to people's predictions" would mean "I don't listen to science".
Engineering (as opposed to "building shit") is the art and science of accurately predicting how constructed objects will behave - this bridge design will hold 100,000 pounds, this airplane component will survive 50,
Re: Who literally gives a fuck? (Score:3)
Well, speaking âoeliterallyâ as you prescribed, I donâ(TM)t think itâ(TM)s actually possible for anybody to âoegiveâ a verb at all. Perhaps you mean literally figuratively?
20 year windows easier to predict (Score:5, Interesting)
How do Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 stack up now in 2020, as if he'd been predicting for 2019 that time?
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Best comment on the article.
This article contains a summary of some of the failures from the 2009:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Some of them are definitely still failures. Like "Most routine business transactions (purchases, travel, reservations) take place between a human and a virtual personality. Often, the virtual presentation includes an animated visual presence that looks like a human face."
But others, like "The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition." and "Translating tele
Rule 1 of being a fortune teller: (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep your predictions so vague or generic, that anything can be used by the victim, to match it.
Nostradamus was good at this, by being ridiculously cryptic.
Kurzweil still has a lot to learn, before being invited to the Council of Underhanded New-age TechnomageS. ... :)
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VR just will never hit a point where 100% of people who try it, won't get sick. if only 95% don't get sick at 90hz, then it's the same odds as having a food allergy, and you don't want that.
Those poor beings will need to partake of the chemical sacrament to join us in the greater realms [penny-arcade.com].
Re:VR, the annual joke. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Will this year be the year VR doesn't suck?"
"Will this year be the year Linux takes over the desktop?"
Both questions that are a resounding No, not in your lifetime.
VR stopped sucking in 2019 and since 2017 has been following the same exponential rise as every new technology. You should give it a go, if not now, then definitely within your "lifetime".
Unless you get hit by a bus this year, then yeah you probably won't see VR receive general adoption in your lifetime.
Linux on desktop on the other hand doesn't have a technological barrier to overcome, you're even less likely to see it "take over" the desktop unless we dump our PCs and attach our Android phones to keyboards and 4k monitors.
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VR still sucks
A baseless claim.
it is still incredibly niche
With only 10million headsets sold I agree, but this has nothing to do with whether something sucks or not.
and now with reports of potential permanent eye damage
You mean one guy with a pre-existing eye condition claiming that VR made it worse? What do the other 9999999 VR owners say? *crickets*
Are we a long way off from general use? Absolutely. VR seems to be following a similar trend to adoption of 3D acceleration, it will no doubt that a few more years for them to become common.
In 2019 for every three discrete GPUs which was sold a PCVR heads
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You're in a weird time warp.
I've demo'ed a Vive (now fairly old) to hundreds of people over the years (including to very diverse groups at industry conferences and what not). Probably 10% of people (usually older people) "nope" out pretty quick - but I only remember one due to nausea. To be clear, lots of people complained about feeling sick immediately in the DK2 time period - but with a reasonable refresh/tracking rate on rotation this just doesn't really happen anymore. Now the reason people jump out
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Still that's exactly what it is...
He didn't account for never-ending war mongering (Score:1)
i predict that ... (Score:2)
... /. will soon post yet another duplicate of this gossip.
and i'll now leave you all just quietly marveling at my astonishing insight powers.
Can't wait for... (Score:2)
So about 25% true (Score:2)
Hey 25% is pretty good really... although you can at any time and any where there is a human society say that class struggle will be an issue. It's an issue in the most barbaric of places and in the most advanced countries, and always will be so.
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No matter how you structure your society, 10% of people will still be in the poorest 10%. And people always seem to focus on that tautology, rather than the fact that 99% of Americans live better than 95% of everyone who has ever lived.
There's always room for improvement, but this is already utopia by the standards of most of history, and even most of the world today, and throwing temper tantrums about it just comes off as childish.
Stop demonizing the poor. (Score:3)
And people always seem to focus on that tautology, rather than the fact that 99% of Americans live better than 95% of everyone who has ever lived.
There's always room for improvement, but this is already utopia by the standards of most of history, and even most of the world today, and throwing temper tantrums about it just comes off as childish.
You think it is childish that people complain because they live with a constant burden that they cannot provide for their family? You think it childish that people are getting kicked out of their homes at record rates? Progress is a mixed bag. Sure, compared to 20 years ago, entertainment is WAAAAY better (the introduction of streaming and that you can stream content from any era). However, food prices have gone up. Purchasing power has gone down. Homes are much harder to afford and so is education, w
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You think it is childish that people complain because they live with a constant burden that they cannot provide for their family?
No, nor did I ever say that. What I said was that temper tantrums are childish - violent behavior that only damages the place you live.
Progress is a mixed bag.
Not in the least, compared to 1200, or 1600, or 1800, or 1900. Or 1950. Sure, it has its ups and downs in a given decade, but let's also be thankful for modern dentistry, and air conditioning, and far fewer jobs requiring back-breaking manual labor!
Stop demonizing the poor.
Don't think Antefa are poor, for the most part. I will demonize people who do stupid, self-destructive shit regardless of th
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That is just not true. We have historically low interest rates going on for ten years now. The current cost is much lower than when I bought my first house, and lower than when I bought for the second time about twenty years ago. If the costs seem to have gone up so much that you can't afford the house you want, it's because you're looking to buy more house than you can afford or need. What has changed in the last several decades, is that the median new house has gotten la
Not if you have a real job (Score:2)
That is just not true. We have historically low interest rates going on for ten years now. The current cost is much lower than when I bought my first house, and lower than when I bought for the second time about twenty years ago. If the costs seem to have gone up so much that you can't afford the house you want, it's because you're looking to buy more house than you can afford or need. What has changed in the last several decades, is that the median new house has gotten larger, with more expensive fixtures and finishes.
You must live somewhere far away from centers of industry. If you want a big tech job, you have to live near Silicon Valley, Boston, NYC, Austin, Seattle and a few others. I live near Boston. Most families of 4 cannot afford a basic home on a household income for 250k a year with a commute of less than 30 min. No, it's not that they're expecting a palace..its that any inexpensive home is taken or quickly goes up in price when on the market. You have to go an hour out or so before you can get a basic no
Some predictions are easy (Score:1)
It's easy to predict that in ten years, we'll still be hearing that automation/robots/AI-based mass unemployment is right around the corner, so we need UBI — even though mass unemployment is not here yet. In 20 years, it will still be right around the corner.
Fossil fuels will still be in widespread use, especially for air travel, despite climate change predictions.
No inhabited islands will be uninhabitable due to rising sea levels in 20 years. It will be right around the corner though. Temperatures
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It's easy to predict that in ten years, we'll still be hearing that automation/robots/AI-based mass unemployment is right around the corner, so we need UBI â" even though mass unemployment is not here yet. In 20 years, it will still be right around the corner.
Fossil fuels will still be in widespread use, especially for air travel, despite climate change predictions.
These two will change over 20 years, though, just not in any dramatic way requiring a convenient emergency shift of political power to one party, as is constantly demanded. Yes, robots will do lots of work in 20 years that humans do today. That statement has been true for 200 years now, seems we come out ahead from it. Yes, electric cars will gradually replace gas cars, as their quality improves. Might even be a net reduction worldwide in fossil fuel use, though I'm betting not thanks to economic growth
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More money per child will be spent on schools in 10 and 20 years. Test scores won't improve significantly. It will be proclaimed the parents' fault, but the suggested remedy will be more spending on schools. Despite a whole generation of kids being born and going all the way through school and getting no better education than today, it will be said to be too early to consider any real substantive changes. Kids in poor neighborhoods will fare far worse.
Cost of college will still be considered a major pro
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Ignoring the Covid slump, while employment itself has been good, we do have hollowed out employment: the lowest rungs pay only poverty wages as the income gap between rich and poor continues to grow. Factories used to pay lower-middle-class wages: enough to raise a family relatively comfortably. By the way, slumps do happen in general roughly every decade. You can't judge the employme
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That's why these predictions are so easy. There's no way to learn any lessons. Everything you want to try has already been tried and it didn't help. You don't want to make any big changes because it threatens the existing power base and the funding they're all living comfortably off of.
The only answer that fits within this framework is to find a way to take and spend more money other people earned — but to spend it almost exactly the same way it is being spent now. No real change.
It's far, far mor
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If you are saying that historically tough-to-solve problems will likely remain tough to solve, and thus make for easy (likely) predictions, I will agree.
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Racial issues will still be a problem. Exploiting racial divisions is far too lucrative for big improvements to be acknowledged.
What's your solution?
My complete solution to racial strife in a few words, huh?
People who want it solved can mostly solve it for themselves by not participating in it and staying away from those who do. This will mostly work, but not completely.
Racial strife is caused by people who want racial strife. They're haters or on the racial division payroll. To solve the problem, they would have to want an end to racial strife. They don't.
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The BLM movement may just be the start of a predicted upheaval. [politico.com]
Unlikely. They'll do something useless like increasing tax on the top income brackets, which does nothing to hurt the truly rich but hurts actors, sports stars, and authors.
Pretty disappointing (Score:2)
Re: Pretty disappointing (Score:2)
The real problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
Who could predict this? (Score:2)
> "Phone" calls routinely include high-resolution three-dimensional images projected through the direct-eye displays and auditory lenses...
Instead, as one of the biggest recent innovations we got were animated emojis... I think 10 years ago I was already predicting that the time of meaningful innovations is over and we'll be just getting more and more useless features. 5 cameras for instagramers, better speakers for people who want everyone else to know what are they listening to, gender neutral emojis.
Singularity was always further away (Score:2)
"The existence of the human underclass continues a (Score:2)
I can almost see hours and hours of hesitation that went into this "prediction"
My predictions did not come true (Score:2)
Mainly because I predicted that driverless trucks would take over municipal business (busses, garbage trucks, etc.)
Re: My predictions did not come true (Score:2)
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The companies have to pay the employees the extra hours and pensions.
Are you saying these civil contractors care more about their employees than their profits?
Re: My predictions did not come true (Score:2)
Another futurist (Score:2)
I reread ACC's 2001: A Space Odyssey the other day. This was written in 1968. There's a section where he basically pictures what anyone today would recognize as an iPad or other tablet. Except it's wired to the 'Nets instead of some radio connection. And only serves newspapers, no other content. And seems to have very small memory. And a clumsy UI. And no ads....
On the other hand, he's getting mainstream media exactly spot on. Quote:
"There was another thought which a scanning of those tiny electronic hea
"Futurist" = "Idiot" (Score:2)
Or Con-Man. Basically they are mostly wrong and the only way around that is to make so many different predictions that some are right by accident.